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The Ghost Tiger Typhoon a little bigger (tackling the 1/48 Revell Eurofighter Typhoon as training for 1/32)-FINISHED


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You are mostr welcome! The intake isn't that much of a big deal really. I don't see the need to go to such lengths as CAD and 3D. Some good old fashioned scratch modelling should do the trick just fine. Yes, the intakes of the Revell kit are quite a nuisance but they are far from being beyond saving.

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Alright, this time we turn to the top of the wings. There are a few more screws that connect the outer skin with the struts, which can be recognized a little on an unfoiled Tiffy. You don't have to do it, but you also want to learn something hihihi:

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The whole thing was later no longer really recognizable on the foiled Ghost Tiger, except for the few raised rivets on the outside and the three prominent oval infield access panels as well as the small reinforcement on the rear wing root. I will put all the screw connections anyway; firstly on principle; I'm a nitpicker for a reason hihi, and secondly, I’m teaching myself something for a future build as a reference.:

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On page 1 I had already sketched the infield accesses and tried to draw the correct position more or less properly using original references. Nevertheless, I want to be on the safe side again and have a look at where they should end up relative to the stripes of the Ghost Tiger. So I roughly scaled the original markings to 1/48 in advance, then fixed the whole thing at some corner points of the original and adapted it to the Revell kit. I took the whole thing as a mask and lo and behold, I wasn't alll that wrong with my drawings. All the better!

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The whole thing looks like this at the end ... one drawn and one finished. Since the infield access and the reinforcement at the wing root are raised, some Tamiya tape had to be used, which I carefully carved into the rough shape. Here, for example, some phot etch would be highly appreciated!:

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It may be a little more difficult to see, but the inside of the slats have separate panels for access to the setting pins and the rails, and the transition between the sliding zone and the remaining wing on the top is like on most jets smooth without a step:

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I did the details on the inside of the slats just rudimentary. There won't be much to see later, I think. I closed the gap in the wings with plastic sheet and cut it roughly into shape. Later the whole thing is reinforced, filled and finally sanded plain, so that you have a smooth transition to the wing. voila:

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BTW NOTE THE LITTLE KINK ON THE INNER EDGE OF THE SLATS! That is intentional!

 

Next time, the cockpit will get some tiny detailling and hopefully the intake will be a little more extensive than what the kit provides and then the assembly of the fuselage should follow soon.

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O.k. let's attent to thec cockpit. This should go fairly quick. However, this time it is somewhat hard to provide proper reference of the original. I confess, the Luftwaffe does not like it if someone is taking pics into the intakes and into the cockpit. Don't ask me why, as there are at least reg. the pit, some shots out there on the net. However, these images are not mine so I do want to be careful with posting other images. I did manage to take some decent shots of "my" Ghost Tiger but I don't want to steer any trouble posting them too broadly.

 

As I said, there is virtually nothing extra for the 1 / 48er Tiffy. Doesn't matter much. One can somehow get it all fixed DIY ...
One really doesn't have to invest a lot of work in the cockpit per se. The consoles are simple, but their layout is complete and authentic. Since I want to illuminate, I have inserted a few openings for the fiber optic strands, if possible without influencing the few details too much. I drilled out the displays, printed a Tiffy cockpit on do-it-yourself decals based on original photos and blueprint drawings, cut them up and glued them on transparent plastic sheets, which in turn were glued to the display frame. The result could certainly turn out a lot better with any other model builder, but I admit, even if the Tiffy is in 1/48, it's all really small ... (or I'm just getting old :rolleyes:). Well, it should be enough for me for now.

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I had already detailed the walls a bit. A quick coat of paint and some weathering to emphasize the shadows is more than enough, but frankly, it is probably a rather pointless job. The cockpit is so narrow and later there is a pilot in it; ultimately you won't see any of it. Nevertheless, "as the original, so the model" is my motto hihihi. I painted the inside with bold gloss black to minimize any light leaks later. It doesn't have to look nice, it just has to be efficient:

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Revell offers a rather complicated structure for the intake and unfortunately only a far too short intake channel without even the smallest trace of compressor blades. Admittedly, at the end you will hardly see anything, but you really can't leave it that way.

