English Electric Lightning T4 - 226 OCU

[propforward]

Hello all,

 

For my next Lightning (I always have a Lightning model on the go), I have decided to try my hand at some shiny metal finishes, and a two seater version. I have on hand the Sword 1/48 T4, and a set of Xtradecals for 226 OCU.

 

The kit is certainly a decent representation of the type, but is also a little basic in terms of fit. There is a substantial amount of flash, ejector pin marks and seam lines. However, with some patience (in short supply) I think it will make into a decent model.

 

Box and aftermarket decals

 

 

The kit decal sheet seems decent - stencils are well defined and good resolution

 

 

The sprues

 

 

I think the cockpit is busy enough with kit parts. With some scratch building I think it would even look OK with an open canopy, but for simplicity I'll be closing the canopy on this build. Here I am just starting to dry fit parts. Still some clean up needed. The cockpit includes resin ejector seats (not shown here). The seats are not up to Eduard or Quickboost standard for sure, but streets ahead of the average injection moulded versions in the Airfix kits. (Although the Airfix kits are superior to the sword ones in terms of fit and overall definition).

 

 

The wings go together fine. The leading edge joint is not very good, but the wing lower sections fit well otherwise. It shouldn't take too much effort to sand the leading edge smooth.

 The intake ring is not very well molded, but again didn't take to much work to cut out runner leftovers, and smooth the internal diameter transition.

 

 

And just a couple of progress pics - meaning I have done some priming.

 

 

 

And so away we go!

 

 

[Col.]

Ooh nice subject choice

[Biggles87]

Watching with interest. I haven't built a Lightning for a few years  and I have an Airfix kit with the nose chopped off, an Aeroclub T4 nose and a Neomega cockpit set somewhere, perhaps I should dig them out instead of starting more Spitfires.

 

John

[MADMUSKY]

Will follow your build, I have the T5 in the stash, nice kit but some weak panel lines in places and some fictitious panel lines in other places. It fits perfect when mated to the Airfix F1/3 fuselage and the Airfix nose ring and rear ring fit perfect in the Sword kit.

 

Cheers

Darren

[propforward]

That's interesting - I may look into that and give it some consideration. I also have the Neomega 1/48 T4/5 conversion kit, to mate with the Airfix F1, but was looking for an easier route this time around.

 

Don't know yet - may take the simple route this time and just build as is, but there are other T birds in my future, so I may try a kit bash or the Neomega kit next time.

 

So many interesting Lightning schemes - I want to make them all!

[propforward]

Right so, continuing on a bit. Had a nice day out in the shed today, and my buddy came out and kept me company for a while.

 

 

A quick dry fit up of the wings reveals work ahead.

 

 

That gap will need filling. I suppose I could park a bus in it.

 

Join of the wing leading edges is not the best.

 

 

 

However - after letting glue set, those leading edges cleaned up quickly. The plastic is quite soft, and it's quite simple to blend the joint together.

 

As I was looking through the rest of the kit, I discovered something interesting - heretofore unseen weapons - behold the Firetop and Red Streak. D'Oh! They've only gone and moulded the wrong seeker heads on each missile. Never mind, I'll use left over Airfix missiles, although it wouldn't be too hard to cut and change these.

 

 

I did a little painting on cockpit parts today. In the T4, the cockpit interior was black. I have a devil of a time with that - difficult to make it look interesting. Later marks with grey cockpits are much easier to shade and add depth to. So I'm basically just dry brushing a bit of metal colour on the interiors, and I'll pick out some other details. Not going overboard, as I will shut the canopy.

 

 

 

 

That's about it. I've also done some work on the jet pipes and intake trunk, and I hope to be in a position to get the fuselage halves together by the weekend.

[Filler]

Looking excellent and you've done a great job on the black cockpit. I'll be following your build for sure. And I'm sure it will help me decide whether to pick an Airfix F.6 or a Sword T.5 to build as well.

[propforward]

Thank you! I'll show you a few issues that are good to know about on the Sword kits right now.

 

I pushed ahead a bit - got the intake truck and radar bullet together.

