1/144 Trumpeter Shenyang F-8II(M)

Good work so far!

It is a real Odyssey level of detail that you've gotten.

I already have gone blind !!, you will know that I like the details, but in 1/144?

Igor I congratulate you for the work so far and have the support and advice of a great colleague.

Estoy pendiente a tu seguimiento compadre!!

SANCER

Pretty gutsy move Igor. The radar has been built already so it would be a shame not to show it off. If things go sideways, this post never happened.



Geo

Thank you all for your encouragement and comments it brings energy on a rough day of modelling
SANCER, thank you so much my compadre your comments were a joy to read and helped me on a tough day (yesterday ) in modeling this Shenyang model.
Geo, thankfully everything is going smoothly so far, I'm taking it one day at a time and I hope the results will be good

As for the build, here is the progress,

Both fuselage halves extended for the second radar section:
This first photo, shows that I had to cut a piece of the wheel bay off, I'm planning to sand this piece so it can fit flush with the interior wall that I'm building.


Both pieces, "dry fit" just to see if they look ok,


Both fuselage sections have, since taking the photo, been cleaned up, but this was the preliminary test.

Then I took a day to think about what my next move could be, and I thought that maybe on one side, I could display 1 or 2 panels open (attached), it would still be possible to show everything inside, but would give me a chance to work on some more tiny details,
First the reference photo, I've circled the part that I've produced off some spare plastic, the positive to this piece is that it adds some support for the panel(s) that I'll be installing, and will hopefully look good when completed


Plastic Part initially,


a bit of fine tuning with my Scalpel,


and final product before installation:


It was rough getting it the exact thickness I required and the end joints I spent a good 2-3 hours on.

Finally, the tail, cut and ready for re-fining, an odd thing I found on this section was that there is a line going through the middle piece, which I don't see is present on the F-8IIM in photos.


Thank you all for looking and your comments

A good work Igor.

Looking good so far!

Thank you all for the comments and likes

The Next step in the build,
I started developing the front fuselage section, call my crazy but with this new video found online, I've taken many stills and would like to display the radar with the hardware open, as such:



closing it:


So I started with making the front fuselage, made this from a spare piece and puttied to close one section:


Next, unfortunately, I've noticed the Radar array is too large Although the attachment bar from the previous post is in place and looks good , just waiting for the panels, which I'll probably build/attach during the end of the build


So, some samples of making it smaller:


still not satisfied with the results, will have to fiddle with it some more.


Was a bit of a slow week, so tomorrow will start on this scrap piece (as you guys may have noticed, I love working on some scrap ) and hopefully transform it into a piece of the radar section:


Thank you all for looking

Nicely done so far!

Thank you all for your comments

Sergio, I try to take it easy, I find that the more relaxed one is, the more we can accomplish on 1/144 Thank you for your comments my friend

For more of the build, A couple days and good progress

here is the scrap piece, I sculpted out this attachment arm,


This was further refined and this little piece of sprue will be put inbetween the cut out section:


A photo for comparison, you can see the attachment arm and all the fixings.


and progress made on the arm, first the "wings" that are along the attachment section, these were refined a day later (I'll have to take an update picture)


Next, an almost completely assembled radar attachement arm, the upper and lower pegs that attach to the radar were also made out of scrap and their thickness sanded down to appropriate size:


Half of the pegs is left over sprue



and the other half is scrap plastic:


Thanks all for looking and comments, will work on it a bit more today

Good work so far!

Wow! ...my compadre Igor!, This will be very interesting.

I´ll follow you attentive with this miniature !!

Saludos

Man.....I don't think I could do that with my 6x visor.




