Space Cadet #11 - Entry #1 - Stark Arc Reactor - 1:1

[bfrd]

Arc Reactor Information.

Could contain spoilers if you have managed to get this far and not seen any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies.

► Show Spoiler

Before Tony Stark became Iron Man he was the CEO of a successful technology company that was started by his father, Howard Stark. Howard Stark designed the first Arc Reactor and used it to power the Stark Industries main campus.



At the beginning of the MCU Iron Man series, Stark Industries primary purpose was as a weapons contractor. Howard had passed on and Tony was now heading the company. While on a business trip and weapons demonstration, Tony Stark was gravely injured and kidnapped. He was forced to design and make a weapon for his captors. However, he first needed to save himself. Shrapnel from the attack was threatening his life. It was kept at bay by a crude electromagnet powered by a car battery. While pretending to make the weapon, he designed and built a miniaturized arc reactor. This would provide the necessary power to keep him alive and free him from the tether of the car battery. This model is a replica of that first Arc Reactor the Mark I.

After designing the Mark II, the Mark I was presented to Tony as a gift from Pepper Pots. Here is a still image showing the Mark I.

Kit Information

This is a great little kit by Mando Studios. It is a 1:1 replica of the Mark I version of the Arc Reactor from the MCU. It is a true multimedia kit with tons of variety. It comes with a pre-wired LED board and power supply. The main housing components are laser cut plastic. They also include a pre-glued copper magnet wire inserts (you don't have to wind your own!). There is a small fret of PE and another piece of milled brass. The one-page instructions are concise but adequate.



Rather than pictures of each part, I just dumped them all out at once. I think you can easily see what the kit has to offer.



Kit Information

The build is very straight-forward and easy, but it does take some time to prepare the parts. As mentioned on the front page of the instructions, the laser cut parts do have a rough edge. All of the laser cut parts have a protective backing which needs to be removed. The edges are a little rougher than I would have liked. To save on the life of the laser tube the cut was made by pulsing the laser instead of just keeping it on. This pulse is sufficient to cut through the material but does leave a rough edge. As the edges are highly visible I needed to sand them down with various grits of sanding sticks. In the process of removing the melted portions of plastic from the backside of the part, scratches on the surface are unavoidable. I then chose to sand all of the parts smooth and produced a matte finish. Here are some shots of the three stages, initial part, backing material removed, and final result.



After I was able to move my hand again, it was time to move forward. The sanding of the parts was easily the most tedious in the entire build. It should be noted that there is an "advanced" kit that has these plastic parts replaced with metal ones. Regardless, the first step in the actual build was to begin to assemble the LED unit. These pieces appear to be laser cut cast acrylic and did not need any attention whatsoever. The kit provides you with a small Allen wrench for the screws, which I found almost impossible to hold for some reason. I must have dropped that damn wrench 1,000 times! At one point I scared one of the dogs yelling in frustration. Only a modicum of care is required to keep the frosted side of the part facing in the correct direction. The screws facing the other direction are holding a milled aluminum heat sink which is a functional part as well as aesthetically pleasing. Too bad my dumb ass didn't take a picture of the back side.



Next up was to build the base for the brass rings. Here I did go off-script and used some acrylic cement on the bottom of the risers. They fit very loosely and would not stay put. The black marks are from the laser cutting process, and not the cement. I did try to wash them a bit, but some of the black marks remained. I don't think you will really notice once the unit is finished.



In hindsight, I would have placed the rings first. The cement definitely held as I had to flex the base in order to get the rings placed. Luckily, nothing broke or warped. The little grill at the bottom is from the PE fret. I call it a PE fret, but that is some stiff PE. Top marks on the quality of that aspect of the kit. The brass rings were milled well but require a good deal of clean-up. In order to keep the parts in place during milling, some attachment points need to be left in place. This is similar to PE frets. However, these attachment points are quite stout. Once I got them separated, I used a diamond cutting wheel on my Proxxon to trim off the outside nubs. The inside nubs were filled off using a half-round file. This too was a little tedious. Once the filing was finished I used a couple of grits of sanding sticks to clean up the scratches. Here is the end result.



The two parts were then married with a small nylon riser. I found it necessary to remove the top ring to properly install the risers. That could just be my fumble-fingers though...



