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Revell 1/72 Panavia Tornado AG-51 2009 Tiger Meet


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After a couple moves and a heavy work-load getting a new air museum open, I am finally able to get back to serious building and am up to join a group-build.  I like taking part in these as they push me to actually get things finished (at least in most cases).  Anyway, this one will allow me to combine one of the jets that I really love, the Tornado, with a Tiger Meet scheme, which I also love.  I think there are just too many cool looking aircraft out there to be doing things in camo or gray...  So I've started working on this bird...

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The Revell kit is a great build and I am really impressed with its fit and level of detail.  Since the paint scheme is the object of the build, I've decided not to do lots of super-detailing, but build it pretty much straight out-of-the-box..  On my first weekend, I got most of the rear fuselage together, and painted the cockpit and gear wells.  Although it is not mentioned in the instructions, a review of pictures of 45+06 in her "Eye of the Tiger" scheme shows that the outer wing pylons were not fitted during the time she was painted like this, nor were any of the under the fuselage weapons stations or the Sidewinder rails.  So, I puttied over all of these holes in the wings and fuselage.

 

There are also a couple things to watch for on this kit.  Although the fit is on par with anything that Hasegawa or Tamiya puts out, the is a lot of flash on the parts that needs to be cleaned up.  I was rather surprised at this, since the molds are of a fairly new vintage.  Another thing is that some of the attachment points are fragile.  The horizontal stabilizers broke off at their connection points after only minor handling as did the inner wing pylons.  I glued the horizontals on and will be doing the same with the wing pylons after I figure out what angle I want the wings at.  Other than that, it all has gone together remarkably well.

 

 

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Edited by swbailey
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Great start! You are moving at light speed compared to my Tornado efforts. I fully agree with your thoughts on the engineering of the Revell kit. The attachments points are a pain and could have been designed to be more modeler friendly. My copy of the kit also had a fair amount of flash so perhaps the mold is starting to wear? My kit is not a recent issue so this problem might have been around for some time.

 

Have fun with your build, I am looking forward to the work you'll be doing for the paint scheme. This is one eye-catching Tornado scheme! 

Have fun modeling

Mike

:cheers:

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Second weekend's work got the cockpit together and ready to install.  I didn't do much with it, other than add seat belts made out of Tamiya tape; everything else was kit stock.  After I installed the cockpit in the forward fuselage, I found that the decal sheet provides decals for the instrument panels and side consoles, but it was too late to use them.  I had painted all the dials and touched them up with a silver prismacolor pencil to highlight the gauges.  A drop of Future floorwax was used for the glass.  The side consoles were done with a light application of pencil to bring out the switches.  In the end, I am satisfied with the results.  Won't be a contest winner, but will be good enough for me.

 

 

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The 4th of July holiday afforded me a little extra time to work on models so I made more progress with the Tornado.  Forward fuselage was glued together and then attached to the aft fuselage.  The fit was quite good and it only required minor sanding and filling around the joints.  A few strokes with the sanding sticks and everything looks good!  The intakes went on next, and while these took a little more fiddling to get to fit right, the results was also good.  External fuel tanks are together and the seams are cleaned up. so priming, touch ups and painting should commence soon.  Have assembled the main gear, but won't install that until after all the paint work is done.

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Next step was a quick dip in Future acrylic floor wax for the canopy parts. After a day's wait for the Future to dry and harden, I installed the windscreen and glued down the main canopy with Testors clear parts cement.  This will hold it on the model until after the painting is complete.  To mask the canopy, I followed my usual masking technique; using BareMetal foil.  It's worked well for me over the years, although you have to be sure you use a very sharp knife blade to trim the frames.

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Edited by swbailey
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Thanks!  I appreciate the support!

 

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to work a little more on the Tornado, and started dealing with the details.  I painted the radome with flat black and sprayed Tamiya Sky Gray over the canopy framework to get the proper interior color on it.  Since I had a bit left over in the airbrush, I painted over some of the seams I had filled and found that I had a couple more spots to fix.  That's the good thing about a little priming ahead of time... you can see the spots you missed in filling gaps.

