Javelin Squared

[Vulcanicity]

Cheers Jimbuna, Trevor, David and Perdu!

Trevor, the ZTS plastyk looks a good start, maybe give it another chance?! Interestingly it looks to be partly, but not completely based on the Frog kit. Indeed, the cockpit interior looks identical, and the separate wings joined to the fuselage at the root is quite different from the Heller/Airfix kit's design but very similar to the Frog. However, the airbrakes and flap detail looks quite different, and the solid rear section of the canopy is moulded attached to the fuselage, more like the Airfix/Heller.

Perdu, I think the slanted, fatter, shorter radomes were those fitted to the marks with American radar, namely the FAW.2, 6, and 8. I never realised that they were asymmetric, (with a slanted rear edge) until you mentioned it though, which is funny because I crawled all over Newark's FAW.8 as research for this build! I read something the other day suggesting the Frog kit is closer to this nose shape than the longer, thinner FAW. 1/4/5/7/9, but it's a bit late to change the decals now!

I'm back at college now, so the Frog Javelin won't get hung up in my room until mid-June. At any rate, I want to have the two completed next to each other (on the ground) at some point!

I'm waiting for some aftermarket underwing lettering for the Frog kit, so I'm going to get back on with the Airfix. Before closing up the fuselage, I've got to do the engine faces and intakes, and complete the cockpit. I've made a start on the latter. It comes with a pretty reasonable tub:

Airfix would have you decorate this with decals, but I want to add some 3D detail. Out with the plasticard to make a throttle box:

And an hour or so later, here's one of the four side panels done. Not up to the standards of many on here, but I'm pleased:

[perdu]

That's some pretty good standard scratchbuilding there inside that cockpit

Looks better than any of my feeble efforts

have a

and don't forget the Froggy now you are Airfixing

It has more meaning to me

b

[keefr22]

That's very nice detailing Phil - with a bit of paint it'll look great! Nice to see some old school modelling!

Keef

[Vulcanicity]

Cheers Perdu and Keef. It's nice to still have some dedicated followers!

Hannant's were very quick with my 36'' underwing letters, so I was able to do the last bits of decalling on the Frog kit. I've also done some weathering as despite being new aircraft, the famous press photoshoot of the 46 squadron FAW1s shows them to have quickly got grubby underneath the fuselage.

Next, a scratchbuilt pitot probe from sprue and an old dressmaking pin. Needless to say, the original had gone long before I got the kit from Troy, but I'd cleaned up the stump and left a reasonable mating surface for the glue:

Next, some yellow paint to replicate missing maintenance stencils for which I had no spares in the decal bank. Doesn't stand really close inspection, but it'll look OK soaring above me on the ceiling!

Pending a final gloss coat, it's done. I'll put some photos up in RFI in the next day or two, and crack on with the Airfix (Degree pending!). I hope to have them both done by mid-June when I go back home.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Vulcanicity

[keefr22]

Watch your fingers on that pitot...!! Looking very nice Phil - as you say it'll look great flying along under your ceiling!

Good luck with the exams!

Keef

[canberraman]

Masterful conversions! That old Frog kit has really benefited from your hard work and restoration efforts and the paint job and home made sqn markings look exceptional. Well done!

Mark

[jimbuna]

Looking great.

[Vulcanicity]

Thanks Canberraman, Jimbuna and Keef!

Reached a major milestone today with the completion of the Frog Kit.

More in RFI!

[perdu]

Great to see the old bird ready to soar

Well done with your rescue

b

[keefr22]

Great stuff Phil, really good modelling - & as Bill says a great save of a sadly neglected old model!! Don't forget to take pics of it when it gets to fly...!!

Keef

[jimbuna]

Great work mate.

[Max Headroom]

Looking good!

How is it going to fly? Straight and level, swooping, banking?

Trevor

[Vulcanicity]

Thanks again, followers!

Keef, don't worry, I will do! Should be late June, hopefully I'll have the two ready to photograph together before the Frog kit 'takes off'.

Trevor, it's going in a "Formation break" dio on my study ceiling comprised of British Cold war jet fighters, there's a nice empty spot on the right hand side for the Javelin banking hard to starboard at full throttle...

Anyhow, just one picture today. All of this week's progress has been confined to the Airfix cockpit tub, a piece about the same size as my index finger below the knuckle.

A rough calculation says I have added 98 plasticard parts to the tub since I started! All four consoles are done, but there's still rudder pedals, instrument panel, cables for the radar set, and a few details on the cockpit coaming itself to do before priming, and a lot of detail painting!

Before anybody asks, I've applied to John Aero to see if he has any vacform canopies left, so I can display the hoods open and actually let this lot be visible!

[Vulcanicity]

Hi all, just another one-picture update, sorry!

The Airfix kit intakes come as tubes with a blanked-off end, moulded in two halves. I decided to add some compressor face detail, and before assembling the tubes I cut out the blank end to the intake tubes, i.e. opening each into a cylindrical tunnel.

I've recently started the scratchbuilding for the compressor faces, helped by being able to get up close and personal with the real Javelin at Duxford last week.

