alhenderson

It helps when the secret santa website allows you to enter a wish list 😀 Thanks for the hints on the masking 👍

She's lovely 👍 I just got one of these from secret Santa. Looking at the kit I'm wondering for you went about masking the white and grey with that zap? Looks a little tricky 😬 Al

I was really pleased with how the FOD guard looked on my airfix F.2A 👍

Wings! She looks like a lightning now 🎉 Fitting them wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. The brass rods gave a nice positive fit, allowing the TET and super glue to do their thing. As ever I've gone cross eyed trying to get the angles of droop right. It looks pretty good (or at least did when I left it to dry 😬). There are gaps (of course there are!) but should be doable with some super plastic putty I hope. Whilst doing all that fitting and checking of angles I found myself staring into the intake and realised how awful it was in there. You can see some of the plastic tabs I put in place to better fit the cockpit and radar bullet. Quick visit to the Big H and a PE set of FOD guard and ladder are winging their way to me (plus an RAF tornado decal set for an eventual TSR2 'what if' build 😊). Shame I won't be able to use the ladder since I've already closed the cockpit. Although there's still an F.6 in the stash that could use it.. Getting there.. although I've just realised there are a load of PE aerials and other details to come.. Al

It's time to crack on with this and stop killing time with endless filling and sanding. It really wears me down (see what I did there?!). I'm that vein, as previously mentioned, the fin and tailplanes are on.. Wings with their shiny brass rods ready to make fitting them a breeze. Except... Turns out the holes I had drilled previously set the wing too far back compared to the other side (and the vague outline of the wingtip position that I can see on the fuselage). So out with the drill. Not once, but twice 😳. And then one of the rods in the wing came loose with all the dry fitting and pushing going on. More super glue added, fingers crossed.. For Christmas I'd like to just do a nice simple build please.. 🤣 Al

Fin warp update. Hot water didn't work. Maybe water wasn't hot enough.. Went for the hairdryer approach and it worked, kind of... As predicted by @Steve Coombs my clamps seemed to have introduced a very slight kink to the fin so I'm not really much better off 😲 Anyway, its not awful and will be one of those things you only notice if you're looking dead on and really paying attention, so I'm not going to lose any more sleep over it. Plus, I've now attached it to the fuselage anyway 🤣 Al.

Have had a few attempts at straightening up the fin today, none have yet succeeded. Have warmed up the plastic in water and then clamped to a ruler. Started out with hot water from the tap and then migrated to water from the kettle when that didn't work. On my 3rd attempt at the latter, keeping it in the water for longer each time as I get braver. Will leave it clamped overnight and see if it works, although not holding my breath. Might yet have to graduate to the hairdryer.. In the meantime I attached the tailplanes. So glad I put brass rod in them, meant I could just insert it and let it dry rather than have to hold those joints for ages 👍 the same should hold true for the wings and fin (when it finally gets straightened out). Doesn't feel like I'm making much progress, but there are fewer bits on the sprue now so must be doing something right 😂 Al

Shout out to @Karearea for the recommendation of those PE saws! Got mine yesterday and have been merrily rescribing some of the lost detail on the Lightning. So much easier to use than the other (bigger) tool I have, which just feels heavy handed. I can actually do a lot of it freehand once the blade gets into the groove of the panel line I am (re)extending 🙂 Went to attach the fin this evening to show some progress, and realised its ever so slightly warped near the top. I saw someone on here somewhere recently fix something similar by clamping the piece to a ruler. Although I think I need to heat it up slightly first? Al

Speaking of gaps, dry fitting of the wings tonight: And that's after some sanding at the rear to improve the fit!! Don't want to sand the join at the front as that will spoil the join of the outer wing to the intake. Must send for more filler! Also, need to put some brass rod in the wing as the joint is awful, can't see it staying in place otherwise. Also fitted the rear fuselage, no better.. Should be able to sort that out with perfect putty. Don't understand why it's a separate bit, though.. Lord knows why I decided to start this to alleviate the stress and hassle with the Sword Lightning!! Al

Looks nice - and completed in a week! I need to up my game 🙂 Al.

I thought when you said PE saw you meant a saw for cutting PE, not one *made* of PE! Have duly ordered one, cos why not 🙂

The Doctor Who shop was a strange place. Quite small, and some very niche collectors items in there. They also had a museum somewhere out the back, which you had to get to through a tardis door in the wall. Looked like the kind of place you might never escape from 😆 Shouldn't complain, though, it meant I got to visit Hannants! Al.

