Pappy121

G'day Jim, Thanks very much, unfortunately I am away from the bench for a little while due to work commitmemts so I won't be able to make any more progress until I return, cheers, Pappy

See, this is why they say you should not work with children or animals! cheers, Pappy

G'day people, A small update today. The Royale Resin wheels have been painted up but they are only dry fitted in these pics. The front wheel is ultra clean as my reference pics show this to be the case. I would like to add some wash to pop out the wheel bolts but I do not want to overdo the effect, I will need to think on that one. The main gear units are a no brainer as the lower wheel hub area behind the brake disc is dirty, even on a well maintained jet due to the brake and rubber dust generated upon upon landing. The landing light bezels are hard to photograph as my camera wa

Thanks very much, G'day people, The undercarriage units are inching closer to completion. I have applied some data placard decals to the u/c units and although the are a little undersized, I think that they really set them off. The addition of the Eduard PE light bezels adds the final touch, The gear test fitted to make sure that the paint has not created any new fit problems, , cheers, Pappy

G'day C6, Anyone who likes F-111's is okay in my book! Thanks very much! G'day people, I have painted up the gear but I still need to find some sort of generic setncilling for the undercarriage legs, there are plenty of them. Incidentally, there is a business opportunity for all you decal manufacturers out there, nobody makes a sheet of dedicated or generic undercarriage data decals. This would be a great help for detailing as most modern aircraft have heaps of servicing decals applied to their gear legs, hydraulic actuators etc. I apologise fro the crap pics, I am no photographer!

G'day David, I knew who the manufacturer was, I didn't know who sold them. I googled Videoaviation after reading Kev's post and went to Videoaviation's website and ordered directly from there, but thanks for the link, cheers, Pappy

G'day David, I knew who the manufacturer was, I didn't know who sold them. I googled Videoaviation after reading Kev's post and went to Videoaviation's website and ordered directly from there, but thanks for the link, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, A small update today. I have finished detailing the undercarriage units. Various details were added using scrap plastic, lead foil, lead wire and some PE components compliments of teh Eduard PE set. I also added some PE details to the main undercariage rear doors. The PE set provides some very small hinges to replace the solid lumps moulded onto the doors. They were lots of fun to fold up! The PE set also supplies replacement hinges. I have decided not to use these for a couple of reasons.The firstreason is that as is, the kit parts fit very well with excellent align

I NEED one of these! G'day Kevin, Who sells these and how much? cheers, Pappy

G'day people, Now that my wheels have arrived, nothing is holding me back from working on the undercarriage units. I have been mucking around with the nose gear unit today. Unfortunately I did not take any progress pics as I was too busy working on the item. Tamiya have captured the complex shape of the nose gear unit but it can still stand to be improved a little. The drag brace should have a short open section where it connects to the nose gear strut. I started by removing the representation of the drag brace actuator and chain drilling until I had the makings of a slot. This was cleaned

G'day people, A small update today. Some bits arrived These are designed to fit several kits, not just the Tamiya kit, but the masters look to be closely based on the Tamiya kit. The advantages of the resin wheels over the kit items is twofold, one, there is no seam to fill along the tyre's circumference (during which some of the tread detail will invariable be lost) requiring the tread detail to be restored, and secondly, there is a 'flat spot' and very subtle bulge to indicate the load on the tyres due to the aircraft weight. Modern jet aircraft use high pressure nitrogen fille

G'day Steve, Thanks for the detailed reply but I am not sure we are talking about the same thing, check your inbox, PM sent. Despite being the older Mono kit, you managed to turn out a very decent looking F-117. Thanks for the reference pic of the exhaust area, that is certainly something I had not seen before, cheers, Pappy

G'day Steve! Thanks for the kind words! Great build to you too, I came across your WIP pics when I was doing research. I agree with you about avoiding the see through look. I have ordered some PE, I will have a look and see if it needs to be done. I like the idea o f painting the innards black. I don't think I want to scratch up some intake ducts, sounds like hard work. I do like the look of yours with the filled in panel lines may I ask how you achieved that? A couple of other points piqued my interest. You have a grey sill area, no white at all. Was this a common feature amongst some uni

G'day people, I have reached a milestone. Today I finished painting the weapons bay. The sidewalls details were given a pin wash, after which I then picked out the various details. The sidewalls were attached to the main weapons bay tub. Although liberal amounts of CA was used to attach the sidewalls, I decided to leave the Tamiya tape on the corners as I did not want the bay to split open during handling or at a later date. CA can become quite brittle with age so the tape stays on. Once I was happy that the sidewalls were square and firmly attached, the bay assembly was offered up t

