Hobbyboss 1/48th Tornado

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

Right - now the hangover has subsided! The nose modifcations have been filled and cleaned up, plus the port gun trough filled:

The nose plan shape now looks a lot better. A bit of rescribing and we should be there.

Here are the kit seats with some wine foil belts added, and primed. Its not perfect but will suffice for now.

And the drop tanks

For the cockpit, I've used the kit decals applied over the raised detail. They are thin and go down fine - though my tip here is to use a piece of cloth wetted with hot water to push them down onto thew detail, then hit them with some decal softener. After they were applied , I gave everything a coat of matt varnish and citadel Badab black wash, whihc toned down the decals brightness and added some depth to the raised detail.

As you can see HB provide the cockpit decals like its all powered up. Well its adds some colour I suppose. I used tamiya gloss clear to glaze the instruments.

Also note that the coaming on the front panel has been removed to reduce its height.

Finally - heres a taped up shot showing the Tornado-eyness of it all

Note the sprue brace in the second shot whihc just pushes the top and bottom apart a tad - if you dont do this, the front section will be a bit too tall for this section when you fit the 2 parts together.

I've ordered 617 decals and some Xtracrylix RAF greys, so at least I know thats sorted. Just got the slats and flaps to sort out next , and then we can get painting. Oh and the canopy!

Jonners

[AnonymousAA72]

Great work Jonners!!! Really like the nose fix, I'd thought about adding a spacer to push the sides out, and then rebuiding the wheel well shape. But I think your fix may have the edge. A couple of things though..... I think that the upper canopy area should be a lot straighter? There's quite a severe curve. Fixing this would of course have a major knock on effect - the canopy will need new lower frames maybe.....and the intake ramps they look very high and straight.........not sure how to fix that one..

[Shaun]

Intresting work so far, I'm watching this for tips on how to assememble this state of the art kit.

It's surprissing how much work will be needed to put this togeather . I'm thinking my 1/32nd Revell Tornado GR4 project will be easier to build, than attempting this kit.

With the front fuslage sprue spacer in place will the vents on the rear of the intakes be level?

Shaun.

Edited January 1, 2010 by Shaun

[Mentalguru]

Jon- you are doing a great job- loving it.

[spike7451]

Nice work Jon,Comeing on very well so far.Two points,

1-Cut the big loop of the ejection seat,you'll never see that on a squadron as that bit's attatched to the g-suit.

1-Cockpit floor in the GR 1 is green non slip & black in the GR4.

Merv

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

First up - cheers for all the comments !! Its a lot of work but I'm enjoying this "state of the art" kit immensely. Merve, as ever, thanks for the comments on details - the bang seat G-suit connector hose is noted, but I think the floor may have to stay grey, unless I can get a small brush in there...Hmmm.

Bill - lower canopy frame is on the to do list, and the intakes do seem a bit high. Not sure what to do there.

Now I got up early this morning and looked at the lowered flaps, compared to several photos of the real thing, then pondered on whether to start drinking VERY early OR buy a ticket to China, go to the HB offices, learning some Chinese swear words en route, and shout them using a loud-hailer at the design team for this model.

All I can say it there is a vague resemblance between kit parts and reality. I've made the first few mods to get them looking something like the original, but I think you could spend A LOT of time here if you wanted too.

More info and pics, as the drugs kick in....

Jonners

[goon]

Following this with interest Jon - I have the kit on my shelf in the shed. Great work so far mate.

[Haggis]

Hi Jonners, I'm following this with interest as I am also waiting for the F3. I hope they get the nose right and correct the canopy.

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

Hi Jonners, I'm following this with interest as I am also waiting for the F3. I hope they get the nose right and correct the canopy.

Hi Jaimie, correcting the canopy would be a boon to all. As would making the flaps look half decent ( almost there lads - pics tomorrow morning! - not hard but annoying we should have to do it)

It will interesting how they cope with the F3 recessed missile bays ( I'm thinking a 3 part forward fuselage - with the underside as a separate part). And in case any ones wondering - the main body of the fuselage has a the rear tip of the port forward recess moulded in. There's a little infill part for the GR / IDS versions. Also the flashed holes are there for the 2 rear launchers, but no sign of any flashed over holes for the fin recesses ( Hmm!).

Knowing your aversion to anything that doesnt have an RN markng on it, I'm assuming you will be wanting to do an F3 in AMI colours? :)

Cheers

Jonners

PS anyone have any dimensions for a sky shadow pod? more scratch building I think.

[Julien]

Looking good,

is it just me (angle of pics etc) or does the top curve on the nose section not look 100%

Julien

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

Looking good,

is it just me (angle of pics etc) or does the top curve on the nose section not look 100%

Julien

Hi Julien - you could well be right - nothing is surprising me about his model. I'm also starting to suspect that the dorsal spine is a bit humpbacked too, and that the entire nose section may be a bit too oversize ( or perhaps the entire rear fuselage is a bit undersize!). To be honest if I found a bit in the instructions relating to adding Firestreak missiles or a 2 blade Watts prop I would not be phased.

