Isar 30/07

Following with great interest! Just a thought: when masking the metal panels on the underwings and doing the flat cote, the black Balkenkreuze are divided into a flat and a glossy area (as far as I can see). If not planned from the beginning, you might be able to correct this before beginning the weathering. As written in the beginning: no critics, just a thought. Cheers Reimund

As written earlier in a post, here are the covering F.3´s which I had to choose one: My choice is Xtra decal N° 11 Sqn. Keep my fingers crossed that they will work when it´s time for decalling, since they are really old and the yellow of the badges beneath the cockpit look much more like an early ink jet print. Would I go on building the F.3? FOR SURE! Can I go on? Not the way I want to. As written earlier, due to building a new house, my focus is on that project during the last months. Projected ready by the end of March 2023, the next challenge is coming over the horizon: the removal half across Germany. As you may imagine, it will take time even in the new house when everything is in place and you will have time to relax and continue modelling. I will try do some modelling but I guess at the moment, the F.3 will not be completed in the home my wife and me are living right now. Whenever some progress is done, I will post some progress. Reimund

For the current build of the F.3 I came across a modeler in Peru. My good friend Alex (aka @Coneheadff) made some research on a German IDS Tornado at display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich-Oberschleissheim. This man in Peru named Eduardo Cardenas needed some information what the APU looks like inside as he wanted to print some updates for Tornados, mainly in 1/48 scale. One let to the other: Contacted Eduardo (he is the master of Jetpassionmodels) and he printed the APU for me. Beside that, I ordered some more stuff for future projects (british bolted 1500 l tanks and some GR/IDS exterior update sets covering new APU, ECS exhausts as well as the airscoop on the belly in an early/late style). There are some more things, he is printing or is about to do in the future - he is real Tornado infected When planning items for the fuselage, he is referring to the Italeri kits (GR.4, ECR - and of course sooner or later the IDS/GR.1 and hopefully one day an F.3, too). Saying this, you have to adjust these parts to the Revell kits, which should be no problem at all. One thing - the APU has some panel lines around that are that deep as we all know when seeing an Italeri kit. Again, with some minor adjustments these parts will work with Revell Tornados perfectly. I don´t know how many different things he is currently offering, so please have a look at his FB site Jet Passion Scale Models (facebook.com) or get in touch via mail (jetpassionscalemodels@gmail.com). Further I don´t know if any retailers carry his stuff, but due to rumors Aero Spezial Modellbauversand - Decals - Fachliteratur - Farben - Figuren - Modellbausätze - Zurüstsets (aero-spezial-modellbauversand.de) in Germany had ordered some items. Checking the site right now, there are no items listed yet. What about the costs? Well, I don´t want name that now, because I could help him with some informations on the Tornado. I don´t know, if his price was some kind of "thank you". But, let me say just one thing: It´s a really fair price comparing to what very high level printed things you will get. More on this maybe on FB.

Hi all, finally received the requested Eduard decals It´s a huge sheet (larger than DIN A4) covering all the stencils of their D32009 (to use with GR.4´s) as well as twice the walkways due to the lenghtened fuselage of the F.3. As you may see in the upper right corner, there are some more decals. First in the outer right there are 3 sets of decals for AN/AAQ-28 (I have 3 of Tim´s sets that lack any decals). Left of these decals there are 50 very small decals, that I asked for. These are electricity warning signs (yellow triangle with an black lightning inside). These signs are often seen on the real ones and so also on the WSO´s consoles in the F.3. Tried to photograph them which is due to their size not an easy task - see the next photos. Last but not least - let´s talk about the costs: I had to pay 3539,25 CZK which is around 150€. Around 100€ is printing, the rest is fot tax/shipping. Comparing to the price for a D32009 sheet this price is impressive. From the beginning of my request I calculated around 100€ which was almost a hole in one in the end. Talking to Martin from Eduard if this will be a single print or if they can print additional ones on request, he told me they are prepared for more requests. Will Eduard sell this sheet within their products? As far as I see - not yet. Will it be available at a reduced price when ordering more sets? I don´t know but to be honest I had no discussion on that point. Does Eduard produce customized decals? I don´t know and I was very surprised when they told me they would do these decals for me. Maybe it was not a big task as the D32009 sheet was already done and there was "just a little change in colouring". One word about conversation over the months: My contact Martin is a very helpful man who did his best to fulfill my wishes. It took more than 6 months from requesting to get this sheet, but as I am not in hurry and due to other things that had to be done first, this was absolutely ok to me. Let me say a BIG thank you Martin - you made my day! If you are interested in this decal sheet, here´s where I contacted Eduard: subdodavky@eduard.com So, now having the decals , I can restart my F.3 ... Reimund

