McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle --new Revell kit - 1:72--

[_alfisti_]

I grabbed the new Revell Strike Eagle for €15,- a few weeks ago on an exhibition and nearly couldn´t wait to put my hands on it. But I had to order some goodies first.😎

 

 

 

First step was a dry fit of the cockpit section and I was positively surprised. Everything fits tight and without any problems.

 

 

In some areas the structures was sanded down for the etched parts bevor painting everything with black and finally Gunze H307.

 

 

 

As the etched parts are designed for the Academy kit, they needed some trimming to match the Revell parts. I think the result is okay.

 

 

 

Next will be the two crew members from PJ Production and the ACES II seats from the kit.

 

 

 

Regards

Daniel

Edited October 26, 2022 by _alfisti_

[ruudster]

Great start!

[Unfinished project]

Good start and do you mind if I tag along?

[_alfisti_]

Thanks guys, nice to see you following.

[_alfisti_]

Finished the seats and crew these days but forgot to take pictures before placing them in the pit.

 

 

 

Next step in the instruction are the air intakes. There are a few spots to fill before glueing the two halves together.

 

 

 

The intake gets joined with the two lower wing sections.

 

 

 

Before the upper wing part can be glued to this, there is a first big failure of this kit need to be corrected.

The trailing edges are approximately 1 mm thick, what would be over 7 cm compared to the sharp edges of the real F-15.

 

 

 

I sanded the whole area down and cut out the FLAPS to lower them.

 

 

 

There was also no engraving on the lower side of the wingtips.

 

 

 

Regards

Daniel

[Hook]

Consider one more chair pulled up, sir!

[Gondor44]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:38 PM, _alfisti_ said:

Finished the seats and crew these days but forgot to take pictures before placing them in the pit.

 

 

 

Regards

Daniel

 

Oh good! Someone that realises that the crew are strapped into the seats with the seat belts going over them rather than just sitting on the seat belts!

 

Gondor

[HOUSTON]

Excellent  start  Daniel to your Strike Eagle build.

Look forward to seeing more.

 

Keep it Coming.

[_alfisti_]

Thanks guys

 

16 hours ago, Gondor44 said:

 

Oh good! Someone that realises that the crew are strapped into the seats with the seat belts going over them rather than just sitting on the seat belts!

 

Gondor

So you will say there are modellers out there they don't care about this..?🤪😉

 

After sanding down the trailing edges there was another weak detail that caught my eyes. Revell gives you no clear parts for any lights on the F-15. So I cut out the anti collision lights near by the fuselage, I will fill them later with epoxy adhesive. Same will happen with the position lights.

 

 

The tree main parts of the fuselage fits very well, only two small gaps on the rear were closed with some sprues.

 

 

Bevor you can add the CFTs to close the fuselage there are two little outlets to instal under the tail. Again the details on this parts were not the best, so I made new ones out off ferrules.

 

 

The starboard wing root fairing houses the M61 Vulcan gun, Revell gives you no details here, only a hole and wall behind it. I used some injection needles to imitate the gun.

 

 

 

 

Regards

Daniel

 

[_alfisti_]

As the main parts of the fuselage are together, it was time to continue with the cockpit to get it closed before putting cockpit and fuselage together.

 

First was the HUD, I used some copper rod and plastic packaging.

 

There is some flash on the canopy, I sanded it down and polished the parts with some old car polish.

 

Everything together almost looks like a Strike Eagle.

 

 

Regards

Daniel

[Shalako]

Beautiful work so far Daniel. I really like how you managed to thin the wings' trailing edges.

 

Cheers,

 

Bill

[Gondor44]

On 11/7/2022 at 8:20 AM, _alfisti_ said:

 

So you will say there are modellers out there they don't care about this..?🤪😉

 

Regards

Daniel

 

 

Yup, lots who make "in-flight" models without crew either

 

Gondor

[_alfisti_]

Windscreen was put in place, it turned out it was a bit to narrow. I glued one side first and then with some pressure from above to widen it, the second one.

 

After this I plug the cockpit section to the main fuselage to adjust the lowered air intakes.

 

All the gaps was closed useing plastic sheet.

 

Another weak point of the kit are the lower edges of the air inlets as they are way to thick. 

 

After some sanding the starebord intake looks much better.

 

 

Regards

Daniel

 

[_alfisti_]

After adjusting and dry fitting the lowered intakes, I decided to give the fuselage a bit of color and some decals before putting them in place. As the decals from Twobobs are very thin and so a bit tricky to apply, this was the better way than putting them behind the intakes later.

 

 

As you can see in the pics the decals are very neat, with some drops of Mr.Set&Sol the lay down nearly perfect into all the surface details. I really looking forward for the rest of them.

