This build started a few weeks ago with a challenge for the 2011 IPMS Sweden Open: build a Matchbox model! It doesn't have to be a "real" one, any re-issue with a Matchbox origin is OK.
I was told at the yearly buy-sell-swap meeting of IPMS Stockholm and quickly found a HS.125 that cost next to nothing. It felt ideal: being more or less a bizjet it is quite clean with very little detail on the outside (admittedly not one of the Matchbox strong-points) and there is no modern kit of this aircraft so there is still a point in building it. Also, it looks like a very simple build with few parts.
Project start...
There are two options when it comes to interiors: detail it or put out the lights! I went for the second option this time...
A minimum-ambitions cockpit. Probably more than adequate when installed!
Fuselage closed with windows masked with tape from the inside. I will use Humbrol Clearfix for them. The beautiful red door disappeared below a thin layer of putty, I am sorry!
Since this is a Matchbox kit there have of course been some trenching activities both here and there, not as bad as it can be though! I'm filling in all the panel lines, I haven't decided what to do with them later but I can't leave them the way they are, that's for sure!
I will use the Model Alliance decal sheet, the subject will be ZD703 (the lower profile) with white fuselage and post office red wings and rear empennage. Quite striking! As many of you know (I've seen other builds of this kit around here), there is a minor trouble to handle before the painting: changing the RR Vipers for Garretts. For some reason it is drawn with Vipers in the profile view (RAF Northolt 2003, the Vipers were long gone then...) and with Garretts in the plan view... Anyway, none of the decal options will work on the unmodified Matchbox kit. For photos of ZD703, there are (at the time of writing!) 44 of them at Airliners.net! A friend of mine has promised to lend his Mach 2 Falcon 20, I hope to be able to do resin copies of the Garretts from that one. With a bit of luck (there is quite a bit of snow around here) they will be in the post today!
Wings and horizontal tail surfaces are on!
More putty needed...
When looking at the photos at Airliners.net some differences from the model are easily spotted: it seems as if the aircraft has grown some lumps and bumps (probably antennae for some secret equipment or another...), a different tail tip (a cylinder with sensors looking suspiciously like RWR antennae) and a larger ventral fin between the model's original date (1974) and today... Have anyone around here done a recipe for what is needed to bring the Matchbox kit up to today's modification standards?
I was also thinking about painting: have anyone used a Tamiya rattlecan for post-office-red? Which one then?
Best regards
Magnus
Edited by magnusf, 27 February 2011 - 07:08 AM.
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