1:48 Captain Scarlet Angel Interceptor - resin kit from UNCL

[Kallisti]

How could I not join an Interceptor GB with anything other than an Angel Interceptor!!!

 

This is an old resin kit from UNCL, also known as the legendary 'Uncle' Bill Oram. I'd been looking for this kit for years as its been out of production for quite a while and then this one came up on Facebook last month for a reasonable price so snapped it up.

 

 

Its UNCL's old cream resin, with a vac-formed canopy and some small white metal parts for the pilots arms and the wing skids.

 

 

It came without decals but I have spares for the Spectrum roundels in 1:48 from my What-If builds, when I sourced a bunch of decals from JBOT in the USA.  The large A on the underside will be masked and painted

 

 

 

For the A on the tail  I've got examples from the 1:24 Angel I built last year I have photographed to turn into an image I can print myself.

 

 

I'll raid the spares box from some other decals for the ejector seat warnings etc.

 

The first job will be to wash it all in soapy water and then cut all the excess resin from the pour stubs and clean up the mating surfaces and joints. This is going to be a bit messy so I might try to do some of it outside weather permitting. A mask will be worn of course, we're all getting used to wearing those beyond the resin modelling arena!

Edited January 1, 2021 by Kallisti

[Col.]

Excellent subject choice and an interesting kit of it. Looks as if you have plenty previous experience of the subject as well.

[Kallisti]

The first two jobs, as described was completed on the morning of Christmas Eve - my company has shutdown completely from Xmas Ece until January so no more work and I can spend the day modelling or whatever

 

Here are the part trimmed from their pour stubs and having been washed in soapy water:

 

 

Once this was all dry, it was time to start assembly. The obvious first stage is to attach the wings and tail. This was done using 2 part epoxy - I thought I'd try to be clever and use a piece of aluminium foil as the base so that the epoxy would find gluing itself to whatever it was resting on would be more difficult. This had to be allowed to dry on a flat surface to get the wings level.  Sadly of course the idea failed and I ended up with foil glued to the underside, but it scraped off without too much difficulty!

 

 

 

This was then left overnight to allow the epoxy to fully cure. Next job was to fit the winglets to the side. To do this I found that the lid of a Tamiya paint bottle was exactly the right height to support the fuselage to get the correct angle on the winglets! You can also see where the filler is being used on the wing root joints.

 

 

 

The kit does not come with a front skid - it gives an excuse in the instructions that the wings probably are not strong enough to support the weight over time. We'll see about that! So I scratch built one from a piece of square section rod, sanded and carved into the skid shape and a brass tube

 

 

Finally the tailplane, leg skids and nose were assembled. For the nose, I added a brass rob pin into the joint as it ends up being a load-bearing joint when the front skid is used to support it. So its now ready for priming.

 

Next job however it to look at the cockpit which is very basic and decide if I'm going to add some detail, eg instrument panel and whatnot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Col.]

Taking shape nicely   Regardless of the kit lacking a front skid your one will be stronger than anything that resin could provide anyway.

[trickyrich]

 

Gosh I wish Santa would have bought me one of these instead of a lump of coal! 

 

Arrr a silicon cooking mat is the best thing to sit stuff on when you don't actually want to glue it to it.

 

Those wings look almost think enough that you could groove and fit some brass flat strip to give those wing skids some support if you wanted.

 

Definitely a build to follow.....   

[Kallisti]

I had thought about strengthening the wings but in the end went against the idea, we'll see in the fullness of time if that was wrong! In the meantime painting has been progressing, initially multiple coats of primer with lots of filling and sanding to cover the gaps and blemishes. You can see some of that in this pic which shows some extra detail I've added to the rear of the cockpit using some thin plastic rod

 

 

This is just to make that area look a bit busier. You can also see where I've used Mr Surfacer 500 to fill in for some minor dints and gapping. Here are these details once they've been painted

 

 

More work has been done on the cockpit including a PE instrument panel adapted from an old left-over hurricane

 

 

 

 

Once that was all settled, the cockpit got masked over and more primer and sanding allowed it to be ready for the gloss white top coat. Once this had cured it was selective masking for the red and black details like this:

 

 

 

 

Sadly since that pic was taken, I've had to scrape the spine stripe off as it went all wrong. It is now ready for a quick burst of gloss white again and then a red stripe decal will be used instead of masking and paint. That's my job for today!

