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- Jakko
As mentioned elsewhere, I bought the Nike Hercules kit by Freedom Model Kits just under a week ago, thinking it would be a good model to put together at the model show I spent the weekend at.
Right …
First impression is that it’s quite a decent kit. Maybe not quite up to the latest standards, but it looks pretty good on the sprues. I started building the launcher, on the basis that would give me somewhere to put the missile, rather than do it in the order the kit’s instructions tell you to: missile first, launcher second. In the end, I doubt it matters much, really, because what you will soon find out is that the initial appearance is a little deceiving.
This kit is from 2019, and I think I said it before, but it bears repeating: it feels like it’s from the 1980s. If you’ve built a couple of Italeri kits, this one will feel so familiar it makes you wonder whether Freedom Models reissued an old Italeri kit from 30 or 40 years ago — but Italeri never had a Nike Hercules, so they must have tooled it new like this. Parts fit is reasonable but you don’t get nearly enough locating pins and tabs, and most parts need fettling either before or after gluing them together. And a good deal of filler for any major parts. I mean, take a look at this:
It would probably have been better to add some plastic strip inside some of these parts to raise the inserts to the proper height, reducing the need for filler, but I was at a model show and didn’t have any at hand. The large part at the top (the arm that raises the missile to launch position) didn’t need much filler but did need a lot of filing to get rid of the raised seam between the two parts.
Or this, the launch rail:
That’s two parts, with a huge, low-lying seam top and bottom all around. That’ll be fun to fill, because the raised lips along the sides need to stay. I might just file those off and replace them by plastic strip, though, to make it easier to fill the seam.
Much of the above is caused by the parts being slightly angled to get them out of the mould, by the way. This causes the join between the parts to either be lower or higher than the outside edges. The rest is due to very loose fit, sometimes in combination with the previous.
Also, the mould seams (rather than seams between parts) are very obvious as well. Those on the launcher parts almost all needed a good deal of filing to get the sides of the parts flat.
Oddly, the main parts for the missile body and the four booster rockets fit much better:
They still needed a seam removed, of course, but nowhere near as bad as on the launcher. After glueing, I lined the halves up as well as I could, and then filed and sanded down the seams when the glue was dry. That just left rescribing some panel lines on the missile, but nothing major.
And then you fit the main wings:
These are difficult to align correctly because their locating tabs are far too shallow, but more importantly, they leave a big gap all along those tabs …
The piece that connects the boosters to the missile also has some large gaps:
This is ten parts! Bottom plate, top ring, four rounded bits at the corners, and four triangular ones to go between them. It’s difficult to line everything up correctly because once again, few locating pins and very little positive fit. On the plus side, once it’s dry you can use it as a stand for the missile, so you don’t have to rest it on its wings while the glue on those dries
Oh, and for anyone after details on the real thing: https://ed-thelen.org/ — when you look past his political, philosophical and other misguided beliefs, this is a treasure trove of Nike Hercules material, including what looks like a complete set of technical manuals.
Right …
First impression is that it’s quite a decent kit. Maybe not quite up to the latest standards, but it looks pretty good on the sprues. I started building the launcher, on the basis that would give me somewhere to put the missile, rather than do it in the order the kit’s instructions tell you to: missile first, launcher second. In the end, I doubt it matters much, really, because what you will soon find out is that the initial appearance is a little deceiving.
This kit is from 2019, and I think I said it before, but it bears repeating: it feels like it’s from the 1980s. If you’ve built a couple of Italeri kits, this one will feel so familiar it makes you wonder whether Freedom Models reissued an old Italeri kit from 30 or 40 years ago — but Italeri never had a Nike Hercules, so they must have tooled it new like this. Parts fit is reasonable but you don’t get nearly enough locating pins and tabs, and most parts need fettling either before or after gluing them together. And a good deal of filler for any major parts. I mean, take a look at this:
It would probably have been better to add some plastic strip inside some of these parts to raise the inserts to the proper height, reducing the need for filler, but I was at a model show and didn’t have any at hand. The large part at the top (the arm that raises the missile to launch position) didn’t need much filler but did need a lot of filing to get rid of the raised seam between the two parts.
Or this, the launch rail:
That’s two parts, with a huge, low-lying seam top and bottom all around. That’ll be fun to fill, because the raised lips along the sides need to stay. I might just file those off and replace them by plastic strip, though, to make it easier to fill the seam.
Much of the above is caused by the parts being slightly angled to get them out of the mould, by the way. This causes the join between the parts to either be lower or higher than the outside edges. The rest is due to very loose fit, sometimes in combination with the previous.
Also, the mould seams (rather than seams between parts) are very obvious as well. Those on the launcher parts almost all needed a good deal of filing to get the sides of the parts flat.
Oddly, the main parts for the missile body and the four booster rockets fit much better:
They still needed a seam removed, of course, but nowhere near as bad as on the launcher. After glueing, I lined the halves up as well as I could, and then filed and sanded down the seams when the glue was dry. That just left rescribing some panel lines on the missile, but nothing major.
And then you fit the main wings:
These are difficult to align correctly because their locating tabs are far too shallow, but more importantly, they leave a big gap all along those tabs …
The piece that connects the boosters to the missile also has some large gaps:
This is ten parts! Bottom plate, top ring, four rounded bits at the corners, and four triangular ones to go between them. It’s difficult to line everything up correctly because once again, few locating pins and very little positive fit. On the plus side, once it’s dry you can use it as a stand for the missile, so you don’t have to rest it on its wings while the glue on those dries
Oh, and for anyone after details on the real thing: https://ed-thelen.org/ — when you look past his political, philosophical and other misguided beliefs, this is a treasure trove of Nike Hercules material, including what looks like a complete set of technical manuals.
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The South Korean camouflage is interesting, and the kit provides markings and a painting guide for it. Not sure yet which I’ll go for — probably either that, or a Dutch missile in white and OD.
