Gadfly's Danish Dragon

[Gadfly]

Hi,

I'm going to build a Heller Classic the SAAB Draken.
Heller produced the full range of classic SAAB post war fighters. Apart from the Lansen I have em all in the stash.
The Draken is however the oldest boxing I have. The kit features a multitude of options for single or twin seat and fighter or recce noses.

I think its still the only option for a twin seat Draken in 1/72. Given Hasegawa make a nice single seat kit im going to use the GB to build a twin seat recce bird in Danish markings...

Here is the reference image... courtesy of Wikipedia..



Here is the Kit boxing...




So I'm all set for the off re-scribing tools at the ready......

Cheers
GF

[TobyC]

Nice choice. I prefer SAAB aircraft to their cars
I've just won an Airfix Draken off ebay oddly enough. Seeing it fly at the recent Prestwick airshow prompted my interest in it.

[Gadfly]

Hi,

I built the Airfix Draken as a kid... It seemed very space age then. I have actually had a few SAAB cars And a Volvo or two my Favourite being the 900 8v Turbo I had fast but thirsty... A bit like the Draken.....

[Gregers]

Hi,

I built the Airfix Draken as a kid... It seemed very space age then. I have actually had a few SAAB cars And a Volvo or two my Favourite being the 900 8v Turbo I had fast but thirsty... A bit like the Draken.....

I've had a few SAAB cars too. Namely 99, 900, 900-16v 9000s and 9-3 turbo cabrio. Superb cars.
The Heller kit of the Draken is damn fine, only points to watch is sinkage in the outer wing and fin parts. I've had this on two of mine.

All the best.

Greg

[Gadfly]

Hi,
Fortunately I'm sinkage free on this kit.
I made a start and it's now 99% re-scribed I just need to sort the join where the alternate spine parts fit...

I'll add some images later..
Cheers
GF

[Gadfly]

Hi,

I'm sorry i' ve been a bit slow to add images to the thread..

I blame the Thunderbolt build and also the small Matter of a Tamiya Tornado F.3... Anyhow..

I've finished re-scribing the Draken and have been progressing. The fit is ok given the age of the kit... The joins will need some work and the wingtips will need a bit of sprue filler adding to bring them in line..

Here are a couple of photos... I'll add the bang seats later the Kit parts are a bit basic so I might second some others from the spares box...





Thanks for looking
GF

[Gregers]

Nice. This is tempting me to dig mine out of the stash.

All the best.

Greg

[Dazzled]

Very nice. The rescribing looks really neat

[TobyC]

Very nice. The rescribing looks really neat

I second that

[Gadfly]

Hi,

thanks for the kind words..

A bit more progress with the Draken..

The main construction is pretty much done everything is sanded filled and polished up.. It needs a primer coat then the main paint needs adding..





Olive Green here we come...

Cheers

GF

[Old_Tonto]

That is a great looking plane Gadfly. I remember a friend of mine building a Danish one back in the day.

Looking forward to seeing the paint going on.

[Gadfly]

Hi,

Thanks for the kind words.

I have been progressing a bit with the paint. The Danish Airforce used an all Olive Green scheme on the Draken and also the F-100 and F-104's they flew. Initially this paint was a Matt finish but the Matt paint suffered badly from fading this is most obvious when you look at pictures of F-100's. At some point the paint was changed to a gloss / semi gloss finish and the paint fading issues were reduced.

For interests sake I went with the older paint scheme and have been trying to replicate the faded look of the scheme.

I mainly use Tamiya paints as they spray nicely and thin well with lacquer thinner. First up I made a mix of olive green and NATO black and used this to highlight the panel lines.





Next I mixed up some plain Olive Green and thinned it well and then built up a base layer of colour taking care not to wash out the preshade..





I then made up some OG paint lightened with white which I used to pick out the centre of some of the panels.





Finally to get it all to blend together I made a really well thinned mix of the base OG which I misted on taking care not to over do it.



There is still a bit to do masking up the nose and so on. Still it's progressing..

Cheers
GF

[Old_Tonto]

Wow that is stunning paint work. I wish I could do that.

[Clashcityrocker]

Yeah nice paint, And great little 'how to' More finesse than I can manage at the moment.

Nigel

[Gadfly]

Thanks for the kind words on the paint..

The main paint is now done.. I polished it back with 8000 & 12000 grit micromesh and then added a nice coat of 'future' which with the smoothe painted surface gives a very glossy finish..





Main Decals next...

Cheers
GF