A 1/72 Gloster Javelin FAW Mk7/Mk9 by MisterCraft.

[Brigbeale]

I’ve owned this Javelin kit for about a year now always hankering after one and opting for this one delivered new from the Continental Europe - Poland if my memory serves me correctly.

it was either this kit or the Airfix kit from the early 90’s. as I couldn’t lay my hands on an Airfix version at the time, I bought this one new for less than the cost of a ‘pre-owned’ kit off eBay.

 

I know this one has some weird swirly plastic, usually in black, and has some quality issues here and there, but I decided with a bit of work I could probably produce a reasonably decent model.

 

I had a quick look in the box when I received it to check the contents and then put it in the stash for a later date.

I thought it’s high time I built the Javelin, so I took the time tonight to evaluate the kit.

I don’t know yet if there’s any real horrors with this particular kit but I’m sure somebody will tell me if there’s anything to watch out for. I’m expecting somethings to be wrong with the design of the moulding, but I’ll do my best to work around them.

 

Upon opening the the box again, there’s 4 sprues and a small bag with the cockpit canopy in. Oddly enough, the larger sprues are one colour and the smaller sprues are a lighter colour. They are a very tough feeling plastic and the moulding is quite especially on the fuselage sides, which adds to the overall weight of the kit itself. 
The panel lines are recessed but they are not what if would call ‘modern Airfix sharp’. There’s flash on almost every part but not excessive. Some shrink marks are also present on either side of the rear fuselage lower half and another really noticeable one in the air brake on the upper wing half - great! 
Some parts will require some imaginative sanding and shaping to bring out or add poorly moulded or missing detail - the re-fueling probe springs to mind immediately.

 

Parts aside, I looked at the colour call-outs to choose which one I’d like to depict. Let’s call them confusing!

The title of each depiction doesn’t match up with the pictured aircraft. The title gives one serial number - XH793 (on two different depictions) and clearly the side view shows a different serial numbers. There’s not even XH793 on the decal sheet - there’s XH893, XH858 and XH754 Two underside views both show the same serial number XH893. There’s a two depictions of XH754. One has a footnot saying it’s basically a camouflaged colour but the upper surfaces were painted white and ‘forward of the fin is painted black’, which I presume to mean the fin leading edge..

 

It doesn’t stop there either. The build instructions are clear enough but there’s step 1, steps 3,4 and 5 - no step 2!

 

I looked at an Airfix red box version of the Javelin (in 1/48 scale) for the colour call-out and serial number and it appears that the XH893 pictures are correct, so that’s the one I’ll depict. BUT, Mistercraft say it’s an FAW7 whereas Airfix say it’s an FAW9R. The FAW7 has an extended fuselage over the exhausts whereas the FAW9 has a shorter fuselage and bigger exhausts. I think I’ll use Airfix’s wisdom on this one and go with that.

An FAW9 can be made by cutting off the extra fuselage (see photo 3) and adding he longer exhausts.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Lord Riot]

Very interesting. I wondered whether it was worth getting the Mistercraft kit. Do the kit parts actually make an FAW.7, or is it a 9 like the Airfix and Frog ones?
 

XH893 was definitely an FAW.9

XH858 was never actually issued, it was excluded in a ‘blackout block’ between Javelin serials.

XH754 was an FAW.7

 

 

[Brigbeale]

4 minutes ago, Lord Riot said:

Very interesting. I wondered whether it was worth getting the Mistercraft kit. Do the kit parts actually make an FAW.7, or is it a 9 like the Airfix and Frog ones?
 

XH893 was definitely an FAW.9

XH858 was never actually issued, it was excluded in a ‘blackout block’ between Javelin serials.

XH754 was an FAW.7

 

 

The kit does give the option of the longer or shorter fuselage by simply cutting off the extension which is moulded on the rear of the fuselage halves. There are also the longer and shorter tail-pipes to match. As yet, I’ve not seen any FAW.7 pictures with the re-fuelling probe (but it’s early days yet, so I may find some). There are two holes for the probe to mount on the top fuselage half.

I’m pretty certain that the leading edges of the wings were a different shape, but I couldn’t find any photos of the two types to see the difference.

