Revell 1/72 Saab JAS-39D Gripen

[danielwood5]

Hi everyone, I thought I'd jump in with this Gripen that I've had kicking about for a few years now. I picked it up cheap in a Hobbycraft sale and this GB has given me the shove to get it built.

 

This isn't an aircraft I know a thing about so my first step will be to get a bit of research done, mainly into colours as Revell are obviously not the best with their colour callouts. 

[Christer A]

If you use an airbrush, and don't care about the smell, then MrPaint is for you.

They have MRP-222 and MRP-223 which probably is the best match for standard Gripen colors.

[trickyrich]

welcome along with probably the first of many Gripen's I expect to see in this GB.

 

It's a nice looking model and a nice model to build too going by some of the reviews. I like the stores load for her as well! 

 

Good luck with the build.

[Parrahs]

5 hours ago, trickyrich said:

and a nice model to build too going by some of the reviews.

I wouldn't be quite so kind to it, but it isn't awful.

[danielwood5]

On 9/2/2021 at 2:21 PM, Christer A said:

If you use an airbrush, and don't care about the smell, then MrPaint is for you.

They have MRP-222 and MRP-223 which probably is the best match for standard Gripen colors.

Thanks Christer, I do use an airbrush but I have to stick to acrylics. I'm set up in a shared space without the ventilation to get away with lacquers unfortunately. I'm sure I'll be able to find equivalents though.

15 hours ago, trickyrich said:

welcome along with probably the first of many Gripen's I expect to see in this GB.

 

It's a nice looking model and a nice model to build too going by some of the reviews. I like the stores load for her as well! 

 

Good luck with the build.

Cheers Rich, I've had my first look at the plastic and looking at the sprues it looks quite promising, there's some rather meaty stores too as you say!

9 hours ago, Parrahs said:

I wouldn't be quite so kind to it, but it isn't awful.

"Isn't awful" is all I ask for from a kit to be honest! I'm looking forward to seeing how this one will go together.

[danielwood5]

Sprues have been washed and all ready to start the build now. Here's the the obligatory sprue shots;

 

 

Sprues look good overall with only minor flash on some of the smaller parts, the breakdown of the airframe means that the fit of the parts is going to need to be good to get it to go together well.

 

 

No issues with the clear sprues either, after a quick Google search I can see that the seam down the middle canopy is there on the real aircraft so that means there's no messing about with scraping and polishing.

 

 

Nice picture of the completed model on the front of the instructions, the weatherings a bit heavy for my tastes though.

 

 

Only one scheme included in the box and it's very grey!

 

 

Decals look good though, as they're marked 'Printed in Italy' I'm guessing they're Cartograf which means they should be no bother to use. Mercifully there's only a few stencils so decaling won't take over the majority of the time spent on the build.

Next step is to take a look at the cockpit and get some paint stuck to plastic.

Edited September 4, 2021 by danielwood5
Spelling

[Anatol Pigwa]

Have you decided on the paint scheme yet? If you are keen on some color I would suggest JBr-Decals and their scheme of the decennial czech two-seater. or the ETPS scheme.

 

  

[Marlin]

Nice.  

A JAS39 Gripen is just the right kit for this GB. 

And I hope you'll use the ordnance from the box art. 

Rb15's is about the coolest you can hang on a Gripen.

Good luck with your build. 

 

/Bosse

[Christer A]

Cool! I just noticed that they have IRIS-T and the correct recon pod included in the box.

Nice!

That means that the C/D family is the best option for todays Gripen.

[Bertie McBoatface]

On 9/4/2021 at 2:49 PM, danielwood5 said:

the seam down the middle canopy is there on the real aircraft

 

That's very handy. Usually it's a bonding/earthing strip I believe?

[Christer A]

IIRC that strip is a detonation cord to cut the canopy in half during the ejection sequence.

[danielwood5]

On 9/8/2021 at 5:02 PM, Bertie Psmith said:

 

That's very handy. Usually it's a bonding/earthing strip I believe?

 

On 9/10/2021 at 5:34 AM, Christer A said:

IIRC that strip is a detonation cord to cut the canopy in half during the ejection sequence.

