Ron Bell Posted March 27 Report Posted March 27 (edited) This is Glencoe's rerelease of the 1958 Adams Vanguard rocket kit. The launch pad and 'crew' are identical to those in their Thor missile kit. The difference here is in the addition of the tower and the actual missile itself. The launch pad and tower are full of mold seams that need to be removed and you have to make sure everything fits before you paint it. The tower was pretty fiddly as it is in 11 pieces and the instructions aren't the clearest. But with care it actually went together rather easily. However, to get the inside painted, you need to paint the parts first before assembly, contrary to my usual practice. The decals went on nicely, but the color scheme is problematic. They give you decals for six different missiles and each one has a different scheme illustrated on the back of the box. The odd thing is that the colors called out in the instructions do not match any of these. Only 11 Vanguards were produced in reality, so I took some liberty and used the instruction colors to make one of the later missiles. In a brief interweb search I actually did find one photo of these colors in use, so I don't feel too bad. The launch pad and the one officer figure are fixed to the base, which I made, but the missile and tower are not to facilitate possible moving or storage. There should be some cables between the tower and the rocket but I couldn't put them in place and keep the rocket and tower removable so you'll have to use your imagination. Edited March 27 by Ron Bell
Mark Deliduka Posted March 27 Report Posted March 27 I love it! What a fantastic model, I didn't even know this existed.
Piedmont Posted March 28 Report Posted March 28 Excellent work, Ron! I am really enjoying your classic space/missiles kit builds. Have fun modeling! Mike
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