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Revell CL 604 Challenger


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A quick, somewhat gratuitous post, but RookieLSP enquired about the size (or lack thereof) of this little fella, so I took a shot of it posed next to the propeller assembly from a 1/32 Fw 190:

 

0IyyBb.jpg

 

I reckon it's probably about the size of a 1/72 scale WW2 fighter. You should see it next to the fuselage half of my newly arrived 1/144 An-124! The Ruslan in 1/144 is still larger than the Fw 190D-9 in 1/32.

 

In the photo you can see the dodgy state of the top coat so far. It seems every kit I build has to go through a 'teenage' phase before completion. Let's hope the liquid mask still comes off the engine outlets OK when I'm done!

 

Kev

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A quick, somewhat gratuitous post, but RookieLSP enquired about the size (or lack thereof) of this little fella, so I took a shot of it posed next to the propeller assembly from a 1/32 Fw 190:

challenger_size_small.jpg

I reckon it's probably about the size of a 1/72 scale WW2 fighter. You should see it next to the fuselage half of my newly arrived 1/144 An-124! The Ruslan in 1/144 is still larger than the Fw 190D-9 in 1/32.

In the photo you can see the dodgy state of the top coat so far. It seems every kit I build has to go through a 'teenage' phase before completion. Let's hope the liquid mask still comes off the engine outlets OK when I'm done!

Kev

Sheesh! That is one tiny little jet...

And I know exactly what you mean about the 'teenage phase'.. :woot.gif: I get those a lot!

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Finished the main painting today, and had to resort to decanting the Tamiya TS-26 for airbrushing. Now I see why I get runs - a couple of quick squirts nearly filled my paint cup! These Tamiya spray bombs really do pump it out. Unfortunately it seems that this paint needs to go on fairly wet to achieve that beautiful gloss lustre it's famous for. Light coats with an airbrush come out almost matt. You can see the difference in the photo between the engine pods (spray bombed) and the fuselage side around the windows (airbrushed):

 

hFSLdJ.jpg

 

I had terrible trouble removing the liquid mask from the BMF on the engine outlets, and damaged the foil in a few places (fortunately only one of them is obvious - on top of the starboard outlet just behind the engine pod). Another one chalked up to experience.

 

I'm also not happy with the way the windscreen framing turned out, but I can live with it. Up close you can really see how much the white paint has built up around the mask - ridge city!

 

All in all I think this will be my last attempt at using the TS-26 on these small models. As I said in a previous post, it's a great paint, but too hard to work with.

 

Anyway, the next chore will be attempting to apply BMF for trim in all the requisite places.

 

Kev

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Just a minor update tonight. I've managed to get all the foil trim on, but I'm not sure my eyesight will ever be the same again. In the end I did a pretty clumsy job, but it looks OK, and I learned a thing or two. For starters, always use a fresh knife blade when trimming foil! :thumbsup:

 

l3xVfG.jpg

 

Not a great photo I know but you get the idea. I also managed to break off the rear antenna on top of the fuselage (again). I've re-attached it, but this time a small amount of paint came away, so some touch-up work coming up.

 

I'm finding this little Challenger more of a 'challenge' than I expected, but of course I've managed to do everything the hard way, as usual. I've just got to decide if I go the Future route before decals, or skip it and cut to the chase. The surface is not uniformly smooth or glossy anymore, so I'm leaning towards Future in order to avoid this little guy - :) - in my next post.

 

Kev

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RookieLSP said:
Lookin' mighty fine Kev! :worship:

In that scale I think I would've torn my eyes right out of my head trying to get that foil on there...

Nice work as always Mate!

 

Thanks Dave! I think the foil is actually too shiny compared to the real thing, but I'm OK with that. The biggest headache for me in this scale is actually the wheels - they're microscopic! Of course, the decals on this one will be a challenge too. Here's the scheme I'm heading for:

Cirrus Aviation Challenger (Airliners.net)

 

This is actually the third option in the box, but I'm not looking forward to aligning all those horizontal stripes! The fuselage stripes are actually a single decal per side, which helps.

 

Kev

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Hi Kev,

That's a great idea, putting the foil on the hot sections of the engines before adding the fan sections. I was trying to figure out the easiest way to do the shiny sections on my Welsh/Revell Franken-CRJ's engines.

Keep up the great work!

Ben

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Ben Brown said:
Hi Kev,

That's a great idea, putting the foil on the hot sections of the engines before adding the fan sections. I was trying to figure out the easiest way to do the shiny sections on my Welsh/Revell Franken-CRJ's engines.

Keep up the great work!

Ben

 

Thanks Ben. I wouldn't do it the way I did it here again however, as I had terrible trouble removing the liquid mask from the foil after painting. If I were to do it again, I'd put the foil on after construction and painting were finished, but before the front cowlings went on. Luckily on this kit they're a pretty tight fit and don't actually require glue, you can just slip them over the pylons at the finish.

 

Is the CRJ you're working on the Revell Challenger with a Welsh Models conversion?

 

Kev

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Thanks Ben. I wouldn't do it the way I did it here again however, as I had terrible trouble removing the liquid mask from the foil after painting. If I were to do it again, I'd put the foil on after construction and painting were finished, but before the front cowlings went on. Luckily on this kit they're a pretty tight fit and don't actually require glue, you can just slip them over the pylons at the finish.

Is the CRJ you're working on the Revell Challenger with a Welsh Models conversion?

