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Gloster Meteor F.1 but Argentinian (Tamiya 1:48 what if)


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After smashing my head against a stove an hour ago, I decided to buy the 1:48 Gloster Meteor F.1 from Tamiya and an Aerocalcas set for the Classic Airframes Meteor 4. The idea is to argentinise the Tamiya kit and make up a story of why a Meteor F.1 wound up in the Fuerza Aérea Argentina when we received 100 F-4s in the immediate post war.

I was supposed to get the decals today, but the seller (who kindly drove to my house to give them to me) made a mistake and brought the wrong ones, so I'll have to wait a bit more to get them (maybe this Saturday/Sunday).

 

I'll be picking up the kit this Saturday from Hobbies Morón. Here's the boxart (from the internet). Luckily Tamiya, thinking on us modellers, has included a nose weight to help with nose sitting.

qqEM82R.jpeg

 

 

Hope to see you guys join me on the build!

 

 

 

 

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I finally have the kit and the decals! Now I'll be able to start the build.

As far as I know Tamiya tooled this kit with the wing of the Meteor F.3, which had speedbrakes, whereas the F.1 didn't. I'll glue the speedbrakes in place and then fill the recessed detail of the brakes. I'll also be filling any gaps that may appear while building the kit (unions etc...). This is going to be a first for me, because I usually don't fill gaps on my models.

 

Here's the boxtop:

3SMyJhp.jpeg

 

The bottom of the box with the nose weight (included in the kit).

vuNbzJP.jpeg

 

Instructions:

DNUvc1d.jpeg

 

Sprues inside the bags:

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A 1:48 painting guide:

VG2NWUA.jpeg

 

And finally, the decals. The idea of buying this kit was to make it Argentinian from the start with a set from Aerocalcas. ID will be C-104.

Ch51YCy.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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First efforts on Tamiya's Meteor. When Tamiya first issued their Meteor F.1 in 1997, it was done after reviewing the Meteor on the RAF Museum in Hendon (London). As such, it had speedbrakes, a device that was added starting on the Meteor F.3. Because I didn't want to look lazy, I glued the speedbrakes shut and filled them with CA.

 

Here you can see the fuselage and other small parts painted black. The wheels were painted steel and will have the tyres painted today.

k7y5Bmf.jpeg

 

Here you can see the area to be filled surrounded by masking tape.

AzrirAb.jpeg

 

 

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Right, more progress after a long (ish) time. 

I've glued the fuselage halves and added the weight to the lower wing.

kjN1UFN.jpeg

 

And here are the wings glued to the fuselage. Next to it is the cockpit.

vdRduwq.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Made some more effort today and glued the wings and filled the speed brakes to backdate the kit to a true Meteor F.1. 

As written above, Tamiya copied the Meteor "F.1" exhibited in the RAF Museum Cosford (now in Hendon I think). As such, they added the speed brakes of the Meteor F.3, and kitted the plane as an F.1 with speed brakes. Tamiya later retooled their original kit and issued a true F.1, plus an F.3 later with the speed brakes.

1OUVDeX.jpeg

zsyoH4X.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Some more progress has been made on the Meteor. The camouflage has been painted. Uppers are in standard late RAF colours akd the undersides are in RLM 65.

 dV2D5L6.jpeg

 

vBIuomz.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Decals have been applied. Curiously, the white decals presented small cracks once they were dry. They didn't break when sunk into hot water. I now will let the decals dry for some hours before applying the matt coat and adding the landing gear and canopy.

W9qqrYP.jpeg

eUboXbr.jpeg

Ebau3Rm.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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