1/20 Racoon sensor parts

As the Racoon from Nitto is long since OOP, and I need sensor parts for a couple of kits so I decided to recast them. On assembly I discovered that the bits fit badly together, fit badly on the body and generally look unfinished if you view the kit from its right hand side. So the plan is to totally cut them up and re-build them (maybe even add articulation).

So I could razor saw the 2 parts, I filled the piece with SSP-HG, and then attcked with a 0.1mm Kotobukiya PE saw. The actual sensor itself will be to be junked, but I can use the parts from Jerry kit I have.

After pluggin the holes with more SSP-HG, and some initial shaping, Mori-Mori putty is used, and squished against a lip salve coated SAFS body shell. Although the Lip salve should prevent the Mori-Mori sticking, it didn't work to well (I think I left it on the plastic too long and it started to bond-which does not happen with resin), and I ended up repeating the process on another SAFS body form the spares box (the one in the pic got a bit chewed up). This time I removed the sensor housing once the Mori-Mori started to gel, sorted. The second pic shows the part after a fair amount of shaping and sanding (plus I re-scribed the panel line).

Here's the Jerry part, filled and sanded by itself and in the housing. The sensor part can now be rotated :) .

Next up the engine parts and large sensor pod. The engine part seems to have a badly cast / deformed central "chimney", and not brilliant bolt detail, so I carved them off :). I filled the engine part, and added Kotbukiya bolt detail. The removed "chimney type thing" will be replaced after casting with plastic tube.