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Sooooooooo Not heard much from Quack for a bit Wonder what he's been up to Oh Lordy! It looks like he's been mashing a perfectly good Kinetic 1/48 Alpha Jet........poor thing...... Hope he's got a VERY good explanation for this...... Errrr, well, it's like this, y'see .......... I'd finished the 74 Sqn Phantom FGR.2 which I was quite pleased with - then looked around for summat else t'build. I've got a Revell 1/48 Tornado GR.4 which I want to finish as a Granby GR.1, but frankly it scares me a bit and it's likely to be a bit of a long slog (the way I do things!) I'd looked around for another (quicker) 1/48 Brit jet of the cold war era but nothing really took my fancy - unable to find an Airfix 1/48 Lightning F.6 or Canberra PR.9, which were on my "ooooh-I-do-fancy-one-of-those" list - couldn't even track down a Kinetic Sea Harrier. Eventually I decided to have a go at the Kinetic 1/48 Alpha Jet - and stick RAF roundels on it - just for a giggle. Chose this boxing as it even comes with QinetiQ markings.......... boxtop by Niall Robertson, on Flickr And look! It shows an under-fuselage gun pod thingy that fires little jet or rocket propelled bullets!!!! boxtop (2) by Niall Robertson, on Flickr I even thought I might have a bit of fun with a WIP thread.......... Started on the cockpit - IPs are quite well detailed but rather softly moulded, and I totally @rsed the painting. Not to worry thinks Quack, I'll drill out the instruments and fill the nice circular voids with paint, how neat! After burning out my dremel-oid drill (it was just tired, old and useless - like Quack) I tried the old pin vice. Unfortunately the panel ended up with some rather odd perforations - reasonably IP-like, but nothing remotely resembling an Alpha Jet IP! OK - bash on, but NO WIP, and Cockpit closed for once. Fabric cover on the cockpit coaming was done with a layer of tissue stuck down and wrinkled with PVA, then painted tan. So far so Good-ish. Fit was basically ok, but wait.....why are those huge deep panels lines so prominent? The ground crew could drop a sandwich in there, and lose it forever, unless they salvage a toastie at the end of the sortie. Losing some interest now - worse when realising that the Destructions are rather vague.........sometimes........often............a bit.........maybe........yeah, er.............better look at more pictures of the real thing.......again.......and again........ Losing even more interest now - just wanting to get on with it and switch to something I'm really captivated by - maybe I should've started the Tornado after all??? Oh look - there are predrilled holes under the wings that need filled since the SpaghettiQ aircraft were always too shy to allow themselves to be seen with underwing tanks or ordnance - no biggie - just wedge a bit of stretched sprue in there then shave it off and sand it down. Painting next! Yummy! Black! My Favourite! Actually - after a past disaster with an RAF Black Hawk ( I mean a Hawk ............ that's black!) I was reasonably happy with the finish with MRP paint on this. Decals went on nicely - Cartograph beauties kindly provided in the Kinetic box. A few overcoats with W&N Galeria Gloss to seal in the decals. Clever Quack ( ................. ) then decides to represent the anti glare panel on the nose with a neat patch of matt varnish-over-black. Masked and hand painted with thinned Vallejo matt) - truly horrible lines when the masking came off - really dreadful raised ridges that needed completely re-sanded, repainted, and re-glossed - then masked off again and sprayed with a little Alclad II Matt - Finally! a good finish! Except when the masking tape came off this time so did a chunk of the QinetiQ Q!!!!!! Dammit....they....were....sealed.....! Resisting the urge to dig a very deep hole in the garden - I (sort of) managed a decal repair using part of a Belgian roundel ........ not great, but ok from 6 foot viewing distance, without my glasses. Ever had one of those draining builds which seem ok initially but then you realise you're not as interested as you thought, and you just plod on making more and more silly errors as your interest wanes ever further?????? Anyway. It got finished! And it looks like this................ 20210404_095444 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095355 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095336 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095326 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095153 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095116 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095054 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095039 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr 20210404_095021 by Niall Robertson, on Flickr Now, anybody got any suggestions for the next build - at the moment it looks like the Tornado with Granby relish. Stay safe y'all. Keep calm and mangle plastic! Q