 

 

 

Fit is crude - but it works. A little careful prep and dry fitting lead me to believe this will all line up nicely with the fuselage and intake ring.

 

I haven't finished detailing the cockpit the way I want yet, but there is quite a bit of room, so since I am expecting some severe gap filling, I have elected to get the tub and intake in place at this juncture, along with a fairly over the top choice of nose weight. I hate tail sitters. Hope it doesn't overload the undercarriage though. I glued the edge of the undercarriage bay of the bullet to the fuselage opening first, holding the bullet in place with putty while that cured. Then held it more firmly with two part epoxy adhesive.

 

 

 

Then on to fuselage assembly. Fit is not great - so I am going with an approach of glueing only part of the fuselage joint at a time. Starting with the spine.

 

 

The front is spread widely apart, although I am confident this will be able to be made meet and hold, once the spine has set up. I did a dry fit test to verify that.

 

 

And then there's the underside.

 

 

 

My dry fit tests show that the fuselage joint immediately behind the wheel bay will not meet. But it will a little further back, and forward of the wheel bay. I think this will work out, and the gap can be filled easily enough. Fit testing shows that the opening for the wheel bay in the fuselage lines up correctly with the undercarriage bay in the bullet even when the gap in the fuselage joint remains.

 

So - it's just a matter of careful coercion to get the fuselage halves together. Once that's one, I'll go round and tidy up a lot of seams, and do some more detailing. At the moment, everything is kind of crude. I probably should have dealt with the seam in the U/C bay in the bullet first. Ah well, wanted to glue stuff.

[propforward]

After letting it set up overnight, I trussed up the rest of the fuselage and glued the remainder of the fuselage seam. Check out the resulting gap behind the U/C bay. I superglued that with the thick cyano. Leaving it all to cure now.

 

 

 

 

Did an initial quick test to clean up the join. All looks horrendous, but I'm really confident that this will clean up quickly, and that I can fill and smooth that seam.

 

 

I did a test fit of the nose ring, and it actually fits really well. There is a big gap here, but that's just because it's loose - I needed a third hand to hold that properly. But despite the nasty joints and gaps, I still feel very good about how this will work out.

 

[Biggles87]

I think you're winning the fight, keep at it

 

John

[Nikolay Polyakov]

Hello @propforward,

 

it’s a very interesting build, you did a great job! I haven’t had a Lightning on my workbench, but I’m always admired by its beauty.

 

Cheers! 🙃

[propforward]

Thanks! It's actually a fun build. Usually I shay away from stuff needing this much filling and work (just a lazy modeller), but the Lightning is my favourite aeroplane, so I can get over it. I'm actually enjoying it a lot.

[Andwil]

Looks like a real arm-wrestle but you’re getting on top of it.

 

AW

[propforward]

All that trussing and gradual gluing paid off. Everything lines up on the fuselage - dry fit of canopy shows that will fit nicely, the front U/C bay is perfectly lined up with the opening of the fuselage, and the fuselage, as far as I can tell, is straight and has the right sort of T4 shape. So now it's a lot of sanding and polishing, but for the most part the seam is cleaning up well.

 

I took this opportunity to fit test the wings and fin. That reveals more filling in my future - although I'm thinking I should be able to fill the gaps and smooth them in without sanding, by using water based acrylic filler, and the moist cotton bud trick. I'll try it anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[exdraken]

Thanks for showing this WIP! And it looks certainly good  

keep on !

[Col.]

Glad to see this one is coming together well and keeping your enthusiasm high  

[72modeler]

On ‎11‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 5:40 PM, propforward said:

That gap will need filling. I suppose I could park a bus in it.

I was thinking a spacer inserted between the halves at mid-chord might hump the airfoil up enough to match the fairing on the fuselage....but then I noticed you had already glued the wing halves together- is the wing root open so you could put a spacer in there to do the same thing? Just thinking out loud- I'm watching this with great interest, as I have always thought the T4/5's were handsome beasts. I have two Sword kits, plus a Neomega and Maintrack T4/5 conversion, and the Matchbox T55 to play with. I  have attached two links to the T5 being restored to flight at Stennis, MS that have detail photos that might be useful in your build.  You chaps in the  UK might have a Lanc, but looks like we will have a Lightning!