After assembling the two basic parts, I simply rolled up cardboard paper, glued it carefully together, cut a length that was realistic for me, which was reinforced with a few plastic rings at the end and glued to the kit intakes at a slight angle. For the compressor blades, I scanned an image of the EJ-200 front from an MTU advertising sheet, modified it a bit graphically and simply printed it out in different scales. The whole thing could of course be way more detailed three dimensionally, but in the end the fan blades are so deep in the rather narrow channel that one would not recognize this work even with the best will. This image on two round plastic disks must simply do it for the time being ...

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After installing the cockpit tub, I fixed the fiber optics and underlaid them with clear green color.
There are a few official Luftwaffe / RAF images of the illuminated cockpit which should be public domain and that I hope I can show for reference without causing problems. Please let me know if I am mistaken in my legal opinion here, then I will remove the pictures immediately. At least that much: In contrast to some other aircraft, green dominates here. My meager approach won't look as chic in the end, but at least the color is right.

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A few more fiber optics placed on the fin and wing tips, the inside of the fuselage well "tarred" with gloss black; very important, the sides of the intake channels behind the opened grids are underlaid with paper!, the initially cobbled together cables/wires and the three LEDs are roughly laid (it's not a big deal, one LED in the cockpit and two for the engines, everything else is done with light guides) and put some silver paper as insulation and light intensifier in a couple of critical places. A little advice: In contrast to the assembly instructions, I would glue the tops of the wings to the two fuselage halves before marrying the top and bottom. So you do not risk a step between the fuselage and the wing root.

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A large LED behind the instrument panel is enough for me. You can always do better, but the fewer LEDs, the more leeway I have for small batteries. In the end, the light effect for the displays is enough for me and I get by with four button cells that I can hide under the Airbrake:

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Sooooo ..... today it's time for a little fun again. After the fuselage is glued together, I can go back to adding more details. So what other little things does the inclined modeller notice when comparing with the original? Luftwaffe Eurofighters of current equipment standards no longer have a round "light bulb" on the fin, but three neat and above all flat LEDs. Accordingly, the fiber optic strand is sanded from round to flat. Processing time: 10 seconds. But!!! The bracket in which the whole thing sits must be adjusted according to the template. Processing time: a stiff 5 minutes.

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OK, what's still possible ... When the intace ramps are lowered, one can see that the edges of the intace walls are somewhat "rounded", or rather the intace ramps are not completely flush with the intace wall. The walls of the Revell kit are smooth and flat at this point. I carefully bent these corners with the tweezers, but be careful, something can break off very quickly! The inner intake walls are also glued together and properly sanded and evened out now.

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Edited by bushande
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Just a little something and a "quick fix", but the five drain openings on the belly in front of the nose gear door are incorrectly positioned relative to the surrounding panels and the splitter. Simply fill in and drill again. It's not a big deal. Revell has tried to lay the glueing edges of the wings and fuselage along actual panel lines. In principle, that's a good idea, but because of the fit there is still a paragraph that you have to fill up and grind. But it doesn't matter much, because there were missing some panels anyway, which you can add right away:

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Imitating the opening for the fuel drain on the fin is a bit of fiddling. I first carefully drilled out the relevant spot on the kit, then tried to cut the hole carefully "angular" and finally tried to adjust the drain opening with the help of a thin sheet of metal and then glued it in. Admittedly looks easier than it was for me.

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The Typhoon has these prominent airbleed grids on each side of the fin. Here, the Revell kit unfortunately only offers a thick plastic bar. You can leave it that way and try to use color to reproduce the effect of holes. I personally don't like it that way and I wanted to make the grids a little more plastic. For the airbleed grids on the side of the fin, I tried to snip a template out of thin sheet metal, which I could then bend into shape so that it looks at least to some extent more or less the same on each side. Yes OK. ... the result could be better, but it is enough for me. It's just 1/48 and simply too fiddely and small.

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The APU opening is somewhat tricky. Revell only offers a "dent" here. It sits in the right place, but in my eyes it doesn't even offer halfway enough detail. There is a resin APU available, but it is a little harder to get and at least in 1/48 you can easily do something yourself. Either you take a straw and cut it to size, or you take a piece of plastic stick, cut it to size, carefully drill it out and sand it in the desired shape. There are again smaller openings on the inside of the APU exhaust. I tried to recreate them using the carefully cut insulating rubber that I have left over from the remains of an old PC. As a modeller you should never cut something hihihi.

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What can also be adjusted is the hinge or the securing of the cover for the brake chute. You can also push in a few screws at the end. I just sanded the component a bit and tried to recreate the hinge from small metal and plastic parts.

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