Airfix 48th Lightning F6

[bobsyouruncle]

Hi,

This will be my first build on here so I don't know if this is classed as a pre-build modification or if now I've actually started a WIP on this?

I did start a thread in the cold war military aircraft section wondering about how to best go about this....:-

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234987831-airfix-48th-scale-lightning-too-obsessed-or-not/

...thanks to all the suggestions from that. Anyway, I've wondered about it for maybe a couple of years now so thought I'd better probably just get stuck in.

To re-cap briefly, I wanted to change this profile on the kit.

and I figured Plan B here might be the best way for me to go about it.

So I went ahead and made the cut down at point C on both halves and then made the long cut down the joint between the spine and fuselage between point C and the tail

(cutting from the inside trying not to cut into any vital detail on either spine or fuselage) and removed the spines.

A bit of cleaning up followed and then I put them back on keeping the tail end where it was originally but lifting up the end at point C a touch.

I was able to prop up the C end by adding on a couple of small right angles on the inside edges to act as bracing supports.

That put me at this point.

What I was aiming for was to modify the fuselages before starting a build proper using fully modified parts (as I figured this would make a mess and I didn't want to mess up the cockpit or anything).

I also wanted to find out if the mod could be made without altering the cockpit.

Next stage was to correct the area between the step at point C and the canopy.

I thought I'd use part of one of the overwing tanks as it was a nice curved piece of plastic within reasonable filing limits (and I wasn't going to use them).

I did assemble the tank initially but I ended up opening it up again (as I wanted to have two modified halves to play with). I think if you did the cockpit first and had everything

installed and ready to go in the fuselage, then it might be easier to drop a one-piece part in here instead?

A bit of filler and some filing and this is now where I am with two halves like this (not glued, just held in place with elastic bands).

I'll have to re-do some of the panel lines around here to get it to match the real thing, I think.

I'm fairly happy with this so far, but have been looking at this real one below, wondering whether to file a little off the back taper of the canopy and slightly onto the spine there or not?

I've also been wondering about how best to go about the gun pod external muzzle 'rings' and did a search on here but didn't come up with anything so if anyone knows a good tip for them which I've missed then I'd be very grateful for any helpful suggestions please?

Cheers Bob.

Edited May 15, 2017 by bobsyouruncle

[bobsyouruncle]

A small update.

I decided to start this time with the more traditional photo, so here is the kit box with a few extras and reference books that I've assembled over the years while I'd been mulling over how to do the spine thing.

I'm probably going to end up doing a mix and match with some of these extras and I'll be adding some of my own made-up mods along the way.

The extras are the Firestreak decals, the master pitot, Aires and CMK wheel bays (couldn't decide which I liked better), Aires cockpit, Aires exhaust nozzles and Montex canopy masks.

I should probably have started with the cockpit or something more traditional, but wanted to get out of the way another small thing which had been lurking in the back of my mind.

I had been wondering about the tailpipe piece in the kit (part 25).

It's nice as it is, but I'd wondered if I could make it look any more 3D and less like a one-piece casting.

I didn't take a shot of the piece as it is in the kit (forgot) but here's the real thing, which looks like a few different bits put together :-

I decided to fully commit to this after sitting on the fence about the spine for so long and so I started by cutting out the tailpipes.

It's pretty thin plastic around the edges and so I was as careful as I could be.

It was around this point that I realised how tight the space is if you want the Aires nozzles to fit inside the pipe but have the pipes still fit in the pipes housing.

That was when the doubts came in, (the Oh dear moment) and I started trying to find something the right size, which would be thin and fairly strong.

As luck would have it, I came across these plumbing supplies at Screwfix and B & Q.

15mm is exactly the right size to go around the Aires nozzles and with a bit of careful filing they also fit into the housing.

I used the Screwfix olice for the top pipe and then realised that I'd need something longer for the bottom pipe, so went and found the B & Q straight couplings (87p for 4 I think).

Test fit of the olive in the top station

Here's where I am now with the jetpipes in place in the housing and the Aires nozzles not yet removed from their mould blocks just sitting in to make sure they fit

I won't know if it makes a real difference until it's painted up but at least that's another thing I've got out of my system.

[At Sea]

Nice copper & brass work. Good idea!

[Engineer66]

Good bit of ateral thinking on the nozzles there Bob' I too have this kit nearing the top of the to build pile, along with all the Aires bits. Think I'll be adding some plumbing fittings to the inventory!

