wow that looks very real

Looking very nice and you have captured a nice well used feel to the cockpit

Thanks all for looking in

This update takes the build up to the closing of the fuselage halves. Firstly there was some more etch to place on the inside of the cockpit walls - Revell supplied no detail here at all so the extra detail was very much needed.
I then placed the front gear bay with etch in place, there will be more etch detail to apply on the gearbay doors later.

Then came assembly of the intakes and nozzle, this was all standard build. There are 2 fans in there somewhere but there is no way they will ever be seen! Would have been better if Revell had added more detail to the parts that could be seen really.
I sprayed the intakes and nozzle black purely to block out the red when looking inside.
Lighting wires and chip were then fitted, I thought I only really had to fit the nose light at this stage but now I have closed the fuselage I realize It would have been a very good idea to install the underside strobe light too This is going to be very difficult to do now but not impossible.

Anyway, final pics show the 2 halves together - I was very impressed at the fit of these parts, considering there were many parts that had to match up - the cockpit sides, the gear bay locating slots, the intake halves, nose / gearbay ribs and the internal air brake detailing. With all this having to line up exactly I was expecting trouble but it went together nicely.
Still got lots of fine gap filling to do next though

BTW, the black spot spraying on the sides was to hide the red so I could fit the sight glass components then I was going to Maskol them, I have now decided to used Krystal Klear on these holes after the painting is done, I'm hoping it will work like it says on the bottle to cover holes of 1/4 of an inch, these are 3mm so should be fine.

Cheers
Steve

Hi Steve,

That detail is in that scale, well done.

Hope we don`t lose too much when the build comes together.

Keep up the excellent standard.

Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)

looking good Steve, some of Alclads jet exhaust paint would go great around the jet outlet

Lovely work Steve, that certainly is a lot of filler, will look great when the paint is on

Thanks for the interest guys Cheers for the link too Andy, going to order some as I'm planning another British Jet soon!

Left the fuselage alone for a bit, on to the wings now as I'm keen to get these closed up. Before I could though there were a few jobs to do.
Firstly, had to lay the fibres for the wing tip lights. They needed small grooves cutting but went in fairly easily. The tip lights will be painted transparent green and red when the lenses go in.

Next job was to cut out the landing flaps in order to fit the CMK kit. The flaps were easily cut out with a scalpel but I followed the wrong line on the upper wing half. The upper wing cutout is not as deep as the lower and I did both the same So, I had to "replace" part of the upper flap and use some filler to hide my mistake .

The CMK lowered flaps do not need to be fitted yet, they can go in later in the build as it's going to be tricky with the red / white pattern on the underside - that's a problem for later though

Finally, had to get the gear bay detailing done before the wings can be closed.
There was a small amount of etch in there but I wanted to raise the metal hoses that were finely molded in the plastic.
The thicker hoses are 1mm solder and the finer ones are very thin brass wire. Not going for accuracy here, just wanted a more detailed look.

The bays were sprayed white first, then a very thin wash of AK enamel grime, followed by a few touches of AK rust streaks / stains on some of the brackets (checked out one of these gear bays at Yeovilton and unbelievably there is rust up there)!
The decals that can be seen were cut up from the kit cockpit instruments decals, just thought it would add a bit more interest and be neater than painting too.
Lastly a thin Tamiya smoke wash, this also had the effect of creating a nice satin finish too.

So, the wings not even closed up yet but I'm ready for that in my next update

Cheers
Steve

Absolutely stunning detail! Accurate or not, it adds so much to the model, fantastic work!!