It's been a long time folks but today I actually got round to parking my A$$ at the workbench.
First up a bit about the kit, it's an Airfix………………..need I say more. Well maybe I should as this kit though a number of years old is made in a form of plastic that is very soft and sponge like. It marks very easily and by the same token I would say it would also go out of shape easily. On joining the two halves together it was very noticeable that the very edge of each half was turned inwards leaving a distinct trough along the join, so filling was the order of the day. This I did and then for six or more weeks this hunk of plastic just sat and stared at me.
A couple of days ago I set to and started to clean the filler up. I also took the pointy bits off from the tail fin as they ain't supposed to be there on this build. There was also a spur of uneven plastic at the rear base of the tail fin supposedly representing the fuel vent pipe, this also came off and was replaced with a proper bit of piping.
I was also not impressed with the heat exchange ducting on the spine just behind the cockpit. Again it was just a bit of shaped plastic blanked off at both ends. Simple stuff to fix and maybe I'm expecting too much but one would have thought something better could have been provided.
Next up I decided to attack the Chaff Dispensers' at the back end. Again what was provide was just a couple of blanked off bits of shaped plastic to be fitted. To be honest, I've never seen anything different on any other kit, but a little bit of time and the use of some scrap bits of grating and we have something looking better even though it isn't quite right. However, having assembled and photographed the dispensers in pace I see that I've put one bit of grating upside down. Damn!!!
Again, continuing on with detail I next turned to the secondary air intake doors which on the kit are moulded plastic. I wanted to go one better and have them slightly open and at first I thought, just score around the three sides, bend the plastic a little and "vuala" it would be done. However the plastic is quite thick here so I decided to whip the doors out do a bit of thinning with the file and replace them with scrap white card and open.
Now for the gun ports, again a couple of moulded bits which because of the sponginess of the plastic are a poor fit, but before tackling the fit I wanted to drill out the gun port and insert a barrel and also drill out the gas vents. The one I have done still needs to be cleaned up and the bit of brass sticking out is just to give you an idea. More work on this is still required.
It's the little details like this that will hopefully give the finished model just that little bit more realism.