Revell Super Hornet with lessons learned

[Out2gtcha 30,167]

Wowzers! What a job you are doing here!    Great work and tenacity shown here...............more than I would have shown to a brand new tool kit for sure. I dont know how many of these will ever get built, but once you get it done, you may have a rare bird!  No one including myself seems to be willing to tackle this mess.

 

You're doing exceptional work here..............Keep going! 

[Fvdm 650]

This really is exceptional work. 

[Starfighter 3,046]

Great job! It's a no-brainer for me, I will definitely not get this kit. There is just no reason to build it - even with all the work going into it, it will remain inaccurate and most of its only advantage over the Trumpeter kit - the surface detail - is being destroyed during the build process. I'll keep following your build with huge interest and at the same time, I will start hoarding Trumpeter Bugs... 

[hpetiers 348]

hi gents, indeed I am making good use of the fora so far, the trick here really is dry fitting to make sure that you are not going to be surprised when parts are glued.

After all had dried I could finally mount the fuselage top and nose, this time with no stress in the plastic:

 

around I just need to fill small gaps:

 

the elevator connection is really sticking out from the fuselage too much, need to sand that down still:

 

also at the cockpit things align pretty much ok:

 

I read some things about the nose, it should have a constant radius in the side view, Revell has made a bit of a kink in it. With sanding sticks I have tried to make the radius more constant:

 

before glueing the wings together I decided to add the outer wings an see how things fit:

 

Also here is seems that the hinge mechanism is 2 mm too long, causing a gap:

 

also the lid on the hinge does not fit without taking away material, the manual does not mention it:

 

so out comes the cutters:

 

now it starts to fit better, I need to take 2 mm off of the outside hinge lip:

Edited May 24 by hpetiers

[Gazzas 5,927]

Nice!

[hpetiers 348]

got some work done on the seams, all of them on the assembly so far have been dealt with:

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and on the bottom side of the fuselage, not too bad:

 

and I have also assembled all the moving surfaces of the wings:

 

then continued dry fitting some cockpit parts. the seat was just assembled to compare with the resin version from Aires:

 

and as others have already found out, the canopy does not fit due to the seat sitting 2 mm too high:

with the new seat I also need to do something, but the conflict is smaller:

 

the new seat itself fits without any further adjustments:

 

I added a Tamiya F-16 pilot in the seat, everything fits almost without any cutting or sanding:

 

 

Edited May 18 by hpetiers

[1to1scale 3,129]

Wow, it seems like every time you, complete one challenge, another pops up. You are doing a great job with it so far!

[DonH 1,261]

What a great job you are doing. This kit would defeat me almost as soon as I started it, so I am watching with awe and wonder.

[hpetiers 348]

Hi DonH and 1to1scale, defeat is not what I am risking anymore I think. After having completed the assembly of the fuselage I think that most other things will be easier. Especially now that I have a solution for the landing gear see below.

First I still had to mount the foldable wings. I already knew that I would have to cut the lip on the outside wing part of the hinge, but after glueing the wing halves together I concluded that the lip is also too thick to fit inside the outer wing:

not so nice Revell....

 

after having sanded the lip thinner, it fit into the slot:

 

having glued the parts together, top and bottom seam are very ok:

 

both wings attached, on with the moving surfaces!

 

the hinge cover, slats and flap covers fit quite well looking from above:

 

but the slats will make far too large an angle if you mount them without gaps. So I had to leave a rather large gap to make the angle work. this will need to be filled:

 

though I will mount the flaps after painting, I clamped them temporarily to see how it goes together. at least this fits!

 

Another possible headache was resolved with the modification of the landing gear. Below to the right the original pieces, they require a lot of cleaning up. However the hinge mechanism could be separated quite easily in order to put them in the fully extended position, assembled to the left bottom. Also the nose landing gear can be easily extended:

 

 

Edited May 24 by hpetiers

[chrish 1,476]

I’m trying to think what to say...I have no words!

[hpetiers 348]

Hi Chrish, thanks for your support. Speaking of support I put the aircraft on a temporary stand to see what it looks like, what I have in mind.

that is what I am looking for!

 

still need to do more work on the nos wheels as they are standing too far apart. Also the main landing wheels are too square in profile.

All in all the landing gear is not bad, but a bit too skinny. You wonder if Revell had the nerve to deliver the parts for the gear in plastic, they might want to have made the parts at least as thick as in real life. I am not so worried for this one, being up in the air.

 

with some final touches on the cockpit, it's almost time to start painting!

[hpetiers 348]

...or so I thought I was almost ready for paint. The plastic HUD as supplied by Revell was quite a thorn in the eye, based on which I decided last week to buy the Eduard cockpit set in photo etch for the Trumpeter model. I really did not want to wait for the Revell one to come out, I wanted to start painting soon. Wanting the HUD most I thought that all extra panels that would fit would be a bonus. 

 

Turns out that all parts fit this super bug quite well. So that added another 20 or so parts to my project.

 

Before adding the PE I finished work on the tail surfaces. I already read elsewhere that  they do not fit well, I wanted to reduce the gaps before I would mount them to the fuselage.

The trick I used was to put some Milliput onto the glue surface of the tails: 

 

then cover the surface by a piece of sandwich plastic foil:

 

then press the tail into its gap:

 

 

when the tail was removed, the imprint of the fuselage was in the putty:

 

after drying I could remove the foil and sand the excess material flush with the tail:

 

The gap between tail and fuselage is much smaller now:

 

I also closed the gap between fuselage and stabilizers by adding PS strip:

 

Next step: The pilot has his arms added and fitted to the position of the stick and throttle. Stick and throttle have been glued to the hands and will not contact the cockpit anymore, but this will be invisible:

 

Pilot nearly ready for paint, except the addition of the PE shoulder and waist straps:

 

 

The PE set that I bought had some parts I did not expect to find, turns out that the mesh on the turtle deck is also in there. Even nicer is that it fits quite well on the Revell model. Also the cockpit sidewalls fit well, camouflaging the seam between the upper and lower fuselage:

 

And now I am really ready for primer!

[chrish 1,476]

great thinking! good job!!

[hpetiers 348]

during recent evenings I have been busy with paint! taking a step away from my usual 1:72 projects, I must say that the ejection seat and the pilot are already a project of their own.

Here is some pictures. The pre-coloured PE worked quite well even though it was meant for the Trumpeter kit:

 

 

time for a layer of matt varnish for everything and some gloss for the visor and I can think about closing up the cockpit!

[Squizzy 452]

I'm starting to see these kits popping up in a lot more shops now, and I can't but help wonder who is going to be the poor one that purchases this kit, I assume that they won't have an understanding of what they're in for. 

The work you've done here is amazing, you shouldn't be required to do this to achieve a good finish on a modern kit, but the work your doing and the results you're getting are great, and enjoyable to watch.