 

You piqued my curiosity there @Bertie Psmith so I did a bit of a Google search and came up with nothing so I'm glad @Christer A shared his knowledge there, it's an interesting way of detonating the canopy that's for sure.

[danielwood5]

 

On 9/7/2021 at 9:50 AM, Anatol Pigwa said:

Have you decided on the paint scheme yet? If you are keen on some color I would suggest JBr-Decals and their scheme of the decennial czech two-seater. or the ETPS scheme.

 

  

 

I'm going to stick with the kit colour scheme, this is the first modern jet I've made so I want to test myself and have a good go at making a fairly plain grey scheme look visually interesting. I prefer to make the standard 'everyday' colour schemes too although that Czech one does look fantastic. 

[danielwood5]

Progress on the Gripen has ben slow but steady, I've been putting in 20 -30 minutes in every day on the Gripen while I'm finishing off a couple of other projects.

First off I put the seats together, these are little odd as they have moulded on belts on the headbox but not on the rest of the seat.

 

They're also hollow on the back but looking at the instructions it looks like you would be able to see this as the backs of the seats don't sit against a bulkhead. I used styrene strip to fill these gap.

 

 

I then painted them with Vallejo Nato Black and have started the detail painting in them. I'm going to make up belts with tape and will attempt to make them look OK using detail painting. it's amazing how rough these look when zoomed in so much, they look fine to the naked eye though, honestly!

 

 

I've also painted, assembled and decalled the cockpit section, there's some very delicate throttle levers to add in here that I managed to get in place without mishap. The control sticks were both covered in flash though which took some careful clean up to get them looking acceptable. Overall though it looks perfectly acceptable to me as an out of the box effort.

 

 

I'll do some minor weathering in there just to add a bit of life, just my handling of the rear bulkhead has added a little 'natural' weathering on there so I'll aim to get the rest of the 'pit looking similar.

 

 

On 9/8/2021 at 7:02 AM, Marlin said:

Nice.  

A JAS39 Gripen is just the right kit for this GB. 

And I hope you'll use the ordnance from the box art. 

Rb15's is about the coolest you can hang on a Gripen.

Good luck with your build. 

 

/Bosse

 

On 9/8/2021 at 11:09 AM, Christer A said:

Cool! I just noticed that they have IRIS-T and the correct recon pod included in the box.

Nice!

That means that the C/D family is the best option for todays Gripen.

 

Lastly I've started putting together the armament, I'll be using the RB15s @Marlin and IRIS-T @Christer A as they're not the usual Sidewinders or whatever, it will have Sparrows on there though along with a central fuel tank. I'll do bits of work on these while the rest of the build is progressing, I recently made the 1/72 Academy F-14 (wonderful kit by the way) and left the weapons till last, finishing them off when the rest of the model was finished felt tedious in the extreme.

 

Edited September 11, 2021 by danielwood5
Wording.

[Paramedic]

Nice office and good stores, well done!

[trickyrich]

great start, I love the pit!! 

[Parrahs]

About the Rb15, if you want to imply a fully live missile then in addition to adding the brown decal band around it you'll probably want to slice off the "BLIND" bit from other other decal there since that, in addition to someone having issues with vision, means inert as far as Swedish ordnance is concerned. (Knowing Swedish military nomenclature it probably sounds right if you're a 19th century Prussian.)

[danielwood5]

On 9/11/2021 at 2:08 PM, Paramedic said:

Nice office and good stores, well done!

 

On 9/13/2021 at 8:33 AM, trickyrich said:

great start, I love the pit!! 

Thanks both, it's coming along slowly but surely!

 

On 9/14/2021 at 2:51 PM, Parrahs said:

About the Rb15, if you want to imply a fully live missile then in addition to adding the brown decal band around it you'll probably want to slice off the "BLIND" bit from other other decal there since that, in addition to someone having issues with vision, means inert as far as Swedish ordnance is concerned. (Knowing Swedish military nomenclature it probably sounds right if you're a 19th century Prussian.)

Thanks for the top tip there, I don't tend to put dummy/training munitions on my builds so I'll definitely try my best to remember this.

