Maschinen Recipes!

Recreating the more exotic MaK designs can be challenging. You need to be an archaeologist, a model builder, a detective, and a little irresponsible with final bids on eBay. In the past, those outside of Japan have found it very difficult to tackle these kinds of projects, because so much of the information is buried in Japanese magazines from 20 years ago, or scattered on the internet in Japanese Blogs and BBS posts. A few major things happened in 2005 that made things much easier for us. The MaK Encyclopedias were published, which showed high quality photos of designs, making part identification easier. Also, Citizen Dave lent me the entire back catalog of Hobby Japan (and other magazines) where SF3D appeared. This provided many glimpses into Yokoyama-san's creative process that are simply not found anywhere else. I know it's old news to the older MaK fans, and probably almost comical to the Japanese fans who knew these model recipes when they were teenagers, but every time someone discovered a kit source, you could feel the excitement.

Then, over the first half of 2006, I realized a team was being formed as we discussed how to cast a stunning Falke master pattern constructed by Futch, which morphed into our mutual desire to bring a Firefly kit to market. People like Futch and Bryan (who also built a stellar Falke around the same time) brought amazing model skills to the table, and Dr. TaK's fluency and interest in MaK was critical. Thanks to him, super-rare and "mission critical" kits were IDed and sourced, and original decal sheets were found. John had been there from day one, as well - and he made molds and cast things faster than I could even imagine - another vital part in the group when you have a $1,000 model kit that (without a casting) woudl require hacking up. Everyone working together and having a lot of fun made me realize that this was a worthy feature to bring to the "outside world".

What does this all mean? This section will house MaK recipes, so that you can recreate the rare, esoteric, or even the generic - just like Yokoyama-san did! Grab a beer, grab a brush, grab some putty, and good luck!