Revell Zero Rebuild

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've made some more progress over the weekend, having all but finished the wheel wells:

 

 

 

This is basically my first attempt at any real scratch building, and I think it turned out acceptably well. Once everything has fully cured I'll give it a coat of Mr Surfacer and see what it looks like. It certainly looks better than the original kit wheel wells, that's for sure! Thanks once again to RookieLSP for the CMK resin parts.

 

On the inside of the wing I added styrene tube to accept the replacement gun barrels when the time comes (probably from brass or aluminium tube). This will allow me to secure them properly after construction and painting, something I learned from not doing it on my Dora build! As long as I got the alignment and angle right, it should be a cinch.

 

 

I also made a start on detailing the area underneath the upper wing associated with the lowered flaps:

 

 

Just going for an impression of the real thing here, rather than a rivet-perfect copy.

 

Comments welcome and thanks for looking!

 

Kev

[Tony Mollica]

Really good work Kev.

[mrintense]

Hey Kev,

 

This is looking really good. Good luck with this kit and the additions. I've always enjoyed taking an older kit and trying to improve on it. However, I know that it can be frustrating as well because of the types or problems you've already encountered. Keep up the good work and looking forward to more pics.

 

Carl Smoot

[CPNGROATS]

Kev: Your making a very good "impression" of the real thing...modeling art I'd say...please to show us more..

Cheers,

ggc

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks once again for the kind words guys - they're always appreciated, and do in fact help with the motivation to keep going!

 

I've been busy the last couple of evenings building the flaps and generally working on the wing area. I scratch-built the flaps from plastic sheet and strip:

 

 

It's a little hard to see in the photo, but the top flap has some pins made from copper wire, which will allow me to glue them into the wing and bend them to the right angle (I hope!). Let's hope the CA holds through the bending process...

 

Here's the assembled wing:

 

 

Pretty scruffy really, and my rescribing doesn't bear close examination (probably need some remedial work at some stage), but I'm happy with my results so far. It's the cockpit that I'm really dreading!

 

EDIT

 

I just noticed this is my 400th post!

 

Kev

[bcauchi]

What excellent work you are doing there Kevin. First class job on both the wheel wells and the flaps. Accurate and very neat. Can;t wait to see that painted up. it is going to look real nice. Well, done and keep this up. With a lot of elbow grease, the old revell stuff may be made to appear as nice as the new kits. And you are doing just that.

[Ironwing]

Kev,

Very nice detail work. I look forward to much more of this...

 

Geoff

[Allok]

This is basically my first attempt at any real scratch building, and I think it turned out acceptably well.

It's turning out brilliantly!

 

No going back now, Mate!

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks once again chaps! I wish I could improve my photography as well, as today's batch is pretty ordinary. Oh well. Santa's bringing a new camera (which I'm off to pick up today), so hopefully you'll see some improvements there too soon!

 

Because one of the ailerons broke during the disassembly phase of this build, I decided to scratch build some replacements, rather than try to repair the kit one. I did glue them back together, but it would take a lot of remedial work to get them up to snuff, and while I'm on a roll I thought I'd see if I could do better myself.

 

 

Getting the shape right was actually easy; fitting and reinforcing the two halves (upper and lower), from substantially thinner plastic than the kit's, proved to be much trickier. I might try a slightly different approach for the starboard unit.

 

Here's a really poor shot from underneath showing one of the flaps fitted:

 

 

You can see a slight mismatch in the upper and lower aileron shapes where it meets the flap, which I'll try to address somehow.

 

Sorry about the photos!

 

Kev

[Ironwing]

Kev,

 

Your doing great , keep going

 

Geoff

[mrintense]

Thanks once again chaps! I wish I could improve my photography as well, as today's batch is pretty ordinary. Oh well. Santa's bringing a new camera (which I'm off to pick up today), so hopefully you'll see some improvements there too soon!

 

Because one of the ailerons broke during the disassembly phase of this build, I decided to scratch build some replacements, rather than try to repair the kit one. I did glue them back together, but it would take a lot of remedial work to get them up to snuff, and while I'm on a roll I thought I'd see if I could do better myself.

