Joe's Models - Building Horizon's ED-209 (Page VI)

- here we go again -

Well, the fun never stops, does it? ED saw some rough times back in February 2005! My son accidentally knocked over one of my wife's cornice cabinets with ED sitting on top! I'm just grateful that the curved glass on the door didn't break when it hit the tile floor first. My boy was inside the thing when it fell and he could have gotten hurt.

As you can see from the pics, the damage was fixable but it definitely set my enthusiasm for model making back a bit. No worries, though, because after thinking about it, I would get the chance to detail some areas that I didn't the first time around.

BEFORE

AFTER

- Say hello to my little friends -

Here's something I wanted to do from the beginning but didn't quite gather up the courage. I have to give credit to Ken Rice, once again, because he had already modified this area on his kit.	Alclad II Painted Rails Thanks, Ken!
As you can see, the guns cleanly snapped off when the model fell. I proceeded to cut the forward half of the barrels and the smaller tubes underneath. I scratched everything with various diameter tubing. For the cap part at the end of the small tube underneath the barrels, I carefully trimmed them off of the kit guns, glued in place and filled the gaps with putty.
Afterwards, I took some toothpicks and glued them into the foam to serve as support for the new guns. I then used CA glue and accelerator to glue the base of the guns to the arm and I then filled the seams with putty. The result was much better than the kit guns!

- target sensor -

Next in line was the missile targeting sensor (at least that's what I think it is). I was disappointed with having to look at the plain detail of the kit so I finally took the time to modify it, something else I planned to do but never got around to.	Scratch-Built Sensor Dry Fit Metal Plate Painted & Glued On On Patrol
I cut out the old targeting sensor and laid down a piece of styrene to patch up the hole. Putty, super glue and a sanding stick were used to smooth out the area. I then took some reference pics of the targeting sensor and went to work. 28 pieces of styrene and wire were used to scratch-build the sensor. It's a tad too big but that's ok. I even rigged it too move. Something I hadn't planned on but rather fell into place during construction.
At the same time I also scratched the small plate behind the sensor. This was simple. I cut a square piece of styrene and drilled holes with the smallest drill bit I have.
I finished off the sensor by painting it and adding a wash to bring out the details. Next, I finally re-wired the gun and missile launcher. I love the effect that this creates. Again, I used the inner copper strands of a piece of wire to make the smaller cables leading into the missile launcher. For the red and black cables I used thin wiring. I went ahead and added a couple of strands to the sensor, as well.
Finally, I touched up the "ammo buckets" on the bottom of the arm. Originally, I painted them all grey. But, the center strip should be black so that's what I did.
Alas!!!! I am finished once again!!!! I'm glad my son accidently broke Ed. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have decided to go farther with the detail. If you have any questions or feedback about this model, please email joewhite109@yahoo.com...thanks for looking!