 

Also, the box art depicts yet another serial number - XH789. 

[Lord Riot]

I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure it was only the FAW.9s that had the refuelling probe fitted, no other mark.

 

XH789 was an FAW.7

 

Looking forward to following your progress with this! 

[bigbadbadge]

Oooooo  will tag along Brian, good luck with some of those wing joints .

Chris

[Brigbeale]

12 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Oooooo  will tag along Brian, good luck with some of those wing joints .

Chris

Probably nothing a load of sprue goo  or filler won’t sort out

[Selwyn]

1 hour ago, Lord Riot said:

Very interesting. I wondered whether it was worth getting the Mistercraft kit. Do the kit parts actually make an FAW.7, or is it a 9 like the Airfix and Frog ones?
 

XH893 was definitely an FAW.9

XH858 was never actually issued, it was excluded in a ‘blackout block’ between Javelin serials.

XH754 was an FAW.7

 

 

I don't think that there were any new build Javelin FAW9. They were all converted from FAW 7 airframes so the aircraft serials would be correct for both FAW 7 and  FAW 9 depending if they are pre and post modification. There were 118 FAW 7 converted to FAW 9.

 

Selwyn

[Lord Riot]

10 hours ago, Selwyn said:

I don't think that there were any new build Javelin FAW9. They were all converted from FAW 7 airframes so the aircraft serials would be correct for both FAW 7 and  FAW 9 depending if they are pre and post modification. There were 118 FAW 7 converted to FAW 9.

 

Selwyn

True, though I don’t think the last few batches ever flew as FAW7s, being converted in the factory to 9s before issue to the RAF. 

[Selwyn]

2 hours ago, Lord Riot said:

True, though I don’t think the last few batches ever flew as FAW7s, being converted in the factory to 9s before issue to the RAF. 

 42 FAW 7 entered service and these aircraft were fitted to carry missiles - the remaining 80 FAW.7s were delivered to the RAF but went straight into storage at RAF Kemble, and were subsequently converted to FAW 9 before seeing Squadron service. the in service FAW 7's were converted as well, so some serials flew on squadrons as FAW 7 & 9.

Selwyn

[Brigbeale]

Work actually commenced on the Javelin tonight by cutting the wings and elevators from the sprues. 
The wings and fuselage were taped together to enable me to work out how much nose weight would be needed if any.

Two shortened cocktail sticks were placed in the undercarriage locating holes and the Javelin was placed on them. It sat nose down until I placed the elevators on the fin and then it sat on the tail. I balanced some off-cuts of curtain weight on the nose until it comfortably sat nose down again. 3 pieces were enough to alleviate the tail-sitting but I’ll and another piece just to be sure. There’s plenty of room up front internally for nose weight 
While I was taking photos, I thought it would be a good idea to get it’s Navy counterpart (Sea Vixen) out of the cabinet for a size comparison  and they’re roughly the same size(ish!). 
With that done I just had to get its very big brother down - the to be restored Avro Vulcan. It makes the Javelin look tiny.

 

I decided enough playing and time to actually do something constructive.

To make the FAW.9R (A javelin with longer range fuel tanks and a re-fuelling probe), the fuselage would need the FAW.7 extensions sawn off. The kit gives a double wall at the rear with a groove to act as a guide for cutting. With the top and bottom halves removed they were cleaned up - which revealed a gap between the two halves between the exhaust holes. Nothing a bit of styrene card won’t sort out.

 

With the two halves together, the engine intakes looked a weird shape and out of round - more of a slightly melted circle. a quick look at the walkaround photos and they should be more of a circle. Out with the small file set and fettle them to the right shape.

Then I thought it would be more interesting if there were intake tubes with the fans at the back, so I measured up the big empty space, designed some and 3D printed them. The first incarnation wouldn’t print all of the simplified fan blade strakes as they were too fine, so I had to delete half of them and make the remaining ones wider. They were printed with black filament - more to save me painting them and just highlighting the strakes and centre cone.

The intake tubes are being printed separately. Partly so I can paint the fan blade strakes and also I wanted the tubes in a different colour. I’m trying white first as it’s quite dark in there and the hole is about 8.5mm wide and 35mm deep, so by the time light hits the fan (I had to be careful what I typed there!) it’ll be hard to see them. With them being white, it may be easier to see the fans. 
It may be a pointless exercise in the end but WTH, it’s worth a try.

