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The
ESCI kit has been a favourite of mine for many years now, firstly it is easy to
put together, secondly it is easy to paint and thirdly the cockpit and canopy
can be fitted last of all, making life so much easier.
Construction
can start with the fuselage, if you are using the tail fold then now is the time
to cut the fin/rudder from the main parts, exact dimensions are given so stick
to them. After locating the “mad” boom into it’s bracket and engaging the
tail hook (you may have to drill out the locating holes here) it can be mounted
into the fuselage half and the two halves closed up, cemented and clamped or
taped to harden.
The nose
wheel bay goes in next but is a loose fit and to get over this problem, when
adding some nose weights which I fix with epoxy resin, I run a bead of it around
the bay on the inside to seal the joins, it will find it’s own level and needs
no sanding afterwards.
On
the models I have built before I have always left the FLIR bay doors and main
crew entry door open but with the wings folded that would be an unlikely
scenario so both were closed as were the bomb bay doors, the fit of these is not
the best and I had to use strips of 15 thou plasticard to fill the gaps and make
sure they were level with the surface.
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The main gear bulkheads were positioned and cemented and in this case the
undercarriage legs were added. The kit legs are a bit delicate so I used the
white metal set from Aeroclub “SET V170”
These are much stronger and will not bend, if I were making an all over
grey machine the legs would not be mounted yet, the bays would be sprayed white
and the doors temporarily put in position with a blob of Blu Tac to mask off the
bay while the grey is sprayed on.
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The tailplanes and sonobouy panel can be added to the main fuselage and
the joins cleaned up now but the wings need attention before they can be
constructed. Paragon’s instruction sheet give exact dimensions again here and
I cut just short of the mark and sanded back carefully to my line, instead of
trying to make complicated bits to fit the wing fold itself you just cut
straight across the wing in two places and you get resin “end caps” to butt
join to the two wing sections, simply cut off the pour blocks from each part and
stick them on the ends don’t try to make the pour block fit the wing cavity
it’s much too fiddly and time consuming.
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Fit the inner wing to the fuselage and then build up the fin, it isn’t
mentioned in the Paragon instructions, but before the fin is folded the rudder
gets a 15 degree kick to the right so when the two halves are set hard cut the
rudder off using several cuts with a strong blade and reset it to the right a
bit by sanding one side slightly. Level off the edges of both sections and add
the resin parts to each section ready for painting.
Build the engines up but don’t add the bypass fans (part 2) to the
engine assembly, add it to the cowl sections with the front fan, make sure that
the fans location slot is at exactly 9 o’clock position level with the tiny
pin on the cowl to ensure the engine is the right way up, this makes it easier
to clean up the joins and simplifies the painting.
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The cockpit can now be treated add what ever suits your requirements
ready for painting, add all the little antenna after cleaning up the
fuselage joins and let us spray. I have used Humbrol Hu 130 for the
white areas sprayed on freehand; this was left overnight while I painted
the cockpit.
Next all the white areas including the strip around the rear of
the cockpit were masked with Tamiya tape and the grey FS 36440 was
sprayed on. The canopy windows were masked and sprayed with Humbrol 85
satin black then all the masking was removed and the paint left for a
day to harden. |
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A coat of Johnson’s Klear (Future) was brushed on to all surfaces then
rubbed over lightly with a well worn piece of wet and dry before adding the
decals, I used SuperScale sheet No48-421 a low viz markings set on a high viz
paint scheme. These were in turn coated with Klear.
Adding the outer wing
sections needs care; I interlocked the hinges and supported the tips with a
pillar of Blutac at the correct angle appx 10 degrees then superglued the hinges
and added the remaining tiny linkages. The tail fin I treated differently, a
tiny hole was drilled in both halves and a piece of florists wire was inserted
between the two and the fin bent over to right angles then superglued in
position still supported by the wire.
Lastly the cockpit and canopy were added, the engines built up and
mounted along with the pylons and instrument probes
then the wheels and gear doors were added to finish the job.
Ted
To see more of Ted
Taylor's models....go to
Ted
Taylor's Modelworks
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