Eurofigher Typhoon F.2, RAF, Revell 1/72

This is a build that I had hoped to have completed in time for the Roscoe Turner contest, but due to some serious fit issues, it's probably not going to happen. The kit has some pretty poor fit and I get the sense that Revell cheaped out on this to get it out the door. Hopefully the 1/32 one I have fits better.

Anyway the Typhoon is my favorite European fighter at the moment. There's something about those gigantic delta wings and its stance that makes it look so cool. Not to mention the fact that it's armed to the gills with the most high-tech weaponry on earth.

Rather than following the instructions, I quickly identified potential problem areas, such as the 3-piece air intake assembly. Revell did partial intake trunking, as far as the eye goes, which is about 1" into the fuselage. Unfortunately the splitter plate fits in with a giant gap that required a few applications of putty and sanding to blend in.

I used Tamiya White Putty for this as it dries quickly and is very pliable, so I was able to use a putty spatula to really cram the putty into the gaps. This really needs to be a smooth transition so I used a damp q-tip with acetone to wipe the dried putty on the trunking, but to get the front area flat I had to sand the spot flat.

The cockpit came next, and this is where poor planning and not paying attention to the details can really mess you up. I planned on using the decals over the cockpit to save time on painting, but I realized too late that the decals do not match up with the parts! Apparently Revell's CAD and decal department didn't bother to meet up. It was too late to sand it off as I had already painted the tub and laid up some Future to prep it for decals. I ended having to cut the main panel decals up to fit over the screens and practically drowned them in Solvaset to get them to form over the shapes. Fortunately the mistake won't be as obvious once it's all closed up, but I know it's there and it bothers me to no end. The raised panel detail doesn't extend the entire side panels either, like in the real plane so it's just about a lose-lose situation. Ordinarily I'd avoid aftermarket photoetch but this may be the exception. There is also a throttle assembly and flight stick that goes in the tub. After a second coat of Future to seal in the decals, I brushed some Citadel Nuln Oil shading medium (more of an ink, really) and then sealed it in with some Citadel flat medium.

After closing up the cockpit tub in the fuselage, it was time to assemble the burner cans. Revell engineered this so you have to have the exhaust nozzles assembled at this point, which was ridiculous since there'd be no way to paint it properly after it's put together. I ended up temporarily attaching the exhaust nozzle to the back of the fuselage, then gluing the chambers to the inside of the fuselage (it's designed to attach primarily to the rims of the burner cans). I did not enjoy putting this together.

 

The lower fuselage/lower wing assembly and upper wings came on next and unfortunately, those did not go on well either. This is due to the complex lines the wings mount on. You'll notice the dogtooth on the wingroot, and part of the lower intake is also on the lower wing. I think Revell meant to do the join lines along panel lines, but in doing so they might have made it way too complex. A more elegant way to do it would be to completely exclude the lower intake from this in the first place. As I used liquid cement to put it together, time was of the essence so I didn't take any pictures. The wing root left a pretty huge gap and I ended up putting some liquid cement on the root, the running tape across to hold it up to the roots. I debated on whether I should have done that or just fill the gaps, as the Typhoon has a fair amount of anhedral in the wings, but once the tension was released the gaps looked better and there was still anhedral. I ended up putting some Mr Surfacer 1000 on the seam to even out the gaps.

I painted the cockpit coaming and deck with Testor's Aircraft Interior Black (which is really a very, very, dark gray), drybrushed it with some gray paint and sealed it with flat medium again. The canopy will come on once I get that seam polished out. The ejection seat is being put together at the moment (I missed some spots when I was spray-painting it) and I'll need to add some depth to the seat cushions and seatbelts so more on that later. Once that's added in the HUD will go on and the canopy will go on.

The airbrake does not fit for nuts. Initial fit shows that the panel stands proud. I mistakenly took off some material at the hinge, which I'm paying for now. For future reference, if you're modeling it with the brake closed, sand down the spine area, as well as a little bit of the interior of the airbrake, clean up the deck on which the brake goes on (it's badly molded and has a lot of soft detail - what the fudge, Revell?!), and thin out the "wings" of the airbrake. It's been a couple of days now and I'm starting to dislike this kit. To fix the hinge. I'll fill the gap with Mr Surface, smooth it out, then scribe in a newer, narrower panel line. Now that I think of it, I probably need to do the same for the rear of the airbrake.

As you can see on the bottom pics, it does not fit that wonderfully either. I'm still unsure why those rectangular holes are there on the wing, but they were supposed to be flush with the panel it goes on, but it must have shifted while the glue was curing. I suppose I could say this is due to bad modeling skill, but honestly, the engineering on this makes for a lousy fitting kit. I'm hoping I just got a bad kit and that the next Typhoon I build fits better. I ended up filling the gap with Tamiya Putty and sanding it smooth. I'm still debating if I want to rescribe that area.

