Xtrakit Supermarine Scimitar F1

[bentwaters81tfw]

They practiced LABS up the coast at Orfordness. Left Farnborough with a practice bomb, flew to Oxford and made a fast descending run to Orfordness, and tossed the bombs onto the ranges using XD229. Illustration from Thunder & Lightnings

 

[PeterB]

So, a bit more progress, On the sprue you can see the parts for the intakes and jetpipes.

The jetpipes consist of two tubular halves which are glued together and then glued on to the circular plates top left which represent the back of the engine. The instructions are vague as ever but suggest that the pipe fits around the outside of the raised ring on the backplate, but it is far too small. However with a bit of trimming they can be made to just fit inside the ring. Once assembled the wider tapered end is pushed through the hole in the fuselage so it sticks out a bit, and the assembly is glued in place. The latest review I read complains that the tube is not circular and he is right, but it is hardly noticeable.

There should be 4 rows of holes in the airbrakes just in front of the pipe but I am not going to risk drilling them. They are not very obvious in pictures, and on past experience getting the spacing right would be a nightmare - I may try and make a decal or just use a black pen, if I bother at all.

 

The intakes consist of a big piece which includes the trunking, and a splitter plate which has to be glued on. Juggling it into position is tricky and I had to file a bit off but managed in the end. They then go on to a bulkhead not shown above which has representations of the front end of the engine on it.

The chap in the review complained that the splitter plate is far too thick and filed it down, but does not seem to have realised that the lip on the front edge is meant to be there and shows up in pictures., as do the slots between the plate and the fuselage - looks better at normal size. He also made a meal of filing "2mm" off the bottom of the intake trunking assembly to make it fit - I probably got away with under 1mm!

 

So this is the view from the inside.

One good tip in the review was to cut the bulkhead behind the intakes in two - trying to juggle the fuselage halves so that the intake trunking fitted to the bulkhead "fan" as you joined it up would have be no fun at all. I have also added a couple of locating tabs as, like must short run kits, there are no pins.

 

The next job is to put the cockpit tub in. I have assembled it, less the plate that goes over the instrument panel and it looks like it will fit OK at the moment.  Once that is in I will need to add some window lead in the front and try and check the balance. So far there has been rather less drama than the third and most recent review I have read suggested, but that might change!

[PeterB]

The cockpit went in OK and I added what I hope will be enough lead - seemed more than enough when I tested it on a dry fit but who knows!

And the fuselage is joined up though it will need a bit of filler.

 The vertical fin  has a curve below the bullet where the stabs will go, which is wrong - seems they copied the prototype 525 with the dihederal stabs, but the production machines had a straight edge as clearly shown in Bentwaters pic at top of page so I will cut a bit out and replace it with card and filler. Did a dry run with the canopy and windscreen and they should fit with a bit of cleaning up - washed them and gave them a dip in Pledge. They are a bit thick but fairly clear.

 

P:ete

Edited December 7, 2019 by PeterB

[stevehnz]

Coming along nicely Peter, you seem to have the kit well under your control.  Maybe somewhat perversely, even though I have a Skybirds kit of this in stock, I'd love to have a go at one of these too.

Steve. 

[PeterB]

Hi Steve,

 

Well so far it has not been quite as tricky as I expected, but the review you sent the link for suggests the wings and tail could be problematic. Having said that I have dry fitted the wings and can't see why the reviewer decided to cut the wedge shaped "tabs" off his fuselage. Sure they don't do a lot, but with a bit of filing they fit fairly well - after all it is a limited run kit and you very rarely get proper slots and tabs, and it is better than nothing. Might drill them and insert a "spar" to make the joint stronger but I think he perhaps overstated the problem. Same with the stabs - they will need a bit of fettling and a hole drilling for the pin moulded on them but with care it should be possible. The other 2 reviewers did not make too much of a fuss abount the joints, they just said that they were not very positive so they used CA glue. Looks like I will have to take about 1mm of the trailing edge of the stabs and shorten them by about the same, and perhaps I should reshape the end of the wings a little - depends what mood I am in. I believe the pylons supplied are a different shape to the "early" ones but have no idea what the difference actually is. Also, unless you knew it had an area ruled fuselage you would be hard pressed to see it - but correcting that would be too much trouble for most modellers.

