My first double build - Calling them DONE - Pic’s in RFI

[Stokey Pete]

It feels odd building 2 a/c simultaneously. Lucky for me, these Tamiya kits fall together in such a way that it allows me to stack several steps together and because there’s no wheel bays to paint, no engine bay to paint of detail up, I suspect I’ll be almost ready for the paint shop in a couple of weeks. 
 

exhausts ready for metallics

 

Lower halves of fuselage and intake trunking built, lots of sanding to come to attempt eliminating the intake seams. 

 

[Stokey Pete]

Onto the intakes, and a debut for my new, home made, rounded sanding sticks. It’s a bit of a Heath Robinson fix to an awkward problem that is those seams. Followed up with a pour and dump coat of some off white gloss. 

 

[Stokey Pete]

Bonus of building two jets simultaneously...

I can show the screeching end, and the very shouty end in the same shot.

 

 

 

 

 

[Stokey Pete]

 

After several rounds of sanding, and thin coats of paint, I’m suitably happy to install the intake trunks fully.

Not much to show for many hours work but it’s significant progress through the steps.....next stop, the cockpits build.

Parts are removed, trimmed, and primed. 

[Uncarina]

Really really nice, and you nailed the colors inside the exhausts!

 

Cheers,  Tom

[Stokey Pete]

Things are beginning to accelerate somewhat thanks to the almost shake and bake nature of the kits. 
 

 

I chose to have a go at the Alaskan Aggressor driver first. I’ve used a little (or a lot) of artistic licence to do something a little different than the norm for the flight suit. Going with black  gives it that slight Russian bogey feel about him. I’ve also scratch built an oxygen hose with comms cord wrapped around to improve the look. 

 

 

I also posed the head looking slightly up and to the left. When the finished kit is posed, it’s going to be in a slight climbing turn so I wanted him to be looking into the corner so to speak. Spotting the turns exit I guess. 
 

It’s time to stash this one away for a short time while I repeat the process for the Greek jet. I

think I’m gonna use similar artistic licence for the pilot and give him either a cool blue suit, or a decorated helmet, or both.

[Stokey Pete]

Disaster was narrowly averted this morning. All panels painted, detailed painted, seat ready for it’s occupant, and so on.

Child wakes up early and pops into our bedroom for her usual good morning mummy/daddy, and some inane babble. At this point she strolls away and is unerringly quiet for this time of day. I soon find out why. She’s pulled all the tiny cockpit parts from there bits of white tac I’m using to organise and keep from losing, decides

to play hide and seek with them all, and strolls back with a daft grin on her face. 
Cue frantic searches of the carpet monster, desktop, and favourite hiding spots. I recover all but the sensors from the bang seat. Easily replaced with some PE bits I’ve got floating around. For a brief couple of hours, I was looking at sourcing a new sprue or an Aires replacement. 

[Landrotten Highlander]

Luck was on your side, mate

 

Next time the wee one is quiet you know where to look first

 

[Stokey Pete]

State of play a month in, with just a little filler to tidy up a couple of minor seams. I think there’ll be some acceleration from here on. I’ll probably update this once I’m ready to lay paint on the airframes. You all know how easy these things go together, and don’t think you’d see anything not seen before.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Stokey Pete

[MikeMaben]

[Brett M]

Great work on the pilots, they look sharp. Those two schemes are going to look great when you’re done!

[Dandiego]

Double cool.

 

Dan

[Stokey Pete]

They’re ready for the paint shop. For speed and part laziness, I’ll be using un-needed canopy parts for cockpit masks. Leading edge flaps will be re-posed after paint completion because I’m using paint masks that fit flaps up.

Big thanks to @Kagemusha for the parts from a Sufa kit to allow me the conversion to the HAF jet. they needed little tweaking to fit, any gaps that remain will be filled with a rubber seal look to them. I did make a slight error with the parabrake addition. NOTE, it’s slightly narrower than the kit parts so I’d recommend a very thin shim between both parts to fill it out a bit and allow proper surface joins. Oh, and check your sanding. I didn’t and noticed long after glue drying that mine is ever so slightly off centre. Sins that will all be hidden by the spectacular paint job (I hope), 

I’m now in a holding pattern while I await paint and mask supplies for both. 
In the meantime, I’ll work on solutions to display them. 

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by Stokey Pete

[Stokey Pete]

Before I even think of taking the airbrush to it in anger...

 

 

Study, study, and study some more. It appears there are some numbered wrong and positioning/orientation information is sketchy at best. 

[Stokey Pete]

First forays into the corrosion control shop :). A coat of white primer, followed by a couple of coats of Gunze Aqueous H1 White. Just covering the white areas of the flag. 

I couldn’t resist playing with the blue, so rather than use the decals for the ventral fins that are included, I chose to attempt the mask. 
Same white primer/base coat combo, mask applied and over sprayed with Gunze Aqueous  H25 Sky Blue. 

 

And here’s the resulting piece, and omg does it look pretty damned good.

As a quick, first look/first play with the masks, I gotta say they’re nice enough to work with. They’re not too tacky, but enough that you can burnish them down without lifting. They’re slightly undersized owing to them being measured for the academy kit, but that’s no major drama to overcome. 

 

Very excited to see more as I work through this now.