New Tristar Mould from Lockness Models: April Releases

From Scotland via Shanghai I present the third active Tristar mould and the second of 2019. Lockness Models are a new manufacturer on the scene, aiming to ‘take the mystery out of collecting’, or perhaps inject some mystery into it :). Anyway, whomever they are Lockness have announced their first 4 Tristar 1s, 3 of which are available immediately. Read on to find out more.

There must be some haggis friendly people in Bonnie China or at least someone with a sense of humour, concerning the original manufacturer of the L-1011 Tristar, for Lockness models is a cunning play on words and the box comes replete with the monster itself. Great stuff. 

I can confirm that not only will Lockness be making the Tristar 1 but they will also be creating an accurate version of the Tristar 500 too. So, there will be a Tristar bonanza coming in early 2019. NG Models have a Tristar 1, 200 and 500, Gemini Jets has a workable Tristar 1 (and abysmal Tristar 500) and now Lockness has a Tristar 1 and 500 too. Prepare for tri-jet overload.

L-1011-500 Coming Soon!

Tristar 1 C-FTNA looks excellent from above

Lockness Models have been in contact with me and I should be getting some of their new Tristars for review very soon. In the meantime, they have provided me with some photos of the new mould, plus I have some of Waffle’s excellent shots as well.

The initial releases cover a spread of 4 subjects – two TWA ‘Twin Globes’, Air Canada delivery and Air Lanka. It’s a good mix for starters and I know that there’ll be a wide variety of fan favourite L-1011s on the way with Lockness keeping up a rapid pace, that at least Gemini won’t be able to match.

Buy your Lockness Models from the Waffle man at Waffle Collectibles

A brief look at the mould, without having yet seen it in person, suggests it is essentially very good. The fuselage, tail and wings are very nice and the engine pylons and engines do not suffer from the issues that the NG Models version has (and they are fixing).

On the minus side the nose, although ok, doesn't seem quite as nice as the NG Models version and the landing gear appears a bit short for my tastes. The maingear doors are also too long and not correctly shaped. From the top the mould looks excellent and the gear issues I’ve raised should hopefully be quick fixes. 

You’ll also notice that Lockness Models, like another manufacturer we know and love, don’t believe in putting ‘oversized and out of scale’ antennae on their models. Printing wise the cockpit windows are not big enough for me, but I’ll reserve judgement until I see the real thing. If indeed they are a bit small then again it should hopefully be an easy fix.

​I have already fed back my initial findings to Lockness and hopefully they will continue to improve their Tristar moulds as they produce their range of L-1011s. My first impressions are that the Lockness versions are more than worthy of your dollar and at least until we see a finished printed NG Models version they are certainly the best L-1011s around.