Metal Earth Voyager Spacecraft 3D Metal Model Kit Fascinations

Very good kit. Metal is thick enough for some forgiveness from mistakes. I would recommend that if you are brand new to this hobby to build the Boeing Starliner and Hubble Telescope before doing this one. Otherwise you will be building a Voyager 2 as well. Make sure you have a small metal molding set, regular needle nose pliers, round needle nose pliers and a set of tweezers before beginning. Also have a magnifier visor on hand as well. Happy modeling!

Looks a lot harder than it is but I also used the tools sold by Metal Earth. Also used magnets and hot glue to keep parts where they were meant to be until the assemblies were ready to be put together. It now sits on its own turntable. It draws attention.

The model is a waste of money. The product is two thin metal sheets of which you must pop out each item. You need wire cutters to do this but, given the petite size of the items, and flimsy quality, pieces on the sheet easily bend as you try to get others out. Many of the microscopic pieces then require that you wrap them into a cylinder shape which is a feat in itself. Then, on many of the pieces you put a circular piece on the end of that which takes quite some time to get into place. While pushing the tabs into place on one of the larger circular pieces, the circular piece snapped making the item completely unusable now. If the pieces came ready to assemble, and were made of thicker metal, this product would be ok. As is, it essential goes from out of the box straight into the trash.

The only other Metal Earth model I built was a Millenial Falcon years ago. The Metal Earth website lists the difficulty rating of the Falcon I had as challenging. I don't recall having near the trouble with it I did with Voyager which has a moderate difficulty rating. I broke 3 parts, but was able to fix them with a little ingenuity and JB Weld. They were as follows: 1) There are 7 panels that fold over on the main body, then a lot of the other parts are folded and assembled. During this I flexed one of the panels too much and it broke. I never flexed it thru a large angle, but I guess I flexed it too many times thru a small angle. After that I placed a foam disc inside the body to prevent the rest from flexing until I put the bottom plate on that holds them. 2) The 2 wire-like antennas that come out at about a 45-degree angle are really delicate. 3) The optical calibration target & radiator panel that connects to one of the 4 triangular legs that come out the back. This was probably mostly my incompetence. In addition to the circular foam disc I recommend the following items to aid assembly: 1) Small rectangular or square neodymium magnets to hold some of the items in place while tabs are folded/twisted. 2) There are a few YouTube videos of people assembling a Voyager that are quite helpful, especially the part about bending the radioisotope thermoelectric generators into a semi-cylindrical shape before bending their support rails. 3) Metal Earth has a great 360 view of a completed model that I found helpful. There are a few spare parts on the sheets, but I wish Metal Earth had made some spare parts of other parts. If you're not experienced with Metal Earth models and you're not passionate about Voyager (which is the reason I got it), you may want to build some of the easier models first.

The end result is well worth the time if you are patient, have the right tools, and have a passion for the design and purpose of the voyager spacecraft. The cylindrical parts are most challenging, as well as the very long and delegate bits. I've had soany people double-take and stop at my desk to look at it - well worth the time.

Not sure how Metal Earth rate this model as "moderate" difficulty. Some of the pieces are absolutely tiny so this is definitely a challenging build. You will definitely need a small pair of needle-nosed pliers, some small nails or drill bits (for molding some pieces into circular shape), some tweezers and lots of light for this one. The model turned out very nicely, but if you are a beginner or not very experienced building these - avoid this model.

This is a nice little model that is 21cm long and can be spray painted using black, gold and white spray cans (and red for the infrared instrument if you like). I had problems benfing the insert tabs as they have no bending marks like the ones that help in round objects like the dish. It would be great if they make laser bending marks on tabs. To solve this it is best to first bend tabs once and straighten them again before inserting them in place. If you mistankingly bend a side in the wrong side and have to straighten and bend to the other direction the part will brake! So no mistakes are allowed. I used crazy glue and calcium bicarbonate to hold some parts in place as I was not able to bend those tabs.If one part falls on the floor, as it is so tiny, I used a magnet and scrolled it all over the floor until it catches it. I displayed model on top of a base that I found at a dollar store using a tiny magnet as it is metal.

The item arrived quickly, the packaging and the material inside (metal sheets and instructions) were undamaged. The rest is personal opinion, but wanted to share I was not happy with this, I did read about bending and what it was, but I was unprepared at the small size (even with reading glasses I was having trouble with seeing things with the metal parts/sheet). Also, if your interested in this, go watch some YouTube videos on Metal Earth, there are some awesome ones out there, and while I got the tweezers and pliers and snips, they recommend other items (like different size rods to roll.bend parts) and I strongly suggest you do this. While I like the look of the finished items shown, I was not able to complete this successfully myself and feel this was due to the ability to see/deal with the smaller parts. So if your eyesight is not great, you may want to think twice about this product line.