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1/48 Kittyhawk SEPECAT Jaguar Gr 1


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Ever started a kit, and instantly wished hadn't. That's how I felt within 10 mins after starting this.....

First of the obligatory kit and aftermarket shots. At this stage I hadn't decided on whether I was going to do a Gr-1, Gr-1a or Gr-3 so I dragged out all my aftermarket. Nearly all of it is for the Airfix kit, which I also have as a donor kit for the tanks and pylons (which are wrong in the kit). I'd also heard the decals are rubbish so I've got a model alliance sheets for stencils etc (Not that they are perfect).

Jaguar-GR1-001.jpg

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First up is to close up those nose panels. The fit is fine as long as you take you time. I didn't bother with the avionics bays and put a piece of strip in there to support the doors

Jaguar-GR1-003.jpg

Next was to stick the nose halves together (BTW I hate modular assemblies like this, give me a full fuselage any time) to check the fit... As you can see the panel lines are well off..,,,,, Pretty disappointing from a kit less than 5 years old. Guess I'm up for a re scribe on one half :(

Jaguar-GR1-004.jpg

Originally I was going to try and squeeze the Neomega cockpit, for the Airfix Kit, into this kit as the kit cockpit is crap (considering it's a relatively new tool) . However I soon decided this was far to much effort. My next thought was a hybrid using some of the resin and kit tub. However the Kit tub is incredibly shallow making fitting the Neomega Ejection seat pointless.

Next was a dry fit of the kit tub and forward fuselage. This was the result. My thoughts again were what the ...... It's like these parts weren't made to go together

Jaguar-GR1-005.jpg

It was about now I was cosnideirng throwing the whole thing in the bin and asking Kittyhawk for my money back

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Wow. I heard it was bad, but had no idea it was this bad :(

Well that puts mud in the drinking water.

Suddenly that Revell Jaguar seems like a better option.

This wasn't a consideration, guess I'll have to reconsider :hmmm:/> :unsure:/>

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I just couldn't like the PE for the consoles, it wasn't even good PE, so I cut the consoles of the Neomega pit and glued them to the kit tub after thinning the top of the consoles a bit

Jaguar-GR1-006.jpg

The seat is from Paragon, I ground the bottom right down and cut the floor from the cockpit tub to get it low enough. I also sanded down the base of the tub and top of the undercarriage.

The instrument panel also looks like it is going to fit well but I'll need to trim the kit glare shield off and mate the neomega part to the forward fairing..

Jaguar-GR1-007.jpg

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The Neomega seat (left) was massive compared to the Kit seat (Right) and significantly larger than the Paragon one (middle)

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I attached the Neomega sidewalls to the kit as they looked like a nice fit, especially after all the sanding to the kit parts

Jaguar-GR1-009.jpg

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Watching your build with great interest. I built the Gripen from Kitty Hawk and swore I'd never build another KH kit. Never is a long time and here I find myself wanting to start the Jaguar. Watching all your frustration with the poor engineering I just went out and bought the recent Revell issue of the Airfix kit. If I am going to buy aftermarket for the KH kit and still find my blood pressure raising, might as well buy the same aftermarket for the Revell and find some enjoyment out of the build. Thank you for your continued posting on this build.

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Looks like a fantastic solution. Which seat do you supposes is the right size?

I have no idea, the size differences are significant. I'm going with the Paragon one because it will fit (after I made it so) and I don't have to detail it

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Cockpit tub and seat are done. All in all I'm happy.

I painted everything Tamiya German grey then picked out the details with Vallejo Acrylics. I used some generic placards to busy it up a bit. Certainly not 100 % Accurate but it looks good enough.

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This the Paragon seat with a fair bit ground of the bottom

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Here it is all together, minus the glareshield

Jaguar-GR1-014.jpg

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I'm not a fan of kits that want you to have things open. I much prefer my kits all buttoned up, if I want to open a panel then I find you really need resin to make it look good.

Here are some of the doors on the Jag..

Jaguar-GR1-015.jpg

I decided to close up everything I could. These panels didn't quite fit closed straight from the box. But at least the contours were right.

Jaguar-GR1-016.jpg

About 1 mm was removed from the edge on the underside, plus some from the end. I also removed some of the lip from the fuselage part as this was stopping the door sitting flush. I did get a bit carried away on one side so some 0.005" card was sued to fill the gap.

Fit of the main doors was pretty good, only a little bit of trimming was needed

Jaguar-GR1-017.jpg

I added some plastic strip on the inside as a bit of support

Jaguar-GR1-019.jpg

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I really hate having to install the landing gear this early. I could have cut the legs and pinned them for re-installation later. But to be honest I think this would be difficult to pull off accurately. Because the legs are so buried in the depths of the undercarriage bays I can understand why Kittyhawk went this way.

The legs have an interesting attachment method. I used 5 min epoxy for attaching these. I also left out the APU from this side (because it's not there in real life. I'll scratch-build the refuelling receptacle and some other stuff later.

