The Infernal Kit

By all that's buildable, if that's a model spacecraft...

True Space: 1999 fans will get the above title and subtitle of this article, but suffice it to say that this is a model of “Gwent”, from the episode called “The Infernal Machine”, built for a customer in Florida. In the show, Gwent was a sentient machine that “defies all known laws of aerospace propulsion, like the bumble bee that shouldn’t fly, but does”. I suspect that Martin Bower, the builder of the original studio model, based its design on the Major Matt Mason crawler toy that was popular at the time, itself apparently based on actual NASA concept vehicles of the era.

This model of “Delmer Powys Plebus Gwent” as the machine/character refers to itself in the episode, measures about a foot wide and is built from an rather crude resin kit from the UK. Not a lot to it as far as parts count goes, but it was so badly moulded that a lot of fudging was needed to correct what could be corrected. Much of the detailing was plagued with air bubbles and sink marks (caused by a failure to de-gas the silicone rubber before pouring it over the master pattern) and it took a lot of filler putty and sanding to mate the back and front halves of the body together which were off by as much as an 8th of an inch, a LOT for a model this size. Brass wire was supplied for the spokes, but that was too soft so I substituted steel welding rod. The axle holes where the spokes attach were all wrong so I had to fill them and carefully measure and drill new holes for the rods as well as re-turn them on a lathe and replace some of the detailing. A lot of time was spent studying photos of the original large visual effects miniature and screen captures from the show itself to try and determine the correct colour scheme.

Below is a capture from the show showing how the largest “hero” miniature, measuring likely about three feet across, looked on screen.

The kit’s proportions are not very accurate (a little too flat and wide) and the detailing less so overall, but given the limited amount of reference material available at the time the kit was produced, that can be forgiven. There are a lot of detailing errors on it too, but to correct these flaws would have meant tossing the kit and building the model from scratch.

Here are some more shots of the completed model on the stand I built to display it in flight, made from MDF and acrylic rod.

Gwent’s underside. I used some airbrushed weathering to hide and distract from the rough detailing on the casting:

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