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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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After glueing and filling the part for the storage behind the pilot's seat, I roughly drew in the correct panellines on each side of the cockpit. While doing that I noticed something else. The shelf behind the pilot shows several connection and avionics boxes or whatever are also installed there. A small relay box on the kit needs to be erased. Eurofighters of the current setup no longer have this small "box". I am not sure whether the small box was only present at T1 Typhoons, or on all machines and then were gradually deleted. In any case, the Ghost Tiger no longer has the box. Attached is also a picture of an Italian Typhoon, where you can still make out the little box. Revell is not wrong here per se, it just has nothing left on my specific Tiffy. So, get rid of it later!

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Alright .....  now it gets complicated: In the next construction step there is also my main problem, as far as the duplication of decals is concerned. As accurate as the Revell kit is, the canopy is not sitting correctly. I pointed this out when I scribed the little pilot grip panel. More precisely, the windshield is about 3 mm too long and the canopy is hence 3 mm too short. How does it become obvious? I used the canards as a calibration point. They sit actually very well relative to the fuselage. The canopy should actually close with the windshield in one line relative to the rear edge of the canards, but as I said, it sits 3mm in front of that rear edge of the canards. 3 mm does not sound like much, but at least in my eyes it makes a really striking difference, not only because the cockpit frame is too far forward in relation to the canards, but also because the end of the cockpit display board should not be flush with the windshield frame (as depicted by the kit), but should still be within the windshield and therefore the pilot does not have to look at the frame when he turns his head!

 

What is my problem with the decals: The names of the maintenance crew are set flush with the canopy frame and the tiger stripes are located at a certain position relative to the canopy as well. No problem for myself; I am rebuilding the kit here and simply adjusting my decals accordingly, so that hopefully everything will sit at the correct spot in the end. But what about the modeller who doesn't want to or can't do this conversion? He would then have to live with decals that do not fit correctly. In my eyes, the decals are correct, given the effort of reworking and correcting the kit, but they would not be for others due to an incorrect kit without modification. I am also not sure how I can integrate two different versions here on a probable sheet.

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Another challenge, for which there is a solution available in 1/32 via aftermarket etched parts, but for which there is unfortunately no such thing in 1/48. The layout of the canopy frame of the Eurofighter cockpit is quite complex. Revell didn't cast this frame at all. The provided canopy is provided pretty much without the frame at all. If one glues the canopy shut one might not bother in the end, but I just don't like it. Mind you, no other manufacturer has a decent cockpit frame for its Eurofighter kits as well. That is a real point of criticism. Really a shame, but at least the modeller has something to do this way hihihi:

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After I had set the markings for the - at least in my eyes - correct position of the canopy on the fuselage, I drew the shape of the canopy frame and carefully scribed the shape into the fuselage with a dremel. Later, when I scratch the frame on the canopy itself, it will get a little fidelly again if I want to embed the canopy frame properly in the recesses, so that there are no too large gaps when the canopy is closed:

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Last step for today. I have now hopefully scribed the large avionics panels and the surrounding panellines correctly and properly again. The whole thing will later be smoothed and leveled out again with Future, but otherwise I think / hope that the panels now fit that way. The next time we will continue with the detailing of the CPU cover of the cockpit instruments and the detailing of the cockpit including scratching the frame.

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Many thanks for the kind feedback. Much appreciated! Yes, I concurr, a new Eurofighter Typhoon kit would be burner but I also confess, that I would be sceptical. If it was Revell or Tamiya I'd be all in but regarding other manufacturers I would actually remain sceptical, given the trend lately of the appeareance of quite a lot of albeit highly detailed but all too often fairly inaccurately shaped kits on todays market. I confess I really do like this kit a lot. As often stated in here, it has it's issues but at least one can deal with them. It's just like with the old Revell/Italeri Tornado in 1/48. Yes the newer HobbyBoss and Revell kits are far more detailed but they are just off in a lot of unamendable ways shapewise while the old undetailed kit is almost spot on with its shape depicting a real Tornado.

 

I would rather have it that revell kept the current Typhoon kit and we would see some more love for it by some aftermarket producers.

