More kits sitting on my workbench

Here are some pics of kits that I started but which ended up in the 'slow lane'.


1/24 Tamiya Mugen CR-X Pro (cat.nr.2445), street conversion

Tamiya Mugen CR-X Pro in progress (28.6kB) I started this kit before starting the Tamiya Honda Civic, but with this CR-X kit I kept having bad luck. I used a can of Tamiya TS-41 'Coral Blue' (a.k.a. 'Leyton House Blue') to spray-paint the body. Unfortunately the paint on the bonnet picked up some dust. When polishing out the dust I polished through the paint coat so I had to respray the bonnet. Again some dust ended up in the paint coat but this time I applied enough paint to safely sand and polish the paint.
Then the 'Mugen CR-X Pro' decals on the sides started yellowing, unfortunately there already is a clearcoat on top of the decals, I have yet to figure out how to fix this...
Fortunately not everything went wrong: I modified the exhaust from a side pipe to one that is street legal using brass rod and a rear muffler from a spare Tamiya Civic, I applied felt carpet to the interior tub and painted the white criss-cross pattern on the blue seats by hand (one done, the other still needs to be finished). As with the Civic I applied Bare Metal Foil over the raised Honda emblems on the nose and tail before painting the body, then polished the paint off of the raised parts of the emblems.
I do plan to finish this model but progress sure is slow.




1/72 Esci A-7D Corsair II (cat.nr.9057)

A-7D Corsair in progress (31.8kB) Painted, decals applied and clearcoated, this model is almost finished. However it turned out really dark and flat (the picture was taken in bright sunlight) and a bit boring compared to the other models on my shelves. Sofar the only things that 'break' the flat dark appearance are the white landing gear legs (which I still need to paint). I'm considering opening the LOX bay, which would add a splash of yellow primer, but I need to be very careful and precise with cutting its hatch open.



Paints used
fuselage overallForrest Green FS.34079Humbrol 116 'US Dark Green'
fuselage overallDeep Gray FS.36081Humbrol 32 'Dark Gray'
fuselage top coatFlat ClearPactra Acrylic A48 'Flat Clear'
cockpit interiorDark Gull Gray FS.36231Humbrol 64 'Light Gray'
dash coaming, tail antennaeFlat Black FS.37038Humbrol 33 'Matt Black'
radomeSemi-Gloss Black FS.27038Pactra Acrylic A1 'Black'
main intake, landing gear and baysFlat White FS.37875Tamiya XF-2


1/72 Hasegawa J7W1 Shinden (AP40 cat.nr.51340)

J7W1 Shinden in progress (28.3kB) Another nice Hasegawa kit, I started it right after finishing the Hasegawa I-16.
I added some details to the cockpit, made a small cup with a vinyl ring inside and fitted that behind the engine face so I could fit the propeller after painting, replaced the pitot with one made from a cloth pin, and carefully enhanced the intakes on the sides. Since I plan to finish the model as the sole prototype, I used stretched sprue to blank off the gun ports in the nose.
I got as far as painting the underside when I had to give up the place I used for spray painting my models. Sofar I have yet to find a new place for that so this kit is 'on hold'.




1/144 LS F4H-1 conversion

LS F4H-1 conversion in progress (47.5KB) The LS F-4E kit is accurate and is unique in offering wafer thin wings and tail fins so I really like this kit. After doing an F-4E almost straight from the box, I decided to try and turn another LS F-4E kit into an early prototype F4H-1 Phantom II. Sofar I modified the nose, the canopies, the engine intakes and exhaust nozzles, the main wheels (more narrow) and the wings (removed wheel bay bulges and scribed new speed brake outlines). One thing yet to be done is to carve a small NACA duct in the brittle layer of putty on either side of the nose.
I plan to finish this kit in the colors of the first F4H-1 prototype with red/white candy striped nose cone and thin dayglow orange cheatlines all over the fuselage.



1/144 DML/Dragon Mi-24 Hind D (cat.nr.4543)

DML Mi-24 interior details (5.4kB)

I started this kit several years ago. It is a nice but somewhat basic kit. The kit has some shape errors around the lower nose and near the rear of the canopy, which I corrected.
I also decided to open the windows and doors of the fuselage and add interior details.
DML Mi-24 interior details (6.6kB) Whilst adding the interior details (from scratch) I found out that the fuselage is too short (in two places: between the cockpit and cargo hold and between the fuselage and the tail boom) and that the main rotor diameter is too small as well. Since I already finished detailing and painting the main rotor, I was not too happy about this.

DML Mi-24 rotorhead side view (2.1kB) DML Mi-24 rotorhead details (3.8kB)

I decided to cut the cockpit section off of the fuselage so I can add a plug and tilt the cockpit.

