chrislowe

I don't have any pictures of the gluing stage, but here's a picture of the two halves glued and the tail in place. Having already checked that I could fit it later, I made the ejection seat. Here it is with the coaming fitted too Next up I spent some time on the many vents and ducts on both sides. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the walk around section. The variety of photos really helped with this bit. Wings and canopy on and a cost of primer before lots of filling, sanding, priming, filling, sanding, priming etc. And that brings us up to date. Next up is some preshading, masking and the camo scheme.

Fingers crossed I've managed to keep that energy going... Thanks Adrian. Fingers crossed! Thanks! Hopefully I won't disappoint. Thanks Darren. It certainly looks very well engineered. You're too kind That looks fantastic Paul, thanks for digging that our of the loft! I'm on the lookout for some appropriate missiles. Definitely inspirational. It's been some considerable time since my last post, work, life and other kits have been taking my attention, but I haven't been idle. The last post was a test fit of the two halves, so next came the bulkheads. More test fitting The wheel well And the intake I wanted to see if I could get a better shape in the front wheel bay. It started quite elliptical so I used a micro chisel to improve the shape. Just enough here to play with, but no extra Intake parts painted with MIG metallics and a Flory wash applied. Probably won't see much of this when the whole thing is assembled but I'm happy enough with that result. Back to the wheel bay. Still some tidying to do but hopefully you can see what I'm going for. Engines with a wash Offered up to the bulkhead so I can test fit the white metal exhausts Now the instructions say that you can crack on with the wings before you need them so I made the jig pieces and started gluing the leading and trailing edges to the vacform skin. And test fit the composite spar Still not able to glue the two halves together, I started on the cockpit. A touch of black in the right places with a light cost of grey to start. Followed by a wash and picking out the knobs, levers and buttons. I don't have any pictures of the IP in progress, but hopefully you can see from this pic that I cut out dials from spare decal sheets to make the most of the nicely derailed white metal piece. With the cockpit done, the intake glued and the wheel bay ready it's almost glue time

You what?!? Mind well and truly blown. Where? Who? How?

That looks amazing, great job! I've just started a WIP for mine and I'll be happy if it turns out half as good. A good save on the grey paint, the coat of clear really brought it back to life. I don't think the weathering is too much at all, I think it's spot on.

This is probably @Martians fault. The vacform tutorial build got me thinking about challenging myself to do something other than an injection moulded kit. I stick to 1:48 and almost always the end-of-the-cold-war through to modern era aircraft that I've seen at shows since my childhood. So there really isn't tons of choice in vacform, as soon as I saw the Lightning I knew it was the right one for me. I don't normal go for the un-boxing type shots, but a lot of you might be as new as me to this form of modelling. the box Unfortunately no longer with the etch or the redtops that have been redacted from the front The fuselage Wings Spine stiffener, belly stiffener and an over wing tank Another tank White metal parts for the undercarriage, cockpit, exhausts and nose. injection moulded parts canopy Decals and sticks attached to the bottom of the box First job, as it says in the instructions is to read the instructions. I might have done this in excess of 30 times before I was brave enough to do anything. But eventually the time came. I bought a new cutting mat Outlined the fuselage halves with a fine pen and with my new #11, cut the fuselage out of the backing. Sanding and more sanding until they fit together and also the nose and the exhausts fit snugly at opposite ends. I have no idea how that ended up working so well. Until next time.

Fantastic update. The detail on the cylinders, the way they join to the exhaust, the cockpit detail, it's all fab.

Great save Ced! The fit of your plasticard panel looks perfect.

It feels like this thread is long overdue for an update. Last time I was ready to close up the two halves of the fuselage. Next came the engines which come in two halves with a front piece that includes the fan blades. In this picture you can see that there are some big lumps of extra plastic in the exhausts They go together ok ish But the shape of the exhausts is wrong compared with the PE That meant a while load of reshaping and cutting was required. On to the now glued fuselage and I wanted to fit some of the PE The starboard side had the correct vents marked in the plastic so just cut them out, make a small recess and fit the PE. The port side however had nothing so after checking with the Waldorf section I used the other side to make a template which i used to position the holes for these vents and scratch built the bulge in this panel from sprite and styrene sheet Nacelles next. The fit with the fuselage is good, but the fit with the stub wings ... Port side is better. But if you look at the reinforcing "lump" at the wing root and compare with this from the walk around... The reinforcing "lump" is kinda correct for the starboard side, but on the port side it's more like three shape of a fillet weld . So the big lumps came off and was replaced with a piece I scratched from sprue T'other side was filled too, before the primer went on The final panel went on underneath. This needed a lot of filler and a lot of sanding to make it seamless That picture is a WIP. Lots more to do after that before I was happy to move on to the pylons Engines and canopy on Handles and defensive suite installed. And the engine mounted sensors of apparent endless breakability. Finally some preshading Bit of a test Happy so far, so crack on with the rest I left that to dry for a while to sort out the issues with the rotors. Particularly ill-defined and lots of flash meant a lot of clean up to start with this And to end up with this Still plenty of work to do, but getting somewhere useful. Finally for today here it is on the shelf, in natural light, with rotors in place to see what it looks like Hope you like it so far. Happy modelling!

Just caught up with this thread. Bill, that looks fantastic, congrats!

Amazeballs. Great job Johnny

Riveting stuff Alan, as your builds so often are. Makes me want to spend a lifetime learning cad so that I could be half as good. Alas I'd need a time machine first and I don't have time to build one of those.

Can't wait to see this one, I love a helicopter. Glad you're feeling better.

I've only just caught up with the end of the Wyvern and you're already 6 pages into this build! Hope you're soon back on-par Ced.

<forming the following sentence with care> Lovely job on the rims Bill! I'm really enjoying this build. Chris

There's a number of pieces that make up the rear rotor shaft assembly. They're layed out in the instructions like this. But as there are no linkages supplied, what it doesn't tell you is that part 76 has to have a particular orientation to part 61 so that eventually it's posts will line up with the control arms on the rotors. As I mentioned before, with some parts the correct shape is in there somewhere, it's just left to the modeller to reveal it... Here's a picture showing the extra plastic that comes with piece 76 and is neither on the diagram nor the walk around, but they give it ye anyway. I've trimmed the right side so you can see what the left side should look like. So definitely some things to watch out for, but I think that when I've removed the extra bits and added the bits that they left out it'll be somewhere useful. This is where I've got to and now it's done, I'm ready to close up. Happy modelling Chris