Goat Toy Day 20
12
If you bought one of the several Meh offerings, you got a taste of the Metal Earth model kits. Hopefully they didn’t leave a bad taste in your mouth. The Model Technics knockoffs aren’t horrible, but they are a fat-fingered clone of the real thing. Compared to the Metal Earth model kits they have less detail and are made out of thicker material.
I’ve built several of the Metal Earth kits, and have a few more in my to-do pile (along with loads of plastic scale models). Worse, I’m eying quite a few more. In particular, the colored models look very sharp (ha!).
The first one I remember seeing was a Kawasaki, with just a hint of green:
There’s Doctor Who:
Star Wars:
Ming Armor:
Ponies!
Is the tail in the right place? 
A Packard:
My wife wants me to make the peacock.
So that gives you a good idea of the flashier kits. Spend some time browsing around their sites. The Iconx are the larger, more complex kits. They put difficulty ratings on all their kits, so you’ve got an idea what you’re getting into. There are lots of licensed properties as well.
http://www.fascinations.com/
https://www.metalearth.com/
Even something for book lovers!
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Those are excellent. I bought a cheap knockoff on Ali Express and it was awful. The instructions were in Chinese, the illustrations were horrible, slots and tabs didn’t line up properly, and I nearly sliced off a fingertip trying to separate the bits.
I’ll definitely have to keep those on my radar.
While you can put them together with whatever you’ve got handy, I’d strongly suggest the following:
Small, pointy side cutters
Small needlenose pliers
Magnification
Maybe I should milk this for another post or two, but just get this magnifier. It’s $15 or so, and it just plain works.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H8808H6/
There are loads of tutorial videos out there, but if any of them tell you to detach the parts by twisting them until they break free, ignore that. Yea, you can do that, but you’ll often tweak the part, and cause yourself more work.
Just use your diagonal cutters, or cuticle clippers or whatever.
@blaineg yep. I use cuticle nippers from the dollar tree. Works pretty well.
@blaineg Dikes.
These look awesome, but I think I’ll keep my fingers.
WORKER BEES! HERCULES! TURKEY GREASE! AWESOME!
@2many2no It’ll grow back!
While I have drawn blood (a teeny, tiny bit) on these kits, I’ve also made it all the way through intact. The only thing that’s been a problem for me is getting poked by the little tabs. You won’t get sliced on the parts themselves. The Metal Earth parts have clean edges with no burrs.
@2many2no My sister said one of the more disturbing things she overheard her kids say when they were young was: “Do limbs grow back?”
They were VERY energetic kids. Still are, they’re just mostly adults now, and still have all their limbs.
@2many2no @blaineg Does that mean they grew back?
@2many2no @Fen_Star Yep, turns out my nieces and nephews are part starfish.
WTF C3PO has a red arm, but no silver shin. Foul, sir! I call foul!!
@PocketBrain No foul, it’s correct. In The Force Awakens the silver shin is gone.
Look what arrived today, and the package it came in.
The peacock and this one arrived today. The packaging was more reasonable though.
http://www.fascinations.com/iconx/salt-lake-city-temple