CAN YOU DIG THIS ?

Ive literally just finished building the rather excellent Imai Thunderbirds Excavator kit that I picked up recently from Ferryman. This is the larger version of the kit, but unmotorised. As its not an official Thunderbirds vehicle, i.e it never appeared on the show, I decided to make it up as a toy, like Ferryman did with his kit . As my modelling skills are way below the professional standards of Ferryman, I was initially a bit daunted. However, this is a very forgiving kit and doesnt suffer the same problems that a lot of previous Imai releases did, bad fitting or crude moulding. In fact, my only criticism would be the decals, which are self adhesive rather than the older waterslide type.

Looking at the kit, I quickly decided that I would prefer to make it up to my own ideas and the first thing I did was to add in some interior mechanism as befits a rock grinding machine. I cut out the moulded plastic grille in the front and put in some large toothed wheels and rollers, so that it looked as if the claws would draw the rocks into a 'toothed mouth' to be processed. Next problem I encountered was the Scott figure which is moulded into the cockpit itself. This was way beyond my ability and failing eyesight to do any kind of justice to, so i ripped it out and replaced it with a seated golden astronaut at the same scale, to complete the overall toy effect.

As the kit comes in blue and yellow plastic, the colour scheme was easily decided upon and a couple of cans of car paint left over from my Nuclear Shuttle project, sealed the deal. I added a little extra weight inside, a few extra bits of kit here and there to hide my paint defects and close the hole where the first issue battery switch was and voila! I think it sits niceley alongside the Shinsei UFO Power series digging machines too!

I would seriously encourage anyone to grab one of these fab kits before they disappear!