 

Now the intakes are finally in place.

 

 

Next are all the pylons of the Strike Eagle. All of them consist of two parts and need a little cleanup afterwards. The centerline tank was removed from the pylon as there will a GBU-31 find it´s place instead.

The missile rails needs some more attention as they looking way different on all of my reference pics.

 

 

 

Another little kit issue are the two ram air intakes on the sides of the main fuselage. It´s a shame for a 2021 tooled modell that they are closed. It´s no big deal but simply unnecessary.

 

 

 

Regards

Daniel

[Hook]

Looking good. Drilling out those intakes really makes a difference.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[_alfisti_]

Slowly but surely we're moving towards painting. I´m nearly finished with the fuselage so far to start painting the hot section.

But for today just a few pics from last weeks work.

 

The missile rails on the wing pylons didn´t match what I saw on my reference pics. I tried to improve the kit parts and don´t make new rails at all.

Not perfect but good enough.

 

 

 

The pylons on the CFTs fits very well, as far as I can say, there is no putty needed. ...will se after the primer...😎

 

 

 

On the fins you have to deal with the same issues as on the wings and tailplanes, the trailing edges are way too thick.  ...and also no clear parts for the two little lights on the top, I will cut them off and use some clear sprue to rebuild them.

 

 

 

The kits nose is blunt, I replaced it with a 1mm steel pin.

 

 

 

Regards

Daniel

[Gondor44]

Try the Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons:V X72-9

 

I believe that should have the parts you are after.

 

Gondor

[_alfisti_]

14 hours ago, Gondor44 said:

Try the Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons:V X72-9

 

I believe that should have the parts you are after.

 

Gondor

If you talk about the rails, it seems they are also a bit different from the one I need. I will go with my improvements, they are not 100% but good enough.

[AdrianMF]

Looks like a pretty good kit, but you are putting in a lot of work to make it much better! Thanks for a very clear and comprehensive presentation of your steps.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[_alfisti_]

On 19/12/2022 at 13:08, AdrianMF said:

Looks like a pretty good kit, but you are putting in a lot of work to make it much better! Thanks for a very clear and comprehensive presentation of your steps.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks Adrian, unfortunately Revell put some stones in the way, so the extra work is needed.

[_alfisti_]

Little Christmas update on the Strike Eagle.

 

Before I went on with painting the fuselage I just wanted to dry fit the nozzles from ResKit. Once unpacked I couldn´t withstand painting and finishing them at all.😎

 

The casting and the details are simply perfect. Next to six very nice resin parts you also get nice etched parts.

 

 

 

Even if the nozzles are meant for the Platz kit, they also fit perfectly on the Revell Strike Eagle.

 

 

 

Nice details on the inside, sadly the will disappear in eternal darkness.

 

 

 

I used Tamiya Surface Primer L, Tamiya x-1 and different shades of Alclad for the paint.

 

 

As you can see I lost one of the etched afterburner rings, this fortunally will not be noticed at the end.

 

The weathering was done with black, white and yellow oil colors. The black was used as a washing, white mixed with yellow to dry brush the burnt inside.

Unfortunately, due to the flash light it doesn't turns out right on the last picture.

 

 

 

Regards

Daniel

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by _alfisti_

[_alfisti_]

Last little update before the year is over...

 

I finished the hot section, workflow was nearly the same as on the nozzles:

...primer... ...gloss black... ...some clear coat for a perfect clossy finish... ...different shades of Alclad... ...some clear yellow/blue and smoke from Tamiya... ...clearcoat before masking the whole section...

 

 

 

I wish you all a Happy New Year! Stay healthy and motivated for our great hobby.

[_alfisti_]

Last little thing before painting the Strike Eagle was a little frame for the ADF antenna in front of the cockpit. I used Masking film and super glue for it.

 

 

 

A little preshading was done...

 

 

 

And here we go, first layer of Gunze H305 is done and it definitely looks like a Strike Eagle now.

 

 

 

After finishing with the paint, I realized that there is no panel line underneath the tailplanes. So I had to fill and repaint them.

 

 

Cheers

Daniel

[Andrew]

Hi Daniel,

 

lovely progress and your painting is very crisp. What do you mean by the absence of panel lines 'underneath the tailplanes', please? Do you mean on the fuselage where the tailplanes pivot?

 

[_alfisti_]

13 hours ago, Andrew said:

Hi Daniel,

 

lovely progress and your painting is very crisp. What do you mean by the absence of panel lines 'underneath the tailplanes', please? Do you mean on the fuselage where the tailplanes pivot?

 

Thanks👍

The junction between the fuselage and the two tailplanes, the seam looked quite nice without filling, but unfortunately there is no panelline or something else on the real plane. You can see it best in the first picture from the December 31st post.