 

the 3D printed fan blades which need some cleaning up and highlighting

 

The fan blades fitted with white tac to the bulkhead which is more or less where the front of the engines are situated.

 

The view down the port intake

 

The intake tubes in Cura. They’re printing at the time of writing.

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Brigbeale

[bootneck]

I have one of those kits waiting to be built, so I shall be learning as you progress Brian.

 

cheers,

Mike

[MD530F]

I held out and bought the old Heller T3 because I had heard how terrible this kit was. Looking forward to seeing how you get on with it 👍

[Brigbeale]

The engine fans were cleaned up this evening. They just had some stringing on them where the nozzle moves and pulls a string of molten filament across the smaller parts. The printer doesn’t do it on larger prints.

Once cleaned up, the fan strakes and centre cone were painted with Tamiya silver. a test fit of the intake tubes revealed the effect I was after. I may paint the interiors of the tubes a light grey to tone them down a bit.

They fit in their respective positions quite well. I place a piece of white-tac under each one as a temporary support to see if they stayed lined up when the top half of the fuselage went on. I’m happy to say they stayed where they were and look ok. There’s a small gap at the front where they meet the intake ring, but I expected that. A bit of filler and all should be good. 
Both tubes were fixed into position with sprue-goo at the rear where they fit just shy of the cross piece in the lower fuselage and also either side at the front. Once the sprue-goo is dried, they’re not going anywhere.

The simulated engines can be seen quite well and they look a lot better than just seeing a dark void.

 

Once I’d given the sprue goo some time to go off, I tidied it up a bit and then started removing flash on the upper and lower mating surfaces on the fuselage halves.

With that done, I fitted 5 pieces of lead curtain weight. The larger piece photographed earlier was swapped for two smaller pieces and an extra one added for luck. They were stuck in with white-tac, 3 in the top and 2 in the bottom halves, which has the bonus of adding it’s own weight (albeit negligible, but it all adds up).

 

A quick check to make sure there wasn’t anything I’d missed. The kit instructions suggest the exhausts needing fitting before the two fuselage halves are united, but they don’t as they will just fit onto the rear of the fuselage. 
The exhausts themselves have vents around them. They look a bit chunky on the kit engines and also there’s some nasty ejector pin marks inside. I think I’ll drill the centres out and add some tube to give them more depth.

I found this thread on Britmodeller discussing Javelin kits and came across a very useful piece of information saying the top vent faces aft and the bottom one faces forward. There doesn’t appear to be any side ones fitted on the real aircraft exhaust tubes. 

Happy I’d not left anything out, I glued the top and bottom halves together. 
My Mr Cement S had no problem with this plastic and it reacted the same as other manufacturers plastic. I started on the port intake and worked my way round gluing a piece at a time making sure the top and bottom halves fitted evenly with no steps. They appear to have gone together quite well. The nose was slightly distorted and had a gap at the pointy end but the Mr Cement S sorted that while I held it for a minute or two. I’ll put some tape around it to make sure it doesn’t surprise me later on.

 

I also looked at the ejection seats. They need replacing. They moulded ok physically but they just look bland. I have a file on the 3D printer for MB ejection seats so I printed a couple off. They look a lot better - maybe a little narrow but once painted and fitted, they’ll look 👌 

 

I also did a scientific check to make sure the nose-weight was enough to prevent tail sitting. The point of balance is a lot further forward than where the main undercarriage would be fitted in the wings, so it’s looking good in that respect.

 

The pencilled marks on the fuselage are to highlight imperfections which need filling.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

There was not so much progress with the Javelin tonight due to interruptions.

 

I painted the ejection seats and the cockpit interior Tamiya NATO black as I didn’t want it to be completely black inside. The seats were placed in for the photo but then removed again as there’s a slot in each tub at the front. The front seat especially as the slot is bigger runs the risk of dropping into the fuselage. That’s not a great problem I just self as I could simply print another< but it does mean the would be a loose part inside the fuselage rattling around.