I have quite a few detail pics I took of the machine at Sunderland if you need any close ups. Exterior only though :-(

Look forward to more progress

Al

[Ben C]

That's great on using the plumbing olives to enhance the back end. It did make me chuckle, I've used copper pipe in my 1:72 Victor post that up once I've finished painting it.

[Col.]

Nice work on the back end. I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting thread and the reference for future Airfix 48th scale Lightning projects.

[SleeperService]

I like the way you approached the spine modification, it looks a lot better now. I'll give it a try on my T5 conversion currently stalled at exactly this point. BTW I have a spare canopy from said project if you want to try modifying it. Just send me a PM and it's yours.

The tail pipe modification is a touch of genius. I'm suitably gob smacked

[bobsyouruncle]

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I'm grateful for some now and then as it's not all been going exactly to plan.

Not had a great deal of spare time lately and what time I've had has been split between this and the oil painting of a Swiss F-18.

Normally like most I think, I'd want to start with the cockpit but I just wanted to get some of the areas I thought might be problematic out of the way first.

One of these was the cannon muzzle area. I wondered how to get to something like this (which I think is quite distinctive):-

Anyway, I found that the airwaves photo etch set had these rings included so I used those with some added plastic card.

It wasn't without incident as I had a very poor set of tweezers and spent most of the time on hands and knees on the carpet (luckily they give you some spares to play with).

I'm nearly where I want with these but have to file some of the card to make it less 'blocky' and re-scribe the surrounding panel.

The other thing that came up this week was the 'holes' asymmetry discovery on the prt and starboard cannon blisters.

I'd found out by accident after drilling out the moulded holes that the number and arrangement of holes differs on the real thing. See here:-

I could've just left it as it was and made life a lot easier for myself, but thought I thought 'no I'll have to give it a try', - (I sometimes wish that part of the brain would switch off) - so I filled them back in again.

It dawned on me then that I was going to have to try to squeeze a greater number of holes into the same space (24 on one side) and that the filler might not cope with that.

Also, I thought that the blisters looked to 'fill more of the surrounding panel' than on the kit part.

That was when I thought I'd look into replacing the blisters altogether.

I found something that I could cut and shape to the right size in the form of some Mk20 'Rockeye' bombs which were spares from an F-15E kit.

Taking the plunge, I filed off the kit blisters and then some fiddling followed, turning the rockeyes into replacement blisters.

That might have been the end of it, but more difficulties arose when drilling out the new holes.

With them being so close to each other, I hadn't realised that if you don't drill at exactly the right angle, you're going to meet up with others below the surface and you might then get a 'collapse'.

This is what happened on nearly the last hole when two holes suddenly became one big one.

With hindsight, it would have been better (safer and more soild) to have just made an indentation for each hole rather than going all the way through.

Back to the filler then and this is where I am at the moment.

Some tidying up and rescribing needed in places and you can see where I filed the holes in again on the port side.

I've been thinking how best to now to go about the holes as I've pretty much reached my skill limits here.

What I did do was to make a rough template of the holes pattern (I know some of the holes are different size here but should be ok when reduced in size):-

I figured that I could maybe then either just print off a decal of these on some decal printing paper and either just use that as it is, or use this as a template to very slightly drill into the surface without going all the way through?

If anyone's got any good or better ideas than this (apart from not bothering altogether) then I'm all ears (any suggestions gratefully received)?

Will move on to the more traditional cockpit and intake/nose leg bay area next, I think, whilst sourcing some decal printing paper.

Cheers, Bob.

[bobsyouruncle]

Small update today.

Finally got around to the cockpit today.

Only a couple of quick shots to show another small hurdle that I'd been wondering how to overcome, namely the radar 'boot'.

I was wondering how to try and replicate the look of the thing folded over in it's 'stowed' position and what I could use.

Eventually used a piece of sprue. Filed it down to match the square radar screen shape. More filing tapered this down to a 'squashed boot' sort of thing and sanded this to round it off.

Next thing was bending it, so with baited breath I held it as near as I dare to a candle and then folded it over.

I was happy with that and quite relieved to have got that over with. Some sample shots of a very minor 'triumph in my own eyes' (it was almost like holding up the FA cup to me in my little world).

The dash looks a little darker here to my eyes than in real life but I don't think it'll matter as I was thinking of having the canopy down anyway -will see how the seat turns out.

Front bit is just sat loose on the tub and not glued.

