1/48 Revell F-15E Progress Thread

You might have noticed in the pics above that the exhaust part was missing the back end.  I cut out the flame holder part of the piece so that I could paint it separately.  And obviously the wheels have been assembled although I'm not going to use them:

As the Terminator would say...I'll be back.

Here's a very small update:  I masked and painted the Heads Up Display (HUD).  Yes, you read that right...I masked it!  Actually, it was just a bunch of straight lines so it really wasn't that hard:

Who was that "masked" man?

mississippivol

Who was that "masked" man?

Anywho, now for a serious update.  I've mostly finished the exhausts.  These are very well done OOB in my opinion.  The have great detail.  My only complaint is that they molded the flame holder with the exhaust tube.  But I showed you that it is easy to cut the flame holder out.

Here is the afterburner can assembled without the pushrods or any paint:

I didn't take pics of every step but here are the cans with the pushrods attached and with the first 2 or 3 layers of paint/weathering.  I painted the inside a mixture of Tamiya paints that made a very light brown/off white color.  Then I used the Tamiya weathering powders to get the burnt effect:

Here's looking down the cans more vertically.  The flash sort of drowns out the colors:

Here is the weathering looking into the cans from the flame holder side.  The part in the background is one of the nose gear doors:

Here are the flame holders and the compressor blades that will be attached to the end of the intakes.  These will also receive some weathering using the Tamiya weather compounds.  You can also see that I've painted the inside of the intakes.  The intake on the right shows how the seam line has been sanded out very well:

To be continued...

I should have mentioned this at the start but I've got a bunch of after market stuff for this kit.  Here's what I've got:

• Afterburner Mountain Home Gunfighters decals
• Royal Resin weighted wheels
• Wolfpack resin OIF update set (this set includes a bunch of stuff)
• Quickboost resin ejection seats
• Quickboost resin horizontal stabilators
• Steel Beach vinyl vertical stabilizer reinforcement plates
• 4 GBU-12s, 2 GBU-16s and 1 GBU-31 from the Hasegawa weapons set D
• AIM-120C from a Tamiya F-16 kit

I'm scratch building:

• Pilot O2 hoses
• Nav and anti-collision lights
• Hydraulic lines on the landing gear

So you can see I've got a bunch of extra stuff to use/create.  Wish me luck!

Flynhi

Mighty fine work going on there! I can pick up the current re-issue at HL but decided to get the Pro-Modeler one on Ebay which is the same kit when released back in 2000 with the exception of having a full load of armaments like the Aim 120's and GBU's that the re-issue does not have. I will be looking at yours for inspiration.

plasticjunkie

...I will be looking at yours for inspiration.

Thanks!  But maybe you should wait and see how it turns out before you say that

This kit is really a gem. You've got a killer build going. Looking forward to seeing more of it.

I finished the burner cans.  Here they are painted and weathered:

Not bad for OOB.  AM resin would be better, of course, but these have great detail and I'm not sure that spending $15 or $20 would be worth it.

Excellent job on the cans. What colors did you use to get such realistic burnt metallic shades?

plasticjunkie

Excellent job on the cans. What colors did you use to get such realistic burnt metallic shades?

The inner base color is just Tamiya White with a few drops of brown mixed in to give in a sort of beige color.  The dark streaks at the flame holder end are Alclad II jet exhaust.  The weathering and dirty burnt looking areas inside the petals are a combination of Tamiya weathering compounds...soot, oil and metallic blue brushed in with the applicator that comes with the compounds.

I just looked at photos of the real exhaust to see where the dirty spots were and tried to copy what I saw.

I think you nailed that burnt look.

Thanks Plastic!

Now we're getting somewhere.  Here I've installed the intakes to the lower fuselage and glued the two fuselage halves together.  I didn't really take that many pics of it because its not really anything out of the ordinary.  But I did get pics of the anti collision lights.

What I did here was to file out the molded in anti collision lights and insert a piece of clear sprue:

Here's a pic that shows both of them:

Here's a pic that shows how they look after the clear red is applied.  I'm sorry for the blurry pic.  I am trying to hold the model up to the light and work the camera at the same time.  You get the idea at least:

It will show up better in later pics.

Here's an update to the Mud Hen:

I mentioned earlier that I bought the Quickboost resin ejection seats.  The kit seats, like the cockpit, are actually very nice.  But the Quickboost seats are even nicer.  And I figure since the canopy will be posed open, and since the seats really tend to draw the eyes, it would be worth it to have a little extra detail.

Here they are with just a coat of black paint:

Here they are detailed using the Games Workshop Citadel brand of paint:

These seats sit much lower in the cockpit than the kit parts so I'm going to have to add something to make them sit at the correct hight.  I might just cut off the parts on the kit seats and use those.

