Well after much delay I have finally made a start on the project. The plan is to open as many panels that I have reference on both to get lots more detail into the model and to draw the eye away from some of the kit's inaccuracies by breaking up the out line. One thing that has immediately become apparant isn that my idea that this would involve less work than the road General Melchett has gone down was pants. By cutting out the bay for the sideways looking radar I ensured that the kit supplied cockpit tub won't fit thus necesitating a scratchbuilt cockpit. I have also cut out the starboard equipment bay and the panel for the onboard Palouste starter unit.TSR Joe advises me that XR220 is fitted with this unit. Cutting out the equipment bay necesitates modifying the nose wheel bay to fit, deep joy! Anyway, here are the first pictures........









Martin

Equipment bay boxed in. I feel much better now its been tidied up. On to the Palouste bay next, not tonight trhough I'm done in.



Martin

Nice project Martin will watch this with interest.

Are you doing it in White & 'clean' or a Whif with tanks and things?

Adrian

I have very good pics of the cosford TSR2 including the electronic bay, airbrakes, gearbays etc.
PM me your e-mail if you want them mailing to you

Nice start Martin, certainly the best alternative to cutting the thing up, as you say it will break up the outline and draw the eye away from the problem area....... interesting how modifying one thing leads to a problem with the next!!!...........tell me about it!!

I'm doing XR220 in the white prototype scheme on this kit. the next one will be XR222 with the prototype reconnaisance pack. I then might go on to do an early "what if" scheme with my third kit. If, however, I can scource a 1/72 SAM reconnaissance pack I will do XR222 in 1/72 scale and do the spare 1/48 scale kit as an Empire Test Pilots School "what if"

Martin

Good luck with this Martin, will be watching with interest for any ideas I can pinch for my 4!

Tony

Having had today off work I have mostly spent the time swearing at the kit nose undercarriage bay. Having opened up and boxed in the equipment bay it became apparant that there was no way that the kit part would ever fit. So, having grafted the recesses for the nose wheels onto a new bay roof, the rest of the bay was constructed, the Palouste bay boxed in and a new equipment bay to replace the one that got trashed earlier today while trying to make the kit nose wheel bay fit! The master plan is to get all the areas I plan to superdetail cut out and boxed in before commencing the actual detailing process. The way things are going so far it will be a toss up between General Melchett and myself as to who gets through the most plastic card on our projects. Anyone care to open a book on it?



Martin

Latest update. Being unsatisfied with the quality of my modelling of the cockpit bulkheads I decided to replace them. The fit is now better than the picture shows as the fuselage is not taped together. I have also opened up the fuselage vents and made a start on the bomb bay and main wheel wells. I have drilled out lightening holes in the frames and filled the holes in ther bomb bay walls. Although on test fitting this unit seems to be a good fit, some genius has placed a load of ejector pin marks on all the detailed surfaces rather than on the rear surfaces which will never be seen and are as smooth as a baby's bottom (which is more than can be said for my bottom!). This is going to result in a very difficult filling operation to lose them without destroying detail. The inside of the bombay walls are devoid of any detail and will need some adding to make this area look convincing.











Martin

A bit more progress, trouble is life keeps getting in the way of modelling so not as much as I would have liked. I replaced the observer's instrument panel as the fit of the kit one is poor with gaps round the edge. I have also built new side consols and begun opening appropriate holes in the cocpit bulkheads and equipment bay walls. Day off tomorrow so with a bit of luck I will be able to gat a good session in; famous last words! Incidently I have noticed a large drop down door to the rear of the main undercarriage bays. Does anyone have any idea of what the inside of this bay looks like?







Martin

Hi,
Its in the pic link Ive sent (Pic 052)

Great picture but whats behind the panel?

Martin

I think its just an air brake.
I prob wont get there for a look before christmas.

Nice work Martin, some good clean surgery going on there

Thanks Ski. I'm putting a lot of effort into getting the various openings in the kit just right before I start throwing a load of expensive after market extras at it. I have an obsession for neatness in modelling as in my opinion a model is only as good as the sum total of its parts. Therefore, try and treat every part and procedure as a project in its own right. This does mean that progrss can appear slow at times but in this case it is a labour of love so I don't really mind how long it takes so long as I end up with a good looking TSR2. BTW my wife says its a pity that this obsession for tidyness does not extend to the rest of my life! Still you can't have it all can you? Working on the IP and coaming next. If I canget the coaming correctly facetted, drop the IP down a bit and raise the windscreen to its correct height I think this will improve the look of this area of the kit no end.