 

 

[Col.]

Effective detailing in the 'pit

[Kallisti]

Thanks Col, not sure how much will be seen once the canopy is on  Yesterday evening I cut out the A template from the instructions and using some spray mount stuck it on the underside. I then used this as the positive and masked around it using tamiya tape, then using my trusty kitchen towel and tape masked the rest of the model and sprayed black. On removing the masking it showed this

 

 

Very pleased with that! I've also been busy applying decals onto the white gloss paint. The painted red stripe down the spine was removed and replaced with a decal and the Spectrum roundels were also added

 

 

I added a few decals from the spares box as well to add some interest, for example the rescue ones came from the Tornado F3 I finished a couple of weeks ago. I used the large 'B' from the set of JOBT decals for the Angel. The studio scale model has the tail letter A - as do both of the What-Ifs I've done as well, with the 'serial number' 737 - at least I'm assuming that its a serial number. So on this one I used a B and the serial number 734 - these were also sourced from the decal spares box.

 

 

Its now had a coat of Klear applied which means tomorrow it will be ready for some panel line and weathering.

 

 

 

[Col.]

That's looking splendid in its markings Tidy work.

[Kallisti]

On the home straight now, after the Klear coat, used Mig washes to highlight the panel lines

 

 

 

This also dulled down the bright white look without making it look too grubby - these were glamour jets as well as being combat machines  Its just been out to the shed to get its Alclad light sheen varnish and in a couple of hours I'll be winning to handle it again and will add the cockpit seat, pilot and canopy and hopefully complete it before the year ends!

 

[Col.]

Nice work on the subtle weathering

[IanHx]

Looking good....

[Kallisti]

So I'm pleased to say it is now complete, having glued the vac form canopy on with Glue n Glaze a couple of hours ago.

 

 

 

 

 

On the underside you can see the A

 

 

This was an enjoyable build, but not an easy one. The final hurdle was the canopy - my original masking and painting didn't work very well so it had to be stripped of paint and then dipped in Klear. Once that was dry, I hand painted the aluminium frame and once that was dry it got glued to the cockpit.

[Col.]

Lovely result

You're certainly finishing the year on a high with this one.

[Kallisti]

I was worried that I'd messed it up with the canopy this evening but I recovered it at the last minute!

I'd been looking for this kit for years and then found someone selling one on Facebook back in November so jumped on it. It was a pleasure to be able to build it so soon after getting it - I was resigned to waiting until the weather got better to build it outside considering all the resin sawing and sanding I had to do, but of course it was doable indoors wearing a mask and we're all so used to wearing masks nowadays!

[Col.]

3 minutes ago, Kallisti said:

I was worried that I'd messed it up with the I was resigned to waiting until the weather got better to build it outside considering all the resin sawing and sanding I had to do, but of course it was doable indoors wearing a mask and we're all so used to wearing masks nowadays!

 

Seems Lockdown hasn't treated us modeller as badly as some sections of the general population

Glad you had the perfect opportunity to work on this one here. What's next on your workbench?

[philp]

Nice looking build.

[Kallisti]

12 hours ago, Col. said:

 

Glad you had the perfect opportunity to work on this one here. What's next on your workbench?

 

This: 

 

 

[Kallisti]

Just for reference this is my current collection of Angel Interceptors. Its still missing a couple of smaller scale models from the Imai kits which I should try to build to complete the set (for now) :)

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

That's a great looking collection. The latest one looks really good.

[TimT64]

That is waaaaaaaaaay cool

[GordonD]

On 12/29/2020 at 10:23 PM, Kallisti said:

I added a few decals from the spares box as well to add some interest, for example the rescue ones came from the Tornado F3 I finished a couple of weeks ago. I used the large 'B' from the set of JOBT decals for the Angel. The studio scale model has the tail letter A - as do both of the What-Ifs I've done as well, with the 'serial number' 737 - at least I'm assuming that its a serial number. So on this one I used a B and the serial number 734 - these were also sourced from the decal spares box.

I hate to say this but isn't the letter on the tail fin just another A for Angel?

[Kallisti]

To be honest you are probably right - just found this screenshot from the series with two angels on the flight deck of Cloudbase and both are showing "A" on the tail. I ran out of "A" tail decals so used the alternatives provided on the decals sheet I'd got some time before from JBOT 

 

 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Kallisti