Holy cow! Your refreshed paint job looks fantastic!
The satin black finish is precisely what this design needs (as opposed to the milky weathering applied to Master Replicas pieces). In fact, I’ve heard from people I trust that the milky, weathered finish was a design mistake at Master Replicas.
Whoops!
Any way, I own a couple of those “milky mistakes” from Master Replicas, both purchased second hand on eBay.
One is pristine, having sat in it’s covered display case since new.
The second one has… well… issues. Its exterior finish is great - pretty much perfect. Its electronics are a different story. The lighting FX work, but there’s no sound. I removed the rear cover surrounding the soundboard and speaker it appears the connections were severed or corroded at some point.
After seeing how great your build looks in strait-forward satin black (i.e. no milky weathering), I think I’m going to rebuild my “problem child” MR assault phaser to a “fresh from the industrial replicator” spec. I think I’ll also take this opportunity to repaint the honeycomb relief behind the front cowl with a more correct hue (perhaps a misting of Alclad dark aluminum).
Thanks for inspiring me to make my “old boy” look young again!
