1/12 Lotus 99t NUNU

[f1m]

https://www.youtube.com/live/NT_vEhicB1 ... iyCX97xPHm

[CK]

It looks like it is a mold cutting issue. This type of mismatch at mold line should be of the past when molds were cut my hand.

I just wonder where the mold was make for NUNU. Today, using CAM in plastic mold cutting is no more expensive than hand cutting.

I saw a video on Youtube that talks about the start of Dragon model from Hong Kong. Getting someone to know the plastic industry and a good mechanical engineer is key to their success. This may be a case that NUNU is lacking knowledge in this area.

The mismatch on the side pod vertical wall to the top will be difficult to fix in the mold if the top dimension is correct. The mold has to be filled to make the vertical wall 'come in' in the part. Filling in a mold is difficult and will have reliability issue. I think this is why it is not being fixed after the test shots.

This reminds me about Revell Germany's car models done around 15 years ago. They were still hand cut in Poland. The quality is completely inferior to their aircraft kits which all had CAM cut molds done around the same time. I have their 1/144 F18 and 1/24 Ferrari 599. The F18 doesn't even need to fill any seam when the fuselage halves are press together. The 599 still has some uneven thickness through out the body.

[Pierre-F]

I'll hold judgement until I get my kit, but based on the video reviews of the kit I've seen, it seems like the quality issues posted here seem to be more of an anomaly and may have been a bad production batch.

Also, let's give BeeMax some leeway. They may be Aoshima's contract manufacturer, but let's remember they haven't been in the business that long. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for their first 1/12 scale mass production kit.

Its a general issue: see here at minute 16:50 of this review video - the same problem on the cowl like on mine...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_oO_0ndRxI&t=778s

On the video he said "easy to deal with".
I noted that the bodywork is in very thin, even more so than the MP4/6.

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[Pierre-F]

"the area between the vertical seamline and the round edge on the front of the sidepod is 0.1mm to 0.2m moved outside of the shape of the sidepod wall."

0.1 mm ? Or 1 mm ? Because 0.1 mm is 10−4 m, a tenth of a millimeter, and it is a very accurate to me !

[f1m]

In the Video linked above there was mention that the suspension arms were not airfoil shaped.. doing a quick Google search it does look like they were not - they were rounded front & back and flat on the top..

https://images.app.goo.gl/MXcyejbaVeufzGBE7

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[MoFo]

I will repeat it again and again - buy the kit and check the cowl.
Its not a seamline its a displacement - the area between the vertical seamline and the round edge on the fron of the sidepod is 0.1mm to 0.2m moved outside of the shape of the sidepod wall.
How will you solve this problem? You must sand down the whole area...

IMG_3862.jpeg

It's a misalignment in the slide mould sections. It will probably be on every kit - manufacturers really don't do multiple production batches for an individual release - until the kit sells out and is re-released at some point in the future. It's certainly a bummer, and they absolutely should have spent more time optimizing the tooling and adjusting the fit and alignment of the individual tooling elements (this is what test shots are for)... but it's also pretty common for slide moulded tooling, albeit not to this serious a degree.

As for how to fix it... seems pretty straightforward to me. Slather putty on the low spots and block sand to blend it together. Not a fun task, but a lot easier than trying to force a set of MFH's white metal doors to fit their opening.

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