 

Leave it until I have finished and then considerer if you want to build one then - it might not be too bad for you. After all I suspect you have been at it about as long as me, and are probably less ham fisted, so if I can do it so can you! Bentwaters says his was OK except for a bit of fettling with the intake trunking and splitters and I seem to have managed those without any great trauma. OK it is not going to be entirely accurate as I don't have any plans to compare it with (assuming they were accurate in the first place) but it has got to better than my old Contrail vac form one! Mind you, actually finding one could be difficult at the moment. I can't see anything other than one old Frog one in the usual second hand market over here.

 

Pete

Edited December 6, 2019 by PeterB

[stevehnz]

42 minutes ago, PeterB said:

actually finding one could be difficult at the moment.

I suspect you may be right Peter, though I find if I bide my time, most things turn up eventually. Its interesting seeing various takes on building this kit. Looking at what you've done & the build on Tapatalk, I think my take would be to thin the vertical part of the splitter plate substantially & then restore the bulge on the leading edge, that seem to have been a feature of the Supermarine jets, I recall someone being confronted with this on an Attacker build on here in the last year or so, wish I could remember who.

Steve.

[PeterB]

Hi Steve,

 

Having reduced the bulge or lip at the front, the splitter plate in my kit is pretty thin, and frankly you cannot see it anyway - just the lip. It seems that there may have been variations with this mould, some better than others perhaps so maybe the review one was a bit of a lemon.. Not the best of pics -

but I can live with that. In real life it looks somewhat better than in this macro shot - including the grooved section the max width is 2mm! This probably gives a better impression.

 

Pete

Edited December 7, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

As you can see I have begun to correct the shape of the lower tail.

 

Whilst waiting for the glue to dry before adding filler, I have made a start on the wings. The reviews say that the trailing edge is too thick so I have sanded it down a bit, but the difference is hardly noticeable. One reviewer also added a little milliput to the tips as he says that they were a couple of mil short and not quite the right shape, but without having any plans I don't think I will bother though I may round the tips a little. I will however improve the main wheel wells.

 

Over the years I have bought 5 Xtrakits, 3 moulded by MPM and 2 apparently by Sword. Between them they use 4 different techniques on the main wheel wells. Starting with the MPM ones, the Meteor F8 I built a month or two back for another GB had seperate wells that were glued between the wings, the Vampire FB5 has wells moulded on to the lower wing, and the Spitfire F22 has a little "roof" detail on the bottom of the upper wing and seperate walls to glue in - all are quite nicely detailed. Moving on the the 2 made by Sword, the Swift FR. 5 has the wells moulded onto the bottom wing like the Vampire, whilst the Scimitar has -

 

 - absolutely nothing! In fairness the main part of the well is in the fuselage and the doors are correctly shown closed, but the small part in the wing has neither roof detail or sides, which is rather pathetic. Incidentally all of the jets have seperate nose bays and the Scimitar also has a bay for the arrestor hook, again modestly detailed.

 

As you can see I have therefore added sides from my sheet of paper thin plastic card. This is flexible enough to follow the contours easily, particularly when softened with a touch of liquid cement, and has the advantage that it does not intrude much into the bay - I have seen some builds where much thicker card was used, and in extreme cases made the bay noticeably smaller that the doors. Once the glue has dried I just need to carefully slice off the excess with a sharp scalpel blade. The wheel leg and door will cover the gap at the outboard end, and I will paint the fuselage at the inboard end so it looks as if the bay continues under the closed door. Without pics I have no idea what detail there was on the roof but I might add a couple of slivers of thin card to represent spars. There is a seperate fence for each wing, and as one reviewer pointed out, there are small "v" shaped marks on the underside to indicate where the pylons go, but he managed to sand them off!

 

There is a very shallow ring moulded to take the main leg, which is also supported by a strut - even with CA this is going to be a weak point, but whereas I drilled and pinned the legs on the Meteor, that is not going to be possible here as it risks drilling through the upper wing! I should be able to drill and pin the nose leg though. I would have expected the insides of the bays and doors, and possibly the legs also to have been in the underside colour of white, but the instructions say "silver" and looking at pics they could be right. I will use dural - unless somebody out there knows different?