You can also see I got a reasonable fit of the panels on this side

Jaguar-GR1-020.jpg

On this side (the one I did first I got a bit carried away. The blue is from a whiteboard marker which I've used to see how the panel lines looked.

I didn't fully build the legs, I only added the parts I thought I needed to at this stage. I'll add the rest nearer the end

Jaguar-GR1-021.jpg

I added some strip to to reinforce the joins. Plus I put a strip along the fuselage half join. Dry fitting showed some bad warping of the fuselage parts so I am hoping this will give the other half something to bite on to.

Jaguar-GR1-022.jpg

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Deviating from the instructions I decided to attach the front and rear fuselage pieces on each side together. Fit here was Ok.

Jaguar-GR1-023.jpg

I added a fishing sinker to the nose

Jaguar-GR1-024.jpg

Squeezing in the cockpit and nose wheel bay I joined the fuselage. I mainly used CA glue and did a section at a time, starting with the upper join. I got a decent join along the upper seam. Prior this, following a tip from a build on Britmodeller, I cut out the triangle shaped scoop on the upper fuselage and replaced it with some card so it appears there a a scoop there.

Jaguar-GR1-026.jpg

My little strip of plastic didn't help and I didn't get a good join along the lower seam. This wasn't entirely the kits fault, I could have done better here. Thankfully the centreline rack is going to cover this area.

Jaguar-GR1-025.jpg

Jaguar-GR1-027.jpg

Edited by a4s4eva
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Great work. It is very frustrating to close all those panels on kits, but your doing a great job of it.

Thanks

You're not making me want to start mine Calum...................

I'm sure you'll do a fine job Andrew, probably with less hassle than me :D

Calum,

You're a brave man mate, yours definitely got further than my 1st attempt. That one hit Mach 1 on the way to my garage wall. The second one was turned into a toy for my daughter. I think you've past the hardest part though. Keep on it son.

Thanks mate

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You're doing one heck of a job beating the KH kit into a proper Jag Gr 1. It's just so frustrating to have to deal with fit issues like these with all the computer technology the manufactures now possess. I'm more then just impressed with the progress you've made to date.

Joel

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More construction...... Will it ever end

Here you can see the engine area. The bright surface in the spine is CA which I flooded the area with.

Jaguar-GR1-028.jpg

Here's the right airbrake bay, I scratch built some detail the main feature is the refuelling point. I used the excellent walkaround photos from Britmodeller. The rest of the stuff is fantasy, just to add some stuff there.

The red line shows a lip formed by the back of the engine bay, i.e.. this doesn't go right under the lower fuselage. From dry fitting the engine covers, this looks to be correct. The instructions don't give you much help.

Jaguar-GR1-029.jpg

Starting to look like a aircraft now. The gun cover was fitted, and like every part on this kit it needed finagling to get a reasonable fit, The fit along the fuselage to nose join was good, although join line was IMHO to thick so I filled it with CA and re-scribed.

Jaguar-GR1-030.jpg

The join on the other side was better and I didn't re-scribe it. The panel lines are quite shallow, probably to shallow for my taste so I've re-scribed some of there. The plastic is also quite soft and doesn't scribe nicely.

Jaguar-GR1-031.jpg.

Next I decided to start on the engines. Lots of parts with some big ejector pins , that thankfully you don't see because they are hidden between the front and back engine fans. I did consider the paragon engines but they are smaller in diameter and I don't think they look quite right, plus I think the kit parts, correctly assembled would look better.PE is good for this sort of engine exhaust.

Jaguar-GR1-032.jpg.

Here's the engines fitted, They appear interchangeable, but if you get put them in the wrong side the panels won't fit. The bit in red is the piece to watch.

Jaguar-GR1-033.jpg.

Jaguar-GR1-034.jpg.

I also found the fit of the engines to be really tight. I don't know if it was me getting something misaligned earlier on but the engineering is, IMHO so complicated that if you get something misaligned there is no forgiveness later on. I ended up shaving the ends of the engines to get them to fit... In hindsight I thing I should have enlarged the mounting hole in the engine bay .... I'll explain why later.

Jaguar-GR1-035.jpg.

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I've a question I'd love to do a Jag kit, so has KH made any changes to the molds to address the probs shown in this build?

Greywolf,

I don't think that the issues are so great where KH would spend the necessary funds to recut the molds. I'm assuming that they would have to offer anyone who has already purchased the original kit replacement parts. I'm not even sure if they would have to do something up to and including replacement for all the importers, distributors, and retailers that have the 1st run kits. It could very well be a very expensive venture on their part.

Joel

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I've a question I'd love to do a Jag kit, so has KH made any changes to the molds to address the probs shown in this build?

not to my knowledge.. I'm hoping Airfix will do a new tool Ja one day (along with a Buccaneer and Tornado)

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