Hi everyone,
firstly, happy new year to you all. Hope you all have a great one. I am late joining this group build due to working away, so I will have to get my skates on, and I'm a slow builder at the best of times!
I am building the Airfix 1/48 GR3 kit with some resin extras by Neil and a Neomega cockpit. I have pondered over which aircraft to build and I really am torn between two airframes.
I am dedicating this build to my dear brother Tony, who passed away suddenly in September. He enjoyed watching the Jaguars when he came to visit me at Coltishall, and came to the disbandment day of 16 & 54 Squadrons in March 2005. During that day he sat in an aircraft, which thanks to Damien Burke, has been identified as XZ367, the weapons loading training aircraft. This had the 6 Squadron 90th anniversary scheme painted on it's tail at the time, prior to it being applied to XX112.
It's either that one or Jonny Fartpants XX725 'T' (for Tony). He loved reading the Viz comic aswell, so it would be very appropriate. I have both sets of decals and enough kits to eventually build both, but wanted to make a special effort for the group build entry. What do you guys think?
Regards
Andy

Well, 367 would get my vote... naturally you need to do a diorama complete with all the weapons on display though

Go for it mate, i nearly did that scheme but did the 41 squadron 2005 display one instead having decals for both, plenty of time as it finishes end of April, i did my 2 jags in under 3 months

That's a lovely idea Andy. Look forward to seeing your progress
Gary

Sounds like a wonderful idea to me Andy!

I'm actually thinking of being an even LATER starter and throwing a Jag into the build!

Cheers!

John

Welcome to the fun Andy, nice to hear a personal story behind your build.

BTW John, glad to see you've found your way across mate

Good luck mate and keep us posted!!!

Thanks Col!

I've been lurking for a wee bit now (I actually have Andy to thank for letting me know about the Jag group build over here)

I just need to pull my finger out and help you out over on ARC and get something done over here as well!

Cheers!!

John

Good to see you on here Andy, and nice sentiments regarding the build. Let me know if you need anything.

If you happen to be in the vicinity any time, feel free to pop into the workshop, you are more than welcome as always.

Neil.

Hi everyone,
had my first modelling session for over a year yesterday, and started with the major surgery on the fuselage. I decided to open up the gear doors, as whenever I saw the Jags out on the line, they nearly always had the doors open. I do have pictures with them closed, but more often than not they would be open, plus it makes for a more interesting model I think, and I wanted to go the extra mile for this build. I could be biting off more than I can chew though as there's a lot of scratch building to be done to fill the holes! Here is my progress so far.







I thought I would thin the tail down a bit before cutting out the rudder.



Whilst I was there I plugged the holes for the ILS antenna as I am hijacking as many tips from Neils build as possible





I must apologise for the quality of my photos, but I am under flouescent light with a very old camera. My nails aren't that dirty in real life - honest!

Neil, thanks for your encouragement and support as always. It's really good to hear from you. I have been back for over a week now, and will definately drop by with some Hob Nobs in the near future, as I hope to get some time off work in January. I still haven't finished my T4 and didn't want to enter it for the group build, as it is fairly well advanced. Anyway, I thought I should start a new model for the group build and for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
Hope to get more done tonight so I'll keep you posted

Regards

Andy

Hi Andy and welcome to the build - I feel a master piece coming on. Great start

Now that's what I call bravery on the wheelbays...!

Hello mate, welcome and good luck.

Right oh, will make sure that I have the tea or coffee at the ready then. .

Thanks for the warm welcome guys, and all the encoragement. Made a bit more progress last night, and cut more out of the fuselage halves. I started with a nice cold beer to get mentally prepared



I cut out the nose gear doors, but didn't bother saving them as they will be replaced by plasticard. This made hacking them out a bit easier.



Then I removed the coaming for the cockpit, but got a bit carried away and had to glue some tiny strips of plasticard back into position to keep a nice snug fit on the resin replacement part.