The next stage was to assemble the main housing. This was a pretty straight-forward process and I actually found it quite enjoyable, if not brief.



The LED unit just snaps into the housing. Easy, peasy, something-that-rhymes-with-peasy-but-isn't-now-considered-inappropriate.



Now comes the really visible part, the top ring! I apologize here for not taking more intermediate pictures. This part was very fiddly and once I got on a roll, I didn't want to stop. The clear ring consists of smaller interlocking parts. The joint is hidden underneath the copper rings. If you take a look at the part pile you will see a bunch of injection molded plastic parts. You can also see bags containing clear plastic parts as well as the copper wire inserts. There are two types of separators, this is done so that the injector pin marks are always hidden. To assemble the ring, you just take one of the black separators and clip onto one of the ring segments. Then, you place a plastic support part inside of the copper insert. Once that is done, you just slide the plastic and copper part onto the clear ring segment. I used some CA glue to bond the plastic insert and copper wire together. Then you take the other separator part and lock in the copper insert. This proceeds until you reach the section where the ring parts meet. Here you just have to slide the copper and plastic assemblies on each end of the ring without the separator pieces. Once the ring is completed you can then slide the copper inserts around and snap in the rest of the parts. It probably makes more sense when you are building. Other than keeping track of the EPMs on the separator pieces you want to make sure and keep the free "tails" of the copper part all facing the same direction. It doesn't matter which direction, just make sure they all face the same way. Here is the completed ring assembly.



Next up is to clean up the "tails" Each separator part has two small holes at the top. Just feed the free end of the copper wire into the appropriate hole and then on into the next hole after spanning the clear part. If you read that and it made sense, please seek help immediately. This section of the build does take some time and a bit of dexterity. I used some precision pliers since my tweezers couldn't grip the copper wire with enough force. The copper part is wound magnet wire that has been lacquered to keep them together. This means that it can be un-wound very easily. Since you have to pull on the wires make sure that you are pulling in the direction of the winding and not against it. When this is done correctly, the wires will cross and will not come undone. I used CA glue at both holes with some kicker to speed up the process. The tighter you pull, the straighter the wire will become. Obviously, you have to be careful to not break the wire or the plastic. Once the glue is dried just, clip the ends off. Again, be careful that you cut the right side. There are no spares. I was a ninny and didn't pull very hard. On one hand, I didn't break anything. On the other, they aren't very taut.



Almost done now! The engineering of this next step is quite ingenious. There is another ring of copper wire that I apparently failed to photograph earlier on which the newly built assembly rests. You then take another piece of PE and a milled metal part to bind everything together. In the move the small silvery metal ring in the middle is Palladium. The kit provides an incredibly shiny metal part. However, mine was a little damaged, not sure how. There was a great deal of metal "slag" on the part and it required a good deal of filing and then sanding. Due to this sanding, the shine of the part was lost. The kit provides double-sided tape to attach the ring to the PE but I chose CA glue since it was already out. There are three small PE parts that are then attached to the milled metal ring for decoration purposes. To make them a little more interesting I sanded them a bit to expose the metal. This where I should have been finished.



I decided that I didn't like having the "starter" kit. I would show those bastards that I could make my plastic look like their metal. Take that! I used Ultimate Gloss Black primer and primed all of the housing parts.



Since I was determined to make my starter kit look better than the metal kit I decided to use two different metal shades. I chose Vallejo Metal Color - Dark Aluminum and Vallejo Metal Color - Semi-Matte Aluminum. I painted the larger pieces in the semi-matte and the shorter in dark. I liked the contrast, but it was a little too subtle for me. To help enhance the variation and add some protection I used both Alclad Aquagloss and Testors Dull-Cote. I used the gloss clear for the dark parts and matte for the others. I kept the retaining ring and base parts in black.



That looks better right?

Even with the clear, some of the metallic colors got scratched when it was assembled.

[Johno]

Moving right along with it, very cool subject, looks great so far.

[Twokidsnosleep]

How cool is that!!!
Wow what a kit and Matt you just blasted through it
Awesome result

[chief5437]

that is cool as f78k! love it. nice job fella

[jmurphy18]

Wow, what a cool build and a lot of work! Nicely. Done!

[bfrd]

Thanks for the comments!