Frank and Moe E-Wing Kit review!

SD Studios

I just received my E-wing kit from "Frank and Moe inc".

GET ONE! A+

Now...

I have to say that I HATE EU stuff...it just doesn't do anything for me, but I got the bug for this kit when I saw pics of the painted prototype.

I thought..."Gee...that will look GOOOOOD next to my X- and Y-wings".

The kit is VERY clean and well-cast. Some minor air-bubbles to attend to, but an hour with some zap, accellerator, and a toothpick, and they be all gone. I have only had a few hours to be able to start on it, so no major building has occurred on mine yet.

The detail is pretty amazing and well-done. The kit parts that were used in the "mechanical sections" are well-laid-out and don't look thrown together, like some kits I have seen.

I actually started identifying the kits that were used until I smacked
myself.

You WILL need a good belt-sander to remove the casting blocks that are attached to some of the parts. I don't think any self-respecting SS modeler would be caught without one anyway, but I just wanted to throw that out there...

I added brass tubing to mount it from several different positions (ala X-Wing) and replaced all of the gun barrels with telescopic sizes of brass tubing. BUT you don't really need to do that...the tubular resin castings are very round and smooth. I am just obsessive that way.

I was going to make the wings "work", but I decided against it. It is only a EU ship anyway.

I MIGHT light it...not sure yet. Clear resin exhausts would have been nice...that is my only with this kit.

They even included full-color instructions and a parts list. How's that???!!!

It is a cool design and they tweaked some of the design elements to make it better (eg: the design of the original gun barrels was a bit weak.)

I used the old "ball bearing and magnet" trick to make the top gun unit swivel and rotate. Took like 5 minutes...And if someone smacks into it, it will now POP off rather than BREAK off.

I will probably do the red and yellow scheme, similar to the box art...they included some color suggestions in the back...nice touch! You even get an alternate "chick" head for the pilot. I might use her instead of the standard helmeted-dude-head. Not sure yet...needs more testing...

I HAVE to say...In a world where people cast resin kits that look like they were made by retarded monkeys, this is a breath of fresh air... Well-laid-out, clean castings, good instructions, everything fits well.

I have had people hand me castings that looked like foam and they would say..."Well..it IS a kit, you will need to do some puttying and sanding".

To which I responded: "Hey, sparky, why don't you learn how to cast resin, so I don't have to spend 20 hours trying to rebuild your aero-foam-like, swiss-cheese-lookin' model...??? Ya stupid hack-putz."

Breathe...alright, I am ok now...

Highly recommend this kit!

Yaaaaah!!!!!

BrundelFly

Thanks for the nice review!!!! Awesome of ya!


Clear engine nozzles......

We could do that. Offer as an up grade kit.

Just didnt think there would be much interest in lighting it.

Its So HALLOW..you could make it entirely self contact IN the ship.

Alan Cross

[QUOTE=BrundelFly;854451]Thanks for the nice review!!!! Awesome of ya!

What's an E-Wing?

Alan Cross

[QUOTE=arc60;854521]Ah. Never mind. I should waited to read the rest of the threads on this page first.

Kuhn Global

I HIGHLY agree with QMX Steve! This is one of the best kits ever! Bob will be building the one we were sent starting next week with the other two to follow as Franks sends them. I can't wait to see these finished and on the blue screen!

Scott Graham

It really is an awesome kit. I can't believe that I put most of it together without glue. The castings are PERFECT. Instead of a belt sander I just carefully sawed off the parts from the casting sprues.

Since it's a non-existent design, I'm adding some 'go fasters' to it. I'll post them sometime. It's a lot of fun doing a speculative Star Wars design. There are so many ways to keep it in the same universe but at the same time there's freedom to start taking it in your own direction.

moes1

Thats actually why I in the first place build that kit. I wanted to build something "fun" instead of all time hunting down kit parts and look at reference pictures. I have given the builder the option to customize this ship to their own design. Can be upgraded with other guns, more piping or weird paint scheme - let you imagination go wild :-)

Thank you Steve for the nice review :-)

Whats an E-wing? - check this.
http://www.m-moeslund.dk/ewing.html

Guy Cowen

Please make sure you post it when its done?

Ghadrack

To clutter the thread with some non-Ewing info, their "Nu"BSG viper kit is also a very nice casting job, clean parts easy to clean up, I've gotta knock a few things off the bench before I can really dig in but I just wanted to add in that I had a very smooth and pleasant transaction with these fellows too while the praise was flowing.

GATORBAIT9696

Just got my kit thank you it is great.