ARII Ghost box - painted and working

 

Here we go. Job done. 

Painting the stonework was quite fun. I started with Humbrol 64, pale grey. Once tacky, some 147 was sponged on lightly, followed by talculm powder to blend the colours and add texture. Left to dry overnight, the finishing touch was a thin wash of 67 grey, dried with a hardryer. This last step is partly because I was impatient, but it also allows me to see the effect and add to it if required. 

The soil is earth colour, washed with track colour. This caused the base to lift in a couple of places, I should have given it a longer drying time, so a bit of scruffy static grass held down with hair spray adds a suitably run-down look. 

On the front, you can see a skull and crossbones sticker from the sheet provided, either side of which are the metal contacts that sense a coin is in place. So that this will happen: 

Isn't it brilliant? Best of all, if the claw doesn't grab the coin properly the first time, it has another go, which is properly spooky!

Time taken - probably just over three hours, split 50:50 between building and painting. For £15, that's about the same as being in the pub (I'm not a fast drinker. YMMV) but unlike most plastic kits, there's plenty of play value for the future to be had as well. If you've never built a plastic kit before, it's not ideal, but the mechanism isn't hard to figure out and is very much part of the fascination for me, so I really enjoyed this build. 

ARII Ghost box - mechanical bits

 

Here's what makes the Ghost Box work. The mechanism clips and screws together easily enough. The builder needs to pay attention to the orientation of the parts, but You can't put the things together wrongly really. 

Theres a lot of pressing gears and cams on to axles, and the kitmakers suggests a small hammer to force them home. I prefered to use a vice as a press. Even the little one on my bench opens wide enough to do this, and I feel that the gentle pressure is better for the plastic parts than shock forces. It's also easier to control things as you can stop th pressue when the vice jaws hit the end of the axle. 

There's some clever work here as obviously they don't want people soldering, so the wires are designed to be twisted around the metal parts that the cam operting the hand woks. I decided I could solder, and so I did. It should make for a more reliable mechanism. 

An AA cell fits in the base, and by touching the ends of the wires, you can test things work OK. Without the lid, that hand flaps about a bit, but as long as things are moving, all should be fine. I hope.

ARII Ghost box

 

This is a rare kit. 

It must be, because it says so on the Post-It note on the end of the box. And on the many examples of the kit for sale online. 

So rare, that I ought to put it away in the kit stash and wait for its value to soar. 

However, I'm a rubbish investor, so I'm going to built it. After all, that's what plastic kits are for, and I doubt many of the ones I do have stored away are increasing in value right now. 

There are six flavours of Ghost Box in the Mysterious Coin Box series. I picked up the Zombie Hand version, from the three "rare" kits on sale at the IPMS show.  (How lucky was I to find three rare kits still on the stand at the end of a two-day show?) This would explain why the drawing inside the box shows a skull, from the Skull Head version. 

Anyway, inside there is a large (14 by 10cm) plastic base, a tombstone with inscription, and lots of black bits that will make up the mechanism, because this is a working model, along with the motor and metal parts. And a hand. A zombie hand.