Martin

Today I have been wrestling with reshaping the cockpit coaming and getting the cockpit sills raised so that the windscreen will fit properly. I thought it would be a breeze but it ended up driving me to drink! Still it all looks OK now so on to the next can of worms at the weekend. This kit is beginning to send me potty; no matter nobdy on this forum will notice the difference anyway.





Martin

Felt like doing something a bit more constructive today as opposed to the seemingly endless hacking of bits off the kit. With that in mind I decided to start putting the equipment bay racking in place. I shall make the various boxes a a later date when I get onto the fine detailing stage.





Martin

Brave build you are making there Martin, haven't seen it until now but will be tuning in for updates.

A short update: progress has been a bit limited this week due assorted domestic crisies. However I have managed to add some slivers of plastic card to part 25B of the kit, the fairing forward of the wing. This is one of the few poorly fitting main parts of the kit as it sits too low to meet the upper wing and fuselage. A sliver or two of plastic at the front and back raises this part to the correct level. Another area that requires attention is the rear bulkhead of the main undercarriage bays, this has gaps up yo 1/8 inch wide around it and needs attention for two reasons. Firstly, even with the undercarriage legs in place the gap is obvious. Secondly, if I do get enough information to detail the bays behind the undercarriage I wont be wanting a see through look. I hope to get this and some more of the cockpit details tackled tomorrow on my day off. On the whole though a dry run shows the bulk of the kit to be very good fitwise.

Martin

I'm liking this Martin, well done

Hard work but sure it'll be worth it once you get to put such a detailed model on the display shelf Martin. Will tune in again tomorrow evening to catch your progress

That's great work Martin. A friend of mine produced some blanking plates for me to cure the "see through" effect. He doesn't know it yet but he's giong to produce three more sets for my others!

Tony

Right today's update. I managed to get the rear walls of the main wheel wells sorted out as shown in the accompanying pictures. This took longer than anticipated so I only managed to get a little bit more done on the rear cockpit. Still theres always the weekend. I have established that the bay aft of the main wheel wells contained the engine accessory gearbox. Anybody out there know what this item looks like on a Bristol Olympus? I would imagine that the Concorde items are pretty much similar. Sorry about the quality of some of the pictures but I seem to be having the Devil's own job trying to photograph white plastic card on the white kit plastic.

Martin

Latest progress: I finished the basic configuring of the cockpit layouts and decided to open up the port engine accessory bay. Thats going well but this evening I discovered that the upper airbrake inserts don't fit. More scratch building. I don't know why but this discovery has left me somewhat discouraged. I thought I was about to get onto the interesting detailing bit.

Martin

Brilliant work so far Martin, can't wait to see more progress. Between you and the General's build all the stuff I want to do with my next TSR.2 builds are being laid out in lovely step by step pics!!

Cheers and a Merry Christmas to you and the Mrs

Kirk

Thanks for the supportive comments Kirk. Things took a big step forward today when I began to button up the fuselage. The main undercarriage/bomb bay part still needs a bit of fettling and I have to get the upper surface airbrakes boxed in of course but I can now see the interesting fine detailing bit on the horizon. The nose cone will need a bit of cleaning up and blending in as well.

Martin

Lovely level of detailing Martin, nice steady progress too, keep it up!!


JB.

Quite a long update today as there has been quite a bit of progress since my last post, I finally bit the bullet and cracked on with boxing in the upper air brakes having successfully resisted the temptation to add to my collection of aftermarket accessories, I did fail, however, and succumbed to a CMK set of exhausts to which I think I can add some extra detail. I have also got the fuselage bottom glued into place and discovered that it needs a spacer to allow the fuselage bottom to fit properly. When all this is completed and cleaned up I shall start fine detailing, building and painting parts as small sub assemblies and adding them to the airframe as and when they are complete. I am still a little unsure as to whether I should drop the idea of having the Palouse bay open and go for XR222 with the reconnaisance pack instead. What do you guys think?

Martin

Finally got round to the fine detailing bit today and started with doing the shelving fronts, support strut runners and the fastener support strips around the edge of the equipment bay. It also occurred to me to quickly assemble the ejector seats and check them for fit. I should have done this much earlier as if I had a pound for every time that I have carefully measured and contructed scratch built parts and found them not to fit kit parts I'd have a small fortune by now. Mercifully the kit seats do fit although I have a lot of detailing left to do on them. The kit nose cone is a bit too wide at it's base and this has been reduced in diameter and blended into the rest of the fuselage. I did begin to get a bit fed up with all the boxing in of areas of the model that my approach to this kit has caused but if today's session is anything to go by the time taken to get it right is about to pay dividends. I'm beginning to really enjoy this kit now........at least until the next crisis rears it's ugly head !