 

So far, so good.

 

Pete

Edited December 7, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Just to show how observant I am (not) I have just realised there is a walk round of Solent Sky's Scimitar on the Thunder & Lightnings site. Subject to the usual caveat about preserved planes not always being in correct paint/markings it confirms the colours of the undercarriage bays/doors/legs, and also shows the "grooved" section on the fuselage side of the splitter plates in camo grey/white, so my slightly oversized splitters will perhaps be less obvious once I paint the fuselage.

 

It also explains why the holes in the upper air brake are not obvious on pics - when closed they are blanked off by protruding "pins" in the well, presumably to reduce air flow disturbances - never seen that before! The pics also raise a question as there seems to be a clear panel under the fuselage behind the cockpit - not sure what that might be for but I see the panel engraved on the kit. Whether or not it is something the museum have added is unclear as I can see no useful purpose unless it was perhaps for a camera?

 

Anyway the walk round pictures will be very helpful when I get round to painting and putting on the decs.

 

Pete

[Jinxman]

I like your observance  - mine usually appears just as the last coat of varnish is applied and I'm already thinking of the next kit on the bench...😬

[PeterB]

Having tidied up the fuselage, I have now glued on the wings.

 

 I tacked them on with ordinary plastic cement, kept adjusting the alignment as they dried, then ran in some CA. I will have to put a bit more in later and then fill the joints but they went on a lot easier for me than they did in the most recent review I read. A bit of filing to adjust the fit seems to have paid dividends. Next up is the tailplane which all the reviewers agree is a bit wide in chord and too long. Here is the kit version.

And here is the real thing.

As you can see the kit parts are a bit too "pointy" so I will take 1mm off the trailing edges and re-shape the tips. I will probably have to adjust the ends nearest the fuselage as well once I have drilled the mounting hole in the tail, as they were physically attached to the "cone" as part of an all moving tail. Incidentally, there is no sign of the transparent panel in the belly I mentioned earlier .

 

I will make a simple jig out of card to help getting the correct alignment of 10 degrees anhedral. I looked up anhedral in my Oxford English dictionary and it is somewhat unhelpfully defined as "negative dihedral" which reminds me of an heated argument between two of my science teachers at school - one was adamant that centripetal force existed and the other was equally adamant it was just negative centrifugal force, but at least centripetal is properly defined in the OED!

 

Pete

[Graham Boak]

I recall a discussion on the Warton Aero office when a company translator asked for the correct reading of catahedral in a German document.  Or was it katahedral?   I don't remember the final answer but suspect it may have come from a quick phone call to Munich.

[PeterB]

Well that should be the last of the major "problem areas" dealt with.

 

Not the best of pics to show the angle as it is sitting right wing low, but I have trimmed down the stabs and glued them on. Note the cunning use of "White Tac" to support them and the crude card template to get the angle right. Not the best of fits but then it is a limited run kit and at least they provide locating pins, even if they forgot the hole it goes into. Bit of a gap but isn't that what filler is for?

 

This is a better view.

They are at the same angle it's the camera - honest!

 

The reviewer who complained about the arrester hook had a point - either Sword have made the bay too shallow as they thought you would be modelling it hook down to show the detail on the door and strut, or the rather vague instructions have resulted in he and I both glueing it below the locating strakes when it should have been above. More on that in a later post. Early days yet, but only the undercarriage and various intakes and aerials to fit now,  If my Swift and Vampire go together with no more difficulty that this (so far) I will be a happy bunny.

 

Pete

 

Later. I have opened out the various intakes with the heated end of my old compass and fitted them together with the wing fences and the arrestor hook. I will leave the aerials off for the moment as they are rather vulnerable. Weather permitting I will give the kit a good clean and de-grease then prime it tomorrow.

Edited December 8, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

So after 2 thin coats of rattle can white primer on the unders and grey on the uppers, followed by no less than 3 thin coats of Tamiya gloss white and one coat so far of Xtracrylic EDSG this is what it looks like.