As I build this kit, I am starting to think, that despite the quality of the molding, this entire model is a bit Rory Bremner: Nice impression of the real thing, but not quite the real deal.

Jonners

[Julien]

Hi Julien - you could well be right - nothing is surprising me about his model. I'm also starting to suspect that the dorsal spine is a bit humpbacked too,

You might be right, that curve that starts under the fin also looks a little too pronounced to me;

Julien

Edited January 2, 2010 by Julien

[CockneyCol]

Thats looking great Jonners, Ive been thinking about grabbing one of these as Tonkas are Brill! I'll be watching to see how you get on for sure as this could be the bible for HB Tonka building.

Keep up the excellent work.

Cheers

Col'

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

Right, first up heres a pic of the flaps, showing whats been added to make them look a little more prototypical.

Adding a plastic infill to the the stepped front section of the main flap piece, allows it ot be sanded to an airfoil section, which means you can then cut out the flap track guides and mount the guides further forward - then add some detail with strip. The protrusions from the wing rear edge which are the tops of the tracks all need adding from card too - as you can see. Just need to do the other one now!!

Last night after some very useful comments from Bill and Julien, I decided a bit more butchery was in order. Principally the areas that need addressing ar ethe spine and the intake tops.

Take a look at this unmodified pic:

Notice the humpback appearance of the spine - if you want to see what a real one looks like - look at Juliens pic:

Also not the angle of the top of the intakes compared to the kit. They slope down to the front - on the kit they are flat.

So - to fix the intakes I razor sawed of the top of each, sanded the sides of each down to make a lower curing down angle, and then re-glued the top back on. Bit of filler, and it looks much bettererer.

Taking the tops of the intakes also reduces their overall height too - which means they sit far better in relation to the cockpit sill.

For the spine, the plastic is thick enough that some vigorous sanding will eliminate the humpback shape. Detail will need to be re scribed etc, but it looks more like the real deal now.

All in all, there is starting to be a lot of work needed on this model to make it look like a Tornado. Fortunately pretty much all of it can be done using plastic card and "modelling skills" - so how the cost compares to the italeri ( or Airfix) kit with paragon flaps and tail etc etc, I dont know.

I shall be looking at raising the canopy profile today, plus adding the lower sills. My idea for this is working OK so far, so hopefully it will be an easyish fix!

Cheers

Jonners

PS here's what the intakes will look like on the model from front on. Oh for some intake trunking!!!!

[Mentalguru]

Nice stuff Jon.

TBH, although you are doing one hell of a lot of work on this baby, you are obviously into it- as can be seen by your enthusiasm. Please make sure you pace yourself, and don't suddenly run out of interest. Looks like you enjoy a challenge!

I hsaven't yet seen much that the average time served modeller could not do if inspired enough. Everything you have done seems to be improving the image. And I for one appreciate this humungous epic build. Do the top of the bloody fin though- it's driving me nuts!!!!

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

Nice stuff Jon.

TBH, although you are doing one hell of a lot of work on this baby, you are obviously into it- as can be seen by your enthusiasm. Please make sure you pace yourself, and don't suddenly run out of interest. Looks like you enjoy a challenge!

I haven't yet seen much that the average time served modeller could not do if inspired enough. Everything you have done seems to be improving the image. And I for one appreciate this humungous epic build. Do the top of the bloody fin though- it's driving me nuts!!!!

Cheers Mental - I think I can keep going with this one. You're right I am enjoying it in a challenging kind of way.

I just want a Tornado thats looks kinda right!!, and the more pics I look at the more realise that its damn fine looking aircraft.

I'm not sure of its Homeric proportions though: Hopefully, as you say, most things here are doable by anyone who can wield a sanding stick, use a razor saw, and fill seams.

The question of WHY we should need to do it to get a Tornado out of the kit is another one though - as the old saying goes, "it costs just as much to tool up a model that is accurate as is inaccurate". Perhaps Hobby Boss/Trumpeter should consider slowing down their monumental release program, so they can do their R&D a little more thoroughly?

Anyhow - so that fin top? going way too far uphill as it goes front to rear? me too:)

Cheers for the splendid support. It is greatly appreciated.

Jonners

[Smiffy]

This is a cracking good build.

I really admire you for forging ahead and offering up all these fixes for all of us to follow and I'm really enjoying it.

I was contemplating getting one of these, but (and it's a big BUT) after seeing all the corrective work you've had to do so far, with more still to do...Well, I have to ask myself, why would anyone now choose this kit over the (much cheaper) Italeri one?.

I know that one isn't perfect either, but it does seem to be a much better starting point (imho).

[Doug Rogers]

Kudos to you Jonners for stepping into the breech with this exploratory build, hope the drinking is deadening the pain a bit for you.

I don't personally know enough about Tornados to know what looks wrong or right, and your thread is scaring me a bit. To my slight shame, I reckon I'll probably go the Italeri route when the time comes.

Looking forward to seeing yours finished though, got a feeling it's going to be a pearl!

[daz greenwood]

Well it looks like a Tonka

[thx6667]

This is excellent stuff, you're showing us the problems and showing us fixes. This is how a kit critique should be.