Martin

Looking good Martin, I like the avionics bay, coming on very nicely.


Regards,


JB.

Impressive

Whilst still dithering as to whether to change tack and complete this one as XR222 fitted with a the recon pack I decided to make a start on the wings. These have been glued together and the vastly overscale trailing edges of the tips thinned down. I have also reshaped what I suspect are the fuel dump pipes. Whatever they are they are grossly oversided and the wrong shape as well.

Martin

Well it had to happen; completely unable to make up my mind as to whether to do XR220 or XR222 fitted out in its reconnaisance guise, the only thing for this weak willed and indecisive modeller to do was to retrieve another kit from the stash, spend some more money with Cammett and Hannants and build the two in tandem. This should be fun given the limited space on my modelling desk. I shall do XR222 with the intake and exhaust covers in place and the main undercarriage doors in the closed position both to show off the reconnaisance pack and to vary things a little from XR220. I shall also be fitting long range drop tanks from Cammett. The plan is that the build will be more OOB but we all know what happens to plans don't we? I shall only post pictures of XR222 where the build differs from XR220 already in progress.

Working on XR220 I have noticed whilst dry fitting the wing that the area that sits on top of the fuselage is convex in shape. This will have to be dressed flat inorder to improve the fit.



I have also been spending a lot of time doing the airframe structure in the engine accessory bay. It has been quite a challenge getting the detail to match the moulded kit detail in the main undercarriage bays but I think I'm getting there. I will have to repeat this excersise in the rear of the bomb bay.



In the meanwhile I have opened up the camera ports in the nose of XR222 and begun to box them in.

Been paying close attention to this build so far but now you've added another dimension to it Martin. Been thinking about getting my 72nd scale one out of the stash and doing a reconnaissance fit for the What-if GB so will be stealing tips from you

Have been a bit busy on this one over the last couple of days. The fit of the bomb bay walls to the lower fuselage part is not good so this has been buit up with plastic strip and Milliputed. I also used some of the surplua Milliput to fill some of the incorrect panel lines. Does anybody get the amnount of Milliput they need right? I intend to fit the Aviation Workshop WE177B nukes (painted up as drill rounds) and auxilliary fuel tank as XR220 was to be uised for weapons relase trials and may well have been test fitted with these items before the programme was cancelled. We do know that she was test fitted with pylons at some point. Unfortunately the Aviation Workshop bomb carrier is far too wide to fit the kit so an evening was wasted scrath building an item that does fit. Why can't some maufacturers make parts that actually fit the kits they are designed for?





The parts supplied by Airfix for the ends of the exhausts actually represent the afterburner rings which are set two or three feet down the exhausts. Accordingly these were fretted out, thinned down and added to the CMK exhaust set which most convieniently is split at about the right point.





Whilst the Milliput was setting on XR220 I was going to do some more on XR222 but somehow managed to sand through one of my finger tips whilst sanding down the afterburner rings so its retired hurt for the rest of the day! DOH!

Martin

Following my faux pas of yesterday where I managed to sand through my finger tip I decided to give fine detailing a miss today as my finger is still hurting and to concentrate on getting the wing to fit properly. Much work with a large flat file has reduced the step where the trailing edge of the wing meets the fuselage to a bare minimum. This, of course, will result in a lot less sanding and filling and consequent re-scribing further on down the line so, tedious though this stage might be it will pay dividends later on.

Martin

Neat tip about the exhausts, may borrow that one.

Dan

Tonight's update: One thing that really got on my tits with the 1/72 scale kit was the very poor fit of the intakes. Something that I am anxious to avoid with my 1/48 scale builds. A dry run showed that the fit of the kit intakes is less than spectacular as well as having the auxilliary intake doors wrongly scribed. Accoringly a replacement set was obtained from Cammett. These have a much better fit to the airframe but I did decide to ring the changes with them. I decided to adapt the kit's outer intake lining to replace the Cammett items. the reason for this being threefold. Firstly, I don't like resin and try to limit my use of it as much as possible, Secondly I intendt to fit black plastic card blanks to the rear of the trunking and it is easier to carve plastic than resin, and finally the white plasic of the kit parts will make masking of the ends of the trunking that much easier. Removing the ends of the kit trunking will also make cleaning up the interior of the trunking easier by allowing access for tools form both ends prior to the new blanks being put in place.