 

A lot of touching up to do but getting there. Unfortunately, the paint showed up a problem with the fuselage joint seams - due to a combination of soft plastic and the flattened oval shape of the fuselage, scraping off the "sticky up bits" has resulted in a flat spot that shows up in certain lighting. Pity, but not a lot I can do about that and it looks a h*ll of a lot more like a Scimitar than my old Contrail one! You will note I have taken out the ejector seat as I felt it sat a little too high, though it did not quite touch the canopy. I have filed a bit off the botton and made the yellow and black striped handle which is now fitted to the top. I have also painted the windscreen and canopy, which was quite a challenge as the side panels of the screen had a thin white surround. The bits of masking tape are where the metal panel surrounding the jetpipes ends, and the nose tip will be black. Some pics suggest the intake lips were black, but others do not.

 

Earlier I mentioned a problem with the arrestor hook, so here it is. Don't worry about the odd white lines on the wings - that is masking tape over the locating marks for the tanks, which otherwise would have been invisible once the paint went on.

 

The bay is clearly far too shallow - I could have mounted it higher up in the fuselage but then I would have had to fill in the gaps where the walls did not touch the fuselage, so I had to file off the raised detail on the tail bumper door at the front of the bay - that or mount it in the extended position. That also meant that I had to shorten the hook itself and it still sticks out too much but looking at the one in the walk around the rear of the kit is too straight - should have curved up a bit more towards the tail I think and the actual hook was in the tail, rather than under it. Anybody thinking of building this kit be warned and consider modifying the position of the bay and the profile of the fuselage.

 

I have now to tidy up the various grey/white boundaries and extend the grey stripe on the leading edge so it goes along the wing and tail tips. Then it's on with the undecarriage and I will see if my ballast is enough - I think it might be quite close! Still, if needed I should be able to squeeze a bit more in the front of the drop tanks.

 

Pete

Edited December 10, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Has anybody spotted my "schoolboy howler" yet? Before fixing the wings on virtually every other kit I have built over the last 40 or so years, I have dug out a 3 view drawing and checked the alignment, but I was so busy getting the ruddy wings to fit that this time I forgot, and I now find they had a very slight anhedra!. Oh b*gger! I suppose I should cut them off. reshape them and put them back on, but frankly it is barely noticeable except from the front so I can't be bothered. Not the fault of the kit as there actually is a rather vague drawing in the instructions so I should have noticed. The touching up is nearly done and then it will be time for the decals.

 

Xtrakit provide 2 sets of markings, the first of which they say is for XD321 of 800B Squadron on board HMS Eagle in 1964-65. It carries the “Foaming Tankard” tail insignia which seems to indicate that it was one of the Squadrons used to refuel the underpowered Buccaneer S1 immediately after take off – unlike the S2 with more powerful engines, the S1 could not lift a full weapons load and a full fuel load off a carrier deck at the same time apparently, so they took off with a reduced fuel load and refuelled from the Scimitars! Unfortunately, although the kit provides 4 underwing fuel tanks, none of them are the correct “buddy” refuelling tank so that does not appeal to me. Given that the Scimitar could be fitted with a refuelling probe no doubt some were fitted with buddy tanks for that purpose as well.

 

The other option is supposedly XD332 of 807 Squadron operating off HMS Ark Royal as seen at Malta in 1960/61, but according to at least one of the reviews the markings are incorrect, and again the only “weapons” option is 4 drop tanks. I have decided to mix the markings to get XD321 when it was part of 807 on HMS Centaur in 1961 although the large “194” and the smaller “4” should be in black, not blue as on the decal sheet – apparently they were only blue when they formed a display team.

 

Pete

Edited December 11, 2019 by PeterB

[stevehnz]

The wing thing is not obvious Pete, even going back to look at your head on shot above, it certainly does not jump out at you. I could live with it I reckon.

Steve.