G'day people, I couldn't let it go. Tamiya have designed the nose wheel to be inserted into the nose gear bay before the bay is installed into the lower fuselage. This makes for a very rigid assembly and ensures correct alignment. However, this also means you end up with a nose wheel unit sticking out of the bottom while you are trying to fill and sand seams and paint the sucka. This sounds like a recipe for disaster so I decided to modify the nose wheel assembly to allow me to insert this at the end once all the painting is complete. I cut off the square locating tabs from each side of the

G'day people, A small update for today. I have finished painting the gear bays. (Note the nose gear bay is only blu-tacked in place in this pictures) The main gear bays are mostly hidden as I chose to install the forward main gear doors in their closed state. These doors can be either open or closed on the ground, and there are plenty of pics which show both states. I am basically lazy and did not want to fill in any more ejector pin marks than I have to so the closed option was chosen. The main gear units will still fit into their locating holes once the gear bays have been

G'day people, I spent some time today cleaning up the gear bays. There are two prominent ejector pin marks visible in the main gear bays - more if you leave the forward main gear doors open. I eliminate these using sprue glue (melted styrene sprue pieces dissolved in liquid cement) and restored the details that were lost.The nose gear bay also received some attention. I also added some wiring. And after a lick of paint

G'day people, I have spent the last couple of days painting up the weapons bay. And a quick test fit, Yup, still fits! cheers, Pappy

G'day people, Today's update. I have been playing with the kit ordnance. Tamiya has supplied a pair of GBU-27/B laser guided bombs. These were developed specifically for the F-117A and are based around the combination of the BLU-109 penetrating round married to a modified version of the guidance section from the GBU-24. This is a signature weapon of the F-11A but is by no means the only weapon it could employ. The Tamiya's goobers are very nice out of the box, but they can be improved.I began by drilling through the sway brace arms and adding the sway brace feet and adjusting screws using

Thanks Starfighter, Unfortunately you may be waiting a little while for some progress. I basically just need to paint the kit but first I need to mask the canopies. This is fiddly work and I would rather use a mask set, so I will wait until Eduard releases a pre-cut mask set. I don't know when that will be and it could be a while, cheers, Pappy

G'day Dr G! I am chuffed that you are getting something out of my build. Grinding off the detail was no biggie, it is in a spot that will not be seen anyway and I was careful only to remove material from the area concerned. Loading up some instant sunshine is appealing, but it means spending more cash. I have a few options at present, ranging from the kit GBU-27's, a pair of CBU-103's (Aerobonus)or GBU-10s, however I may even go the opposite way and fit a SUU-20 or even an MXU-648, so still undecided, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, Here is today's wobbly update. The kit weapon trapeze units are designed to fit into the resin weapons bay roof. They should just drop into the corresponding slots/holes, however, ironically, the additional detail added to the weapons bay walls now interferes with the fit of these items. I ground away some of the added detail where the trapeze items were touching, The locating pins of the rear 'A' frame do not line up with the corresponding holes. The units fit perfectly into the Tamiya bay So I must assume that the problem lies with the resin. The solution was simp

There sure is Nick, painting it will be big fun! G'day people, Work continues with the weapon bay. First a comparison shot between the kit and Aires items The black plastic is the central divider provided by Tamiya. Forward bulkheads Bay doors Basically, the Aires parts include a whole bunch of wiring and hydraulic plumbing lacking on the Tamiya parts - and a whole new bunch of fit issues! So far, the resin bay fits very well lengthwise with no need for modification of the kit opening The instructions recommend removing the locating guides but I want to tray an keep them a

G'day people, The next major assembly will be another focal point - the weapons bay. I will be substituting the kit items with the Aires set, although I will still need to use the kit trapeze items. The parts were pretty easy to separate from their casting blocks, however I will have a bit of a job to remove the remains of the casting block from the door items. Further, there was some damage to the main bay item, The lower corners of some of the door hinges were broken off. That is going to be a fun repair. Test fitting has shown that the bay itself fits the weapons bay aperture

G'day Linus, Thank you very much. I just paint them by hand, just practice, a 10/0 brush and a steady hand. I just followed the instructions, but remember to cut off the door hinges first. I dunno what the red bit is, but it is clearly visible in my ref pics, perhaps others on the forum could educate us?