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Today we tackle the rest of the cockpit, meaning that the CPU covers and the windshield should be finished and the cockpit and canopy should also be completed. Fingers crossed!
Revell unfortunately failed completely when designing the CPU cover, not only that the details are completely missing (there is a lot of it on the original!) Unfortunately, the shape is also useless. Ergo, lot's of DIY-potential for the aspiring modeller.
Let's first look at the original again:

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Well ... of course such a "tabula rasa" also has it's  advantages. You can just go to the max scratching. After I had already glued and filled the display board, I first sanded the cover into a roughly correct shape. What can also be noticed: The small antenna in front of the windshield requires an indentation in the nose, which is also not taken into account by Revell. If the nose is stuck and you don't want to display a radar dish, the fIx is quite simple; simply fill and scribe in again. Otherwise, it doesn't really take much to detail the covers. Just some sense of proportion, a comparing eye, Tamiya tape, some plastic leftovers and time:

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As noted before, I need to lengthen the canopy a bit and shorten the windshield in turn. Shortening the windshield is easy. This piece is too pointed anyway and so you even do yourself a favor by sanding it shorter and a tad more rounded. In order to extend the canopy, the embossed frame must first be carefully sanded out of the transparent part. Warning, the plastic is very thin and tends to break very quickly! If you are very careful, a few minutes with sanding paper of 2000 to 6000 grit and a little should do and voilá, the result is even tolerable:

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For the new frame, I then carefully glued a piece of old plastic to the sanded back of the clear part, roughly drilled away the excess and then very carefully sanded it into shape (the end result will come right away after the next posts):

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If the light is right, you can see that the canopy and windshield are tinted differently:

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I don't like the taint clear parts because there is always such a risk of it going wrong, but what choice do I have ?! I heavily thinned some clear blue paint with Future. For the canopy, I mixed clear orange with some weathering particles until the tone seemed fitting to me and then diluted it equally with Future:

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It may look a bit overdone, but that is only due to the artificial light late in the evening. It's not that wild at all. Here is a comparison to an unprocessed part. (Still, I think that the effect makes a difference. What I also like are the very light rainbow traces, depending on how the light falls; just like the original. A positive side effect of the added Future):
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If you take a closer look at the above pictures of the original, you will notice the heating elements along the windshield frame and under the glass of the windshield. To mimic this, I cut a few remnants from unused etched parts and put them back together in a way so that it should look just roughly the part and also cut a few white decal stripes:

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If you look at the collar of the windshield, it becomes clear how nice a few etched parts would be here:

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It doesn't matter; no use in whining. I tried to add at least a little structure by transferring the shape of the windshield or the canopy for that matter to some tape, cutting out individual small puzzles and finally transferring them to the waistband of the windshield. A lot of effort, for something that you will almost never see again, but at least I know that it is there:

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The most annoying thing was really shaping the rather complex canopy frame. I used tracing paper to copy the notches that had previously been cut into the fuselage and transferred them to a piece of thin sanded plastic. After that, I traced the shape of the braces on the canopy and added them to the previously omitted space on the plastic. The whole thing then resulted in the shape of the entire braces, which make up the canopy frame on the original, hopefully in such a way that the canopy remains removable in the end, but still fits into the fuselage without gaps and uneven areas. Looks like nothing, but was not an easy job and cost me almost a week of cutting, gluing and sanding. You also have to be careful not to damage the transparent parts. The end result of the work looks like this and oh joy, it even fits the fuselage quite well:

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Before we continue with the interior of the canopy, I want to finish the cockpit itself, i.e. finish the seat and insert all the cables and details.
The seat that Revell offers is actually really nice. The shape fits and also the details that are available are coherent. Nevertheless you can always add a little moe something:

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And as you can see, once the seat is in the tub, you can confidently save yourself adding the details to the rear wall of cockpit tub. I could have really let it go, but it wasn't a big deal either and better it's there and I don't need it than the other way around:

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The entire area behind the pilot has many boxes, cables and wires. Revell basically presented this area very nicely, but it really lacks the necessary detail. Here the modeller is really "free to roam". As noted earlier, I cut away the little box, which is too much, and tried to add lots of wires, cables and wires hopefully according properly to the original. I confess it's not that easy in 1/48:

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Before I continue painting the cockpit, I want to attent once more to the HUD. The small transparent part included in the kit is very nice, but the connectors / fastenings with the projector unit are missing. This has to be carefully mimicked with thin wire.
The original is actually clear, but reflects the incoming sun intensely green. For me it is such a striking feature that I would like to simulate that effect if possible. To do this, I pulled some thin holofoil onto the transparent part and the effect is not a 100 percent, but good enough for me to be an eye-catcher in the sun:

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So .... last step, before we are done with the canopy and cockpit. The interior of the canopy is very complex, with many struts, lines, hooks and cables. I will not achieve 100 percent accuracy, but I think that I can at least somewhat upgrade what is in the kit, so that a realistic impression is created. First a look at the original again. What the interested modeller is likely to notice right away is the fact that the original has three struts, but Revell shows four. In addition, the struts also have recesses. Saves weight on the original, but gives me extra work on the model hihihi. So there is a lot to do.

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After two days the result looks like this. NOTE: This is not yet finished and a few parts are missing !!!:
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