Mike

 

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2013/11/21/restoration-news-english-electric-lightning-t5-xs422/

 

https://lightning422.com/

[propforward]

Thanks for the links. Actually I'm on your side of the pond - relocated here many years ago, and I can't describe how excited I was to see a Lightning project underway at Stennis. I saw a few weeks ago that the team there successfully performed taxi tests under power - a huge achievement, so here's hoping we can go and see it take to the skies.

 

Interesting idea on the wing root, I'll look into that.

 

I also have the Neomega conversion (48 and 72 scale) - definitely want to build that as well. Is that the Maintrack 1/72 scale conversion set you have? Those are RARE! For so many years was the only way to build a T bird. We're spoiled for choice now, happily.

[72modeler]

Yep- it is the Maintrack conversion.

[propforward]

OK - continuing to beat this one into submission. It's a lot of filling and sanding at the moment.

 

The underside is starting to come along.

 

 

I filled the big gaps with thick CA adhesive, then went in with some Tamiya putty, and I'm using this on smaller, final filling.

 

 

Seems to work. I haven't used it before, but so far so good.

 

The wings have some moulding faults where the undercarriage is supposed to join. This should be a hole.

 

 

So I drilled that out to fit the undercarriage leg.

 

 

I went ahead and glued the wings in place.

 

 

I added some thick CA to the massive gap, to make the joint strong. I do wonder if I should have trimmed the wing to get a better fit, but it seemed like that would make the angle of the wing incorrect - but maybe I'll try that on the next one, see if it works out better.

 

In the meantime, it does make it start to look a bit more like a Lightning.

 

 

To deal with the wing gap problem, after squirting the CA into the gap, I went to work with this:

 

 

The fine dispensing tip means you can squirt the filler right into the joint, and being water soluble you can wipe excess away with a moist cotton bud.

 

First pass

 

 

 

Underside

 

 

I did a couple of fills, but am now leaving that to set before doing it again. The gap is filling in nicely though.

 

So, while that is curing, I started looking at rescribing some of the sanded away panel lines.

 

Here is one that needs addressing

 

 

I used vinyl masking tape to make a scribing edge

 

 

After scribing

 

 

Not perfect, but not bad. I'm fairly new to this aspect.

 

A couple of others I tried:

 

 

 

I'm using a Mr Scriber tool, from MRP. Here it is, compared to the Tamiya tool (top)

 

 

They both work pretty well, but that MRP tool makes for a nice fine panel line, and is easy to control - although I need thicker tape.

 

 

Anyway - that's where I'm at. It's all filling and more sanding right now, but it's moving along. Kind of tedious and painful, but necessary to get the kit into shape. There is hope!

 

 

 

 

[propforward]

Not too much to get wild about yet. Just a lot of filling and sanding at the moment.

 

 

 

 

Looks a mess. And it's being more of a bear than I'd thought to get the wing roots clean, but I'm not giving up on it.

 

Beginning to wonder if I took the right approach with the wings - I haven't read about anyone else having this level of filling. Still, this is where it is, and a I'll get through it.

[propforward]

Another thrilling installment in the sanding and polishing story.

 

I'm pretty much done. I'm on to polishing and rescribing now. One last problem remains:

 

 

The intake ring took a beating when I was blending it in. Hoping to fix it thusly:

 

 

I think it will work.

 

Anyway, filled in joint updates:

 

 

 

 

And while all that's going on, I'm trying to get the cockpit details sorted out. Turning reference pictures of ejector seats into scale versions is jolly tricky.

 

 

 

Ummmm..............not very impressive, but with a bit of dry brushing, pin washing and some more details picked out, should look OK through a closed canopy.

[exdraken]

Looking good to me!

Nice progress still! Never mind the little setbacks!,

[Biggles87]

Me too.

 

John

[Col.]

The ejector seats will look great with a little more work and I'm sure the nosering damage is only a temporary set-back - in fact it looks as if you're well on the way to solving it.