[danielwood5]

While I've been weathering and finishing off the seats I put together the rear fuselage. The fit was really good and involved very minimal seam clean up, the biggest issue was a self inflicted scar from the cutters on a sprue attachment point but a dob of sprue-goo and a few sanding stick swipes and the problem was gone. There's a tiny tiny aerial moulded onto the bottom of the fuselage that I can pretty much guarantee won't be there towards the end of the build, hopefully the photo below will remind me to check it after painting and decaling and will give me a reference of where the replacement should go.

 

 

Once the rear fuselage was built I was going to fit the speed brakes in the closed position. Th instructions have an error here and they tell you to cut off the opening jack if you want to pose them open when it should be the other way round. This is fairly obvious when you look at the parts though so shouldn't be an issue really.

The biggest issue with the speed brakes is that the fit is terrible in the cut outs for them;

 

 

They sit too deep and there are gaps around the edges, this shouldn't be too difficult to fix using plasticard shims but the gaps around the curved fairing are a different matter, the gaps are huge and part of a pretty complicated shape.

 

 

These should be completely flush but there are huge holes on both sides of both speed brakes, I think they're moulded like this so that the brakes can be posed open but it isn't helpful if you want them closed. Here's how it should look closed;

 

 

I'm really not sure what to do with this, I'm thinking of adding some thin plasticard packing and then using Milliput to add the missing fairing section as I believe that can be moulded and shaped while it is still wet. At this point in my modelling career though I haven't really had to deal with anything like this and have never used Milliput so this could be either a useful learning experience or a terrible mistake that kills this kit off!

[Dave Swindell]

12 hours ago, danielwood5 said:

I'm really not sure what to do with this, I'm thinking of adding some thin plasticard packing and then using Milliput to add the missing fairing section as I believe that can be moulded and shaped while it is still wet. At this point in my modelling career though I haven't really had to deal with anything like this and have never used Milliput so this could be either a useful learning experience or a terrible mistake that kills this kit off!

I found the same problem when building mine and came up with the same solution. 

Fit plasticard shims to get the best fit with the airbrake as flush as possible to the fuselage.

Allow glue to set thoroughly.

Fill all the gaps with milliput, remove excess and smooth with damp tools before the milliput sets up.

If you're careful you can re-instate the panel lines around the airbrake by gently tracing round the edge with a damp scalpel blade or pin in a pin vice before it sets as well.

If you make a mistake at this stage you simply add a bit more milliput, smooth it out and have another go.

Once you're happy pop it somewhere warm to set up at least overnight (eg airing cupboard) 

Finish off with a fine sanding and refine the panel lines if needed. 

Any remaining minor imperfections can be sorted with mr surfacer or similar.

 

[danielwood5]

Thanks for the advice @Dave Swindell it's good to know that I was thinking along the right lines.

I've read my way through your build thread and picked up lots of tips, lots of extra work too looking at all the upgrades and corrections you made!

Can I ask how you added the removed mirrored trunking on the lower wing? I'm not sure whether to leave it or not, but as I joined this build as a way to stretch myself and try new things I think I'll have a go at fixing the error. 

[trickyrich]

yeah I'd be filling those gaps up as best I could with card & stretched plastic sprue. That'll give you a nice solid base/finish, then just use filler to tidy it all up.

 

I had similar issues with a 1/48th Italeri beast (and I still haven't finished her either). Try to do all you filling work with plastic first, filler is good but can be problematic at times, plus do have a habit of shrinking with some types of paint.

 

Keep up the great work.

[Dave Swindell]

14 hours ago, danielwood5 said:

Thanks for the advice @Dave Swindell it's good to know that I was thinking along the right lines.

I've read my way through your build thread and picked up lots of tips, lots of extra work too looking at all the upgrades and corrections you made!

Can I ask how you added the removed mirrored trunking on the lower wing? I'm not sure whether to leave it or not, but as I joined this build as a way to stretch myself and try new things I think I'll have a go at fixing the error. 

A lot of the extra work is there because I'm converting a D back to a B, the kit will build into a pretty good D out of the box, how much to upgrade it is up to you.

The mirrored trunking was a couple of short lengths of evergreen microstrip -  a length of half round tapered at the front for the front and a length of rectangular strip tapered at the front  for aft end. These were glued on with liquid cement and the aft end tapered off height wise, then the hole was drilled through. 