[PeterB]

Hi Steve,

 

I have not been able to determine exactly how much anhedral but certainly no more than 5 degrees and possibly less, so I will leave it alone. The kit was never going to be perfect, but it is somewhat irritating. The last time I remember doing anything so daft was when I built the Airfix SM79 not long after it came out and did not notice that the wings were drooping - I was a lot younger then and did not have any illustrations so I seem to have fitted the wings with the lower surfaces level instead of the upper, It is now stripped and awaiting a refurbishment which will involve taking the wings off, and adding an undercarriage - might even end up in this KUTA yet.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

Just put the undercarriage legs on and whilst I am waiting for the CA to set completely, a few comments on the accuracy. My measurements show that both the fuselage length and the wing span are around a scale 1ft (4mm) too short. The tailplane is more complicated as whilst a couple of my sources say the span should be 15ft 6inches, one also says that originally it was 17ft 2 inches and then was reduced. I think Sword have gone for the higher figure. Mine now scales out at 15ft 11inches so that is near enough. Looks as if my ballast was just a little heavy but it may change when the u/c doors and the pylons and loads go on, speaking of which I think the location marks for the inner pylons did not allow for the fact that the main gear doors angle out from the leg so I will position them slightly further out.

 

Final word on the anhedral - the illustrations in the instructions do not give the angle, but measuring it shows around 3 degrees for the wing, but also shows only 5 degrees for the tail which I am pretty certain should be 10 degrees, so the illustrations are probably not reliable. 

 

I will post a pic tomorrow, when I have tidied it up a bit.

 

The aerial fit on the Scimitar seems to have varied quite a lot -  one or two blade type on top of the fuselage, with a couple of different shapes, and anything from none to three under the belly. I would also have expected at least one whip aerial but other than a short one under the nose I cannot see any - anybody got any reliable info?

 

Pete

Edited December 12, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Whilst I sit here watching the UK election results, here is a question to fellow cat lovers, of which I know there are quite a few on this forum. All the articles I have read suggest that cats don't much like UK tapwater as it has Fluorine in it, and indeed all our 5 previous cats have preferred to drink rainwater in the garden. However the latest pair are, as I type this, in my kitchen drinking water from a running tap - one on the worktop and one actually sitting in the sink dripping wet! Ok they are only 7 months old and may grow out of it, but has anybody else had the same problem - makes it ruddy hard to prepare a meal! If we don't leave the tap on for them they start trying to drink out of our glasses, or the pans on the hob, which is not a good idea. I know that we should perhaps not humour them but it is at times the safest option, and as they prefer a diet of dry food they do need the water.

 

In the past we have had up to 3 cats at once, but this is the first time we have had two from the same litter, and they are certainly different to the rest - you need eyes in the back of your head to keep track of them.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[PeterB]

 Bit more progress. The seat is back in place.

You can just see the handle I made - and yes I know the yellow/black stripes should be much smaller but that's the best I could do.

 

This is the underside - bit more touching up to do.

I will add the doors later and do a bit more touching up.

 

The canopy is now on - the white lines were fun.

It sits a bit nose up which is I believe correct as it helped generate lift during catapult launches - bit like the Crusader with its variable incidence wing. However, getting off the shorter decks of Centaur and Hermes was still a problem it seems and unlike the F4 it did not have an extending nosewheel leg. The solution apparently was to hook it up sitting on the extended tail bumper with the nosewheel actually up in the air - must have been fun!

 

I am still debating whether or not to fit the refuelling probe on top of the nose - pictures of aircraft operating from carriers are split about 50/50. As this one will be carrying a couple of drop tanks I may not bother.

 

Pete

[Ray_W]

Pete,

I like what you have achieved here. Always a challenge to take on a kit and address shape issues and any other flaws. Your persistence is great. I'm looking forward to seeing the completed build.

Ray 

[Back in the Saddle]

On 08/12/2019 at 16:50, PeterB said:

 

From this angle, it looks like dihedral. Either way, I agree with Steve - even if it’s wrong, it is certainly not obvious.

[PeterB]

Whilst the glue was drying the wings tended to droop so I kept pushing them back up until they set level. Perhaps I should have let Sir Isaac have his way and ended up with them drooping!🙁 Fortunately the curved fuselage sides seem to confuse the eye a little so as you say it is not as obvious as it could be, thankfully.

 

Pete

Edited December 14, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Well the wheel doors are on and the touching up is about finished so I am ready to start putting decals on, followed by whatever I am going to hang under the wings.

The Scimitar could carry 500lb, 1000lb or even 2000lb bombs, AIM-9B Sidewinders, Bullpups, a Nuke or unguided rockets as well as 2 different sizes of drop tanks and a buddy refuelling tank. I have painted up a pair of tanks for the inboard pylons and also a pair of inert 1000lb practice bombs taken from a Jaguar kit (the blue should probably be lighter/brighter) but I am still not decided exactly what to put on the outboard pylons as I also have Bullpups and Sidewinders available besides the bombs.

 

I don't know about you but having to decide what to hang under the wings can be a bit frustrating, particularly on modern jets. I have a pile of stuff I could use, both from kits and in numerous boxes of weapons from Airfix, Italeri, Trumpeter and of course Hasegawa, so when I saw an article in a modelling mag a few years ago where the builder used small but very powerful Neodymium magnets to fix his bombs etc, it was of considerable interest. These magnets come in various shapes and sizes with the most common circular ones from around 1mm diameter upwards and can be embedded in the wing, the pylon, or the weapon itself, allowing you to swap complete loaded pylons or just change the load – they also might offer a simpler alternative to fiddling about fitting pivots to the pylons on swing-wing aircraft - Tornado, F111 etc.

 

The article was actually about a 1/48 scale build where fitting the magnets was easy, but I have experimented on an old 1/72 Blenheim kit and have managed to fit drop tanks and bombs using 4mm magnets fitted in holes drilled in the wings,and smaller 2mm magnets in the pylons etc and you can paint over them so they are just about invisible – the problem is getting them into the pylons or weapons and also remembering to get the “polarity right” so they “attract” not “repel” each other. I am hoping to use them on my “What If” TSR2 build shortly as I have a range of stores lined up including the “correct” high speed streamlined drop tanks and pylons, and the later option of Tornado F3 pylons with “Hindenburg” tanks and Sidewinder rails, not to mention various countermeasure pods and laser rangers and targeting pods.

 

I would be interested to hear if anybody has tried using magnets this way on their kits, and how they got on.

 

With luck I should get some decals on tomorrow - at least one of the reviews says the kit decs are a bit transparent so I will be putting on circles of white decal paper first for the fuselage and upper wing roundels.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

I have made a start on the decs but am having problems.

 

 Those of you who saw my recent build of the Xtrakit Meteor F8 and NF14 on a recently finished GB will know that whilst the decs on the F8 behaved pretty well, the ones with the NF were terrible, particularly the the "line" type ones under the cockpit and on the wing walkways. Fortunately Hannants sent me two spare sheets and by coating them with a couple of thin layers of varnish I managed in the end. In anticipation of the same sort of problem I put 3 coats of varnish on the ones I thought might break up, and so far they have just about worked. However I only put 1 coat on the larger decs and that did not stop the underwing serials and the "Royal Navy" titles from disintegrating. The big ones have a large contact area and even with water/Micro Set they stick down and are ruddy difficult to slide about - perhaps I should try putting them on a coat of wet varnish.

 

I have printed some replacement serials - the kit ones were too big anyway, but the only "Royal Navy" I could find were either a bit smaller or a bit bigger than the kit ones - however looking at pics suggests they were too small anyway. Xtradecals are usually pretty good, though I have had problems with them breaking at times, and I wonder if they have a fairly short "shelf life" - all my spare decs are stored flat in a cool, dry and dark place and in the Frog GB I found that virtually all of my 40+ year old Frog decs worked fine but they are of course somewhat thicker than modern ones. In fact I have mentioned in previous build threads that I think the trend to ever thinner decs for the "painted on" look may have gone a little too far as sheets from a number of manufacturers have proved decidedly fragile, and they are not cheap! Alternatively it could perhaps be that the "glue" is just too strong and that causes them to break up when you try to move them.

 

Oh well, that is one of the joys of modelling I guess, and all the rest should be on in a couple of days.

 

Pete

Edited December 16, 2019 by PeterB