 

Once I’d got the I interruption out of the way, I decided to improve the empty undercarriage bays. 
First I looked in the Walkaround section at the wheel bays to see what they looked like internally.

I also snipped one undercarriage leg off the sprue to fit it in position to check the fit. Looking at it closely, there’s a slight step where the tow mould halves weren’t fully lined up. A light touch with a file and some fine paper sorted that out. Then I found the mounting pin was too big for the locating hole in the top wing half, so I gingerly filed the pin down in diameter. It fits better now but there’s still a little more to go before it slots fully home. I don’t want to overdo it and have the pin too small for the hole resulting in a loose undercarriage leg.

Theres also an actuator ram which fits in. It’s quite poorly moulded. A scrape with a craft blade should tidy it up.
Using my styrene t-section and some 1mm styrene card, I replicated a simplified version of the framework. It looks a lot better with the improvements, but I feel the wheel well needs to be boxed in. I’ll do that with 0.5mm styrene card.

I dry fitted the wings again for the photo to show the before and after on the undercarriage bays.

 

The gap between the upper and lower halves between the exhaust holes was also filled with 1mm styrene card. It was glued and left to dry so it can be trimmed and sanded to shape tomorrow.

[Brigbeale]

I continued with the interior of the undercarriage bays tonight. 
Knowing now that I need to box the wheel wells in, I used the outline of the opening which was marked with a pencil to give me the shape on the inner surface of the upper wing. I drew a second outline approx 2mm larger than the original and used that as a guide to set the length of the t-shape styrene. 
Once I’d got that little lot in place, I started building the walls using 0.5 styrene card measured at 6mm in height to clear the narrowest part of the wheel well between the upper and lower halves.

When I finished the starboard side, I marked the port side in a similar fashion and added the walls to that one as well. They’re a slightly different shape at the front, but once the wings are closed up, they won’t notice. 
I do need to make a recess in the 1mm stryrene which would allow for the strut when the wheels are retracted.

 

I was going to close up the port wing, but I wanted to check the fit against the fuselage with the top and bottom halves taped together and also by trying the lower half and upper halves separately and then by just placing the two in the slots together with nothing holding them together. It didn’t really make much difference to the fuselage to wing gap - I’ve seen worse! 
The main bugbear is the lack of positive location of the top and bottom halves when placed together. They can move around a fair bit. I’m just going to line them up at the front inner point and along the leading edge using the gun port as a reference point to align them together. 
The fuselage to wing seams will require filler no matter which course I take, so I might as well get the wings lined up as best I can and sort the seam later.

 

I went to dry fit the fin, but it was too large for the slot. It turned out that excessive seam lines from the moulding was to blame. Once filed offf the fin fitted in - tight, but it fitted. For some reason, the front of the lower edge of the fin has a downward curve to it, which leaves a gap under the fin itself to the fuselage.
Now do I file ithe curve flat or fill the gap🤔. I’m leaning to filing the curve flat, which will reduce the amount of filler needed.

 

To finish tonight off, I got the Mr Surfacer out and started filling the sink marks and deeper flaws on the plastic surface.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by Brigbeale

[MD530F]

Good work on the gear bay boxing. That'll look brilliant on the finished build

[Lord Riot]

It’s a horrible fit isn’t it, but you’re making a superb job of it! 
 

I like the 3D engine intakes, I used a garden cane for mine! Wheel wells looking great too.

[Brigbeale]

I started tonight by hand painting the wheel wells. I first used Tamiya Metallic Grey, but it turned out to be too dark, so I re-painted them with Tamiya Flat Aluminium which was much better. I put the upper wings aside to allow the paint to dry.

 

I then started sanding back the dry Mr Sufacer which was pained on the seams and sink marks. Some were done but others need another coat or two to get them flush.

 

it was time to sort the fitment of the fin. I decided to file the front curve flat so it would fit the fuselage better. The section under the rudder also had to be sanded as the fuselage has a slight curve in the profile. The fitment tag had to be eased on each side to allow the fin to fit fully down to touch the fuselage. A few tries with a bit of a sand and refit was needed to get the shape about right. The front and rear areas fit the fuselage,  but the area either side in the middle either side of the slot are rounded at the top from poor moulding (or a repair has been made to the mould itself). This leaves a gap under the fin which will need filling..

