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Revell 1/32 F-15B, 74-0141, NASA 836


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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

The plastic landing gear of the kit is very weak. The metal replacement is a lot stronger, but I didn't like the way it was supposed to be fixed to the underside of the fuselage. No hole to insert the leg of the gear, it's just butt glued.

I drilled a hole in the underside of the gear bay :

12122014%20(2).jpg

Glued a piece of 4 mm plasticard to inside of the bay and drilled the hole through the plasticard :

12122014%20(1).jpg

The legs of the main gear were also drilled and a piece of brass tubing was glued in the hole :

12122014%20(6).jpg

The brass tube can then be inserted in the hole in the wheel bay :

12122014%20(3).jpg

It's offset a little bit to the outside of the fuselage, just like the landing gear of a 1/1 F-15 :

12122014%20(4).jpg

The metal nose gear is a poor copy of the plastic one. So I made a groove in the curved part of the leg, glued a bent metal pin inside the groove, filled it with CA and flour and sanded it smooth :

12122014%20(5).jpg

Sincerely

Pascal

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update :

The resin engine fans were sprayed with primer and silver from a spraycan using this template I bought for my homework in school (30 years ago !). The template leaves a nice clean ring for the CA-glue :

21122014%20(4).jpg

The fans were then glued to the backside of the intakes :

21122014%20(3).jpg

And with a generous amount of Revell Contacta both intakes were glued to the fuselage :

21122014%20(1).jpg

The tube for the JSF received a piece of plasticard to give it some extra strength, the little black plastic squares are there to cover the big vents in the underside of the fuselage. The white pieces of plasticard on both sides will make the joint between both fuselage halves stronger and prevent the sides of the upper part from bending towards the inside :

21122014%20(2).jpg

Sincerely

Pascal

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Jacob.

Update :

The two fuselage halves (top and bottom) have been glued together, the gaps were filled with CA + flour and Tamiya Extra Thin Cement :

04012015%20(4).jpg

04012015%20(9).jpg

The hole for the canon was filled :

04012015%20(7).jpg

The triangles at the front of the air inlets fit poorly. I can blaim Revell, but it's my own fault. All the rivetting (and dropping the fuselage parts a few times on the floor !) has somewhat altered the shape of the plastic fuselage parts.

A bit of dryfitting and some plastic strips ... :

04012015%20(2).jpg

04012015%20(3).jpg

... and they fit nicely :

04012015%20(8).jpg

I added some more rivets :

04012015%20(5).jpg

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And thinned the plastic around the large holes that hold the engines :

04012015%20(6).jpg

This makes these holes a little better so I can glue the exhaust tubes INSIDE the holes instead of butt glueing them to the outside of the holes. To do this I enlarged the diameter of the tubes with plasticard :

04012015%20(12).jpg

A dryfit (the inverted U-shaped cutouts will be opened up) :

04012015%20(10).jpg

The diameter of the exhausts was sanded smaller so it fits inside the holes :

04012015%20(11).jpg

Work has started on the cockpit. The throttles were cut out and will be moved more to the inside. Thanks for the tip Bruce :

04012015%20(1).jpg

The resin seats are narrower then the Revell ones. The sidewalls were widened with plasticard :

04012015%20(13).jpg

The rear bulkhead of the cockpit is covered with fabric with a diamond shaped stitching in the real aircraft. I made a new rear bulkhead and scribed the pattern :

04012015%20(14).jpg

Sincerely

Pascal

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  • 3 weeks later...

Did some work on the cockpit. The rear one was modified a few weeks ago :

20012015%20(4).jpg

But then I decided to go into overdrive. Used PE-saw and my Dremel to remove some plastic of the area in front of the front instrumentpanel. The floor was lowered and boxed in with plasticard. The sides will also be boxed in after I've added some tubes and wires :

20012015%20(9).jpg

The floor is now in 3 parts. The sides are a little higher up, the part in the middle is lowered :

20012015%20(6).jpg

20012015%20(5).jpg

This middle part will receive my rudder panel construction. The 4 holes in each panel were drilled :

20012015%20(7).jpg

I need 3 for both kits, so I made all 3 at the same time :

20012015%20(8).jpg

Edited by Pascal D
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The sidewalls of the cockpit will be widened with more plasticard :

20012015%20(10).jpg

I also drilled out all the holes for the instruments :

20012015%20(2).jpg

Both seats got their rails and I've started to add the first details.

Front seat :

20012015%20(11).jpg

Rear seat :

20012015%20(12).jpg

Both seats dryfitted in the cockpit hub :

20012015%20(1).jpg

The seats are attached to the rear bulkheads in a different way. For the front seat I've made 2 square holes that will hold the brackets :

20012015%20(3).jpg

Sincerely

Pascal

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The space between the seats and the sidewalls still wasn't good. So I cut off the sidewalls :

"Look mama, it's a convertible" :

25012015%20(1).jpg

25012015%20(2).jpg

Glued everything back together, the sidewalls have been moved 1 mm inward :

25012015%20(3).jpg

Now the space between the chairs and the sidewalls is OK :

25012015%20(4).jpg

Sincerely

Pascal

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  • 4 weeks later...

Not much spare time lately, but I've managed to spend an hour behind my modelling desk.

The F-15 has a some tubes, wires and things to the left and right of the pedals. With plasticard, sprue and soldering wire, I made this. The left one is ready, the tubes on the right one need to be cut to size :

20022015%20(1).jpg

20022015%20(2).jpg

A dryfit shows the little details :

20022015%20(3).jpg

But when everything is installed, very little will remain visible :

20022015%20(4).jpg

The sides of the bathtub are rough, these will received very thin pieces of plasticard.

Sincerely

Pascal

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Very cool subject you've chosen........had never seen it before till recently. I was at Edwards Air Force Base last week and as I was driving around the base looking for stuff to look at, I saw a white F-15 in the near distance. After a quick inquiry, I was told it belonged to NASA. Unfortunately I did not have access to that side of the base or else I would have taken a closer look. Good luck with the build; it's looking great so far.

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