Thanks for the hint about the Tamiya saw. I have a Tamiya saw that I use for removing resin casting blocks, it has another, finer, blade so I think this might be the same thing.. Al.

You'd have thought that with the my Matchbox Jag now also vying for my attention, progress on this would have slowed. But no, I seem to be doing more, so both making steady progress 🤷‍♂️ Fuselage glued together, some work done on the seams, primed to see how that went. Surprisingly well, is the answer - some more dabs of filler to fill some dimples but not much else. The fit of the canopy was interesting. Had to trim from the back and front of each canopy piece, and did a decent amount of sanding where the front of the windscreen meets the fuselage. But, both now fit fairly well, which is nice 👍 Going to need some receiving here, try as I might I've been unable to avoid removing detail. Not something I've done a lot of so will be interesting. I have some of that dynamo tape to keep the scriber straight, but it doesn't seem to want to stick to anything, especially if it's not flat, so have not been very successful with that in the past. Time to upskill... Al

Right then, a few hours of sanding and chopping have resulted in the removal of the triangular sticky outy bits (that's a technical aerodynamic term). Have also glued on the intakes.. Fairly large gaps at the back there, but they're reasonably level with the fuselage in all directions, so hoping that a bit of plastic putty will sort that out 🤞 Seams on the fuselage will also need some work. Yay, more filling and sanding.. Al

Ooh, that's an interesting point. I was just going to cut it off straight at the forward edge of the intake, but I actually need to mimic that triangular shape, just further back. Thanks for posting! 👍 Al

With the 'cockpit' assembled (i.e. seat glued to the fuselage floor, I have buttoned up the fuselage and added the nose. Also removed the splitter plates from the intakes that are not needed (instructions seem to suggest they were there on pre-production machines, although the schemes in the box are both in service examples so that's confusing). Anyway, that leaves me with some more tidying up to do: that massive triangular bit that would have been hidden by the splitter plate now needs to go as well. Might leave the intake looking like its too far away from the fuselage, but there's not much I can do about that without affecting the join between the intake and the fuselage, so might have to just suck that one up. Al.

Thanks for that. There's nothing in the cockpit of this one for the PE to attach to, so I'd probably end up scratch building a bunch of stuff. Will just have to not look in the cockpit 🤣 Al.

I wasn't tempted by any aftermarket, having just suffered weeks of trying to get my Sword Lightning cockpit together, but I'm now wondering.. 🤔 haven't really looked to see what's out there tbh. Is there anything you've used or seen used @Lord Riot? Al

..and already there's an update! Thanks to another helpful Twitter user I've now discovered the Matchbox kit archive where there are pictures of the instructions 🎉 http://www.matchboxkits.org/product_info.php?cPath=27_35_52&products_id=300

With my Sword Lightning having been such a pain in the cockpit department and generally needing a lot of TLC I felt the need for an antidote. I recently bought the Airfix Mossie and am quite keen to start that, but need something smaller and hopefully simpler as I'm currently relegated to the dining room table. Instead, out of the stash comes the slightly battered box of the Matchbox Jag. The WH Smith label on it shows it sold for the princely sum of £1.49. Don't think the instructions are going to be much help 🤣 haven't found any downloadable instructions for this online so going to have to wing it a bit. Found a YouTube video review of it where it shows the instructions so I have that if needed. The decals in the kit are shot, but I have a Modeldecal sheet with markings for a 2 sqn machine so will probably go with that. One thing that immediately stands out is that the pylons are very clearly wrong - at least for an RAF machine. Not convinced they were right even for a French bird? Luckily, a kind soul on Twitter has donated some spare bits from a Hasegawa kit which are much better: This was going to be more or less OOB (apart from the spares above) but I've already bought some AN/ALE 40 chaff dispensers to go underneath since my target is a late 80s GR.1A. Let's set how quick and simple this ends up being.. 😬 Al

I had a nightmare with this kit - the fit of the fuselage halves and whatever the bit between the wheel wells is was awful. Was very disappointed as I thought it was an entry level kit, did it as one of the first things when I got back in to the hobby. Hopefully you'll not have these problems, that's a nice looking scheme 👍 Al.

Thanks for this. Given the somewhat 'basic' nature of the matchbox seat I'm not going to get too concerned about the size of the headbox on the seat. I don't even thing there's an instrument panel! Al.

Perfect - they'll do the job nicely, thanks! Al.

Rob - this is perfect, thanks very much for the info. I remember buying chaff and flare dispensers when I did a Gulf War Jag over 30 years ago - hopefully I can still get such things.. Al.