MIM-14 Nike Hercules AFV Club - Nr. AF35314 - 1:35

Just stumbled across this information, showing as a 2019 release. I've been trying to freshen-up my old Revell 1:40 scale item, and have also ben waiting for an update to the Freedom Models kit that was announced last year:

MIM-14 Nike-Hercules
Freedom Model Kits - Nr. 15105 - 1:35

Coincidence, or is AFV Club going to release the Freedom Models under their own label?

Anyway, there will be a couple landing in my office whenever one of them gets released.

Looks like you've answered your own question.

My AFV Club contact says the two kits are not related.

KL

I'm certainly happy. It's been at least four years since I sent them the photos and measurements from Korea. Since they're finally getting around to the Nike, we could be in for some other very cool things from the War Museum, including a few choppers and a semi-submersible.

Great news, the more the merrier. Maybe we’ll also see some Cold War era surface to surface missiles in the future.

Any chance in the future of these:
Pershing, LaCrosse, Little John, Mace and Terracruiser, Sergeant...etc post war missiles
M-53, Atomic Cannon...

Let's not forget the other "Cold War" warriors; Matador, Snark, Regulus, Rascal, Hound-dog, Nike-Ajax, Bomarc, Thor, Jupiter. Many have not been seen in kit form since the 50-60's. It would be great to see this open up as a new market. Glad to see Horizon issue Atlas and Redstone. Hope someone does a Titan.

Is anyone tracking any forward movement on the announced Nike Hercules?

Nothing yet...

H.P.

i would love to see some 1/35 agm-109 cruise missile and their tel and lcc.

How about some 1/35 space race stuff. Mercury Redstone, Gemini etc. A company in Russia, Redironmodels I think do some communist era stuff.

A new range?

Regards Jason

I'd love to see a Sprint/Spartan combo. Well, mainly interested in the Sprint, to be honest - I just love the idea of a missile that accelerate at 100g and goes so fast that it glows white hot (nice Youtube vid - https://youtu.be/msXtgTVMcuA)

Problem is that since it was silo launched, it'd be impossible to display a model unless somebody did a full silo, which I guess would be *big*.

There has been a few of us that sent AFV Club measurements and photos. I imagine you will see a good kit come from AFV Club if they follow through.

Well, the Freedom Model Nike Hercules arrived last week, and I have been slowly beginning work on it.

After shifting between the different sprues, it seemed that some detail is very well done (main body panel lines and subtle rivets/fasteners) while mold design looks as if is dated somewhat.

By the last statement, most recent releases from the majority of manufacturers feature the use of slide-molding for complicated parts, resulting in delicate parts that negate the need for using more parts than necessary. Parts design results in joins along panel lines where damage as a result of sanding/smoothing is minimized.

The main missile body of the Nike Hercules is split lengthwise into two pieces, with vague location pins. Due to the size of these two parts, in order to avoid uneven join lines and edges, I had to cement no more than two inches at a time, wait for the cement to set, then re-align the next two inches and go again.

Even so, a substantial portion of the join lines were going to require sanding to even out the circular form of the missile body. This takes us to the same fine panel line and rivet detail mentioned above. By necessity, I lost some of the rivet detail, and will seek help with the LHS for a rivet tool to re-establish what was lost. The panel lines were easier, and I used the back side of a #11 blade to bring those items back.

There are two large launcher pieces, a launcher arm that pivots the missile up, and the launch rail the missile sits upon. Although these are essential square/rectangular in cross-section, they have been molded in halves length-wise. That results in a lot of scraping and sanding to arrive at a flat surface with no joint visible. Seems to me that designing the molds so that each half could be something such as "upper plate/left side, and lower plate/right side" would have been possible. Maybe with slide molding, possible a three-sided channel with top side added? Something that would have pretty much eliminated those seams?

There are substantial hydraulic cylinders ahead in this build, again, split neatly in half length-wise, so that I will have to decide whether to again deal with long seams that threaten to take the completed piece out-of-round, or maybe substituting plastic or brass tube cut to length, with the top/bottoms cut from the kit and added to the metal?

All in all, definitely a step up from 1950s Revell, but with all of the reference materials that were provided by users of this forum to the designers, it seems that a little more thought could have gone into this kit.

Update:

First, this is the Freedom Models Nike Hercules kit that I'm working on, not AFV.

A trip to Burbank House of Hobbies, and I collected some suitable sized Plastruc tube, to escape those hydraulic cylinder-in-two-halves blues. I've assembled the kit cylinders and will cut off the top/bottom fittings and transfer to the Plastruc. I also found a Trumpeter rivet wheel with four different wheels, so that will help on the AWOL rivets.

Funny thing tho, after my comments earlier regarding alternate methods of designing the joint areas on parts besides splitting straight down the middle of assemblies, I found other sub-assemblies further on in the instructions that were designed just that way, with invisible joint lines. Alas, I also found more substantial larger assemblies with the same large nasty seams going down the middle of the parts. These will take a lot of filler and sanding, and re-living the joys of early Monogram and Revell kits.

Stay tuned.

Robert,

I am under the impression that they have used the ones that I submitted from White Sands as they are exquisite in their presentation and possibly the envy of the known world.

I found this site of the Freedom Model Kits - Nr. 15105 - 1:35
with the build model of the Nike Hercules. Have a look.

https://toylandhobbymodelingmagazine.press/category/mim-14-nike-hercules-surface-to-air-missile/

I always liked the looks of it mounted on the XM437 goer. I have a picture of it but I can not post it. I need to find a new photo host.

Cheers,

Ralph