 

The wings were assembled and glued. 
I placed the wings dry onto the fuselage and pushed the top and bottom in sideways towards the fuselage. Using some nifty bulldog clips that I found in Poundland - a pot for a quid is a bargain. They’ve got enough grip without applying too much pressure damaging the model and clamp right on the edge, so I’m going to get some more. 
I then gently removed the wings and glued them with Mr Cement S starting at the front point and working around the circumference. Once they’d dried a bit, they were the refitted to the fuselage and the whole lot was placed on the stand to fully dry.

 

[rob Lyttle]

Congratulations on a great job with this old banger of a kit! 

I'm guessing this is a remake from an ancient tooling.... Probably Frog or something similar?? 

Like your solutions and approach to building this. I think I used paper rolls for the intakes. Your 3d print looks great. 👌

[Brigbeale]

8 hours ago, rob Lyttle said:

Congratulations on a great job with this old banger of a kit! 

I'm guessing this is a remake from an ancient tooling.... Probably Frog or something similar?? 

Like your solutions and approach to building this. I think I used paper rolls for the intakes. Your 3d print looks great. 👌

The kit doesn’t appear to be a re-pop of a Frog/Novo kit. The Frog kit has a separate nose cone, engine exhausts moulded onto the fuselage halves and the sprue layout is completely different.

 

I looked on Scalemates for the history of the Mistercraft kit and it appears the original kit was made by ZTS Plastyk  in the 1990’s. Since then it appears to have been branded Chematic, Mistercraft and Mirage Hobby.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

It was a shortened modelling session tonight as I spent the day stripping the Focus’s engine to remove the head due to low compression in at least 2 cylinders after the timing belt stripped teeth episode - the  Haynes manual makes it seem easy! Lots of parts removed but the head is still attached - it would probably have been quicker to remove the engine altogether! Still - I’ll persevere and get it done at my own speed.

 

So, tonight I sanded back the Mr Surfacer again. The sink marks behind the wings roots still need more adding, but they’re nearly there. 

The wing seams were sanded to clean up and smooth the flash/step where the two halves meet. 

Once that was done, there was only one thing to do - fit the wings.

The fuselage to wing joint gap turned out to be fairly good in the end - I’ve seen worse (but to be fair that was on older designed kits). The underside on one half has a little wider gap then the other side, bit it’ll fill and shouldn’t matter.
The inboard trailing edge needed pegs fitting to line them up as both sides wanted to sit slightly high. Unfortunately the wooden pegs didn’t have the oomph to line the two parts up so they were given some additional help with the plastic grips.
I checked the level-ness of the wings and both are good, so it’s just a case of letting the Mr Cement S finish curing until tomorrow evening (I know it’ll probably be done way before then, but battle recommences with the Focus tomorrow morning).

Edited August 4, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

I took the night off last night. No particular reason - just felt like having an evening doing nothing.

 

So - back to it.

I masked up the wings near the joints and applied Revell filler to the seams all round where the wing met the fuselage. Once the filler was applied, the tape was immediately removed before the filler dried.

It didn’t take long for the filler to dry. It’s quite warm this evening and the filler is probably past it’s best as it’s getting harder to squeeze out of the tube.

The filler was sanded back and it’s looking a lot better than the gaps. 
 

The tail fin and horizontal stabiliser were tail fitted and found they were nowhere near the fit they should be, so the fin leading edge top was filed down as there was too much of a curve on top. About 3/4 of the way back there was an odd upward curved shape (similar to the lower front end of the fin). That was scraped away with a knife as I couldn’t get the file onto it as the locating tab was in the way. Once I’d got it to as near a good fit as I was going to get it, the tail-fin was fitted into position with sprue-goo. That set fairly quickly as well - enough to let me fit the stabiliser to the top also with sprue-goo.

 

Hmmm, what to do next which wouldn’t disturb the tail fin and stabiliser assembly. 
The external fuel tanks. They should be an easy fit!

NOPE!

First thing that is noticeable is the sink marks on each end. No big deal - jus fill them.

