Calum Gibson 48th scale Tempest Series II fighter from Eduard is cracking along at apace - already, he is sealing the wings and cockpit together. See how he is progressing and maybe pick up some tips for your own build in part II of his build guide...
From Eduard Model Accessories
1/48th scale
Kit No #82122
Plastic Injection moulded kit
Six decal options from Cartograf
Photo-Etched parts
Painting mask included
Product Link on the Eduard Website
Previously in this series:
On to the wings with today's part II of the build.
Getting the top and bottom pieces to fit nicely took a bit of effort, in the end I cut off the locating pins to get a better fit. There was still a bit of clean up needed up on the leading edge. A mate had recently put me onto this U-Star Parting Line Scraper (No.3) designed for removing mould or seam lines. The theory being that you use the appropriate curve on the tool to scrape on the radii of the part. First impressions are that it works well
The trailing edge and wing tips of the Tempest wing, taper to a sharp point. To best simulate this Eduard chose to mould part of the lower parts on the wing on the upper wing parts. The disadvantage of this is that we have a lot of seam clean up to do on the underside. I chose a mixture of CA and talcum powder for this task. Thankfully there are only some rivet lines to restore when the seam is eliminated.
I usually apply the CA with an old blade then dump some talcum powder on it. Then I hit with water or accelerator. I leave it for 2 minutes or so before sanding.
The gun inserts also needed a little bit of adjustment to get a reasonable fit. Eduard supply for tiny gun barrels . I chose to leave these out as I intend to use some off-cuts of syringe needle for the 20mm cannon barrels. These will be easier to insert after the painting.
Cleaning up the centre seam means you have to spend a bit of time restoring the rivet detail. This detail is a lot deeper than the original kit parts. I’m hoping it’ll tone down under the paint.
The fit of the Wing to the Fuselage is generally OK. It is well worth spending time getting the rear join perfect as there is a seam here running through some detail that will need to be addressed. I glued this area first and let it set but didn’t do as good a job as I could have.
There was a gap between the wings and fuselage so I did have to use tape to bend the wings up slightly to get a good bond with the fuselage. I used Tamiya quick setting extra thin but left it overnight to set.
Now the Fuselage and wing is joined there is a fair bit of seam filling on the underside as parts of the flaps are on the fuselage.
I used Sprue Goo initially followed by some Mr Surfacer to further smooth out the small step I wouldn’t have had had I taken more care when gluing the wing to fuselage.
Assuming the Eduard line drawings are correct (and I have reason to think they aren’t ) another area that needs filling was the join of the tail planes to the fuselage. This is the same for the upper and lower joints.
A couple of final shots before the upper cockpit insert goes on. This is one of the nicest cockpits out of the box I’ve built, pity most of this won’t be seen when the upper deck goes on
I did have to apply some light pressure to get everything aligned but fit of the upper cockpit decking is pretty much perfect.
Next - to seal the rest of the kit up and add some extras - Stay tuned for more on this build over the next few weeks...
Calum Gibson
Calum Gibson
You can order this kit from the Eduard Store Directly - Thanks to Eduard for sending these to Calum to build.