1/48 Revell F-15E Progress Thread

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!

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...

Who was that "masked" man?

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:

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.

Thanks guys!

Bish, yeah the lights are really an easy touch that add a lot of detail.

Eagle,  like I mentioned above this kit has a very nice cockpit.  It had nicely raised detail and Revell got most of it right.

Plastic, I dry brushed some Tamiya paint over the Mr Color Black.  This works out very well because if you mess it up you can just use Windex to strip off the dry brusing an do it over.

Also, the hoses are going to have 2 parts each.  There is a smaller hose or wiring that runs along the O2 hose.  I'll use thin wire and some metal foil tape to hold them together.

On with the build:  I've assembled and sanded out the intakes.  I used a popsicle stick with some foam backed sanding pads attached to get in there and smooth out the seams:

Here's a good view of the seams.  They're acually very smooth.  The seams just catch the light differently:

The office is looking great. The IP actually looks like one done with an Eduard pe set. 

You can also use thin copper wire from a discarded cord wrapped on a thin drill bit, coiled up tight then trimmed and painted for the hoses.

Man, that office looks great!  Some really nice detail work.  She is coming along beautifully!

Eagle90

Great work on the pit, that's looking really nice.

I might give that light trick a try, though might be a bit fiddly in 72nd, but worth a go.

I've seen it done before but I'haven't done it myself.  Probably because I don't have any toothbrushes that have the right colors.  Its a good technique, though.

Scott, have you ever used toothbrush handles in green or red, or blue, to fill in those wing-tip lenses?  A piece could be fitted like the clear and then sanded down to shape, and finish polished.  I guess a "bulb" (silver paint?) could be put in place in a small hole drilled on the back of the colored piece or in the wingtip recess.   It seems like I've seen this technique used somewhere and your neat lenses made me think of it I guess.

Moving along with the cockpit tub.  This kit has a very descent cockpit.  Not as good as a resin tub but still pretty good.  I painted it and masked it off to paint the black panels.  Yeah, it took a while to cut and mask all those little spaces:

Here it is after a little lighter grey drybrushing:

Here's how it looks when assembled:

I'm going to add the O2 lines in the cockpit.  Here I cut out some spare guitar strings to use as the hoses:

And here's how they will be placed.  I've also given the tub a bit of a wash, especially on that back fabric area, to bring out some detail:

Be back soon...

Bish

Stunning work so far. I really like what you have done with the lights.

I'm also adding the anti-collision lights near the wing roots and on the vertical stabilizers.

Stunning work so far. I really like what you have done with the lights.

Eagle,Tex and Tech, Thanks!

Here's the canopy and windscreen polished out.  I have recently stopped dipping my canopies in Future.  Instead I polish them out with Micro Mesh grits 3200, 3600, 4000, 6000, 8000 and 12000.  Then I polish them out with the Novus polishing system.  The parts are crystal clear and In my opinion have a more natural look to them:

The ejection seat in the background is for a different model.

So, the clear lenses were painted with the Alclad after they were installed in the wing tips?  Hmmm. They do look good.

Great work with attention to detail.  I look forward to the progress updates.

Fly-n-hi....WOW!  Great work!  Really glad you decided to post your WIP!  Everything looks spectacular so far!  The lights turned out really well!  Thanks for posting these!

Eagle90

Here's a pic of the fuel tanks after they were sanded, re-scribed and primed with Mr. Base White:

I used the Verlinden 1/48 scribing templates to scribe the 3 doors on each tank.  They worked out fantastic.  They are very flexible and were easy to wrap around the curve of the tanks.

Thanks Plastic and Tex.

Gary, the lenses are just clear sprue.  The color is Alclad II clear red and clear blue.

Here are the GBUs glossed up and ready for decals.  I have been using Liquitex Acrylic Gloss Varnish lately and I think it works great.  I just brushed it on:

I should mention that the colors on the GBUs can be random.  Its not unusual to see a mix of differently colored bombs like you see above.  In fact, many of the grey bombs don't even have the burgundy collar.  If you Google F-15E images you'll see good examples of this.  I will be weathering them, as well, after the decals are applied.

Scott, the lights look great but I have a question.  Are the colored lenses attached over the clear ones?  If so, what are the colored lenses made of?

Thanks, Gary

The weapons came out great and excellent work on the clear lights. Looks like it's going to be an interesting thread.

Here's the ordinance that going to hang underneath.  I've got 4 GBU-12s, 2 GBU-16s and a GBU-31 from the Hasegawa weapons set.  The AIM-120C is from a Tamiya F-16 kit and the AIM-9M is from the Revell kit itself.  Because I want to build this up as a plane from OEF or OIF I have to get certain things like upgraded LAU-115 rails for the AMRAAMs.

Unpainted:

First layers of paint (the AMRAAM is finished):

Final paint on the bombs (except for the seeker heads):

Fuel tanks primed and preshaded:

I sanded out all of the raised detail on the fuel tanks and re-scribed all of the access panels.

Well, if I'm reading this right it sounds like you all would be interested.  Thanks for the replies!

Eagle90

Do frogs bump their bottoms when they hop!?    (Do they?)

My 21 years in the Air Force was spent working on the avionics for those most beautiful of machines, so heck yeah!  I'd love to see your pics!  I have 3 kits in 1/48 of the Eagle (2 are C/D models and 1 E model).  I'm going to do one for each base I was stationed at.  SJ (Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C), BT (Bitburg, Germany), EG (Eglin AFB, Fl).  

Post away!  And thanks in advance for doing it!

Eagle90

Well, here goes:  I decided to carve out the NAV and Anti Collision lights and place clear sprue in the openings.  The tip on the left is cut out and the one on the right is the original.  

Here's the little block of clear sprue attached:

And here's what it looked like after careful sanding to preserve the surrounding panel lines:

And the colored lenses:

Also, I cut out the ailerons so that I could pose them in their drooped position.  I glued a half circular styrene piece to the front (as you can see in the first pic) to give it its proper shape.  Here they are sanded and cleaned up:

More to come...

Nathan T

Go for it. We desperately need mor WIP here!

agreed, we need a good balance between GB's and WiP, but I think we are getting there.

Let me think.........................UHH YEAH!!

Go for it. We desperately need mor WIP here!

Do frogs bump their bottoms when they hop!?    (Do they?)

My 21 years in the Air Force was spent working on the avionics for those most beautiful of machines, so heck yeah!  I'd love to see your pics!  I have 3 kits in 1/48 of the Eagle (2 are C/D models and 1 E model).  I'm going to do one for each base I was stationed at.  SJ (Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C), BT (Bitburg, Germany), EG (Eglin AFB, Fl).  

Post away!  And thanks in advance for doing it!

Eagle90

Go for it!

I'd like to see it. I have one in the closet collecting dust, and I hear it's a great kit.