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Hi everyone, I would like to show you some pics of my fake Sonix 75. As some of my friends have real Sonix Victory 75 or Northstar radios, I wanted one too for display purposes, but spending a grand was just not what I wanted to do and as I like to build stuff, I ordered one of Tony´s amazing Sonix World kits which is cast of a real Sonix Victory 75 radio which he owns. You can find him on FB by the way. The kit is top notch, a very high quality cast with all the important little details. This is what you get if you order a kit: With that solid and sturdy faceplate, the kit is heavier than other available kits but that didn´t matter at all as I decided to build this as realistic as possible for display purposes, just to showcase it. So what one has to build oneself is the box you will mount the faceplate to as well as the pleather suround. I´ve built the box from a 2mm black ABS sheet: If you look at the backside of a real radio, you will see that there is a cover made of cardboard covered in pleather too, which is hold in place by two snaps and hides the battery compartment as well as the cable. The following picture was kindly provided by bigwam/Thomas, it´s a screenshot taken from a video which shows him opening his Northstar radio: So this is what I wanted to replicate. It just had to look right, at no time did I plan to add any functional electronics to make it work like a real radio. Let me tell you that drilling all those holes was a pain in the ... I´ve made a template which made it slightly easier: I was at least lucky enough to find a suitable battery compartment for the four so-called mono-cell batteries but it was black and I had to paint it white. I also heat formed the sides of the backplate so I was able to use some tiny screws to attach that battery compartment. the cover had to have the matching holes in it too so it took me quite some time to punch those holes but I also added the stamped in the letters "HONG KONG" as seen on the original. I then build the pleather suround, also had to order a different kind of pleather as the one I had used for my radio builds so far didn´t match the looks of the real deal. Again I cut out cardboard pieces and covered them in pleather, then punched in some holes with the correct pattern and then just used a needle and some thread to emulate the sewing.

Thank you Roger and Vincent for the kind words! Roger, I know, I´m such a nerd, I can´t believe it myself... and I´m proud of it. As you were asking for my source of the pleather, got it from ebay, am quite happy with it as it´s only subtly structured. https://www.ebay.de/itm/Automobil-Kunstleder-Meterware-Sitzbezug-Polsterstoff-in-schwarz-150-cm-Breite/372665484347?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=641449882023&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2648 I put on the remaining stickers, assembled it and before weathering, I used Microsoft word to replicate the "220V" sticker and the "WARNING" sticker. original: mine: I just messed around with it until it looked about right, printed them and put a layer of self-adhesive film on top, so it would survive the following weathering. I tried to get the "MIC" and "EAR" stamps on the pleather surround as well but it didn´t work out as planned, so I´m not completely happy with this particular detail. This is what it looks like on Tony´s original: I decided against the techniques I regularly use for weathering, which is watered down black and earth acrylic paint dabbed off with paper towels and used some kind of sponge my wife uses to clean her leather winter boots and refresh the black colour. I just used it as it was and didn´t apply any more shoe polish. I wanted to achieve just a subtle used and greasy effect and I´m happy with it. Finally, for the first time ever, I have used fuller´s earth to do the weathering and while I would never use it on armor, it worked just fine on the radio, making it look dusty and old. And here´s the finished project: And now it´s on display with some of my favourite stuff... maybe one day I will attach it to a pack for some time. That would just add to the realism of having a screen-used radio... with even more holes in the back cover. Cheers mates

Next up was painting. The original Sonix Radio faceplate has some metal edges left and right of the speaker in the middle and the metal shows a little where the paint has worn off, it also looks just a tad bit rusty: pics showing Tony´s radio: my replica: Tony supplies stickers and decals with his kit but I used a white wax crayon to get some paint into the recesses. As it can be seen on the original, I added mesh behind the speaker area: