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Panavia Tornado F.3 - Matchbox 1/72


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Hi everyone, 

This is my effort to improve the Matchbox kit of the Tornado F.3 in 1/72nd scale. It was painted with Humbrol enamels.

To make a very long story short, the following works were done:

-The cockpit, the front and rear LG bays, the seamless intakes (can't really see them any more) and the airbrakes were scratch built. 

-The exhausts and the wheels were copied from the Revell kit in resin. 

-The seats were taken from the Hasegawa kit with a couple more additions.

-The landing gear struts were aftermarket additions (white metal I think by SAC) as was the main canopy (vac by Airwaves).

-The decals were from XtraDecals.

The kit's wide and deep panel lines were filled and they got rescribed. There are quite a few mistakes and omissions but this kit was a test platform for things I have never done before, such as silicon moulds, resin copies, fitting scratch built parts to the main body of the kit, etc. Unfortunately the XtraDecals sheet did not have complete stencils (as a matter of fact had a very few) so I had to find replacements that were not totally correct (e.g wrong colour and size), and on top of that I lost the pilot/copilot names that go to the canopy!

Anyway, here is the final result:

 

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Thank you all!!! Stay safe and keep modelling!:bye: 

Edited by Kentavros76
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4 minutes ago, Hook said:

Excellent - that doesn't even look like the Matchbox kit anymore, and that 's a big compliment. ;)

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

Thank you Andre! I really appreciate your comment!:rolleyes:

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Thank you gentlemen for your very kind words and comments. The thing I like with kits like this one (I mean Matchbox category) is that it can't go very wrong!:lol:

Seriously now, I feel very nice when I have very bad kits on my work bench because I have no limits on what I do. I try things without worrying about failure. On the other hand, when I have detailed and super engineered kits I feel as the kit is taking the lead if you know what I mean. I am not saying that any of that is good nor bad. I'm just saying that I'd like to have both in my modelling life. Let's say like a balance!:wink:

 

Take care every one!  

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Wow. Hard to believe its the old Matchbox kit! Incredible how any kit can be made to look good with some hard work and TLC. Sometimes it's more rewarding to turn an old kit into something better. I'm just working on the Airfix F3 and that's a bit of a 'challenging kit' shall we say! So I really appreciate what you've done on this one. Outstanding work. 

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12 minutes ago, binbrook87 said:

Wow. Hard to believe its the old Matchbox kit! Incredible how any kit can be made to look good with some hard work and TLC. Sometimes it's more rewarding to turn an old kit into something better. I'm just working on the Airfix F3 and that's a bit of a 'challenging kit' shall we say! So I really appreciate what you've done on this one. Outstanding work. 

 Thank you! I am glad you like it. The Airfix kit you are working on is the 1/48th scale? I got this as a present when I was 11 years old back in 1987! It looked absolutely huge in my eyes!:shocked: Big box showing a Tornado model plane sitting on a map. Typical Airfix artwork of the time!^_^

So many memories...

 

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51 minutes ago, Kentavros76 said:

 Thank you! I am glad you like it. The Airfix kit you are working on is the 1/48th scale? I got this as a present when I was 11 years old back in 1987! It looked absolutely huge in my eyes!:shocked: Big box showing a Tornado model plane sitting on a map. Typical Airfix artwork of the time!^_^

So many memories...

 

It's the 1/72nd Airfix kit...and despite being recently reboxed..shows its age from possibly the original 1970s MRCA origins! The upper /lower fuselage joint like most Tornados is a real pain and poorly fitting. From what i remember from my youth the Matchbox fitting in this area was also quite bad too? An achilles heel of Tornado models is getting that horizontal joint line to disappear 😕

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Matchbox!?! Well I can safely say that the only thing that hints at Matchbox is the windscreen framing! You have totally transformed that kit so that not only are the kit's roots pretty much unrecognisable, but you have produced an excellent F.3 into the bargain. I salute you, sir! And I fully understand your views on re-working older kits - loads of fun! Nice one.

 

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You have shown us that the “impossible” is indeed “possible”.  I could never turn a poorly tooled / molded kit into a masterpiece such as your Tornado is.  Outstanding results!!!! :worthy:

 

Mike

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15 hours ago, jimmyg352 said:

Are you sure that's 1/72nd? I can't get detail like that on 1/48!

 Hats off, well done, stunning!

Thank you very much! I am honoured!

 

15 hours ago, Bedders said:

Really lovely job.

 

Justin

Thank you Justin!

 

29 minutes ago, invidia said:

Hard to believe that was once a matchbox kit. Done a fantastic job on that. Lovely.

Thank you! Very glad you lake it!

 

On 11/11/2020 at 00:07, djos said:

You did not perform an upgrade, you done miracle with this old mold.

Stunning details, simply amazing, all effort resulted at the end in a beautiful model.

BRAVO!

Best regards Djordje

 

Thank you Djordje! As I said, these old moulds give a lot of space for improvement!;)

 

On 11/11/2020 at 00:26, Spad said:

Matchbox!?! Well I can safely say that the only thing that hints at Matchbox is the windscreen framing! You have totally transformed that kit so that not only are the kit's roots pretty much unrecognisable, but you have produced an excellent F.3 into the bargain. I salute you, sir! And I fully understand your views on re-working older kits - loads of fun! Nice one.

 

Thank you very much! You are very kind!

 

On 11/11/2020 at 00:28, Sky Keg said:

You have shown us that the “impossible” is indeed “possible”.  I could never turn a poorly tooled / molded kit into a masterpiece such as your Tornado is.  Outstanding results!!!! :worthy:

 

Mike

Thank you Mike! I am honoured by your words!

 

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