32 P/E parts on one sheet
Canopy masks + Decals for one aircraft
Part I Part II Part IV Part V
The hardest part until now was the removal of the ejector marks inside the large cockpit area that is all too transparent and opens up for all eyes to see any of your faults – well it aint over yet! There are more injection pins to best in the pair of nacelles that go the length of the kit. But with a bit of sanding though and some hot glue these get beaten pretty easily, leaving you to think why you paused so long in continuing them.
You can see the circular injection marks inside - no problem - a bit of elbow grease!
The open cowling needs subtle treatment as it is very thin..
These nacelles are paired specifically for a reason– and I simply numbered mine as not to try and glue two wrong ones together – the reason they are paired as the wing bulges very neatly fit into and under the wings as they go on to the engines and pods – you wouldn’t want to get them on and secured to find you have to tear them off.
I was going to display one of the lovely Argus engines and their pod open anyway so I had to think twice before gluing the wrong part. If you do decide to close up the engine bay (and waste the detail?) you still have to make the engine up and place it on the mounts if you want to have the propellers attach to something. I suppose you could always glue the propellers straight onto the front of the nacelle – but they would not rotate and there is a slight prominence where the engine pops out forward as well – so both engines went together on mine.
Step I –rough sand
Step II Light sand
Step III Fill in the gaps with Tamiya “hot” glue to seal things
Before I could button anything up I had to paint inside the nacelles – and before I could paint them I had to remove the ejector pin marks inside – probably about eight marks are inside the wheel well and the engine inside mounting cowling – I hit them first with my rotor tool and some really excellent sanding tools from Master Details of the USA - the Alpha Abrasives sanding needles and files made short work of the remnants with the sharp tip of the sanding sticks and then the flat end which is like a sanding chisel – there are three gradients and this job took about an hour to do all four halves of the cowling. With this Rotacraft tool and these sanders I really did sort the job out fast and I would advise you to get them if you don’t have them in your arsenal – Sometimes a little money saves you a whole lot of time - I for one am glad I spent the money!
The result!
The result is some nicely scar free innards which come up very nice through painting and then some dark was from Mig Pigments. I then wiped the excess clear and painted first a coat of regular RLM02 then a slightly lightened highlight of dry brush in these wheel well and engine nacelle areas. How many people will actually look inside is beyond me – probably not many – but I know it’s there…
First the basecoat
Then the Dark brown wash
Next the highights - no one but me knows what is in there - but i decided to do it right anyway
The propellers went together easily as well – well too easily – I was looking for them to look smooth but these indeed need a seam as the front part stays still while the centre prop spins only. Here are the props – some real versions being restored and the end result in Black/Green – or is it Green/black – Model Air Vallejo
Next came the lump in the throat tight trousers time of buttoning up the nacelles. One thing to note for your kit is if you are going to model the engine covers open be careful as the frame of the cowling can be delicate so treat it nice! The closed starboard nacelles engine cover goes on quite easily. But the “knuckles” of the hinges need to be sanded down as they’re not scale thickness as you can see in the pic below – no biggie though.
To button these up you will need to have three hands – and I found some of the flexible vices very handy when I needed a fourth hand – they are made by rolson and I got mine from the hardware shop – very handy and they don’t tend to crack plastic or glue if you don’t be to forceful. You will see these pretty often on my builds I like them a lot.
The best thing to do I found when putting the nacelles together was to use three types of glues – Tamiya extra thin cement which is quite hot and dries the quickest, Superglue which just sticks to itself almost and doesn’t melt plastic as much and Revell Contacta with the thin needle applicator. All three have very fine applicators and I use at different spots here on the pods. The Revell on the stuff I don’t want to set quickly, which in this case were the wheels in the undercarriage bays. I used the superglue on the inside of the front nacelles to pad out the gap left by the joint in the upper and lower engine bay. I used the Tamiya in-between the fuselage halves – as this has the thinnest applicator and could go into the tightest spots.
The Revell - and sometimes the superglue were used on top of the thin cement to reinforce the pods inner seams. This made a strong joint and no mess on the outsides – no unnecessary scarring or polishing! The top of the nacelles have a nice 1mm strip of plastic going along the seam anyway. The undersides of the nacelles will need a bit of a sand down though. I have to say these halves go together with a snap and the fit is excellent. The tails are meant to be positionable, but without breaking them or cutting down the notches there really isn’t much movement – that is ok as mine will be just ajar.
Note Photo Etched mudguard holders
This is the Nacelles completed after a "X 2" on this I had a tea and switched to some surgery.
The underside of the fuselage calls for a small window to be removed – I did this with my handy Rotacraft tool and my thin sanders again. You could just cut it with a knife and sand it but I wanted to test the shake on my hands. Dementia had not I am glad to say set in, and I was left with a nice panel to add glazing to after the kit is pained underneath. Nice!
Before and after light surgery
After this I did a lot of making sure I wouldn’t have to go back and repair anything else on the nacelles before I started the “Heavy work” on gluing it all together. The hard part yet was still to come – and I cleared the bench for all eventualities to come.
The engine can go inside the nacelle ok but I left the instructions a few steps earlier. I decided to get the nacelles done first as I had seen some other builds of the day fighter version of this kit and they have tried a few ways and always had cracks at the seams of the nacelles and fuselage. I thought I would try my way.
After the glue set on the nacelles I set them inside the wings. The instructions call for the nacelles to be in half but I think that is a bit silly, I thought – I and I wanted as little sanding as possible.
Having the wings glued up with slower but stronger Revell Contacta I pushed them into the nice seams in the recesses of the nacelles – taking care to not jam the engine frames get squashed was my priority so I came at them backwards, making them fit and then the joint of the wing going it. It fell in together easily and I got the old black and orange “Jaws of Life” onto the wing and with a little help from myself found the joints to be pretty good. You have to wiggle the fit around a bit but once you find the right fit it’s nicely sealed up. What I was able to do by using the slower drying but stronger Revell Contacta was to leave myself time to vice together slowly drying parts of the kit which still had gaps in them each in turn, and then any gaps in the wing root were fixed by the pen sized thin super-glue. A nice little combo I stumbled upon but a good set of tools for the arsenal.
Once the Nacelles and the wings were as one I used Contacta again for the fuselage nacelles join. Again following the joints around the kit and injecting the needle point into hidden parts the joints fitted in nicely and once I was secure I was the happiest modeller on the block! Some pictures of the kit together in this basic state pending a sand down so you can see that the joints are actually pretty good even in my oafish hands. I like this kit a lot. Now the hard part is over I can go on to the glasshouse - but that part is the next instalment!!
the tail went on really easilly and can droop or be positioned upwards of course.
– ‘Till then…
Thanks to the guys at airbrushes.com from who I got this kit.