I got a small parcel from Hannants with some goodies for my B-17 and B-25 kits.
Some of it will be sent to a friend who is also building those machines.
New arrival 19th of June 2023
New arrival – 16th of may 2023
This little kit just landed! 🙂
Could be fun to build more or less out of the box, but I guess adding a few extras won’t hurt! 🙂
JAS 39 Gripen – update 1
I managed to straighten the wings or wing parts by dipping them in hot water and then bend them while hot. Not perfect, but after gluing the halves together it looked alright.
I then could glue them to the body, and the fit against the topside wa pretty nice.
The underside had a bit of a gap.
Actually not very much, and a bit of thin plastic and some putty will solve that. I will also need some putty on the topside, but overall I haven’t used very much on this kit, and once the wings are done, I’ll check all seams with primer to see if there is any problems or perhaps ghost seams.
I’ve checked an old post about a Gripen prototype build, and saw that Hu64 was recommended as the main colour on the body. I need to see if I can translate into some other colour brand, as for the moment Humbrol isn’t allowed to be sold within the EU.
SAAB JAS 39 Gripen prototype – Revell 1/32
This is an fairly old kit, depicting one of the prototype Gripen.
32nd scale and all would be all nice and dandy if it was at least somewhat correct, but the flaws are quite large as can be seen on this drawing, printed to scale, with the fuselage halves laid out on top.
As can be seen there’s quite a lot to correct. A large chunk of the plane is missing lenghtwise. Like about a meter on the real plane missing!
The wings are somewhat short both in lenght and width.
It would be quite a task to try and correct it, and with this kit I’m not going to try. I’m going to build it as it is. I think it’ll end up looking like a Gripen to the unknowing eye.
As usual it all starts with the cockpit.
I also started assembling the engine.
Wheel bays and intake parts was installed, and for some reason I assembled the radar. I don’t even know why they made parts for the radar as it won’t be seen at all. Pretty much the same goes for the engine.
The cockpit parts was first painted with a dark grey and then some areas got some black.
Then the side and front panel was painted light grey, and then seat and panels was detail painted.
All the parts to the possible loadout was assembled.
The cockpit got a gloss cote and a wash.
The instructions calls for 20 g nose weight, and a little more was glued in the nose after removing the radar parts I glued for some reason.
While the glue is drying, I started with the wings, just to discover that one was slightly warped.
At the moment not sure how to correct it. Perhaps it works with a hair dryer, or using hot water to bend it in position.
The engine was installed.
The cockpit was assembled and an ejection handle was made from copper thread and glued to the seat. The whole cockpit was glued in place and then the fuselage halves was joined.
As can be seen the intakes got some putty and the fin is assembled.
The fuselage went together very nicely and there will not be much to sort as this close up will show.
If only the measurements had been somewhat correct, this would have been a fairly nice kit that goes together very well.
F-16C German AF – update 5
I glued the main gear in place as well as parts to the bay.
The tires and rims was painted and the seam on the intake as well.
Then the wheels was assembled.
The intake was glued in place.
The canopy was masked.
Gear parts and missiles painted white.
Then I started adding the pylons.
I had to re-glue the cockpit tub and put the HUD in place before adding the canopy and later the nose (after addding weights).
A bunch of bombs was painted with OD.
The bombs will be masked and painted yellow on their noses. I also need to figure the proper colours for the missiles provided.
Not much left to do before it’s time to put some primer on. I think I’ll go with AK’s grey primer, even if it smells a bit. It gives a very nice and smooth surface.
BMW 507 – Revell 1/24 – final reveal
Here’s some pics of my finished BMW 507!
I’m quite happy with how the build turned out! One of my best car builds to this date! 🙂
BMW 507 Cabrio – Revell 1/24
I bought this kit 2nd hand quite a few years ago, and the main reason for building it, is to test some kind of silver metallic as body colour.
This is what it looked like when I started.
The engine got some more parts.
To be able to test colours, the hood got some primer.
I decided to have a black leather/vinyl interior.
Then I masked parts of the interior and painted the engine room with steel.
Perhaps not very visible in the pic, but the ejection pin marks, I thought I had scraped away, was still visible. Time to sort that!
Time for some more primer.
I should have masked the interior better, so now I had to redo it, after painting over the red with flat black.
It turned out the body had some mold line and other flaws to take care of, and the hood and underside of the chassie got some steel paint.
Then the engine room was painted again.
After sorting the flaws, the body got some more primer.
I wasn’t happy with the steel colour, partly because I had problems painting it good enough on the topside. I’ve also had problems with Vallejos primer.
Anyway I decided to use Vallejos new metal colours. I tried aluminum on the hood.
I changed to medium grey and gave the body a cote.
The outer rims was painted aluminum.
The exhaust pipes was painted with brass.
Some parts was painted black and the mufflers was painted with gun metal.
I’ve also assembled engine, transmission and exhaust system.
Two problems have arised during this build. 2 parts are missing and I should have checked better, but as my my intention was to test body colour, my check wasn’t as thorough as it should have been.
I’ve asked for help, and possibly a friend of my son can print the parts on his 3D printer. I’ll see how that goes. Possibly I can make one of them myself if I can get the plastic material needed.
I’ll build and paint as much as I can, and hopefully the parts will be sorted so I can continue.
Warrior – Revell 1/72
This is a kit that have been sitting on the shelf for several years. When looking for something else I found the instructions and “missing” parts, I decided to try and finish it.
From the start I intended to do somekind of what if future vehicle, but decided to build it as it is this time.
Revell has it own colour markings with their colour brand and very often mixes which doesn’t make it easy to translate, and it isn’t always easy to find the right corresponding colour.
I was told that Hu29 with some white might work, so I tried.
While handling it I accidently broke the barrel. Have to sort that later.
I wasn’t happy with the colour though, so I ordered a colour I think should be a proper match and repainted the vehicle.
Now I’ll just mask it and paint the od colour. Then I need to paint the tracks and wheels and all the details.
F-16C German AF – update 4
After getting the cockpit and the exhaust addition in place, things went pretty fast, and the fuselage, wings, stabilizers and fin was assembled.
Not entirely without problems as there are some things to sort.
I had to cut a little to make the prolonged exhaust fit with the locator tabs on the inside.
Just to check, I fit the outer part of the exhaust to the body.
I think that turned out looking pretty good, and I’ll only need to touch up a little.
Next will be to sort out all the seams and also sort some panel lines to connect the upper and lower body panels. Then it’s time to start sorting the landing gears and some other stuff that will be needed later.
F-16C Germany 1/32 – update 2
I tried to make up for missing depth in the exhaust pipe. So I wrapped a piece of plastic with thin stripes around the “fan” and glued the ends. It wasn’t easy to get it entirely even.
I added the same kind of stripes to the existing parts.
Typical Revel stunt on older models.
I decided to glue the turkey feathers to the can.
My plan is to cover the inside with something that resembles the real thing Not quite sure how yet, but I’m working on it.
For some reason tabs was missing on the bomb parts.
Re-scribing and working on parts like landing gears and weapons, have kept me busy for a while.
Re-scribing is tedious and takes a while. I still got some more scribing to do. The top fuselage is quite complex.
Once the scribing is done and the interior got some more paint, I think I can start assemble.