Fisher Hunter T7 conversion.... Finished.

[ericg]

I know I know, another WIP on my bench. Actually I am a bit embarrassed by the fact that I have quite a few on the go at the moment.
I picked up the Fisher conversion at a great price along with some other models and I decided to give it a go whilst waiting for paint to dry and parts to show up.

The basic Revell kit is quite nice. The panel lines are very finely engraved and details are really nice. I do feel the plasic is a little thin so care is needed in construction.

My particular kit looked like it had been left in someones car boot in the sun, as some parts had warped and extra time was required to remedy this.

Here are the components of the intake assembly. One half of the intakes were very warped so alot of extra time was spent getting it to an acceptable condition. Alclad dark aluminium with stainless steel compressor fan.I added a wash of black in the fan blades.



Here is the cockpit halfway finished. Up to the usual Fisher quality. All painted with Tamiya NATO black.



The instrument panel. A fairly fiddly process but looks good in the end. As the cockpit is all black, I have my work cut out for me to make this `busy' so stay tuned for further instalments. I applied the white outline with a paintbrush and a steady hand, I will still need to do a few touch ups.



Here is my 16 month old son smoothing out some of my mess ups.



Test fit of the front fuselage. The Fisher stuff is so easy to work on even a baby can do it!



Back to the serious stuff. Here is the resin front of the fuselage offered up to the fuselage without modification. There is a half centimeter gap.



Some small mods and a very satisfying `click' sound when it falls into place.

Edited July 22, 2014 by ericg

[ericg]

Here is the cutout required to fit the top half of the resin fuselage.

 

The lovely resin tailcone and exhaust assembly. Practically a drop in fit.

 

 

I had to conduct some major surgery on this flap as it was very bent and warped due to the above mentioned heat.

 

I have also filled the circular cutout on the flap as I am confident that T7's didnt have the mod.

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Eric, you're a machine! Looks like a nice project. I'll be following along.

 

Kev

[Guest Peterpools]

Eric

Nothing like adding another 'simple and easy' conversion project to the on going builds on the bench. Nice work on getting everything to fit and line up. Of course, we all know who really does all the hard work.

Keep 'em coming

Peter :popcorn:

[seiran01]

Great start. I have this kit and conversion high on my to-build pile and will be following closely. What did you modify on the fuselage to get the front to fit after than half inch gap?

[ericg]

Hi Mike,

 

I modified the edges of the intake as mentioned in the Fisher instructions.

 

Eric.

[Guest]

Eric, your co-builder is doing a bang up job ! Really a great start. What color did you use for the pit ? Looks fantastic, very real..............Harv

[A.Wolf Grant]

Wonderful - does he do the tricky bits for you?

 

Talk about mass production! Do you ever come up for air I still think the Hunter is one of the prettiest fighters ever drawn - I'd love to do a 1/32 FGA 9 in Rhodesian Air Force colours.

 

Think I'm going to enjoy this one.

 

Grant

[ericg]

The thing I love about our hobby is how thinking outside the square can often yield exceptional results. In my F-117 build, I cut very thin lines from a black decal in order to make the black stripes on ejecction seat handles etc. It was almost impossible to get lines that were the same width and they would often break up when seperating from the decal shhet. When thinking about how I could `do it better' I realised that there was already a precut solution to my needs right before my eyes. On the Wingnut Wings decal sheets there are very thin black lines that seperate each colour scheme. They happen to be exactly the right width to represent the black lines as applied to a solid yellow surface. So here goes:

 

 

Remove a strip from the decal sheet and slice it into workable sections

 

 

Apply to the yellow painted object and you have perfect black lines!

 

 

Almost completed cockpit:

 

 

Installed:

 

 

Fuselage halves joined together.

 

Edited December 14, 2012 by ericg

[PhilB]

Terrific solution with the black stripes Eric.

I'm glad you are finding the going pretty smooth.

I had some fit issues with the resin nose on mine but you are creaming this one!

[ericg]

Here is the hard part... getting the front resin conversion to meet up with the plastic and make it all look like it was supposed to be!

 

I can't emphasise enough that time needs to be taken to get this to fit properly, other wise it will not line up. I ground away at the resin grooves that fit the wing/intake joint until the bottom joint was very close to perfect. you can only do this by constantly fitting it together and then marking where excess material needs to come off.

 

 

Here is the stock joint with everything lining pretty well as it should

 

 

I decided that I would try to strengthen the resin to plastic joint as best as I could as alot of weight will pass through what is essentially a few centimeters of glue. this process has made the joint very strong and I would highly recommend this approach to anyone building this kit.

 

I drilled a few holes where the plastic is directly under a step in the resin fuselage.

 

 

Inserted some brass pins that fit very tightly with superglue.

 

 

Cut to length

 

 

I added a few extra.

 

 

Here is the top of the fuselage and how it fits AFTER I poured almost boiling water over it and reshaped it to lay almost perfectly over the top of the fuselage.

 

The plan will be to superglue this part in place and then pour more boiling water over it to relieve any stresses in the joints.

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Wow, boiling water Eric! You are one brave mofo. Looks like it's working out nicely though.

 

Kev

[ericg]

I have a photo request. I am looking for a nice clear close up picture of the flash suppressor fitted to the cannon barrel of the two seat hunters, as you can see in this picture:

 

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Hawker-Hunter-T7/1076351/M/

 

Here is todays efforts. After letting the spine join set overnight, I poured very hot (almost boiling) water over the resin spine to relieve the stresses that had built up in the resin piece as a result of it not fitting flush against the fuselage and having to clamp it whilst it set. With very minimal filler here is the end result. A very sharp fitting resin component. I have painted the joint with Mr surfacer and then rubbed it off with a cotton bud dipped in Mr thinner.

 

[SR10user]

Excellent work Eric. I've got one in the stash eyeing me. I started my research already, so I just happen to have some pics I've downloaded from the www. I went and found the links for them. I hope these help.

 

Dave

 

http://www.flickr.co...N08/6720196551/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/6720189005/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/7462480586/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/7790209976/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/7790211156/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/7773136984/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/7657254794/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/6977517833/

http://www.flickr.co...N00/7577103340/

http://www.flickr.co...N08/7790247224/

http://www.flickr.co...obe/4990968106/

http://www.airliners...ced66c8306dc768

http://www.airliners...ced66c8306dc768

http://www.airliners...ced66c8306dc768

http://www.airliners...ced66c8306dc768

http://www.airliners...ced66c8306dc768

http://www.airliners...ced66c8306dc768

http://www.airliners...ced66c8306dc768

Edited December 15, 2012 by SR10user

[ericg]

Here is the scheme that I have chosen, it is a 1417 flight dual seater based at RAF Khormaksar, in 1966. Initially I was going to do the camouflaged scheme that is in the Fisher conversion but felt that the white will break up the wierd outline of the bird a bit too much for my liking:

 

http://pembrokeshire...hunter_t7_xf321

 

Thanks to the kind assistance of Dave (SR10user), I was able to scratch build the flash suppressor. mostly based on this pic that he pointed to in his post above:

 

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

 

And here it is!

 

The stock Fisher configuration

 

 

With the new flash suppressor that I scratched out of 6 parts. Just needs a prime and a tidy up and then I will be casting the suppressor if anyone is interested.

 

 

Edited December 16, 2012 by ericg