 

 

Getting the shape right was actually easy; fitting and reinforcing the two halves (upper and lower), from substantially thinner plastic than the kit's, proved to be much trickier. I might try a slightly different approach for the starboard unit.

 

Here's a really poor shot from underneath showing one of the flaps fitted:

 

 

You can see a slight mismatch in the upper and lower aileron shapes where it meets the flap, which I'll try to address somehow.

 

Sorry about the photos!

 

Kev

 

 

Great work Kev, keep up the progress. I see a sow's ear in transition to a silk purse!!

 

Carl

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks guys - once again I find myself grateful for your comments and encouragement. I've finished both ailerons now and have given the entire wing a couple of light coats of Mr Surfacer 1200 out of a rattle can. This is so I can check for any real issues and address them now, rather than once the wing is attached to the fuselage.

 

 

 

In the bottom photo you can see I've epoxied some brass tubes into the undercarriage leg locating holes. The main gear legs will be fabricated from brass tube the next size up (well, that's the plan anyway!), and they'll slip nicely over these pins. Not only will this greatly aid strength, but help keep the undercarriage at the proper cant. I'm going to order some replacement wheels from MasterCasters, as the Revell wheels are just silly and I don't see myself making them looking better than Jay's. I'll hold off doing much with the undercarriage proper until I have the wheels to serve as a datum.

 

I need to get moving on the cockpit next but it gives me the willies! I think if I can manage a decent seat it will probably fall together after that.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Kev

[LSP_Kevin]

Thanks Dan, I appreciate it! Time for what will probably be my last update for a week or so, as I'm going away between Christmas and New Year's.

 

I've epoxied bits of old red and green toothbrushes to the wing landing light positions, ready to be filed, shaped and polished when cured. I didn't bother taking a photo of them however, so you'll have to trust me.

 

On a whim I decided to use another of the CMK parts that RookieLSP sent me (thanks again Dave!) to detail the fuselage:

 

 

So far as I can tell it's a fuel filler hatch, but I'm happy to be corrected if not. I had already scribed the hatch prior to decided to cut it out, so I just took my needle-in-a-pin-vise and kept going. The plastic on this kit is so thick in places (around 1.5mm in this area) that it took nearly 10 minutes to cut through. The scratches you can see are my clumsy slippages, but they shouldn't survive the primer and paint coats. After that I thinned the inside as much as practicable using a Dremel, and glued the part in behind the hole. I think there's a PE hatch cover for it somewhere in the CMK set, so that'll be dangled from the hole at the end I guess.

 

Season's greetings and all the best for the New Year, and thanks to everyone for their encouragement, support and generosity this year at LSP!

 

Kev

[LSP_Kevin]

OK, back on deck and trying to keep the momentum going with this one. As a way of continuing to avoid the cockpit, I've sanded and polished the wingtip lights:

 

 

The cut outs I made are too large, so I'll have to mask the correct size and make good some dodgy gaps between the toothbrush plastic and kit wing. You can see that I've also made a flat spot in the wing profile while sanding things to shape.

 

Kev

[LSP_Kevin]

Wow, I leave this build for 3 weeks and it's back to page 5!

 

I took a few days off after finishing the Komet, but am slowly getting back into the swing of this one. I've been avoiding doing anything with the cockpit, as the one in the kit is rubbish, and the prototype cockpit is very busy. I just felt (still feel!) that scratch-building a new one is beyond me, but I don't have a choice really. After a couple of abortive attempts to scratch-build a new instrument panel, I decided to use the one in the kit:

 

 

Compared to the real thing, it's actually not too bad, and much closer to reality than a lot of kit instrument panels I've seen - pretty impressive considering this kit's age. All I did was paint, wash and dry-brush it. It's OK for what it is I think. I modified the gun sight to look more like the real thing, and will attempt to add a ring sight and reflectors once it's all installed.

 

I also decided to reuse the kit's cockpit floor - highly modified of course! Just to prove that I have been attempting something with the cockpit, here's where it's at currently:

 

 

A long way to go!

 

Kev