Geo

Thank you all for the kind words the progress has been progressing rapidly as school is approaching and I want to complete the kit although small set backs here and there (mainly due to the size and me losing a piece to the carpet monster and then re-doing it again )

The kit may end up in either a J-8H or J-8F variant (or J-8IIH, J-8IIF ) as the J-8H was developed from the F-IIM model, the J designation indicates an aircraft that will be used by China, while the F is the export designation. The main difference between the J-8H and J-8F is the radar, 1471 (KLJ-1) is used by the J-8H while J-8F uses the newer 1492 (which isn't on the net too often

I've decided to do the J-8H for now, many of the features of this aircraft (at the time of writing) are the same, cockpit layout and radar sub sections appear very similar, if not the same from the references that I have. The only issue is attaining both parts of the radar section for an H with at the time of these two (the H And F) being new models it is normal that whatever is online is very sparse. When one site says one thing, another negates it and says another. Therefore I've taken my best estimate from provided photo evidence and only put down instruments from the Radar section in the fuselage that have similar or the same components between both variants.

Lets start with the Ejection seat first and work from there I thought that I wouldn't detail the cockpit section but since I am hoping to make a detailed model, I can't help but super detail this little section. The only item provided is a seat with a floor, so I hoped to add some details to enhance this section. I looked at several sources and saw that the ejection seat appears to either be a HTY-5 , 6 or 7 model. These models are nearly the same with only minor and unnoticeable differences in 1/144.

If I recall correctly this is a HTY-5


First step after the initial painting, I've added the bottom "rail" item and painted it to match the photo,


Picking up from last time, the stick was already produced out of scrap plastic and now after the Flat Black coat, some highlights of the buttons in White and Red.


I noticed that there is a red item (that pilots pull when ejecting?) inbetwen the seat, so I carved out a small section to accommodate this handle.


Scratched the lever from Tamiya Tape (I did this about 7 or 8 times since I kept losing the piece, it always kept flicking off my tweezers!) and painted in Flat Red:


Attached on the seat and painted up, looking good


Finally from other reference photos of the same type of Ejection seats, I scratched the seat belts, buckles etc out of Tamiya Tape and painted them in Flat Green with some highlights of a darker toned Green, more to come in the next update :


I moved onto the cockpit, this photo was quoted as being the cockpit of a F-8II/J-8II (upgraded), F-8IIM , J-8H and J-8F , on several sites, since no site could decide what variant this was, I hesitated in using the photo, since it was the only photo that I had at the time two years ago it was a good place to start but more research was needed.
The instruments are much newer than the old J-8II cockpit (some being noticeably different). After I found further photos and video for a F-8IIM cockpit, I could see that it was nearly the same and a good idea to use these photos for my J-8H (as the F-8IIM and J-8H are nearly the same aircraft). I suspect that the J-8F has a similar (if not the same) cockpit layout.



I noticed some panels at the top of the cockpit section, so I scratched some out of sprue:


and detailed the right side of the cockpit:


While this was drying I thought it would be a good idea to work on the left side's panel, in this photo you can see that there seems to be some throttle and that this is the same style of cockpit interior as the previous reference photo:


Left panel:


and a size comparison to a Tamiya Bottle:


That is it for now, I'll try to update a bit more frequently Thanks for looking and any comments

Looking good Igor.

Nice work so far!

After a lot of building an update, almost complete (airbrushed today) and here are some previous progress (was too busy building to be able to post, my apologies)

Engine of a J-8II looks like this, and it corresponds with the engine used (WP-13A):


but should look a bit different in a J-8H or J-8F (they both use the newer WP-13B) , therefore I drilled out the section to add new scratch engines:


Also, the contours between the engine were edited, point triangles on a J-8II in the middle of the two engines:


while on a newer model J-8H or J-8F, should be like this:


As well, the J-8H and J-8F both share gaps in the Horizontal and Vertical stabilizers:




and



So made some cuts on the model:


Intakes fixed as they were too thick, with the interior sections being removed and replaced with thinner stretched sprue for the wings, but I guess I could update that tomorrow I'll leave you all with the before :



Thank you all for looking and any comments, I'll have another update tomorrow I had a bigger one today, but the post didn't want to post and deleted it instead.