[Col.]

Lovely work within the 'pit in general and that radar scope boot in particular.

[bobsyouruncle]

Small update on the cockpit. Still not decided whether or not to have the canopy open or closed (may depend on what you can see through it and if I mess the canopy up) as I like to see into the pit but also like the lines of the aircraft when the 'lid's down'.

Ejection seat so far (have thought of making a small decal for the '90 knots groundspeed' pinky coloured stencil that goes on the black part of the seat).

Trying the seat in position with blu-tac

When looking at this shot, I realised that the only reason I keep the ancient nail file is because I find it so handy for opening tins of enamel

Going to add lines and the canopy opening strut later. My favourite bit is still the radar 'boot'

Going to have a look at the intake/nose bullet/front undercarriage bay next.

Cheers Bob.

[gingerbob]

Man, this is going to be a fun one to watch (I have been). I think it is time to change the thread title, though. In case you don't know, if you edit the first post you can change it to something more accurate for what's going on now. I'm not really a fan of the Lightning (am I allowed to say that on Britmodeller?) but I've sure enjoyed your pursuits, both in model shaping and in discovering what was really going on with the original. And despite what I said a second ago, I've got two of the Airfix Mk.1 etc kits AND an Aeroclub Trainer vac kit! What the heck?

(another) bob

[Martian]

That cockpit is looking pretty special!

Martin

[At Sea]

Very nice so far. Watching this one!

[bobsyouruncle]

Had a few days leave so managed to do some more bits.

Knew I'd have to tackle the radar bullet/intake area and front undercarriage bay at some stage.

I spent a long time looking at this area and at the CMK and Aires bits to try to decide which bits to use and what had to go where and in what sequence.

I decided on the Aires set as it looked to have more detail to it.

My ham-fistedness straight away broke the upper radar bullet support off on the Aires bit. I'd tried to be careful scoring the part where it was supposed to separate, but it just decided to break elsewhere (or my fingers did).

The CMK part was transparently thin and had a great big mould hole in it, so I used the kit part.

I also ended up damaging the small probe which was replaced with a brass pin.

The undercarriage bay fit superbly and so far I've just added paint to that.

Here's the real one. Might tweak the colour on mine yet. We'll see but Aires did a good job of this bay I think.

The intake trunking went together ok and I decided that I wanted the bullet central in the intake ring so (rightly or wrongly) decided to pair that up with the intake trunking before fitting them both in the fuselage.

I also noticed that the upper bullet support was mounted to a plate in the roof of the intake which I thought could conveniently fill some gaps in mine if I added a plate of my own.

Here's the real thing showing the plate fixing the bullet support to the intake roof, etc.

and my attempt

I spent a while dry fitting and filing before adding the intake trunking and cockpit to the fuselage half.

Then it was time to add some weight in the gaps (I used milliput and some metal nuts) before adding the tailpipes and closing the fuselage.

(I did add some tubing to the large port side exhaust vent first, though). I thought I'd 'prep' the fin too by drilling the hole out.

Some bits of filing and filling required to blend these joints to the fuselage at the back end, but getting there.

It was great to hold the closed fuselage in my hands at last.

Anyway, I wanted to try to get stuck in to the panels area behind the cockpit where my spine mod had taken place.

There were lines I wanted to fill and then re-scribe but I also wanted to just have a go to see if I could replicate the small bulges in what is known as 'access panel 30' in the English electric drawing in Tim McLellands Lightning book.

What I did instead then was to cut out my own panel shapes and glue them onto the spine one by one, butting them up to each other like wallpaper joints.

Some of the shapes needed some careful cutting and I had to do some 'brass rubbing' (except it was on plastic, not brass) to get some of the shapes accurately.

Here's the start of it..

You can see that the top panel has been filed down to blend in with the plastic at the one end and you might see the slight 'bulge' I was aiming for in the topline near there? ...(or perhaps not).

Then it was time for a test fit of the cockpit canopy to see if all would fit well and whether or not it would be the shape required.

So with baited breath.....

and against a shot of the real thing

I thought it was pretty close in spine shape but may need a slight tweak with a file.

It did draw my attention to the nose shape which I'll be looking at next.

closed fuselage so far

Back to work for a few days again now. Been very interesting though and enjoyed most of it except for keeping dropping things in the carpet.

Edited December 22, 2015 by bobsyouruncle

[woody37]

This is inspiring me to dig mine out now!

