TigerWraith Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 (edited) This is my review of the new DualCast King Cobra. Things to be aware of, DualCast is not as rigid as the KS3 material was. It is easier to cut. Also any filing, sanding you want to do, watch yourself, and your details that you do not want to lose. Please read through. If you dont know what the King Cobra is, take a look here. Yep thats right its a DT 8 recon.. So here are all the parts that come in the blister. You get a Left lower leg, Right lower leg, Hip with both upper legs, Right arm, left arm and torso. Now you will notice that there are extra parts on these. Due to the new DualCast process we will see these on some of the newer items. They are molded like metal casts, but its thermoplastic resin. So some of the minor imperfections that we would see with metal we will sometimes see here too. These are most of the tools I use. Some clipers from the hardware store for the larger gates, smaller ones for the small gates and anything else I need to nip off. A sharp hobby knife, a mold line scraper, some files and sanding sticks. So I use my larger clipers to get the big gates, nips them right off. Then I use the smaller clipers to get the smaller gates. Now I take the gates off the back of the upper legs. Then the Smaller gates. Now I use some sanding sticks to help level out where the large gates were at on the back of the knee joint. Didnt work as well as I would have liked so I got one of my files out. You may find some extra bits here and there, if you dont like them then use a sharp hobby knife to remove them. Sometimes I need some speed so I break out my dremel, I have some diamond dremel bits and this one here works great at removing mold lines, and other imperfections. Its not as harsh on the material as well. Once I'm done with the lower legs, and hip parts I move on to the Torso. Found a small piece on top that I felt needed to be removed. Then I went to work on the arms. Once I was done removing all the mold lines and fixing a few trouble spots, just a little bit of CA glue and some CA Accelerator, and it went together like a charm. So overall, I really like the fact that the minis are made in the USA. The details on the new minis are just as clean and crisp as the KS3 minis, maybe more so. The new DualCast is easier to work with in my opinion. I can see lots of conversions in the near future for me. I can never have enough parts.... I do dislike having to deal with mold lines but with the tools I have it makes dealing with those easier to handle. It is odd to me that this is a plastic mini but it has some of the same issues as a metal mini. I'm sure that is because they share some similar steps. I ordered 2 of the King Cobras. My first one did not have a lot of issues just the normal clean up for me. Second King Cobra did have some pesky mold lines I had to deal with on one of the arms, the one with the extra flashing you see above. My dremel and hobby knife helped me to remove those. One of the lower legs did have a detail that didnt quite get filled out. The lower legs have 3 raised squarish details and on one of the legs one of the raised parts was smooth and glossy kind of like it didnt get quite enough of the material to it. I was able to square it up and remove the glossiness with my tools. All in all though I would have to say I am quite happy with the model. Yes they may have issues that needs some creative thinking or some elbow grease to get worked out. At this price point I am happy to do that. Some may use the slight imperfections to show as battle damage, I dont have a lot of luck doing that myself so I just do what I can. All I can say is im not paying a "Preimum" price for a "Preimum" model that has issues. So tell me what you think. I may do more of these for the other new units. Thanks Edited July 12, 2022 by TigerWraith update 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Posted September 8, 2022 Share Posted September 8, 2022 Putting together the new Starhawk 7 and Tsuiseki, I agree with your assessment on the material and details. Very good looking and nice to work with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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