At the end of the day, the wing seam has been smoothed out (the wing fit not sit flush with the fuselage despite my best efforts, probably due to the seams settling during the glue curing process), some panel lines rescribed with UMM's Scriber Tool No.2 (more on that later) and once the canopy is masked and attached, it'll be ready for paint. I am not enjoying this build but I refuse to set this aside as I've already gone too far to give up.


Flipping over, I realized I had forgotten to fill the lower-wing-to-upper-wing gap. The wings left a significant gap that was supposed to go along a panel line, but this was way too thick so I had no choice but to fill them. It didn't help that port and starboard navigation lights were right next to the gaps, so I couldn't simply sand the excess off. To start off, I put tape on the edges of gap. Note that one tape is blue, and the other yellow. The blue tape is regular old 3M painter's tape, cheap but effective. The yellow stuff is Tamiya's kabuki tape. It's more expensive, but holds a finer edge and a bit more flexible allowing for some masking along awkward raised surfaces (like our nav lights here).

Once the tape was on,the seams were filled with Mr Surfacer. You'll note that the tape allows a bit of edge, instead of covering the edge entirely. This would be to allow for some "overlap" so that when the filler is removed, it will sit flush with the wing's surfaced. Once the seam is filled, I will rescribe any lines lost to sanding and filling.


Well, that's it for now. I'll update again later as I work on it.

Grumman F-14D "Santa Felix," VF-31, Revell 1/72

Another Christmas build, I knew I had to build this as soon as I saw a photo of the jet. This kit has uses True Details resin seats with breaker "horns" made from strip styrene. The AN/AAQ-14 pod is from Hasegawa Weapons Set VII, and the GBU-10s and racks from Hasegawa Weapons Set VI.

 The kit is decent, but the Hasegawa and Fujimi kits are still the way to go. The panel lines on this are oddly thick, and strangely enough releases before and after this one did not have these thick lines. What I do like about the Revell kit is that it's simple, cheap and rugged.

Decals were originally from Superscale 72-815, but port side Felix image was misprinted. I scanned image, inverted starboard side Felix to replace port side and added the Santa hat (from photos of the tail I found off Google). The scheme was on around Christmas of 2003. This was also built for the ARC F-14 group build.

Source: U.S. Navy photo by Ensign Charles M. Abell. (RELEASED) Date 21 December 2002(2002-12-21)

Lockheed S-3 Viking "Santa Tracker," VS-35, Hasegawa 1/72

This is a limited edition boxing used with TwoBobs decals for VS-35. The boxing was for the G.W.Bush Mission Accomplished flight (which was also included in the TwoBobs sheet), but I opted for the Santa Tracker instead as it was more colorful, and also since it was for a Christmas-themed build.

 The kit is out of the box, and I experimented with replacing lost panel lines (this kit had raised panel lines) with pencil. The panel lines on the wings were done by preshading the panel lines, then lightly sanding off the top layer of paint after.

The refueling pod on the port wing was white metal, which made it awkward to mount due to the weight. I ended up removing the locator pins and drilling a new set of pins into the pylon and pod. I started this build in 2004, but set it aside for a while, completing it in Christmas of 2005, a particularly rough year for me. To cheer me up, my mom used it as a Christmas decoration that year, so this model holds a special significance for me.

BAe Hawk, Red Arrows, Airfix 1/72

The old Airfix Hawk was the first model kit I had ever received (my older brother got an Airfix Mig-23). My dad bought it for me from some general store of sorts run by this Indian gentleman somewhere in PJ. I don't know if it's there anymore, and if it is it probably doesn't sell kits now. That's too bad - I love these mom-and-pop stores. Over the years I've spent some time locating the old kits I had built or were built for me as a kid, and I've even been able to locate the exact boxings.

 The kit is built OOB, brush painted Humbrol red. I decided to build it just like I did as a kid - no filler, one kind of glue, brush painted. The only concession I made was to paint the exhaust and the pilots. I will probably have to apply a gloss coat to seal the decals in or they'll peel off eventually. Fit is remarkable - the only part I had trouble with was the canopy, which I only did a minimum of sanding. I built this over two days, on a kitchen table (with a piece of newspaper over it of course). It was a good walk down memory lane.

Northrop F-5II, RMAF, Italeri 1/72

 

Another one of my oldies. I used the Italeri F-5E kit, widely regarded to be the most accurate 1/72 F-5E in the market today (and I think it's still the only one). It's a little dated, with slight flash here and there, with raised panel lines, but a pretty detailed cockpit. The only real gripe I had with the cockpit was that the ejection seat was molded in halves, leaving a significant seam in the middle. A couple of days later I figured out that I could cover up the seam by adding a set of seatbelts made out of masking tape. 

I decided that the kit needed to be rescribed, because an initial test fit showed that I would be losing a lot of surface detail as I put the kit together. I wasn't looking forward to it as my experience with rescribing was limited to replacing lost panel lines, and not complete rescribes. That alone took about three weeks with lots of labelling tape, CA glue, a lot of mistakes and redos. The fact that the model would also be in silver paint left very little room for error, and it got to the point where I was very tempted to give up on several occasions. It also didn't help that the model kept getting into accidents, losing a gun barrel and a nose gear panel in the process.

