The T-47 was an atmospheric vehicle designed for industrial cargo handling (?). Its cockpit featured positions for a forward-facing pilot and a rear-facing cargo manager. The cargo manager used the airspeeder's magnetic harpoon and tow cable to control repulsorlift cargo modules.

As per Wookiepedia.

The T-47 was heavily modified by the Rebel Alliance for use on the Ice Planet of Hoth.  Updates included heaters (naturally), armor plate, weaponry (two heavy blasters) and more powerful engines to accommodate all the extra weight.  The Snowspeeders were used to ineffectively defend the Rebel Base and shield generators against an Imperial Assault Force of AT-AT Assault Walkers and AS-AT Scout Walkers.

The Snowspeeders made their only appearance in movie The Empire Strikes Back and referenced various times in the Star Wars Universe (except in the Robot Chicken Star Wars specials and Family Guy’s Something Something Dark Side.)

In 1980, MPC produced a 1/22 version that looked like a snow speeder, but the interior, crew and certain details were inaccurate compared to what was seen in the movie.  This kit was rereleased several times, the latest being 2005 (I purchased one from that reissue.)

Fine Molds has certainly done in the past as they’ve used the actual Lucasfilm Movie Models as the basis for their kits.  This one is no different.

Major obvious difference from the MPC kit is that the Rebel crewmembers are the correct scale and look like folks from the movie.

It consists of 74 very detailed parts with no flash and very fine detail.  The instructions are mostly in Japanese, but do use English for the paint callouts instead of forcing none Japanese readers to thumb through their Gunze tables to find out which colors are which.

Only mild complaint I have is the slightly pebbly surface which I suspect won’t be a problem when I paint it.

The best advice I can give about this model is to follow the instructions.  I know this is strange, but it is critical that one does or it will make final assembly very difficult.

 First thing I did was glue the upper and lower fuselage halves together, but there is a significant (for a Fine Molds kit) gap between them that needed to be addressed.  I used Vallejo Plastic Putty to fill in the seams and removed the excess with Q-tips soaked in rubbing alcohol.

I next worked on the cockpit interior.  The detail is pretty good if not entirely accurate (when compared to scenes in The Empire Strikes Back) and easy to hand paint.  I used Citadel Red/White/Silver/Tamiya black and Tamiya Clear Red for the displays.

The pilots were hand painted as per instructions (international orange, white, grey, black and flesh.)  Fine Molds molded a visor instead of an open helmet which eliminated the headaches of painting the eyes.  I used a thin black acrylic wash to highlight the fine details.  Once dry, the pilots were glued to the seat.

I glued the blaster cannon bits except the engines at this point because the instructions point out that the rear canopy must be added first otherwise it will very difficult to add when the engines are added first.  The only real seams for the entire kit were along the blaster “muzzle breaks” (?) which were lightly sanded and the detail was redone with a Number 11 blade.

One option on the kit assembly is the choice to pose with air brakes and flaps open.  I opted to do one of each to improve an otherwise regular model.  Be careful with it as they are fragile (yes, I discovered that when I roughly handled the model.)

Paint

I preshaded the Snowspeeder with various colors (Hull Red, Charcoal Black and dark Green from my Spad Builds) as the Rebel Alliance didn’t believe in having clean equipment.

Fine Molds suggests FS36495 Light Grey for the base color.  I was fortunate to have a bottle of the Gunze equivalent kicking around.  I sprayed in several very light coats to get an uneven paint job.  The digital photos don’t show the uneven paint very well.

Markings

Once I let the paint dry, I added the decals.  The kit comes with two different markings, the standard international Orange ones or Luke Skywalker’s Neutral Grey ones (squadron leader markings no doubt.)  Being a Star Wars fanboy, I selected the less colorful Luke Skywalker markings.  No issues with the decals as they snuggled into the detail with a little MicroSet.

Post Shading and Final Coat

When the decals were dry, I wiped the model clean with a wet J-cloth to remove any decal solution and then loaded thinned flat black into my Badger airbrush set at low PSI (around 10) and sprayed very fine coats on the various pieces to dirty up the model to Rebel Alliance “standards.”

Once done, the model was covered in two thin coats of Vallejo flat.

The various remaining parts were glued in order as per the instructions (!) or I would have had a much harder time assembling the model.  I opted to close the canopy.

Fine Molds designs their models to eliminate the drama found in the building of other SF kits.  I have nothing but praise for the Fine Molds Series of Star Wars kits and I highly recommend it to modelers and Star Wars fans of any skill level.

Simply the easiest 1/48 scale kit I’ve ever assembled/built.     

Dan Lee

February 2010