Then, copying Neil again (sorry), I cut away the area of the air inlet on the spine (heat exchanger?), ready for a new piece of plasticard to be glued in from underneath.



I also cut away the 'end' of the spine, where the fuel vent pipe sits, just above the brake parachure housing. I forgot to take a picture of this, but there's not much to see anyway. Again, a plasticard blank will be fitted with a new fuel vent pipe. All this chopping and filing leaves me with this rather sorry looking Jaguar.



I am now getting even more worried about finishing on time
Next job is to start filling up some of the holes I've made. I may need some more beer for that part!!

Regards as always
Andy

Good progress so far Andy, can see this is an ambitious start so we'll be watching with interest.

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the lack of updates recently. My computer blew up again so I lost it for over a week while it was being fixed. I would like to say that I made loads of progress on the Jag in the meantime, but unfortunately haven't managed to get the hours in. I have made some progress though.
I glued the rudder halves together, and added the little rudder damper, just to make it more interesting. This may come back and bite me on the arse when I come to put the decals on, but I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it. I will be positioning the rudder centrally when I glue it back into position. The reason for cutting it out in the first place wasn't to deflect it, as most of the parked Jags I have seen have the rudder central. It was just to make adding the damper a bit easier.







The white plasticard has been added to the edges of the rudder becuase when I filed the rounded edge of the original panel line away, it made the whole rudder smaller. Hopefully these will be invisible when I have primed the model.

I also made a start on the main wheel wells. As this will be the cause of many headaches I started with the easiest bit. I turned the main leg hydraulic actuator from a small piece of brass bar, and drilled the end to accept some stainless steel welding wire to look like the chrome plated ram. I remember one of the riggers telling me that this actautor isn't what raises and lowers the gear, even though thats what it looks like. Apparently it's the small actuator that sits behind the leg that does all the work. This large one is just the lock by all accounts.





The only other minor job I have done is to fettle the gun shroud to make it a bit smoother. Here it is compared to the unmodified one.



Well, that's as far as I have got. It could be some time before I have some wheel wells finished. Once again, I must thank Damien Burke for kindly sending me some close up photos of this aircraft. It has left me with a slight dilema though, as the close ups show the slats lowered but the flaps fully home. I have already roughed out the wings for Neils lowered set, so I'm not sure whether to pinch a new set of wings from another kit or continue with all of them lowered. I must admit I have never seen the wings like this before. Maybe it was robbed of something so the slats were lowered manually? Not sure what to do now. If I want to model it faithfully as it was when Tony sat in it, I will also have to open the gun bay - nuts!!

Hopefully get some more done in the next few days. Hope you are all well,

Cheers for now

Andy

OMG - you're taking this rather seriously Andy I see. Not fair, I don't have a lathe

Go for it Andy, looks like this ones going to be a cracker!

Very nice... I'm now wanting my own lathe even more

You could join the RAF!

Andy that is looking good - but then I was rather expecting it to do so, following our chat.

I get the feeling this one is going to be a bit special! Love the rudder damper. It's little details like that, that really make a model. Looking forward to seeing more. Great work Andy

Niiiiiiiiiice! With an opening like that on the gear construction we shall of course expect nothing less than perfection. Once spoke to a guy who tried to create accurate articulating gear for a flying Jag model. He gave up after a year of failed attempts and changed it to have single wheels and bulged bays so it could just retract forward.

Hello all,
thanks for the kind comments. Just a quick post to show my (slow) progress for the week. I've had very little time to work on the model lately, but managed to do the standard modification to the air intakes, by sticking plasticard to the opened doors and then sanding them flush. I also rounded the internal corners with Milliput, and the external corners blended to suit. It's quite a tricky job to get them just right and I think I will be having to do more work once the primer is on and it shows up any gliches. I'm not convinced about the doors either, and may just fill all the panel lines and rescribe them and then use decals for the hinges. I've seen that on some of your models and it looks very neat. I would have bought a set of Mikes resin intakes and saved myself loads of time, but I'm really skint just now so had to make do with the filler! Here's how they look at the moment



I also had a look at the main gear doors which I chopped out. I decided it was probably easier to make new ones than try and do something with the rough arse chunks that I cut out of the kit. They were made up in three layers using plasticard, and just need some hinges and catches to be finished. I really enjoyed this bit of scratch building and it's getting me in the mood for the wheel bays which will be a nightmare.