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

hello again - right, the canopy. As has been pointed out the canopy and windscreen lack the lower framing fairing which is quite pronounced: Heres the canopy as provided-

Notice how low it is, compared to what it should be like:

Please note this image used is not mine, but is here for critical purposes and will be withdrawn if requested

You can clearly see the absent lower framing on this pic. The obvious thing is to add this fairing, but also in doing so I have tried to raise the canopy profile too. Heres the idea-

As you can see raising the canopy at its front end, and tipping the windscreen up to meet - improves the look, and doing it has proved easier than hoped. There's a slight lip on the canopy and screen bottom edge thats needs sanding off. Then I glued some very thin plastic strip to the bottom of the canopy - just to give a bit more surface area for the fairing to attach to. To protect the clear areas I just used some tamiya type tape, following the extant frame line

Next I took some plastic strip ( approx 3.5 mm a 1 mm) and chamfered 1 edge to round it off. 2 long pieces were done like this - enough to cover both the windscreen and canopy plus some extra.. The strip is then cut lengthwise to shorten its depth, allowing for it to be deeper at the rear ( ie a very long triangle).

Next the strip is measured up against the main canopy, allowing to more than enough excess at the front to cope with the windscreen, and then marked and cut where the framing alter its angle uphill on the navs part of the canopy. The strip is then glued to the canopy. A second piece is marked an cut and glue on to make the Navs uphill framed section, and the gap under neath filled in with a spare vee of the same un-chamfered strip. When the glue is dry enough, the excess form the front of the main strip is cut and used to do the same for the windscreen ( using the same strip for winscreen and canopy means the chamfer will match ).

A little filling using Mr dissolved putty - which can be smooth in using tamiya clear cement, and a bit of sanding to clean up follows. Then you can gently sand down the bottom edg eof the new framing to refine it to a finished shape, and fiar it onto the rear canopoy frame where it must feather down to not much to match the spine section.

Anyhow - its sounds complex but isn't. Hopefully the pics will explain.

So now I have, hopefully, corrected all the glaring problems with shapes of this model:

Amending the stab shape to include the kinked LE.

Correcting the lower forward fuselage shape.

Altering the thrust reversers to fit in closed position.

Un-humpbacking the spine.

Refining the intake profiles.

Raising the canopy profile and adding the missing fairing.

Lowering the height of the pilots instrument coaming.

Correcting the crappy flaps

And also ( yes Mental I did it) reducing the uphill rake of the top of the fin.

There's a couple of other things, from studying pics, I 'm a bit dubious about - to whit the shape and size of the intake bleed doors, the depth of the font of the wing gloves ( they seem to thick and blunt to me), and the general curvyness of the area of the zone where it hits the front of the fin ( cheers for that one Julien). But I can live with these for now

I've just got 1 more set of flaps to finish and apply - and in case my previous post didn't make sense - heres the main flap with the plastic infill and the guide tracks cut in.

.

Then its a final polish/sand for all the bits and primer time. Phew.

cheers

Jonners

[Max Headroom]

You have my deep admiration on this build and can't wait for the final product. You will have a unique model at the end of the process of which you can be proud.

Having said that it is deeply disappointing that a brand new, state of the art kit seems to be so way off the mark and makes me wonder whether an Italeri or Airfix kit is still the way forward?

MH

[desmojen]

Very good stuff indeed Jon, I do like your no nonsense approach to these things

I do think though, that on balance, my Italeri kit is very safe in the stash, and I'm glad I didn't dispose of it.

Jen.

[Notdoneyet]

Cracking work Jon!! A real modellers approach to fixing problems with a kit

Ian

[keefr22]

So now I have, hopefully, corrected all the glaring problems with shapes of this model:

Hi Jon,

Great work in amending all those listed issues - and very quickly done as well! However, there's one shape issue that seems to still be glaring out at me. And unfortunately your good work with amending the lower canopy area & correcting the tops of the intakes seems to be highlighting it. To my eyes, looking at the real thing, there is no 90 degree square shape on the top of the fuselage between the area of the Navs lower canopy sill & the inner intake wall (if that makes sense?!) If you look at the following pics on Airliners net....

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Germany---A...-IDS/1632284/L/

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Italy---Air...-IDS/1632116/L/

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Italy---Air...-IDS/1632115/L/

...to me at least the upper fuselage on the kit is much too square, the real thing having much more of a gentler blended curve up into the lower canopy, & this makes the inside of the kits intakes appear much too close to the fuselage. You can also see it in the pic of the real jet in the comparison side on pics of the noses that you posted.

The top of the kit's intakes also are below the fuselage line alongside the Nav's canopy, whereas the second linked pic shows there to be a pronounced 'triangle' of inner intake wall above the fuselage that is curving & blending down to meet the sides - it also looks like the area there is slanting forwards whereas the kit pieces appear to be dead flat?

It's getting late & I know that I'm not putting this into words very well, but if you compare your pics to those on A.net you may see what I'm getting at? This is in no way a crticism of your tremendous work in trying to correct what appears to be a pretty woeful kit - especially at the price! I think I'm going to stick with my Revell 1/72nd ones!!

Cheers

Keef