| The following are reader's opinions of the Jedi Starfighter made by Fine Molds. |
| Reviewer | Jim James |
| Date Reviewed | Sep 12, 2002 |
| Overall Rating | 
Well worth getting.
|
| Comments | All of what John said plus a couple of notes.
Some of the parts are real small - I don't know if I glued them on facing the right way because I couldn't see them. The decals are delicate. Use water to position them - not MicroSet. You can use a little MicroSol once the decal is down but I found that when the decal did snuggle down, it didn't stretch, it creased. Consider mixing up a matching paint for those detail areas (Gunze Red Brown plus a mid red. Love all the options - separate stands, positionable cockpit, landing gear - but who's going to build the kit on the ground when you have the hyperdrive ring? |
| Reviewer | Kyle Moore |
| Date Reviewed | Sep 13, 2002 |
| Overall Rating | 
Not good at all. You really have to want it bad.
|
| Comments | Is Fine Molds kidding? 75 parts and 175 decals for a 4 inch kit?! Let me be the first
to say this-the emperor (Fine Molds) has no clothes. I've purchased all three of their
Star Wars kits and have been increasingly disappointed with each sucessive one. The detailing IS good, but DOES NOT make up for the kits' diminuitive size. With some scratchbuilding modifications to the already existing ERTL/MPC kits, one can make pretty accurate replicas. Better yet, purchase the excellent Hasbro toys-especially THEIR awesome Jedi Starfighter and knock yourself out. It's much larger, just as detailed, and cheaper. |
| Reviewer | DummyPlug |
| Date Reviewed | Oct 8, 2002 |
| Overall Rating |
Well worth getting.
|
| Comments | The small size of this model *is* a challenge, but, after building every Enterprise under the sun, one that I found most refreshing.
This post is mostly an answer to John's color question found in is very complete review.
FineMolds uses color numbers (in the little squares) from the Mr. Color range by some company known has Mr. Hobby (a GSI Creos subsidiary). Don't laugh. These guys also sell something they call the "Mr. Linear Compressor Airbrush". They mean business :-) Anyway, after a little digging, I found some pages (in japanese) with scans of the colors (if you feel like trusting your monitor to show you true colors), the kind of gloss, even some usual uses for them. Here are the URLs: Obviously, colors 1 to 40 are detailled on the first page, 41 to 80 on the second and etc, etc. What? You can't read japanese, you say? Fear not...just put a babel fish in your ear! (here's the URL...just in case you don't know what the heck I'm talking about) [http://babelfish.altavista.com/] The translations are not perfect, but it gets the job done. By the way, though the pages claim these paints to be Gunze colors, they do not follow the Gunze Sangyo mapping to Humbrol (at least, not the one I have). Keep that in mind while trying to find your substitutes. Hope this helps the purist out there |
| Reviewer | Jim James |
| Date Reviewed | Nov 4, 2002 |
| Overall Rating | 
Good kit, but with some problems.
|
| Comments | My first review was based on an in-box and partial assembly experience. Now that I've finished my Jedi Starfighter I can safely lower my rating to four stars.
The molding is superb but there are several small bits that need not have been molded that way. This kit is too small for micro-parts. I had a little trouble lining up the engine pods to the circular wing - something I could have avoided if I read Japanese. There are too many decals! Several decals are made up of two or three pieces where one would have been fine - particularly the wrap around type. Finemolds often creates a top panel, lower panel and edge decals where one decal would have done a better job. The top and bottom of the Starfighter itself is a jigsaw puzzle of decals. Why? Slight misalignment creates white spaces. I also had about 20 decals left over - mainly duplicates but some that are not included on the instructions. Some like edge decals were better painted. The kit makes a nice model but the builder is handicapped if he/she can't read Japanese! |
| Reviewer | Mike Walton |
| Date Reviewed | Nov 27, 2001 |
| Overall Rating |
Well worth getting.
|
| Comments | As difficult as it was, I had fun biulding this kit. Yes, it is very small at 4 inches. But I always look for a challenge in my models. The molding quality is exellent, all the detail is very crisp, espeacially for a model this size. I did have a little trouble with the instructions being in Japanise. Fortunately I had frineds who could read the instructions, but I mostly followed the pictures they give you. The other problem is all those decals. All 174(if I counted correctly) Many of them were difficult to get off the sheet and onto the model. I ended up tearing half of them and then. All in all, this kit was fun. However, I recomend this kit to only those with a bit of expirence under their wing and ALOT of patience. |
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