On the left you can see the first one done and ready for paint, and on the right, the raw ingredients for the other. The square backing plate and the splitter vanes are 1mm plasticard cut from a sheet, the central "bullet" is just a section of sprue from the kit rounded and smoothed to shape, and the disk is much thinner (0.25 mm?) plasticard, with cuts about 3/4 of the radius length made from the outside edge inwards, so as to split the disk into 16 compressor blades attatched at their inner ends. These are then twisted individually when the whole thing is assembled, and glued such that they stay twisted and give the whole thing its 3-D texture.

Got that?!

Edited May 6, 2012 by Vulcanicity

[woody37]

Cool Phil,

This I will copy on mine

[perdu]

Phil

You know you want to

Mould your own canopies and then you can have some spares "justincase"

I am about to start making a couple of canopies for Frog's Lightning and F4K/M, (because I lost them over the thirty years they've been in a box in the back room)

It seems a bit of a faff but the job will be worth it because of the easier visiblity of any detailing

Which means I have to up my game

The interior of this flatiron is looking great so far.

b

[keefr22]

Got that?!

Yep, got it. Want to do a couple for mine....??!!

Keef

[Anthony Kesterton]

Just read the whole thread - very impressive restoration of the Frog kit - and the work on the Airfix cockpit is very impressive. I keep having to remember this is a 1/72 kit.

anthony

[Vulcanicity]

Thanks Anthony, Keef (yes-for a small fee! ), Woody and Bill.

I have thought about having a go at vacforming, but every time I am put off when I imagine trying to explain to college cleaners/family why I have been caught attempting to use a vacuum cleaner near a lit gas hob! It's the sort of thing I might leave until I have my own house and only myself to blame if I set everything on fire!

John of Aeroclub fame sold me a couple of spare canopies for a very reasonable price, so I'm sorted for canopies at any rate

A bit of paint, and the engine compressor faces were ready to go in their intake ducts and into the bottom fuselage half. They're not perfect by any means, but better than glimpsing a blanked-off end to the intake:

After much tinkering, the cockpit tub is just about done, except for seats, which I always leave until later in order to give myself a rest from interior scratchbuilding!

Hopefully I will get it primed this evening, then onto the fun bit- A LOT of detail painting! My aim is to get the fuselage closed up and a start made on the tail section graft by the time I sit my Finals the week after next.

[perdu]

Seems to me (lovely lively cockpit by the way) that seeing the interior at this point shows that "wot'sinbetween" the two sections won't matter

You just will not see between them anyway

Nice compressor sections too

What diameter did you cut them at? Not a question for me (I dont have a Jav to play with at the mo') but it might help the chaps following you along.

Altogether, a very happy decision of yours to embrace the stalwarts of AW fighter command

I'm loving them both

b

[Vulcanicity]

Thanks Bill!

The compressor faces are cut to the outside dimensions of the intake tubes (1cm diameter) and carefully trimmed down from there until they fit in the ends of the tubes...

After several days of painting and chopping the supplied cockpit decals into ever-tinier bits, I have finished the tub.

I have also found a tyre balance weight yesterday, so can crack on with sealing up the fuselage. Hopefully I'll have this done and a start made on the tricky rear fuselage graft by the end of the week, when I'm going to have to stop and do some university finals exams!

[keefr22]

... when I'm going to have to stop and do some university finals exams!

It may be a good idea to concentrate on those for a while....!!!

Great looking cockpit Phil, it's all come together very nicely indeed!

Keef

[jimbuna]

Great work.

[perdu]

They do say that them there "finals" thingmies are somewhat important (don't I do a rather fine pompous git hey? ) but are they THAT importan...

Course they are

Good luck with them and let the Jav field lie fallowish for a week or two

And the Jav field has been looking very rich and varied lately, I'm loving that instrument panel. It'll look marvellous under perspex™.

I'd never think of separating individual clocks for a better look, something I might undertake on a "Next Wessex" if I ever get round to it.

You can be very happy with the work you've done on these babies

good studying, see you when you have more time

b

[Vulcanicity]

Thanks as ever Bill, Jimbuna, and Keef!

You are, of course, all quite correct. While working on the Javelin is a very pleasant break from revision, it has been very difficult to stop revision being an occasional break from Javelin. With this in mind, the main sub-assemblies of the Airfix kit have gone on a week-long "holiday" to a non-modelling friend in another college, and I shall pick them up again in a week or so's time!

A couple more pictures are due to bring you up to date:

With the cockpit and intakes done, and some nose weight found, I could at last seal up the Airfix fuselage/inner wing halves.

The gruelling job of rescribing is almost done, but I had these outer wing sections to do. It's not a simple job, the sharp-eyed will notice that very few of the raised panel lines Heller originally put in (right) are in the correct places, so before etching them in more or less correctly (left) I had to study my complex mosaic of detail shots of the under wing areas and try and work out what needed to be moved/made larger or smaller/ignored altogether/put in from scratch.

I've now done both of these underside parts, and one of the first jobs when I've finished finals will be the uppersides. These also have all the panel lines in the wrong places, but with the added fun of umpteen million tiny vortex generators to avoid knocking off.

See you on the other side gents!