I offered them up to the fuselage. Have I got them the wrong way round or on the wrong side. 
They’re both numbered part 6 and they just fit to the underside of the fuselage using the locating holes for the pins. 
They fit in the pin holes fine - they just don’t  fit the contour of the fuselage - there’s a big gap on the outside edge. 
I took a look at a couple of profile pictures of the Javelin and both show the bottom external fuel tanks are flat and level with each other across the head on profile.

The kit ones are both angled out a bit.

The only remedy was to carve and file the inside edge to make it smaller than the outside edge so it sits properly in profile. There’s still a gap between the part and the fuselage but that can be filled with Vallejo plastic putty.

I’ve done one and glued it on. The other will be done tomorrow night.

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

I put the other external fuel tank on last night - it put up a bit more of a fight as it was slightly bowed, which was odd as it was on the same sprue right next to the other one.

It finally settled into place with some shaving of the inner side-wall and some fervent filing of the ends while trying to avoid the locating pins. 
 

The gaps were filled with white Vallejo Plastic Putty and smoothed out with wet cotton buds. 
While I had the VPP out, I filled the fin root and stabiliser joint. So much easier than standard filler.

 

I spent the rest of the time contemplating what to do with the nose gear well as it’s just a plain slot at the moment. My thinking is to add a piece (or two) of 1mm card to the front section with a hold drilled the same size as the nose wheel leg (it will also help with the fitment of the nose gear itself as the original hole is too big for the said nose gear to fit into snugly). The rear of the slot will be left giving the impression of a deeper hole for the wheel itself to retract into.

 

So, onto tonight’s escapade.

I spent the first 20 minutes or so, trying to find out which colour the underside should be. Airfix give the 1/48 underside as Silver, Frog and Heller both give the underside call-out as Gloss Aluminium, while Mistercraft give it as Medium Grey (which I take with a pinch of salt as the colour chart is confusing in places). Another model kit also gave the underside as Grey. so it’s 2 for 2 for 1 with the colours. Hmmmm.

 I decided to do what i did to the Frog Canberra - mix the Aluminium and Grey together to tone the Aluminium down but still leave a metallic finish. I thought I had some spare mixed paint from the Canberra. I saw it the other day, but do you think I could find it - not a chance. So I mixed a fresh brew.

 

I started airbrushing the underside fittings (missile and fuel tank racks, underside of the fuel tanks themselves, gear doors etc). The paint looked good, so the undersides of the Javelin itself were airbrushed. I really like the outcome.

 

While the paint was drying, I was looking at the decals, which started me wondering if the wing roundels were too big, as they certainly appear so on the decal sheet. 
So, I screen-shotted the Airfix 1/48 scale image, resized it to the model size and printed out the upper, lower and side images.

The upper wing roundels on the call-out are approx 24mm wide. The underwing ones are slightly smaller at 20mm. The side ones appear to be approx 13mm.

The kit wing decals are approx 24.8mm. The uppers will be about right while the lowers are 4.8mm oversize so I may print smaller ones. The side ones are also 13mm, so they can be fitted as they are.

While I’m about it, the underwing serial numbers are also 2mm oversize in height, compared with the call-out, so I’ll reprint them as well.

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

Oh, I nearly forgot!

I bought myself a late Birthday present.

A Contrail Vac Formed Vickers Valiant - Yes, you read it right, A Contrail Vac Formed Valiant.

I would imagine most of you are 😱😱😱😱 “Is he out of his mind?”

 

The reasons

1) I have a Vulcan (which needs restoring) and a Revell re-pop of an earlier Matchbox offering of the Handley Paige Victor (albeit the tanker version, which I plan to convert back? to the bomber variant. So, I have two of the the 3 V - Force bombers and this now completes the set. All three will be in the low level camouflage pattern (when I get round to them).

2) I know the Airfix one had been out for a while now and is, without argument, the best version on sale, but with things the way they are at the moment, by budget is, shall we say, tight. I got this for about less than half the cost of the cheapest Airfix version. It’ll be a lot more work as I’ve never done a Vac formed version before, but with the 3D printer on hand, I will,hopefully turn out something half decent.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Brigbeale

[bigbadbadge]

Great work on the Javelin Brian, the fettling is paying off and you're going to produce a decent model.  The wheel bay detail looks fantastic too.

Chris