 

  I also painted the intakes with a whitish-gray and did the rear area of the aircraft with Alclad II.  I first shot it with the Gloss Black base, and after it had dried a couple hours, went back and painted the whole section Steel.  I have some detail work to do on the afterburners and the thrust reverser mechanisms before that segment is finished.  While waiting for other paint to dry, I did the wheels.  I had originally painted the main wheels white, then looked at photos of the actual aircraft and saw that they were red.  So out came my Tamiya red...  Then, as I looked at more photos of the aircraft, I saw the vast majority of them showed the wheels as white.  So... apparently at one point, for at least one photo shoot, they were red and that's the way I'm going to leave them, because I really don't want to try to paint white over red.

 

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The reason for the unusual red looking wheelhub was a lefthand blown tire shortly after landing during the Spottersday 2009 at Jagel AB. The red one was the sparepart  and was changed asap on the taxiway, because all the spotters are waiting for the 45+06 to take close up pictures (including myself). :)

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Hah, I remember that, too! One of the few occasions where I visited a Spotters Day! After a few nice passes overhead the bird landed, started taxiing and then we could hear a "bang", even from the distance. Then it stopped, and it took about half an hour IIRC until it was towed to the parking position right in front of the spotter crowd.

 

Here is a picture of the day (not made by me...):

 

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HAJO

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Got a little further along this weekend.  First, I primed the model overall with Tamiya fine gray primer.  As per usual, there were some rough spots that needed to be fixed up, so a few swipes with 1000 grade sandpaper did the trick.  After that, I started in on my pre-shading of the undersides.  Since the upper sides of the fuselage are going to be a gloss black, there was no need for pre-shading there.  Actually, with a freshly painted anniversary paint job, I wouldn't expect a lot of wear and tear so I went fairly light on the shading on the underside as well.  The flat black I used for the pre-shading should have been a little thinner, but once the final color is on, it won't matter too much.

 

 

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As of yesterday, I got a chance to work on the final paint.  I applied the medium gray to the sides and undersides of the aircraft, painting each panel individually so as to get the subtle panel line shadowing.  Although it doesn't show well in the photo, the pre-shading turned out well and I am pleased with the results.  Now the fun is masking the model to get ready for painting the black on the upper surfaces of the bird.

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Big oopps...  Last night I took my in-progress Tornado to the local IPMS meeting and for the first time, set it down on top of the box.  After a few minutes of thinking to myself, "Hmmm.... something isn't right," I realized that the color I had painted the undersides was WAAAYYYY off.  How could this be?  I had gone to the Tornado Special Interest Group site http://www.tornadosig.com/ and had studied the Luftwaffe Tornado color schemes.  I had assumed (key operating word here being "assumed") that the aircraft had been painted in the Contemporary scheme of overall FS35237 Medium Gray with the special Tiger Meet markings added over that.  It then dawned on me, that the subject Tornado had NOT been painted in the Contemporary scheme.  The Gray was different.  So, tonight I went back and re-sprayed the whole model with FS36320 Dark Ghost Gray.  A much better match.  Once it gets a gloss coat it should look the part of 45+06 as she appeared in 2009.

 

That will teach me to make assumptions.

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If the real aircraft wasn't painted in FS35237, that would surprise me.

But on the other hand I haven't found a modeling color that is a good match for FS35237 in 1/72 scale. I don't trust anymore what the paint manufactures write on their paint bottles, as I've got about 6 different variations (in terms of shade and hue) of FS36118 in my paint inventory.

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Lancer-

You're probably right.  I was using Testors Model Master FS35237 which has a definite blue-green cast to it, but it doesn't even look close to the gray in the photos that JayBee posted.  The FS36320 from Model Master looked closer to my untrained eye; it still has a bluish cast, but completely drops out the green tint.  Unfortunately, my FS color book is still packed in one of the boxes from my last move and has yet to be found.

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No problem, there. As long as your finished model looks like on the pictures, nobody will question the FS number of the grey. As you wrote, it looked wrong, and you've changed it for the above mentioned arguments. Have to check if I've got MM 36320 already on my paint swatches. Just to confirm... We are talking about the MM enamel paint?

 

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