Waiting for: Decision time: In 2013 Zvezda released a much more accurate 1/144 Mi-24V kit, so do I carry on with converting this Dragon kit or do I abandon it and transplant its interior details into a Zvezda kit ?

DML Mi-24 fuselage with separated cockpit halves (45.2kB)


1/144 Revell A-10 NAW conversion

Revell 1/144 A-10 NAW Here's another kit conversion I started a very long time ago.

The Revell A-10A kit (cat.nr.4054) is an inferior Korean copycat of the LS kit. The fuselage and the engine pods are okay, but the fuselage below the horizontal tail section is missing, the wings have most of the pylon slots at the wrong places, the wheel sponsons and the wing tips need their shapes corrected and the wing needs a lot of work to fit the fuselage properly.
The simplified landing gear is completely wrong (even the sizes of the wheels are off), the engine exhausts are molded closed and the fuselage is missing all raised details and antennae that are present on the LS/ARII/MicroAce kit.


1/144 A-10 NAW view of upper side

I started the conversion by cutting a hole in the fuselage for the rear cockpit and inserting new rear bulkhead and side walls. The rear cockpit fairing was cut from one half of a drop tank (the remains of the drop tank can be seen in the pictures). Finally I added lots of putty to build up the raised rear cockpit sides and to fill the gaps between the rear fairing and the fuselage.

The tail fin extensions were cut from thick plasticard, the tips of the tail fins were cut off along the scribed panel lines.

1/144 A-10 NAW view of lower side

I separated the windshield from the cockpit transparency and plug-formed the new canopy as a single part.
1/144 A-10 NAW canopy and plug

Waiting for: donor landing gear, if I'd steal the gear from an LS or ARII kit, then why not start over and use that entire kit ?




1/144 Revell MiG 1.44 MFI (cat.nr.04028)

Revell 1/144 MiG 1.44 MFI in progress (38.6kB) I happily started this kit, completed the cockpit, sharpened the edges of the twin main intakes and added some strips of thin plastic at the rear of the fuselage to improve fit.
Then I found some pictures of the real thing. The more I compare the kit to those pictures, the more serious differences I notice...
I still have to decide what differences to tackle (some, like the shape of the forward fuselage cross sections require major surgery)...




1/144 Revell YF-22 (cat.nr.04016)

Revell 1/144 YF-22 in progress (43.0kB) Another 'stranded' kit, just like the MiG 1.44 . While building the kit I noticed that the fuselage of the kit is much more shallow than the fuselage of the real YF-22, so in side view the kit looks oddly squashed.
'still have to decide what to do as the fuselage is not easy to correct due to the slanted sides. Actually, the Trumpeter 1/144 YF-22 kit (cat.nr.WP01331) is just as bad as far as the fuselage shape goes.




1/144 Heller Mirage 2000-5F (cat.nr.79907)

Heller 1/144 Mirage 2000 in progress (36.2kB) This is a bit of a sad story: the 1/144 Heller Mirage 2000 kit isn't very accurate but when trying to improve the kit I based the changes I made on an inaccurate 'Aviation News' scale drawing, so now I'm working on redoing most of the changes.
Apart from that the actual Mirage 2000 wing is quite thick in the center near the fuselage while the wing in the kit is just as thin as a Mirage III wing, to correct this I plan to apply a web of plasticard ridges and then add filler.




1/144 Revell SA330 Puma (cat.nr.04047)

Revell 1/144 Puma main rotorhead (15.5kB) This kit just happens to sit at the bottom of the pile for no real reason, it is a nice kit that looks very much like a scaled-down copy of the Airfix 1/72 Puma.
What I did sofar:

To do:

Notes:

In the meantime Humbrol added a shade of orange (nr.46 Matt Orange) to its enamel paint series that looks exactly right for the spectacular 2005 Tiger Meet scheme of RAF Puma HC.1 XW231 in Revell kit nr.04047.
The lower fuselage of this scheme was painted in an off-white color, a bit more cream-yellowish in hue than the white lettering on the engine shroud.


Paints to be used (Tiger Meet Scheme)
fuselage topOrange-Yellow (custom mix)Humbrol 46 'Matt Orange'
fuselage bottomOff-white (RAL 9001 ?)Revell 05 'White'


1/72 Hasegawa SBD-3 Dauntless (AP29 cat.nr.51329)

SBD interior birds eye view (8.5KB) The 1/72nd scale Hasegawa SBD kits are nice, but the canopy and dive brake flaps can only be fitted in closed position, which makes it hard to put the model in a realistic pose. I bought an Eduard set for depicting the dive brake flaps in opened position and to add some details to the cockpit interior. Read on...





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