You might want to have a go at the mirrored one before removing the original - depending on whether you like your new one or not you can cut off the one you don't want afterwards.

 

10 hours ago, trickyrich said:

yeah I'd be filling those gaps up as best I could with card & stretched plastic sprue. That'll give you a nice solid base/finish, then just use filler to tidy it all up.

 

I had similar issues with a 1/48th Italeri beast (and I still haven't finished her either). Try to do all you filling work with plastic first, filler is good but can be problematic at times, plus do have a habit of shrinking with some types of paint.

 

Keep up the great work.

Horses for courses, skinning cats, tools for the job etc

If the gap is regular shaped, or can be made regular (square, rectangular or round) plastic card or sprue is ideal, you can fill the gap with an appropriately shaped/sized piece, leaving it proud of the surface and cut/sand it flush/to shape as appropriate

Putty (solvent) type fillers are great for minor imperfections, but they all shrink so an excess needs to be used which leads to the fill sand repeat cycle

I like epoxy fillers like Milliput for irregular shaped filling jobs such as this as they don't shrink when curing and can be tooled to the final shape before they cure eliminating any sanding except for a final polish.

[danielwood5]

More slow but steady progress with the Gripen.

I've added belts to the seats and have now put the front section of the aircraft together. I put the intakes on before joining the two halves or adding the interior as this seemed the best way to avoid any damage due to the inevitable sanding and fettling involved in getting them in place.

The fit of the intakes was actually pretty good and just needed some neatening of the seams for a good fit. There is an insert on the port intake where the refuelling probe is located, an insert is used here as the probe can be posed either open or closed. I've gone for closed but the insert for the closed panel is another poor fit so required some more filling, sanding and rescribing.

Once the refuelling panel was looking OK I added the completed cockpit insert. 

Then I closed the two halves up. The fit here was again pretty good and required only minimal seam clean up.

I'm pretty pleased with how the seats with their homemade belts came out. They may not be completely accurate but I think the overall look of the interior is perfectly acceptable for a closed canopy 1/72 model.

I made an attempt at fixing the mirrored detail on the underside of the wing and have drilled and scribed new vents. There's a long thin piece of trunking with a vent on the end that is moulded on the wrong side of the piece (on the right hand side of the cut out for the rear fuselage in the photo below) that I attempted to recreate using styrene strip in the correct position. These attempts didn't go well though, basically the styrene I have is too thick and too wide and my attempts to cut and sand it to the right size were pretty poor. I decided to remove my attempt and have repaired the damage I made to the plastic. I felt that I'd prefer to have neatly moulded detail in the wrong place than keep my scruffy effort in the right position. I thought it was worth pointing these errors out for anyone else that fancies building this kit.

 

I've also been working on the speed brakes, there's been a lot of filling, sanding, filling, sanding, scribing, fulling, sanding, etc, etc, etc with these but I think they're looking OK now. I need to give them a quick coat of primer to see how they look but they're getting there thanks to the advice of @Dave Swindell and @trickyrich.

 

[danielwood5]

I've got more work done on the Gripen but if I'm being honest this one has been a real mojo killer for me.

The next step is to fit the completed nose section the lower wing and the previously built up rear fuselage.

These parts went together OK and the fit is reasonably good with just a small gap at the port wing training edge;

but rather big gaps on both sides where the leading edge joins the intakes on the fuselage;

These shouldn't be too difficult to fill so I'm not too concerned about them.

Once the three main assemblies were fixed together there's a small panel to add to the spine behind the cockpit, the fit on this was really bad. I've had to add a length of sprue inside the piece to spread the front out to the correct width and I used styrene strip shims to raise it's height as it sat too low. 

There's been quite a bit of sanding in this area too to try and get it blended in together but it's quite a complex shape so I a bit concerned I may have a lopsided profile I this area. It looks kind of OK now but I'll see where I'm at with it once some primer is on there.

Before we're near the paint/clean up stage though I've got to get the upper wings fitted, if the rest of the fit is anything to go by this will probably involve more fettling followed by filling and scribing unfortunately.