Hi all, finally received the requested Eduard decals It´s a huge sheet (larger than DIN A4) covering all the stencils of their D32009 (to use with GR.4´s) as well as twice the walkways due to the lenghtened fuselage of the F.3. As you may see in the upper right corner, there are some more decals. First in the outer right there are 3 sets of decals for AN/AAQ-28 (I have 3 of Tim´s sets that lack any decals). Left of these decals there are 50 very small decals, that I asked for. These are electricity warning signs (yellow triangle with an black lightning inside). These signs are often seen on the real ones and so also on the WSO´s consoles in the F.3. Tried to photograph them which is due to their size not an easy task - see the next photos. Last but not least - let´s talk about the costs: I had to pay 3539,25 CZK which is around 150€. Around 100€ is printing, the rest is fot tax/shipping. Comparing to the price for a D32009 sheet this price is impressive. From the beginning of my request I calculated around 100€ which was almost a hole in one in the end. Talking to Martin from Eduard if this will be a single print or if they can print additional ones on request, he told me they are prepared for more requests. Will Eduard sell this sheet within their products? As far as I see - not yet. Will it be available at a reduced price when ordering more sets? I don´t know but to be honest I had no discussion on that point. Does Eduard produce customized decals? I don´t know and I was very surprised when they told me they would do these decals for me. Maybe it was not a big task as the D32009 sheet was already done and there was "just a little change in colouring". One word about conversation over the months: My contact Martin is a very helpful man who did his best to fulfill my wishes. It took more than 6 months from requesting to get this sheet, but as I am not in hurry and due to other things that had to be done first, this was absolutely ok to me. Let me say a BIG thank you Martin - you made my day! If you are interested in this decal sheet, here´s where I contacted Eduard: subdodavky@eduard.com So, now having the decals , I can restart my F.3 - more on that later this day. Reimund

Gaz, fantastic build so far! I´m using 2 ways to fill around clear parts: First and common to both: Make sure the clear part is properly glued onto the model (sounds strange, but I made my experiences with that). I´m using MEK or Tamiya thin glue to be sure, every part is properly glued together. One way I´m working further is applying Tamiya putty onto to surfaces and then using a brush dipped into Acetone to smoothen the putty. This works easy and dries much faster than without Acetone. It might be not perfect after the first treatment so you might do it again. BTW - the putty smoothened by Acteone is something I´m using all around a model when filling gaps and so on. The other way is using UV-glue. Simply put the desired amount onto the gap and smoothen it if necessary using fine cloth or similar. When satisfied, use the activator. If not satisfied you can repeat this again - or use putty thinned with Acetone. But ways don´t harm the clear parts. HTH Reimund

Very interesting project, Rick. I came along with a similiar "what-if" when reading that a lot of Spitfire and Hurricane pilots reported of fighting the He 100´s and even claimed several victories over them. So, what would have a He 100 looked like when fighting during the Battle of Britain? Finished my He 100 some months ago and wanted to post some pics for weeks now, but now I´m not sure, if I would "catch" your thread? Reimund

oh YEAH! Can´t wait to see some progress - and maybe you would think about doing this as a conversion set? Keep my fingers crossed! Reimund

