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Hello My newest creation. Effect of quarantine. Enjoy. As the last I guess most iconic British planes form WW2. (Spitfire its Eduard production) Cheers Mike

Hello! One and a half year ago I started a Harrier GR.3, but I never got round to finish it. I think it's time to do so now! Main reason is that I want to paint something, and since my Tiffie is still in the detailing stages the urge to shoot some paint around is big. But first, a recap of what's been done so far! Here's what I'll use for this build (i have another GR.3 that will be decked out with more AM stuff) Yes, that's a replacement fin from Freightdog. 2mm too short height for the Airfix one, and not something i'd be bothered fix by myself. I started with the bits that goes bang, and promptly raided the other kit for its rockets. They probably never flew during the exercise with all four pods, but it just looks cooler this way. That means that my second kit will have a recon pod and a Sidewinder, together with some fueltanks, but that will not happen this year. The Gunpods benefited from drilling and opening of some holes. And why not drill out the fuel dumping pipe as well? After much fussing with how to paint the intake I found this thread http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234947602-another-one-for-the-harrier-gr1-experts/, And promptly painted one of the green, that other grey. Well, my guess after reading BM for too long is the the rocket pods at this time probably were mostly unpainted, maybe like this, Keeping with the loud stuff, here's the bang seat: Four plastic parts, and two small stencils. Turned out nice enough closed 'hood! Cockpit complete The next one will have a Zoom set, to spice it up further! Added the nose without the extra warts, since that equipment wasn't installed at that time. (Falklands only?) The fin was installed, and fitted perfectly, except for a tiny air bubble which was filled. Eagleeyed spotters can see that the elevator isn't installed. I reasoned that with grey undersides the masking job will be very tricky to solve, and cut the onepiece affair in two. There's a huge gap on the underside of the main wing though :-( Plastic shims to the rescue! Looks quite ok. The gunpods have a big gap too, but i plan to fill that with all kind of dirt and goo. There's no such thing as clean gunpods, i'm sure, especially on the underside of an british fighter! After that, the underside was cleaned up, and sprayed Light Aircraft Gray (Xtracrylix) Now, the plan is to winterize this one, more or less like RAF did it. That means, normal cammo colors on, gloss coat, decals, more glosscoat, hairspray and white, add scratches with a toothbrush or similar, and then seal it with a final flat coat? What could possibly go wrong? Just to be sure, i experimented on an old MiG-21 fin. Dark green with Alclad Aqua gloss. Then, Hairspray and Tamiya white. One hard brush and some water later: This could actually work, I think! And that was the start. Let see how it goes in the coming weeks //Christer