Once again, sorry about the crap photography. I had to do it like that so the shadow would show the steps in the white plastic, but it gives the general idea. I can't avoid it any longer, next job will be the wheelbays which I am not looking forward to

Regards as always

Andy

Coming along rather nicely there Andy, I can see that this is going to end up a good 'un .

By the way, you left that packet of chocolate Hob Nobs in the workshop this afternoon, but don't worry, I'll look after them ....

Hi Neil, good to see you again mate. Thanks for reminding me about the Hob Nobs, I'll pop in tomorrow and pick them up Thanks for all that tea by the way, I didn't make it home without stopping, if you know what I mean! Had a look at your motorbike thread when I got in and was wondering if you got that chain together. Looking great as usual mate. Will be back to pick your brains again soon.
By the way, CEF have ordered me a reel of 10 amp fuse wire which is 29 swg - bloody perfect. It does mean that I can't do any plumbing in my wheel bays until Friday though. I'll have to spend time correcting my cock up with the gun vent tubes instead.

Regards to all
Andy

Andy,

Brilliant work so far. I'll be watching this build keenly!

Regards

Andy

We could have arranged credit terms at an advantageous (for me) APR%

Looking nice... Looking forward to these gear bays

Had an awful weekend as my wife was pretty poorly for most of it. Hate to see her feeling rough, but while she was in bed and between making her cups of coffee, fetching lucozade and toast etc., I managed to get some much needed time in on the Jag. Cracked on with the wheel bays and got the main bits together. All that's in them at the moment is the stuff that gets painted with that yellow etch primer.
There's a few more things to go in before I paint, and then I can start adding the pipework and hydraulic gubbins properly. I went to the Norwich Aviation Museum today and managed to get some really detailed shots of the U/C bays which shows that I have already got some of the pipework wrong using the limited reference photos I had.
I think I will have to let this go, as there is no way I can get every pipe and coupling as per the real thing. As long as the bays look 'busy' and roughly right I will be able to live with that. If the model was 1/32 I think it would be more of an issue, but there are so many other areas of the kit which are slightly out, I ask myself if I need to get so caught up in it. To be honest I think some of my scratch building is already slightly over scale, but may look different under a coat of paint. Plus I would like to finish sometime this year
Still a long way to go! Target for this week is to finish the bays, now I have my reel of 10 amp fuse wire! Here's how they look at the moment:







thanks for looking
Regards
Andy

That's cracking work Andy

This gets better and better Andy. Looks great

The man's a genius, I tell you!! Utterly superb...

Thats an amzing scratch build mate!!!!!!!
As long as it looks busy...thats the trick mate!!!!!!!

HOLY COW ANDY!

After seeing what you've done thus far, I think I'll go ahead and put my pitiful excuse for a Jag up and walk away!

I only WISH I had the ability and skill that you, Neil, and the others that I've seeon on here and ARC have to do such fine work!

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Cheers!

John

Those wheel bays are a work of art.

Great stuff

MarkC

Wheel bays are looking superb Andy.

Are they glued in place yet, or are they still 'loose' as it were? If they are not glued in yet I could mould them.

Coming along nicely Andy. Hope the other half is feeling better now...

Thanks for all the encouragement folks. It's taking an age to get all the plumbing in, but then I am a tosser for starting all this. Hopefully it will resemble the real thing when it's all painted and made to look busy.