As mentioned in my first post here some weeks ago, let me clarify what I was Eduard asking for: I requested the stencils/maintenance markings based on their #D32009 sheet (Tornado GR.4 stencils), this time in the correct colouring for using them on the F.3. There are NO other markings provided like squadron badges, codes and so on. As far as I know, there are 3 sheets for the F.3 around: - FLIGHTPATH #? covering F.3´s of 23, 25 and 111 sqn - XTRADECAL #X001-32 covering one F.3 of 11 sqn beside of three GR.1´s - SUPERSCALE #32-99 covering a Saudi F.3 While the FLIGHTPATH and XTRADECAL sheets seem to be still available, the SUPERSCALE sheet is OOP and hardly to get these days. Sorry if cutting down some expectations here... Reimund

Hi all, just a little update on the requested decals: Due to summer holidays there is a delay in printing the decals by Eduard. Seeing all you interested in these decals, Eduard told me that they are prepared to print more of them. As soon as I get any news (decals ), I`ll let you all know (price, how to get them and so on). Reimund

Hi Neil, last year I visited the Dornier Museum at Friedrichshafen/Germany, where beside other aircrafts a Do 27 was on display. As I have 2 of the RoG-Do 27´s in stash, I made a few photos of the ex-Spanish AF Do 27 there to update my kits once the will be started... I have no idea if there are differences comparing the German AF and Spanish AF ones, but I guess there sure will be in instrument layout. Beside the link to the museum site Das Luft- und Raumfahrtmuseum am Bodensee | Dornier Museum Friedrichshafen, I can send all the photos I made then. Shoot me a pm and hopefully I can help. Reimund

Just a short break in building my own 1:1 scale diorama. Thanks for you comments - much appreciated! Tim, from the beginning of Iain´s test build on this conversion, I was aware this conversion would need some attention. This was pointed out by you (Tim) and Iain and so I did not knew exactly what the conversion set would fit or work. But, I was infected and needed to get these parts. When getting this set, the only thing I said to me: Let´s start! Having written earlier, I learned a lot of Iain´s build and had to dig even deeper into the books I have on the F.3. Yes, I wouldn´t recommend this conversion to a beginner but this build is pure fun to me! Thinking over and over when facing an "obstacle" during building this kit and then trying to fix it - isn´t it that all we are modelers for? When pointing out, that there are some challenges I faced so far, this is written not as a critic on this conversion set - just the things I had to do. Hopefully people may see what is needed to do this conversion and so they can decide whether they would do this journey or not. Just another week or two and then I hopefully can go on with the F.3. Just a thing I wanted to point out at last: The decals I asked EDUARD for are the stencils only. The decal sets from FLIGHTPATH and/or XTRADECAL are needed for all the other markings like squadron signs and so on. I have no idea if these are still available. If of interest, I will post both sets next time and if there is someone interested in on or the other markings option, then let me know. Reimund

I had this option in mind as well as maybe using Italeri parts for the wheel wells. As I used lead foil to do an seamless intake in the GR.1 built, I know it´s working. I checked the Italeri wheel wells but this would be an major task to bring them to the Revell Tornado.

That´s for now so far. As written, I´m building a house which means hardly any time for modeling at the moment and this will last some more weeks/months. I can´t promise to react to posts at all or soon. This doesn´t mean, I do not read them, but my time is running. Please have that in mind when waiting for an answer. When Eduard is sending me the requested stencilling, I will post a few photos. Cheers Reimund

The smaller tanks were made look like the british. As far as I have seen they had rivets on it. These were made using resin rivets from ARCHER in different sizes. Some more details were made using again sheet and bolts made by a puch&die set. After painting I used the kit decals which were horrible to put on. Even softener hardly didn´t work. I think, the base kit was one of the first release from the 90ies. The tanks still need some weathering, The Phimat chaff dispenser pods had to be made by scratch. Different rods, tubes and the front ends from 1/35 grenades needed only some sanding. The fins are made of thin sheet, cut to size using a NWSL `The Chopper II`. To put them later very easy to their stations, I put in two copper wires. A BIG thank you to my friend Alex who let me his 1/48 Eduard Phimats to use them as a master. As with the tanks: some homemade decals and weathering need to be done. The wings had to be cut to add the PARAGON set for separate slats and flaps. Not a big match, cleaning takes most of the time. As with the MLG earlier - no photos from a later stage yet. The outer openings for the pylons needed to be closed. Again, a 1/35 grenade was helpful.