hi guys and gals - I posted this on my LISA site - hope you enjoy it

Late Night Musings Four - Part One - Braill-ing, or Modeling by a near
blind man.

Any of you whop know me know that I wear glasses and over the past few
years I have found that my sight is steadily going and as such I have
had to put aside one of my favorite hobbies – that of model making.
Models were getting to be a task and not a source of enjoyment so I took
to purchasing die-cast models or kits that required little or no
construction – and behold all was good. Unfortunately this ended when
the small American ‘specialty’ model company ‘Moebius’ announced that it
would be producing 1/25^th scale detailed but affordable kits based on
Lost In Space’s Space Pod and Chariot. Right, I thought, I have heard
this before – both the Chariot and the Space Pod had been produced by
LUNAR Models in the 80’s but these were expensive and hard to get
especially down here in Australia. I had bought a LUNAR Models Jupiter
Two in the early ‘90’s and was disappointed to say the least – the
plastic was very thin and the clear parts were similar in style to the
plastic you find on Action Figure kits – you know the type of plastic
that keeps the action figure on the ‘card’ – and there was no internal
pieces. I found out later that the idea was that YOU had to buy each
piece individually i.e. the hull, then the upper deck and then the lower
deck and finally a decent after market Fusion core. So I glued the kit
together and waited for a better or easier Jupiter Two kit to arrive.
That kit arrived in the form of Polar Lights “Jupiter two’ which was an
all round easier and complete kit but still I had trouble making the kit
as it’s scale was both small and indistinct – some sources claimed it
was in 1/48^th scale while others claimed it to be in 1/60^th while I
found it to be a combination almost of both – more confusion arose when
it was found that the exterior of the kit was ‘compatible’ with the
Johnny Lightning Kits of the Pod and Chariot – a scale I found was
closest to 1/72^nd scale. I was happy with my kit and again once
complete I put it aside and waited for other LIS based kits to appear. I
made (and sold) several B-9 Robots as well as Doctor Smith and a similar
scale model of Judy – movie kits were also made – those being the Robot
and Jupiter Two.

And then something that all LIS fans know well happened – NOTHING.

As fate would have it I was going through ‘CultTVman’s’ Site when I
found the news about Moebius and its products. The below paragraph is
taken from ‘Moebius’s’ Myspace site - “Moebius Models was founded in
2006 with hopes of keeping styrene figural, sci-fi, fantasy and horror
model kits available to their forgotten audience. Moebius's founders
felt the need for a new company to fill the gigantic void left by the
lack of new Polar Lights kits when the company was bought out by RC2. It
was as if the earth crumbled for plastic builders and collectors.
Hopefully we will revive the spirits of kit builders everywhere! The
first kit from Moebius Models is a new issue of Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde.
For many modelers, this is the missing link in their collection, the
last of the classic Aurora monsters to be reissued. New projects are in
the works, subject to licensing agreements. Please visit the Moebius
Models website at www.moebiusmodels.com for more news on these projects
as they are announced.”

I visited the site as well as Moebius Internet site and saw the stuff
that they were putting out and was amazed although still a bit skeptical
– long time fans of LIS know well the feelings of excitement followed by
despair when LIS based products are announced then never see the light
of day but Moebius came through. We ordered eight kits in total – four
Space pods and Four Chariots from the states and waited and waited –
they were preordered so the wait was not un-expected – when they arrived
I was amazed and stunned. The Space Pods came first which I was kind of
happy with – the Chariot worries me as there is a lot of clear parts in
it. Anyone who has bought models will know that often the kit comes in a
box that is UN-NECESSARILY large well the Moebius people present the kit
in a reasonable sized box – something that cuts down postage from the
states – and unlike the LUNAR Models kits the box is professionally done
with a color painting of the Pod on the front and over all the
presentation is excellent. Opening the box I found that the pleasant
surprises continued. The parts are housed in clear plastic and on first
inspection appeared to be clean of flash and marks – the clear plastic
parts are in their own bag along with the decals. All model instructions
state that the builder should test fit the parts first and this I did –
again another pleasant surprise as the fit on the kit is about 98%
meaning that there is very little puttying to be done. Sanding is
minimal too and without going into it too much the kit is very easy to
construct except for one small nagging thing – the instructions! This
was the first Moebius kit that I have ever built so I do not know if
their instructions are typical for each kit but I found the instructions
for the Pod annoying and would probably be confusing to the novice
builder. After much thought I went to CultTVman’s site and downloaded
the pic’s there of the Pod Prototype and found that by studying them and
occasionally consulting the Pod instructions I was able to put the kit
together.

Over all this is a great kit and despite the instructions one that is
easily constructed and enjoyed – well down Moebius! In Part Two, I shall
discuss painting the kit and the importance of buying the right glue!