Caerbannog Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Hi all, as the title says I like to contribute with the Meteor EE455 "Yellow Peril" (also called "Forever Amber") in 1:48 scale. EE455 was one of two F.3 Meteors which were modified on production line for a speed record attempt (the other was EE454 called "Britania"). Both got the F.4 Rolls-Royce Derwent engines but otherwise kept the F.3 wings. with rounded and longer wing tips. Guns and other equipment were removed, both jets got modifications on the canopy and so on. On November 7 1945 EE455 broke the world speed record (966 km/h) but within the same day EE454 set the mark to 976 km/h. EE455 was the Gloster aircraft in a bright Trainer Yellow livery with Union Jack on the nose sides, while EE454 was the RAF machine in standard camouflage ( ). The only thing which was a bit more interesting on EE454 was the canopy. Here is a pic of EE455 and what areas need attention (well - what I spotted so far): And here is what I like to throw in: So the kit is started but I think it should be within the rules. Please let me know if it does not. Other than the Classic Airframes kit there are Baracuda cast small bore intakes, Dutch Decals (IIRC including the Yellow Peril) and a yellowed Aeroclub canopy. I am not sure if the latter one will be used. I will try to get rid of the yellow tint but have no clue yet how. Rene 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelSatin Posted October 7, 2015 Share Posted October 7, 2015 Rene, Qualifies as under 25% as far as I'm concerned. Others might be able to help more on the canopy but a bath in Future/Kleer/etc. might help. I know if I put yellowed decals in a south facing window for a few days the sun will bleach the yellow out. Not sure about clear plastic. Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted October 8, 2015 Author Share Posted October 8, 2015 Thanks Michael! I know the window trick for decals (have used it with success) but never tried with clear plastik. Sadly summer is over and the current weather conditions will have little effect if at all. Still worth a try. Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trickyrich Posted October 11, 2015 Share Posted October 11, 2015 Nice choice Rene, it will look nice in a super clean configuration! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 OK - I continue with some detail pictures of what has been done already. As said I filled all panel lines, which was not a good idea as the pictures of Yellow Peril do not look as if the panel lines were puttied over. So I will try to remove the Gunze Surfacer with IPA or paint remover. The top and bottom wing parts were assembled and new wingtips added. So each wing is made of six parts. As mentioned above the wingtips were taken from an MPM P-63 Kingcobra which will become a clipped wing air racer. As the kit wheel wells have quite nasty ejector marks they were replaced with resin parts from Loon Models. Some areas were primed in dark grey at some point in the past when I had the airbrush loaded with this colour for another build. I usually do so, leaving me with a huge "part started" stash. While looking for pictures for this build I realized on the rather poor images of Yellow Peril which I found that there is a thin vertical line visible in the intakes. Further "reseach" lead me to other Meteor pictures which show a mesh screen obviously used as an intake guard: I never realized these before. Can anyone tell me more about these? Is there something available from the aftermarket? It will be interesting to make these thin mesh screens but I have an idea which will maybe work... Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted December 28, 2015 Author Share Posted December 28, 2015 As a little surprise this one is back now. My cunning plan is to actually finish this build after several fail attempts in other GBs. To achieve this I will hurry it a bit together in places. First I added a 3mm spacing to the resin intakes as these are too short. For the spaceing I cut 3 mm off the kit parts (well the second try was 3 mm - the first was only 2 mm so I hadd to use some plastic card to build the remaining mm up): The exhaust tubes have no mounting point - so I just added a blob of Milliput insid ethe nacelles and pressed the exhaust tubes inside until I was happy with theri positions. I had to use quite a bit of MrSurfacer 500 on the extended intakes - due to the extension: After assembly (as usual...) I spotted a mistake in the top part of one nacelle: The injection is not complete so I will have to build up material here. I have a plan but cannot say if it will work. We will see soon. Rene 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted December 29, 2015 Author Share Posted December 29, 2015 Before I resume work on the nacelle I finished the cockpit and closed up the fuselage: I first glued the front section together and let it dry before I glued the rear fuselage area together. This gave me a bit more control on the joint which has no locating pins. Next time I will add some plastic card pieces on the inside as done for vacform. I suppose this will help a lot. As you can see in the picture above the panle lines are still filled with MrSurfacer - I was unable to remove it and too lazy to rescribe. Next I installed a huge chunk of plumbing lead behind the cockpit and secure it with superglue (not shown - sorry). The fuselage to wing joint needed several testfitting. I removed some plastic from almost anywhere and added a plastic chip on the inside of the fuselage along the lower seam line (again no pic) on which the wing can rest. This helped a lot to reduce any step between wing section and fuselage. Better pics will follow. Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davek72 Posted December 30, 2015 Share Posted December 30, 2015 Good work aren't it looks like you are making great progress. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted December 30, 2015 Author Share Posted December 30, 2015 Thanks Dave - I have to hurry with just 11 days left... The wings are all glued up and they look OK from the front (no pic - you have to believe me). There is a lot of sanding ahead now (some nasty areas where the wing root meets the fuseage but it should be workable. Rene 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galgos Posted December 31, 2015 Share Posted December 31, 2015 This looks like a real battle Rene, the kit appears to be fighting you all the way! Max 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted December 31, 2015 Author Share Posted December 31, 2015 Lokks like the battle just started - I hate filling and sanding... So my last for this year: Happy New Year to everybody, René 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelSatin Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 Keep on keeping on Rene, only a week left but you can do it (if you don't run out of surfacer first!) Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted January 4, 2016 Author Share Posted January 4, 2016 I hope to have everything sanded so far: After sanding was done I installed the horizontals - a metal rod is inside to support the bond. Navigation lights were taken from the kit (landing light too - not shown) and had to be sanded to shape. To spice up the reamining few days (thanks for pointing out Michael ...) I notice the Aeroclub canopy is quite blown compared to the one used on Yellow Peril. So I used the Aeroclub canopy as a starting point for a custom mold. I filled the Aeroclub one with Milliput (do not forget a mold release agent before) and waited for it to dry. And waited. And waited for the next day. And waited. And freaked out. I poked the half dried Milliput out of the vac canopy and used plaster instead. When the plaster was hard but still humid I shaped it to a straighter shape. This was then put on the heater over night only to realize this morning that it is too wide at the base of the windscreen and not pointy enough at the back. As time is getting tight now I pulled out the kit clear parts and decided they will be fine enough after a good polish: So tonight starts priming. Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted January 5, 2016 Author Share Posted January 5, 2016 Next update: The canopy was masked and slightly modified: The navigation and landing light as well as the cockpit area was masked too and - finally - a primer coat was sprayed on. I used automotive primer straight from the can: Surely this revealed some issues: Not sure how to solve the wing issue as I have no more thin super glue - only regular one and this is not thin enough for a proper job. Whatever I will do - I have to apply Trainer Yellow tonight or it will be hard to finish the build in time. Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 cool! if these are all your issues, you are really good! do you have "perfect plastic putty? dries very very fast and you can shape it with water... so an hour and you'd be good to go! don't stress youself, better have a nice kit one day late than a mess you are not satisfied with! there is still time with some night shift... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 Yep - exdraken. I have Perfect Plastic Putty. Great stuff. But it makes no sense to putty a broken seam - the crack will probably appear again. So I tried to glue the seams with normal liquid super glue (not the high viscosity one). I bend the wings so the gap became bigger and this was enough to make my super glue flow into the gap. Then bend the wings back and a quick swipe with a cotton but to remove excess glue. I had to apply another layer of putty but in the end it worked fine enough. Next problem was to find the Humbrol Trainer Yellow tin. My man cave is under reconstruction which is also the reason for my highly reduced output the last months. I cannot build anything down there at the moment and only the spray booth can be used right now. Somewhere in this chaos is my Humbrol 24 tin. Undetected so far. I know it is there but only found Humbrol 154 Insignia Yellow. I painted a scrap piece and compared it to the Humbrol 24 chip I had and found the two quite close. I suppose Yellow Peril was Trainer Yellow (rather than Insignia Yellow) but this seem to be not 100% sure. Well then. Now my Yellow Peril is Insignia Yellow: The Humbrol paint cures slowly so I am not sure if I can clear cote it tonight. Should it become obvious that I will not be in time I might buy another Humbrol 24 tin and repaint it... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 nice yellow! looks like in the signature! about the putty, you are perfectly right... was not sure if the wing structure cracked or just the top seam..... your solution was perfect! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted January 7, 2016 Author Share Posted January 7, 2016 Not ashamed of the most insignificant update here is a pic with first gloss cote. From all the possible gloss cotes to choose from (Revell, Humbrol Clear, Alclad, Pledge,...) I opted for Alclad because it seemed the one which is most unlikely to cause trouble. It sprays fine from the bottle, dries rather quickly, coveres evenly and does not easily create runners. But it dries a bit slower than Humbrol Clear and does not build up a high gloss so quickly IMHO. But as the primer and Humbrol paint had not such a long drying time I was affraid to risk some trouble if I would have used Humbrol Clear (people had issues with it - I must say it always worked fine for me but I usually let the paint dry much longer). The surface should be OK for decaling tonight. After that another clear cote with Alclad gloss (the water based stuff) will follow. The u/c and wheels is already in the painting process, so I should happily meet the deadline with this. In the pic above you can get a glimpse at one of the walls in my basement - there is no plaster at the walls: I started to plaster them but as the room is quite full with stuff this takes longer than usual :-( Precious time missing for model makeing. And the place is also no good for building kits at the moment. René Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 So decals are on - a mixture of the KitsAtWar decals and Airfix roundels (not included in the KitsAtWar sheet): So far so good. But it was very apparent that the Union Jacks are not OK. I placed them according the instructions (did not check my reference pictures on the computer for laziness which was in another room and meanwhile switched off) and they are too far forward but worse of all too small. I checked my spare decals but found none which was OK so maybe I will print new ones later. Not sure yet. Whilestaring at the Union Jacks I notices several differences in the "Gloster Meteor Rolce Royce Derwent Engines" Decals. First off all they seem a bit on the thick side. Most of the few pictures I found of Yellow Peril are of rather poor quality and it is hard to tell if there is a red shadow painted or not. Yesterday I found a colour picture by pure chance and it is evident that there is no red outline (at least not at the time this picture was taken) and the letters are very thin. On my second best picture the letters look thicker - so maybe a red shaddow was added later??? Besides I am not sure if the colour picture is a colourized black and white picture because of the sky which looks a bit suspicious. Still the Meteor looks plausible. Any expert meaning on this? I am not sure how to get ahead with this. Maybe I will print new decals. Though my self printed ones are a bit on the thick side. Especially compared to the KitsAtWar decals which are of perfect quality (very thin yet strong and conform nicely. If this is successful everything should be fine. If not I will maybe continue with this GB and correct the issues at a later point. So far for the plan. Any opinions welcome. René 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 Just a written update: I printed new Union Jacks and completed the u/c. Onlythe pitot tube is missing and the canopyneeds the masks removed. Almost done. Will do the rest tommorrow and post some picsn the gallery. Betterpics will follow here next week as I can only takepics with my old mobile tomorrow. Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelSatin Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 So... very... YELLOW! Nice sprint at the end Rene, excellent work! Congrats on finishing! Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nimrod54 Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Fantastic job Rene and the gallery shots of her in the winter sunshine are spectacular. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 wow! you made it! great work, congrats on the splendid scheme and on the new Union Jack! and now: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caerbannog Posted January 10, 2016 Author Share Posted January 10, 2016 Thanks all! Time today was a bit of a hurry as we went to the movies with our son and his firends - Fireman Sam. Pics were taken outside (splendid weather today) with my state of the art iPhone 4s ;-) And from this super device I did the gallery. To get the pics from the phone to photobucket to the gallery more nerve wrecking than the lost canopy. Meanwhile I found the lost canopy and removed the maskfrom the landinglight. Just two quick pics to prove ;-) I will write the last steps in construction tomorrow and make some more shots with the canopy on place later this week (have a photo cube which has yet to be tested). Thanks for lookiing and the kind comments. Rene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natter Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Looking forward to the updated pics because it looks stunning. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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