 The decals were out of the box, with the markings of FM2207, one of the more well-known Malaysian Tigers. They were slightly thicker than the usual Italeri and it took a lot of persuading with Solvaset to get the decals to lay down properly. Along the way I put the intake decals in the wrong position, and also accidentally destroyed a few. A quick call to Testor's and their great customer service folks rushed me two new sets within a week.

 

I painted the kit using Testor's Metalizer Aluminum paint, which had a great laquer look to it once sealed. Since I would be weathering it with oils later, I used Future as a sealer instead of the usual Metalizer sealer. The natural metal portion of the engines were painted with Alclad Aluminum.

Finally, the missiles from the kit looked rather odd to me, so I swiped a set of AIM-9Js from a Hasegawa F-16 kit. A quick comparison shows that the Italeri samples were too wide. Hobby Boss has released an updated version of this kit with recessed panel lines. I've bought a few and will be adding to the blog when they're done. 

 

 

EE Canberra B.8, SAAF, Airfix 1/72

Another Airfix kit, this time the Canberra, which was one of the first of the new moldings after Hornby took over the company and injected some new life into it. A new Canberra kit was much needed and Airfix managed to deliver a quality kit with minimal cost. It’s not a super-detailed kit but it offers incredible value for money – simple construction with minimal fuss and very reasonably priced at $25 (the limited run High Planes kit ran at about $35-40 before shipping).  This particular boxing is the Canberra B.8(I).  The “I” stands for “interdictor.”

The cockpit is quite detailed and I had a lot of fun putting it together. Too bad the guy in the bombardier’s compartment has to pretty much sit in the dark (British pilots would call the bombardier’s position the Black Hole), with a little window on the side. The bombardier would also crawl forward into the clear nose to operate the bombsight (remember that this is a late 1940’s era jet, with late WW2-era bombsight technology).

 

I had to pack a ridiculous amount of weight in the front. It was a hassle to squeeze in that much weight in so little space. If I were to do this again, I would use smaller weights like #7 1/2 shot pellet, rolled up in plumber’s putty as it would fit in those little crevices better.

The fuselage went together fairly well. I used a bit of Mr Surfacer 500 to fill a seam line, sanded, polished and then rescribed the panel lines. The wings were the easiest thing to put together. Two gigantic wing halves glued together, then stick the engine face on! The tail rudder needed some modification though – the tail had these panel lines that look really odd and detract from the final look, so I filled it with putty and sanded the surface smooth. Once the fuselage, wings and tail surfaces are put together you really get a sense of how big of a plane this is.
 

 

The ejection seat is out of the box, but nicely detailed. It has molded-on seat belts (perfectly fine for the tiny, dark cockpit) and according to the instructions and some of the reference photos I found, a bright yellow seat cushion that was for some reason my favorite part of the entire model (probably because it was so brightly colored). The bombardier’s seat is slightly different from the pilot’s so be careful when you’re putting it together. I stuck the engine faces on and it was from there that I found my first real issue with the model. Somehow, one of the engine faces was round and the other ovoid.  I can’t remember how it turned out this way – either I oversanded one of them or there was a molding issue. To correct it, I slathered on some Milliput, shaped it into the basic shape with some water and my finger, then sanded it down after the putty had cured.

 

After a coat of primer to insure that I was happy with the seams, I sprayed the entire model down with Warhammer’s Mithril Silver. For an acrylic paint I was really impressed by how fine the metallic flakes were. A major bonus for this was that I could thin it with tap water. The paint went on smoothly, was dry to the touch within 10 minutes and fully cured within a day.

 

  

Decals are for the markings of a South African Air Force (SAAF) bird during the war with Angola.  The decals took three days to apply – the wingwalk lines went on first, then sealed, then the stencils went on next, sealed again and finally the unit markings and roundels. The decals were in perfect register and were a joy to use. The cannon belly packed looked really neat and I added a pair of rocket pods for extra effect. Staining was achieved with a mix of black and gray pastels ground up and applied with a brush.

I wanted the aircraft to look war-weary so I sprayed a flat coat on the model, unfortunately dulling the beautiful metallic sheen on the model. I then added drops of Testor’s Model Master Buffing Aluminum Plate to a cap, wrapped a rag around my forefinger, then rubbed the paint on the model in spots to add some shine. My understanding was that the aircraft were painted silver, so the idea was to make it look like there are still patches of shiny paint left on the aircraft. The final touch was to add an antenna wire using a fishing line glued on with CA, then painted a dark metallic color.

 

The Canberra is a very nice model, and again, good value for money, that looks fantastic with patience and a little care.  I also have the PR.9 version that I’ll be doing in colors flown over Iraq in 1991.  Hopefully that’ll show up on this blog soon.