Thursday 9 March 2017

SCRATCHBUILT FIREBALL

I made this scratch built Fireball XL5 around thirty years ago out of  30 mm wooden dowel stick, using a plan printed in an early edition of S.I.G. magazine. It's around 11" long.and has a detachable Fireball Junior.  I took the photos around five years ago, and remarkably although the paint's peeling and the vac formed canopy is showing signs of shrinkage the model still survives today.









10 comments:

  1. The XL5's one of my fave space craft of all time. I really like what you done here, scoop, both with the excellent scratchbuild and scenery. The images have a nice vintage feel to them.

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    1. Thanks for that Tony. I'm glad to hear that Fireball is a favourite. The early Gerry Anderson series seem to get a little overlooked these days. I've always been fond of XL5 though and during the days when I used to scratchbuild models I built a 2' studio size one and a revolving Space City tower. The tower is sadly in a poor state now in the loft, but I've still got the studio scale one. It's looking a bit moth eaten now but it still survives. : )

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    2. I for one, would really like to see pics of the 2' studio size version if ever you find the time to photograph it and post on here, scoop. It sounds amazing!

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    3. I've got some old photos of it on it's stand, Tony. I'll post them so you can have a deco and I'll do some proper ones later.

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    4. Thanks Scoop, look forward to seeing it :)

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  2. Excellent. I'm sure you can make it look new again with a little TLC. The back tail fin is more in scale than the Product Enterprise version. (Which was otherwise also excellent.)

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    1. Cheers Kid. I don't think I'd want to work on it now. It's getting on in years and I don't mind it growing old gracefully.It still sits on a shelf in my man cave, in blissfull retirement,just like it's big brother.; )

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  3. That looks really good.

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    1. Thanks Kev, from a modeller like yourself it's praise indeed. : D

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  4. Excellent Scoop! Given the price of a vintage XL-5 making one from scratch (for those with the talent) is definitely worthwhile.

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