This has been a really enjoyable wip to watch so far Fly, excellent work on those burners!

Great Job!!! I love the shading on the turbines. Keep posting pics so we all can follow.

Thanks Jester and Jsmyth!

Here's the nose section glued to the fuselage.  Starting to look like an F-15 now!  

For the most part the large parts went together fairly well.  The intakes fit with no problems.  The areas that needed the most work were the seams where the upper and lower fuselage halves met at the tail just ahead of the horizontal stabs.  Also, the seam where the nose section meets the fuselage needed to be filled and sanded...but it wasn't very difficult.  Just be careful and slow when you join these two parts.

I've also attached the outer wing parts as you can see.  These required just a little filling.  

And just so you all know...the white part of the intake in the real plane starts about 6 feet back in the intake.  On mine the white starts immediately.  Oops.  I'm not gonna try to fix it but now you can learn from my mistake.

i just finished mine, different weapons but same bad ass plane..:0)

looking really good there Fly n high, the seats look awesome.

Sweet stuff. What metallic colors did you use on the exhaust? It looks so realistic.

Thanks guys!

NathanT, I just painted the cans Alclad II jet exhaust and dry brushed some silver on top of that.

Here's a small update. I've attached the vertical stabilizers and filled the seams with Mr. Surfacer.  I think it will be better to attach them now instead of painting them and then attaching them at the end.  Otherwise I won't really be able to eliminate the seams.  I saw one of these Revell F-15E's at the last model contest I was in and the guy painted the vertical stabs separate and then attached them afterwards.  The seams were fairly obvious and I remember thinking that I wouldn't do that if I ever built one.

I've also attached the speed brake in the retracted position.  The fit was surprisingly good!

The canopy and windscreen are just loosely attached so that I could see how they'd look on the plane.

Here I've attached the ailerons, intake ramps and conformal fuel tanks.  I used Mr. Surfacer to fill some of the gaps along the seam.  You can see that the ailerons are in the drooped position which happens when there is no hydraulic pressure to hold them up:

I've also attached the long weapons pylons that hang underneath the CFTs:

You can also see in both pics where I used Mr. Surfacer to fill in the seam where the nose section joins the fuselage.  In fact, I deliberately waited to install the intake ramps until after I dealt with this seam because once you attach the ramps it becomes much more difficult to reach this seam.

riptide

i just finished mine, different weapons but same bad ass plane..:0)

Fly-n-hi, you are doing the Eagle proud!  Great work!  Thanks again for posting your progress!  Great thread!

Eagle90

Now that's a good looking model so far! I have had the opportunity to buy this kit many times but never did, sort of regret it now! Looking forward to see how this turns out.

Eagle & Dean, Thanks!

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to build up my F-15E as an OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) or OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) airframe.  In order to do this I needed to get some updated parts.

I got the OIF resin update set from Wolfpack.  It includes AN/AAQ-33 SNIPER XR pod, GPS antenna, ECM antennas and the blade antennas that are different from the earlier models. Not all OIF/OEF planes carried the SNIPER pod, FYI.  It also includes an AN/AAQ-13 LANTIRN pod that replaces the kits pod although the replacement part isn't really better or worse than the kit part.  The kit part does hang noticeably lower, though.

The pylons needed a little bit of work.  Since you don't use the kit's adapters you need to fill in one of the alignment holes.  Plus, there's an ejection pin mark that needs to be filled.  I used Apoxie Sculpt to fill the holes and attached the adapter with CA glue:

You know, every time you post pics, I get all sentimental about my Eagle!  She is a great plane and you are doing a great job!  I'm really enjoying this thread...THANKS!

Eagle90

Thanks again Eagle...I'll try not to let you down!

I've added the Steel Beach reinforcement plates on the vertical stabs.  Now, not all F-15Es had these installed at the same time and some still don't have them I believe:  

You can see also that I have attached the ECM antennas:

In this pic above you can see where I had to use Mr. Surfacer to sort of build up the wing where the two wing parts met up.  There was an ever so slight step at the joint.  After it was done I re scribed the panel lines that were filled in.

This is so well done so far I can't wait to see it finished, the only place on an F-15 I have ever seen accumulate any amount of dirt was on the belly behind the main landing gear.

Thanks Dean!

I haven't seen alot of F-15Es that were dirty per se, but I have seen many photos with streaks running back on the wings, flaps and ailerons.  I've also seen many that had discolored or faded panels or chipped paint on certain leading edges.  And I've seen many that had plain old faded paint.

I'll be trying to create a balance between good weathering and a realistic effect.  My goal is that I want to look at it and think "Wow, that thing has seen some action over Afghanistan!"

Plus, there are some weathering techniques that I will be using for the first time on this build.