Mercury 9 Rocket in New Mission Models Chrome

Pegasus Hobbies, 1/350 scale

Reviewed and Built by John Miller

Hobby Boss' 1/72 P-61A Black Widow is available online from Squadron.com

As stated in the kits instructions---“Inspired by the classic TV and movie rockets of the 60’s & 70’s, the Mercury 9 Rocket is a modern take on the classic rocket designs…..”  Yes it is; and really cool looking too.

Faced with the need to find a suitable subject on which to test the new Mission Models Chrome paint, I wandered aimlessly around Skyway Hobbies, my favorite Seattle hobby shop, until I happened upon the Mercury 9 Rocket by Pegasus Hobbies. Perfect!

Having grown up on a steady diet of sci-fi movies from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, the model appealed to my sense of nostalgia for those old films. Most importantly the Mercury 9 would be a good test subject, as it lends itself to a myriad of schemes that could include White Chrome, Black Chrome, and Colored Metalics. Being a pretty avid airplane modeler this represented a big change from my normal fair but I was looking forward to it. Colored metallics? This was going to be fun!

This is a basic and rather large kit that comes together very quickly. The kit has a very low parts count and the fit of the major components is acceptable with a few exceptions (see Main Body below). The parts have large sprue gates that require clean up but there’s very little flash.

The kit instructions were followed except for a few points.  The small crew rocket wasn’t glued to the main body. Here I opted to leave them separate for ease of travel and presentation. Similarly the instructions call out for the fin halves of the main rocket to be glued onto the main body. I modified the kit parts so the fins could be assembled prior to attaching them to the main body. This greatly simplified painting, buffing, and masking. Lastly, a fitting on the side of the main body intended for fuel lines or power cables was modified as these connections were not used in this build.

As with lacquer-based metallics Mission Models Chrome should be sprayed on top of a gloss black base coat to achieve a reflective final finish.

To facilitate achieving a nice gloss black finish the folks at Mission Models have developed a Gloss Black Base Coat especially for use with their Chrome paint.

Like their Chrome, Mission Models Gloss Black is an acrylic and was used as a base for all components of the rocket except the main body, which was shot with Gunze Mr. Surfacer 1,000 prior to Mission Chrome.

The blue, yellow, and red metallic colors were produced by combining Mission Models paints with Mission Chrome prior to spraying.

Mission Chrome can be tinted with any of the colors from the Mission Models range by simply adding the colored paint to the Chrome.

This is very handy for making custom metallic mixes for landing gear, exhausts, metal panels etc etc.

The painted assemblies were glued together using thick CA (Bob Smith) and the small black bands around the crew rocket, main rocket, and main fin engine pods were made with strips of black decal film.

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Thumbnail panels:

The rocket base was quickly assembled and sprayed with Mission Black Primer followed by light coat of Mission Dunkelgelb leaving some of the black showing through to confer a sense of depth.

This was a hoot. Being out of my usual aircraft territory, I found the build to be refreshing and fun.

Between the size (this is tall model) and the mix of chrome and colored metallics it’s an eye-catcher.

Moreover, the painting process allowed me to test out the new Mission Chrome and I have to say there’s a lot of utility to this acrylic-based metallic paint.  The ability to make custom colored metallics by simply adding Mission paints makes the possibilities endless.

Moreover, the ability to shoot a metallic finish on a model the size of the Mercury 9 and not chase the family dog out of the house due to fumes is a good thing in my experience.

For more on this review visit ModelPaintSolutions.com.

Kit purchased by the reviewer

Review Text and Images Copyright © 2018 by John Miller
Page Created 30 January, 2018
Last updated 31 January, 2018

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