Kev

Hi Kev,

The Welsh CRJ kit is supposed to be a "stand alone" kit, but it has some accuracy issues. I'll be adding the Challenger forward fuselage, tail, engines, winglets, and landing gear to it. All I've done so far is to split the resin fuselage to narrow it so it will have a circular cross-section like the real jet. Looks like the Challenger fuselage will fit pretty well with a minimum of sanding on the Welsh fuselage. It's going to be a lot of work to get an accurate CRJ, but will still be far easier than trying to convert a Challenger. I need to clear a couple of other projects off the bench before I can really jump into this one. :banana:

I'll try your method of foil and paint on the engines. Sounds like it will work great since the cowlings will be a different color than the fuselage and pylons.

Cheers!

Ben

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Ben Brown said:
Hi Kev,

The Welsh CRJ kit is supposed to be a "stand alone" kit, but it has some accuracy issues. I'll be adding the Challenger forward fuselage, tail, engines, winglets, and landing gear to it. All I've done so far is to split the resin fuselage to narrow it so it will have a circular cross-section like the real jet. Looks like the Challenger fuselage will fit pretty well with a minimum of sanding on the Welsh fuselage. It's going to be a lot of work to get an accurate CRJ, but will still be far easier than trying to convert a Challenger. I need to clear a couple of other projects off the bench before I can really jump into this one. :banana:

I'll try your method of foil and paint on the engines. Sounds like it will work great since the cowlings will be a different color than the fuselage and pylons.

Cheers!

Ben

 

Sounds like an interesting project Ben. Care to post an in-progress build of it here when you get it going?

 

Just putting the decals on as I type (well, technically I stopped to type this post, but hey). I've never had to put so many decals on such a small model! I'm nowhere near finished, but the fuselage stripes are on, and were a bit of a pain to align. I only really got 'near enough'. I'll post some photos in the next update.

 

Kev

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Nearing the end now. The decals are on and the undercarriage minus the main wheels is in place:

 

oys0h4.jpg

 

The decals were a bear to put on. Nothing wrong with the quality, but they were extremely fiddly and seemingly never-ending. The fuselage stripes were especially challenging, and I didn't quite get them right (I still need to trim some excess off the rear of the fuselage). The only quality issue I had with them is that the main door decal is noticeably shorter than the engraved door on the fuselage, though it's hard to know if the decal or the engraving is off.

 

A couple of touch-ups, finish the landing gear, another coat of Future and she's done!

 

Kev

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Thanks for the nice comments guys! It's all but finished now. I'm trying to knock together a base for it, but can't figure out what to do with the bottom portion (paint it, stain it, leave it unfinished?). I've just roughly cut and fitted the top to the base while I decide. Posed for effect:

 

1UgX81.jpg

 

1A8z4Y.jpg

 

hRMjIL.jpg

 

jxtQYr.jpg

 

I cheated a bit and didn't fit the main landing gear retraction struts - mainly because I lost one, but also because the sprue attachment points made it practically impossible to remove them without damage. I also didn't replicate the wingtip lights, as I could no longer see their engraved outlines on the wings. :doh:

 

Thanks everyone for following along (looks like I did beat you Tony!). I'll post a photo or two in the critiques forum once the base is finished. In the meantime, as Dave has reminded me, I have to finish my Dora!

 

Kev

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Well done Kev! You did beat me. Seeing the finished article has spurred me on to finish mine. Maybe this weekend I'll start back on it.

I very nice looking bird. Love the foil. I might have a bash at that myself. Apart from the eyesight, is it easy to apply? Do you trim it on the model or before?

Two thumbs up.

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Tony P said:
Well done Kev! You did beat me. Seeing the finished article has spurred me on to finish mine. Maybe this weekend I'll start back on it.

I very nice looking bird. Love the foil. I might have a bash at that myself. Apart from the eyesight, is it easy to apply? Do you trim it on the model or before?

Two thumbs up.

 

Thanks Tony. I cut the foil roughly to size prior to application, leaving a little bit of 'overhang', and then trimmed it after application. Just make sure you have a fresh knife blade, otherwise it has a tendency to tear and drag up. For the engine pods I tried to cut it to the necessary width before application, using 2 or 3 shorter lengths to make up the complete circle. Then I carefully trimmed any 'lumpy' bits off after that.

 

It can be a bit of a challenge (ahem) to apply, mainly I think due to the small compound curves on this model. Larger models with greater surface area wouldn't be so fiddly. The adhesive they use seems to be pressure-activated too, so that makes it tricky to align, as it doesn't always want to stick where you first put it until you burnish it.

 

Still, it was worth the experiment and I've learned a bit in the process. If you're going to do it on your Challenger Tony, I'd apply it to the engine parts after painting but before fitting the fan cowlings. My way was stupidly-hard.

 

Good luck with yours Tony!

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Apologies for dredging up this ancient thread, especially given that it's now nudging its 10th anniversary! But I'm on a mission to update the images in all my build threads, to remove the Photobucket pestilence. As it happens, the images were missing from this thread due to being posted back in the days when you could directly upload them, and they appear not to have survived one of the upgrades that have happened since.

 

Never mind, I've reinstated them all now, even though they're mostly awful! I thought I might post a couple of photos I took since originally completing the build, as I think it shows the model in a better light:

 

eAklJE.jpg

 

V37pxY.jpg

 

Kev

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