Lancfan's Starfighter build. ***DNF***

[shangos70]

Very clever. Watch the front of the canopy, there is a decent lip / step to the radome once it's in place. I didn't notice on mine until I was all primed.

[lancfan]

Cheers shangos.

David.

[lancfan]

With the cockpit blanks ready to be fitted out I checked the plans to get the nosewheel bay details and found that the trainer nosewheel retracts differently to the fighter and this kit being based on their fighter model simply copied that kit. Whereas the fighter noseleg retracts forwards the trainer retracts to the rear so a new nosewheel bay has been fabricated from more filler and the shallow kit nosewheel bay will need filling in later. This is the assembled cockpit base piece with the added nosewheel bay extension bonded in place at the rear, a hole was drilled through the rear cockpit floor for a sprue extension which will keep the ground correct sit using the kit nosewheel.


The new wheel bay dry fitted into the fuselage with the old wheelbay covered in masking tape.


Making blanks for the side panels came next, these are again made from car filler. The cockpit base was placed in position inside each fuselage side in turn and the floor and rear of both cockpits was heavily marked on the fuselage sides in pencil. The filler was then applied and when it was solid the pieces of filler were flipped out of the fuselage halves to fully harden. This is one half of this exercise showing the pencil cutting marks which transferred to the filler when it was spread inside the cockpit area.


David.

[TobyC]

That's impressive work. I doubt my modelling skills would stretch that far.

[Marek]

David, that is a heck of work you are putting into it. I like it a lot.

[Blueberryruby]

I can only echo what others have said.... ingenious!

[lancfan]

Thanks Toby, Marek, Reuben.

David.

[lancfan]

This picture was taken a few days ago and shows the basic cockpit and nosewheel bay.


with the side consoles in place it was time to work on the seats, with nothing suitable in the spares box and no correct moulds I had to make another pattern in order to make a Miliput mould from which to make a matching pair of reasonably correct seats. We are on the last day of the GB, due to other GB work the airframe is still in pieces and here I am still playing with tiny pieces of Tamiya tape finishing the scratched ejection seats. It is now 13.30 hours and they are finally finished.


The fuselage has been assembled and is now drying, 13.45 hrs.


David.

[TobyC]

David, I'm happy to extend a couple of day's grace if you need it.

[lancfan]

Cheers Toby but I am still aiming at a midnight finish, the fuselage is now complete, the seams are filed smooth and the filler has been applied.
The rest should be plain sailing.

David.

[lancfan]

The tail, radome and wheel bay section have been fitted.


The seams have been filed/sanded down and the fuselage was filled where needed by 15.00 hours. The filler has been rubbed down and the wings, air intakes & tail unit will be fitted next, it is now 17.00 hours.


David.

[Marek]

F-104 broke few records, you are going too with midnight finish! This is going to be a blast and all this work you put into it!

[lancfan]

The airframe is complete- let painting begin!


David.

[lancfan]

The first step was to paint the white undercoat for the dayglo orange followed by three coats of the orange itself, and then the
underside was painted in light grey.



The colour division was masked off and the darker grey was applied- it has now reached 00.00 hours- and I didn't make it as I underestimated the time involved in properly coating the tip tanks in Dayglo.


With a heavy workload this month I pushed too far on the Spitfire GB and tried to finish third and fourth builds before starting on this model when I should have left them until after this build to decide whether there was time.
As not finishing this was entirely my fault I will therefore declare this a DNF and finish it in Aviation Modelling.
Toby, thank you for the offer of an extension but I will decline for the above reasons.

David.

[TobyC]

Ok David. Not a problem and thanks for letting me know. Look forward to seeing the finished article elsewhere.