Martin

Martin, nice work, one thing though, I like what you've done with the reheat units, ( I'm hoping to use a spare set of PE rings and exhaust turbine faces I have in the spares box), but in the last pic you show of the complete assembly the rings look a little close to the nozzles, they were set quite a bit back or is this just an optical illusion from the angle of the photo?

Here's a pic that Rich took of the unit at Cosford, (hope he doesn't mind me showing it!)...just shows how complex this area really is, just look at that nozzle detail!!!.....food for thought....






Great stuff, we should have quite a few 'improved models' by the end of all this, whenever that will be!!!!......

ahh, general! that looks familiar. i am sure one of the eduard sets in 1/72 includes
the detail on the inside of the jetpipes as etched brass. its frightening just to look at
never mind trying to roll into shape.

btw, martin! well done so far.

Thanks guys. The afterburner ring is just push fitted to give an idea of the process and the whole assembly dry fitted for the same reason. I should, of course, have mentioned that it needs to be positioned a little bit further up the exhaust when it is all glued together. I placed it in this position as my attempts at photographing it in the correct position were less than spectacular and did not really show what I was driving at.

Martin

No probs!

Just a short update today as life seems to have got in the way a bit today. Still I have tomorrow off so I can model to my heart's content and while stuff is setting watch the Sarah-Jane Adventure videosI got with some Christmas money. Life can be real tough sometimes! Anyway todayI just did a bit more detailing on the afterburner rings and having fettled the wing taped things together to see how she is coming along. Please note that when they are glued together the afterburner rings will be pushed about 1/3 inch up the exhausts so anybody using this method for the exhausts will need to bear this in mind. Thanks to General Melchet for raising the issue, I sometimes have this terrible fault of assuming people know what I am doing. Daft really as according to my wife I don't know myself most of the time! My photography isn't good enough to get a decent picture with them in the correct position. I think when they are finished I will get my wife to do the honnours as she is far better with the camera than I am. I have to say though that, despite some of the shape issues, I am really beginning to warm to this kit. It's great fun and thats what we are all here for right?

Martin

Nice Martin, coming together well, (at least your fuselage is all put together!!)...you've done a good job on the burner rings, look the part....keep going!!

Hello Martin,
Fantastic work on this kit.
I am really enjoying watching the subtle differences in approach that you and the General are employing.

I am a newbie to this level of detail in modelling but my interest levels have been sent through the roof by you and the General's efforts to turn this kit out.
I have got back into modelling as my son's interest has developed and I thought that it would be good fun to start again but at a higher level.

To that end, I hope that you do not mind me asking how you opened up the electronics bay panel and what tools you used to do it? I fear that I have already messed my kit up!

Many thanks and apologies for what is a very basic question I would guess.

-Ian

"Never give up never surrender"

I agree with you on that one-and

Ian, thanks for the encouragement. Its not a silly question regarding the electronics bay, there is a first time for everything for everybody. What I did was to drill a chain of closely spaced holes just inside the kit's panel lines. I then joined them up to remove the bulk of the panel, then, using a new scalple blade, I carefully trimmed the hole to meet the panel lines. Be aware though that if you open up the bay the kit's nose wheel bay will not fit and will need a relacement scratch building; no big deal as the kit item is very basic and will need reworking anyway if you plan to have the rear doors open. If you think you have already made a mistake put a photo on here as I would be very surprised if there was not a very simple solution to the problem. I always work on the principle that there is always an answer.

Tom thanks; no pressure for either myself or the General to bring our projects to a successful conclusion then!

Martin

Thanks General but I didn't hack my fuselage to pieces; at least not in the same way as you did so it was always at least sort of in one piece.

Martin

Thanks Martin.
I have overdrilled the holes and in a "wild" burst of sanding have lost the panel line.
I suspect that I will be backfilling part of the oversized hole to recover. I have picked up that the nosewheel bay would need modifying and have purchased the CMK resin kit as I assume that it matches up with their electronics bay parts.

I may well get around to photographing the kit soon and will say thanks for the offer of help in the meantime.

I am looking forward to the next instalments of your build as I said fascinating stuff!!!


Tom, thanks for the welcome!!!! Let us hope I can do it justice.

Cheers for now
Regards
-Ian