Steve Noble

Thanks for the replies. I've seen a set by Eduard that has seat straps and details, so I'm thinking to use the kit seat and spruce it up using the Eduard set.

Hi guys. I'm normally a car and bike builder, but I used to build aircraft exclusively from the late 80's to the mid 90's. I recently stumbled upon the 1/48 Kinetic Harrier GR.3 kit in a local model shop and had to buy it. The Harrier is an aircraft I've always wanted to build for many years now and the Kinetic kit seemed to be an excellent starting point to enable a nice GR.3 model. I'd really like to replace the ejector seat with a resin part and believe it is a Martin Baker MK9? Tried some searching around the internet but as yet cannot find a MK9 seat in resin in 1/48 scale. Can any of the regular aircraft modellers point me in the right direction/suggest any good online stores that serve aircraft model makers. It's all changed since I last built aircraft. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I looked at this kit when it was released and it wasn't really a kit I fancied, but I did like the Rothman's colour scheme and as a result I almost bought it. After watching your build and seeing the fit issues, especially the rear lights I'm kind of glad I held off on ordering it. Knowing what I know now I'll definitely not be adding one to my build stash. You've made a good job of yours and coped with the build problems and fit issues really well. It looks great!! Sadly at this moment in time I just don't have the patience to try and correct the problems with it..

It's looking very nice!! I discovered, sort of by accident that RAL 5002 is a perfect match for the blue. It will also work for the Rothman's Metro 6R4 and the Rothman's Subaru Legacy if I'm not mistaken. Hataka C272 is the exact colour, but you need to airbrush it.

You'll get a dozen different answers because everyone has their preference or favourite airbrush brand/type etc, etc. I've used Badger in the past but can't stand them now. Tamiya, which i still use today and rate them highly, Iwata, which are very good and Mr Hobby/Gunze, which are my favourite airbrushes. I also believe that the airsource is often overlooked. You can have the most expensive airbrush ever, but if your compressor isn't up to the job it's pretty useless...

On a brand new brush I'd be returning it to where you bought it from and asking for a new one myself. No way should you have to be trying out parts to get it to work. I lost faith in Badger many years ago when I had a problem with my Badger 150 which was supposed to have a 'lifetime warranty' on the teflon seal. After I sent it to them with valid warranty card attached, they repaired it and rang me to collect payment for the repair before they would return it. Needless to say I paid it and got the brush back, but it needed repairing again the following year for the same problem so I threw it in a drawer and bought a Tamiya brush and never looked back..

You don't need to take your airbrush apart to clean it between coats of paint, or when changing colours. Simply spray out/remove the excess paint from the colour cup, add airbrush cleaner of your choice and spray through the airbrush. You can also 'backflush' the airbrush by adding cleaner to the colour cup and holding a piece of paper towel tightly over the airbrush tip, press the trigger and the thinner will flush through the airbrush and clean it. You will get bubbles in the colour cup to show it's working. Do this method until your thinner/cleaner is clear and then finally, flush a little clean thinner through the airbrush to remove any final residue. All this should take no more than 30 seconds to a minute and the the airbrush will be perfectly clean afterwards. No need to dissassemble the airbrush everytime, over zealous cleaning can cause excessive wear of the parts and is unnecessary. Only take the airbrush apart if you have a blockage that can't be cleared by regular cleaning or when you want to do a more thorough strip and clean. I maybe do that once every 3 months or so.

If you can get Impa Finissage it is a much superior product in my honest opinion. About £6 the large tube lasts for ages

Had a Sil-air for years, totally quiet and reliable would recommend highly. Not cheap but built to last..

Nice job on the lights.!! Sorry for causing you to modify them, but they look much better. 👍

It's looking very nice. That vent is a pain. It would have been easier had they included a photo-etch part for that..

Excellent work so far, looking very nice. I did read somewhere that the correct yellow is RAL 1021 Rape Yellow. Be careful with the headlights. They were smaller on the Buffum car. The works cars were bigger. I did hear that someone used light lenses from the Beemax Toyota Celica GT4 as they are the correct size. But the grille needs modifying to suit the larger lenses..

Not used them for many, many years and last time I used them the quality wasn't as good as before. I found that when I made military models, figures and aeroplanes they were my most used paint. But since switching to car and bike models I use mainly lacquer paints now...

I did the same kit many years ago. I drilled the sponsons and added metal wire with superglue to hold them in place and for strength. It worked very well, no movement or flexing and a very strong join.

Looks fantastic, lovely build!! By the way it's the St165.

I must try this method myself, thank you Jens!!

Are you using the acrylic paint 'x' series or the 'LP' lacquer paint series? It's the acrylics that I always have problems with, but I've never thinned them with lacquer thinner, only the Tamiya acrylic thinner.

As above teflon seal inside the main body. I got rid of mine as I was sick of replacing it..

I prefer either the Tamiya LP range or Mr Color range. Both have a white that's exactly what you're after, the Mr Color range has a few different white paints that fit the bill. Thin them with Mr Color levelling thinner and they spray beautifully, dry fast and polish up fantastically well. I hate all the Tamiya X range gloss paints. They take an age to dry and remain sticky for months and fingerprint when handled.

Very nice job and perfect execution of a pretty difficult colour scheme, looks stunning, well done Gary!!

Looking really nice that!! Applying the decals is always my favourite part, it brings the car to life 👍

Looking great!! The small silver holes on the seats remind me of the Ford GT40. I think there is a photo-etch set with all the rings separate. I would imagine it would be a real challenge to line them all up!!

Looks very nicely detailed. I have quite a few Beemax kits. Not built any yet, but I must admit they look excellent..

I've got this to build eventually. I knew that Marlboro masking job was going to be tough!! It will clean up and look good, no problem 🙂

It's a common problem trying to match paint to decal colour and almost impossible. I remember visiting the Donington GP Collection many years ago where they had many McLaren F1 cars from the 80's and 90's. None of the decals on the cars matched the painted areas exactly. After that I gave up trying and just went with whatever paint I preferred.