Two seat Harrier

[Courageous]

2 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

I picked one of these up for a tenner

Less of the buying, more of the building, oh sorry, forgot that your 'cave' is a bedroom at the moment. 

 

Stuart

[Andwil]

Quick update on the Harrier.  Most of my modelling time this week has been taken up with filling and sanding to eliminate seams, so no photos.

 

what I have also done, following my comparison of the instructions and the moulding, is to break out one of my other Sword Harriers.  The area at the front of the cockpit that is shown in the instructions as an open area is marked in pen below:

 

 

I cut this area out and test fitted the coaming:

 

 

Still doesn’t fit, but with some fettling and fine tuning I think this may solve the problems in this area.

 

AW

 

[Mark4700]

On 28/08/2019 at 09:45, Andwil said:

Quick update on the Harrier.  Most of my modelling time this week has been taken up with filling and sanding to eliminate seams, so no photos.

 

what I have also done, following my comparison of the instructions and the moulding, is to break out one of my other Sword Harriers.  The area at the front of the cockpit that is shown in the instructions as an open area is marked in pen below:

 

 

I cut this area out and test fitted the coaming:

 

 

Still doesn’t fit, but with some fettling and fine tuning I think this may solve the problems in this area.

 

AW

 

I’m building this kit at the moment. I think, though I haven’t glued it all together yet, I’ve got around this by thinning it, bending it around the instrument panel (you’ll see how far out it is) and supergluing it in place. Test fitting is showing that it now fits and leaves room for the forward canopy. I also had to sand a couple of mm’s off each side. I have no idea why this part is so wrong, unless it’s us 😳

[Andwil]

6 hours ago, Mark4700 said:

I’m building this kit at the moment. I think, though I haven’t glued it all together yet, I’ve got around this by thinning it, bending it around the instrument panel (you’ll see how far out it is) and supergluing it in place. Test fitting is showing that it now fits and leaves room for the forward canopy. I also had to sand a couple of mm’s off each side. I have no idea why this part is so wrong, unless it’s us 😳

Nice to know it’s just not me!  The rest of the kit apart from this part is not so bad, typical short run I guess, no locating pins a few gaps and steps, a bit fiddly in places and requires some care.  Oh and one of the wing upper parts was warped.

 

I’m getting to the point where I will be able to prime so we’ll see how it looks.

 

AW

[Andwil]

I have returned to the Harrier after a break working on other projects and taking a short break in the country, which is still nice a green and doing some wine tasting.

 

 

Got stuck into blending in the windscreen and giving the whole plane a rub down with micro mesh.  Added the ventral strikes, a Master brass pitot and a couple of ae behind the cockpit.

 

 

Attended to the leading edge and primer on:

 

 

Still a bit of work required to smooth out the filler in front of the windscreen.  Have to get my skates on to have this finished before @neil5208 starts his and shows me up!

 

AW

[neil5208]

2 minutes ago, Andwil said:

 

 Have to get my skates on to have this finished before @neil5208 starts his and shows me up!

You can relax for a bit, still have the TSR2, Beaufighter, Hurricane and a Spitfire to finish before the next Harrier gets started.

[Mark4700]

Nice update. Looking good. Glad to see you’ve sorted out the issue with the  pilots instruments surround. 

[Andwil]

3 hours ago, Mark4700 said:

Nice update. Looking good. Glad to see you’ve sorted out the issue with the  pilots instruments surround. 

Thanks Mark.  I slopped some Mr Surfacer 500 over the windscreen/nose joint and I think this will take care of the last of the uneven finish.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Underside sprayed with Lifecolour gloss white:

 

 

 

AW

 

[Andwil]

Topsides got coated with Hataka Medium Sea Grey and sealed with a clear coat:

 

 

 

AW

[Andwil]

Today I sprayed the black on the fin tip and tail bumper.  When dry the masking was removed:

 

 

 

Pleased to find very little bleeding so not much touching up required.  The blade antenna under the starboard intake was pulled off with the masking and had to be reattached.

 

The worst of the bleeds:

 

 

Other parts painted:

 

 

Touching up and some detail painting next and then she’ll be ready for decals.

 

AW

 

 

 

[neil5208]

On 7/30/2019 at 8:48 AM, Andwil said:

 

Filler was added and a thin shim too close up a gap immediately behind the cockpit.

 

 

 

 

Just dry fit my one, just the same

[TheBaron]

Looks very smart under paint AW!

[Mark4700]

Coming along nicely. Mines not ready for paint yet. 

[Andwil]

Navigation lights and the red light on top of the fuselage painted with Tamiya clear red and green over silver, jet nozzles attached (not the best fit surprise surprise) and canopy unmasked.

 

 

 

AW

 

 

[Andwil]

Commenced applying decals, got the top and port side done today.  The Arctic Decals are a joy to work with, although handing some of the smaller ones is tricky as they are crammed very close together on the backing paper, there’s not much too hold on to to slide them into position.

 

 

The Union Flag on the fin is provided in two parts, here only the blue and white base layer has been added, I’ll add the red crosses tomorrow.

 

 

The white panel on the fuselage top was not provided as a decal by Arctic, and I had forgotten to paint it on so it was cut from a section of spare white decal.

 

AW

 

[Andwil]

Decalling  completed today.  Where yesterday’s session went smoothly, today I had a few problems, firstly some of the smaller stencils broke up into tiny pieces despite careful handling, the one thing I can put it down to is maybe I had the water too warm, even so they were only dipped in for a few seconds as the Arctic Decals release very quickly.  Worse, the roundel I applied to the starboard side had no white section 😡* The sheet had four identical roundels  and this was the last one to be applied.  Had I used it on the white wing undersides it wouldn’t have shown, but on the grey fuselage it looks odd.  Typical.  I searched through my spares for a suitable sized replacement but to no avail.  I will just have to display the model with the port side to the front.

 

 

 

 

AW

* Edit:  following a post from @Vingtor in the RFI I realise that the mistake was mine- two of the roundels were printed without white segments and are meant for the underwing positions, I have obviously used one of these under a wing and one of the other roundels with white under the other wing leaving the other no white roundel for the fuselage.  I should have looked closer at the instructions 🤡

 

AW

Edited October 11, 2019 by Andwil
Clarification

[Andwil]

Undercarriage painted and assembled.

 

 

AW

 

[Andwil]

She’s up on her own four legs.  The main gear and out-riggers went on easily, the nose gear was a bit tricky, not having a definite location point but liberal use of CA gel fixed it in place. 

 

 

Somewhat surprisingly it sits nice and level with all wheels in contact with the ground.

 

 

 

Unfortunately during the handling I managed to pull off part of the serial on the port side.  I’ll have to very carefully touch this up with paint.

 

 

Next task is to attach a plethora of tiny PE antennae and even tinier yaw vanes.

 

AW

 

[Andwil]

The small blade antennae have bee added, along with the yaw vanes.  I also made up the towel rail aerial.  Whilst looking at photos of G-VTOL for placement and colouring of the antennae, I noticed that Vingtor had the colour of the ventral fin wrong, it should be white not medium sea grey, so this was repainted (that will teach me for not checking references earlier). I also touched up the broken serial decal.  I’m calling this done, only a further clear coat to add a bit more sheen and then I’ll put up an RFI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a challenging build and there is lots I could have done better, but I am just glad to have it finished.

 

AW

 

[Bell209]

Lovely job, AW!