Loving your progress

[At Sea]

I have 2 1/48 Lightnings to build (bought my Christmas presents from my young daughters myself :-D) an F3 and an F6.

Mine will basically be OOB except for Eduard zoom, that was until I saw the plumbing Olives.

Damn you! Lol

[Bozothenutter]

Doesn't the D-molds intake ring fix the nose ring angle problem?

[tweeky]

Bobsyouruncle,

Your going far to deep with the lines on the Gunpack if you notice bellow the gun door the lower lines match up with the upper lines... this means the gun door has been replaced it only held on to the Gunpack by three pip pins when in it hinged mode. the Black vertical line are used to show the groundcrew when the slinging/lifting point is very much like the dashed "cut here" type markings around the rear fuselage them markings are for the tail trestle when the jets No1Engine is removed also some tomes used when the bullet, seat or canopy are removed.

Edited December 19, 2015 by tweeky

[bobsyouruncle]

Thanks for the comments and info.

Doesn't the D-molds intake ring fix the nose ring angle problem?

I saw the photos of the D molds nose ring and it looks very nice.

I don't know where you can get them from though and it said they were sold out on the D molds website. After e-mailing them to see if they'd be getting any more in and not having heard from them so far, I thought I'll just go ahead and tweak

the kit one.

Your going far to deep with the lines on the Gunpack if you notice bellow the gun door the lower lines match up with the upper lines... this meant the gun door has been replaced it only held on to the Gunpack by three pip pins when in it hinged mode. the Black vertical line are used to show the groundcrew when the slinging/lifting point is very much like the dashed "cut here" type markings around the rear fuselage them markings are for the tail trestle when the jets No1Engine is removed also some tomes used when the bullet, seat or canopy are removed.

Hi Tweeky, I'm presuming that you mean I'm getting too involved with line patterns on the gun pack? I guess might have got a little involved calling them 'Variant A' and whatever.

The main reason I was referring to the lines was merely as a visual aid to location point (because of the way one set conveniently straddle one of the gun pack fasteners) in order to show the way the holes on the 'blisters' are set differently port to starboard (with the left side holes being set further rearwards on the blister to the right side and having an extra row of holes on the right side). I realised that the stripes on the blister panels would be replacements and that the positions

on these can differ from those on the rest of the belly pack.

You can just as easily use the edge shapes on the actual blister panels themselves as visual references for different hole positions rather than the stripes (see Danny Coreman's photo in above thread).

Cheers Bob.

[tweeky]

Bob the "blister" on the gun door/panel served as purpose its where the licks and spent shells were collected (that's also the reason for the holes). The small panel you refer to as gun pack fasteners is actually just a cover (named D panel due it its shape) for the gunpack/ferry ventral bolt. You may also notice white arrows on the gun door looks like this panel's been on a grey jet at some time too.

[exdraken]

nice progress!

your work on the spine looks very good!

Edited December 19, 2015 by exdraken

[bobsyouruncle]

I decided to get this one out again with a view to not getting sidetracked any more and actually finishing it off. 

Having looked at the incredible works in progress going on at the moment I had second thoughts about adding updates but then I figured that no, this needs to be a 'warts and all' thing and we can't all be perfect.

Hopefully it'll look more refined at the finish.

Not a vast change from what was last seen, with nose profile being the main difference.

I wanted to lose the step between the nose ring and fuselage and straighten up the top profile of the nose in general.

This involved adding filler here and there, checking shape, correcting, sanding, adding filler, checking shape...etc.

I also wanted to correct the nose panel lines (which 'splay' outwards in plan view of the nose and create problems if you follow them as side markers with the black anti-glare paint panel).

Some other small pieces have been added whilst poking around this area.

 

With the various coloured fillers acting like body paint or camouflage, it's been difficult to see which bits need smoothing, correcting, re-scribing and all so I sprayed a layer of uniform grey to see what's what and will now start to tidy it up.

Also added the pitot tube mount to blend it in with the underside of the nose ring, drilled some more holes out and added the very small 'thing' that sits on the side of the spine UHF/VHF radio compartment panel (finding Danny Coremans

book great for telling me what a lot of the 'things' on Lightnings actually are).

 

 

Cheers Bob.

 

 

 

 

[matteo44]

This is a very good job!

[propforward]

Warts and all?

 

I'm not seeing any warts. This is a fabulous build - love the jet pipe modification. May have to steal that idea.