Hi mate, they aren't glued in yet, but if you were going to go through the trouble of moulding them, I would remake them, learning from all my mistakes. There are some terrible inaccuracies and also I would do it slightly differently next time and chop the entire 'roof' out of the kit and make the insert go all the way to the rear of the main leg. I could still do that, but it would not sit quite right, so will have to leave it alone for the first effort. I would love it if you could copy them, as I have another 8 of these kits in the loft and don't see myself going through this every time! I'll pop in sometime for a chat

Thanks Damien, Sarah is fine now and back in work. I go back next week and get into the old routine again. Need to spend some more time in the gym as I've been a bit lazy since christmas.

Time to get back to the fuse wire. What was I thinking???

Regards

Andy

Andy love what you have done so far. Cant wait to see this Jag finished keep posting updates

Andy love what you have done so far. Cant wait to see this Jag finished keep posting updates

Andy love what you have done so far. Cant wait to see this Jag finished keep posting updates

Holy Cow!!, That's great work Andy.

Keep em coming.

Holy Cr@p!!! Those are some superb modeling skills on display.
Cheers,
Mark

That is some fantastic detailing work there.
Can't wait to see more.

Mate...How did you do the rivets on the plastic and they look raised?
Do you punch them on the other side?

Hi mate,
yes, I stabbed the other side of the plastic card with a scriber following a steel rule to keep straight and the spacing even. One every millimetre seemed to look about right to my eye.
I'm sorry for the lack of updates. I have made a very small amount of progress, but not enough to post yet. The bays are painted yellow, but I'm not sure whether to do a wash to pick out all the corners, as the photos don't show them as all that dirty. Also I'm not sure how to do a wash! Anyway, I've been so busy now I'm back in work, all my hobbies have had to take a back seat, so progress is slow.
I'll get some photos on next week, as I'm not able to do any modelling this weekend

Regards
Andy

Hello again
well after a long delay in proceedings, I have managed to make some progress on my Jaguar. The deadline is fast approaching us, and I'm a mile behind! I don't want to pull out of the group build, but I have limited time available. Also, I don't want to rush the model and end up unhappy with it, so I'll have to see how things go.
The wheelbays are a project in themselves, so whilst making progress with these, I gave myself a break and tackled what I think is a very tricky area around the gun housing. The kit doesn't help by the way it's built up, but can be filled and sanded to look OK.
The vent holes are moulded a bit too low on the kit part, and didn't look very nice when I tried to improve them by drilling them out. In other words, I cocked it up I decided to chop out the entire section and make an insert with some small brass tubes to represent the real thing a bit better. Looking back, I'm glad I messed up the drilling now, as I prefer the look of the tubes.





The splitters between the fuselage and the air intakes are the wrong shape on the kit, so the dremmel was used to remove them, ready for plasticard splitters to be fitted.



After the Milliput went rock hard, the rough sanding was done and the new splitter plates glued in position. Also, while access was good, the small triangular air inlets were cut out and the plastic thinned down from the rear. Small pieces of thin plasticard were glued inside, and kinked away to give the inlets some depth.





After a light coat of primer to show up any errors, more filler was added and the process repeated until it looked OK. After rescribing some panel lines, the intake was trial fitted and I noticed just how crap my attempts were to close the auxiliary air doors. They are all wonky here!



When the intake was glued in position and the joint filled, I also filled these wonky lines. I hope that when I rescribe them, the filler doesn't just rip out. I'll have to go gently when I get onto this part I think.



The wings are also getting closer to being ready to fit. All the surgery for Neils slats and flaps is complete, and I'm just scribing some extra detail here and there, so that I don't have to do it after they are fitted. All being well, as soon as the wheel bays are finished, I can close the fuselage, and then the wings will go straight on. That will make me feel more confident, 'cos at the moment I've got my doubts about finishing on time.



Thanks for looking. Hope to be back soon!
Regards

Andy

Jeeeeez!

It is looking good - been cribbing off the original perhaps??

D

More great work Andy. Those gun vent tubes look a whole heap better don't they? This is going to be brilliant

Gary.

That's some first class attention to detail Andy, to say nothing of the execusion. Briliant mate!

its looking amazing mate!!!!