Been too long since I worked on this one, once I got into my job and things took off, I havent sat at the bench for man twenty minutes and it was always to do other-than-model stuff.

I hope to have this old lady completed in the new year.

thanks for the info fellas, but without robbing another kit I don't have access to any British ordnance. I just want the finished product to be busy and cool looking for my cousins.

stikpusher

Just a suggestion, but you need some Brit style bombs. They did not use the Mk. 80 series in the Gulf

British LGBs are also based on the 1000 pounder above, rather than the US Mk.80 series.

Some BL755 CBU's would also go down well, but I don't know where you'd get those.

Just a suggestion, but you need some Brit style bombs. They did not use the Mk. 80 series in the Gulf

Looking good so far ! I think I will try the bondo filler on my next build.

Louts of hard work,but looking good

had to check in, haven't had the time or the energy to do much after work the past week or two.

She is ready for paint, and I haven't gotten the chance to figure up my painting plan yet.

Hopefully I'll have a better update tomorrow

and on the pylon

more to follow later this week  

now for the ordnance, I'm using two Hasegawa Mk-84's as well as four sway braces from the same weapons kit.

I cemented the four halves together with Tamiya Extra thin and after letting them set for a day I attempted to scribe all the details because the halves didn't align as well as I hoped so I had some sanding to do.

So the bombs are done, less painting, and the pylons are salvaged. I used clipped straight pins for locators and the head of a straight pin to replicate the foot that kicks the bomb away from the pylon.

pylons

 I'm almost ready to do a base coat, but there are a few trouble spots I've found that need attention first

the crew in their permanent home

thanks for the compliments fellas, and the tips on the putty, I might try it on my next round of self abuse, I mean next kit build, you guys are gonna think I'm crazy when I drop it on you, but let me post some updates and a picture or two.

First off, I have been making slow progress since I re-entered the job market. Most notably the crew is in for good, the pivot points of the pylons are tweaked for a good friction fit, and I have salvaged the belly pylons and have gotten them ready for a pair of Mk-84 two thousand pounders.

anyway, I'll annotate the pictures as I go.

First is an overall shot or two

Looking pretty good there! Almost ready for its base coat of paint.

I know it's too  late for this build, but have you tried Bondo's Glazing and spot putty ?   I got the tip to use this stuff from Don Stauffer and not used any other putty since. Easy to work with and very fine grit ( grain ) so it sands very well.  Any auto parts stores have it, just make sure you get the single tube #907 rather than the 2-part stuff.

I took the kit to my local clubs monthly meeting yesterday and got a talking to about all the work I've done and the fact its going to be hanging from a ceiling, but I'm not going to cut corners just because it wont be a finished model that you can look at closely.............

More pictures to follow

okay so the Milliput experiment didnt work, neither did the use of Testors contour putty that followed, so I stripped off both attempts and filled the seams with CA, sanded and polished.

Next came the aircrew, they are finished, seated and installed, and are now permanantly affixed their respective offices.

After the crew was perched, I installed the canopy with CA at the front and rear and have started fairing the canopy assembly with Mr Surfacer.

and last but not least is the is the entire wing load, pods and fuel tanks.

I have a feeling its going to take quite a bit more to smooth everything out once I get the putty sanded, but nothing on this model has come easily.

Filler of choice so far has been some Miliput Superfine I bought last week.

I finally got around to getting the intakes attached, I used MM Sky Type S for the intake trunking, attached it to the fuselage with CA and filled the monster gaps with epoxy putty

the other BIG area was the reworking of the out board pylon ordnance load. The kit came with American style  frangible nose rocket pods, which I have never seen on an RAF aircraft. So I used each one as a basis for a ECM pod, though I tried my best to make them accurate, I'm pretty sure they aren't, and one I took complete artistic license with, but they look cool and my cousins will like them.

Heres the most modified pod. I added the forward end from a Monogram Phoenix missile, the intake is also a section of Phoenix I thinned to look the part better, the rear louvered area is a heat exchanger I robbed off the same Monogram Tomcat that the phoenixes came from which is also where the pods fins came from.

The pod on the left is the one I just described, to its right is the other modded pod, it has the rear most fins off another Phoenix, as well as the nose cone to close up the opening.

Pod number ones rear end

and from the front, the ram air cooling intake

got some work done finally........

Here are a few of the pilot that's closest to be completed.

Hey fellas, a quick update, been doing mostly accessory work, the outboard wing mounted ECM gear has been on the front burner, but thankfully because of my new job lol, I haven't had all that much time to sit down and get serious work done during the week.

But pictures will follow this weekend

LOL thanks for the heads up Phil_H, its too late now, these two Limies ( sorry Bish ;) ), are gonna be in the 70s blue style flight suits.

On another note, I wont be able to do any work on this beast this week, I am house/dog sitting this week and with Arthur on his way, wont be able to get behind the bench until after the holiday.

@Jim, yeah its a monster alright, and the next one is gonna be a breeze

Looks like you're finally getting that model subdued--and you didn't even need the sledgehammer.

USMC6094

I decided on US Navy blue gray for the RAF flight suits, it just had the right look to me for the blue fabric.

The modern RAF flight suits are an olive green colour.

I'm not really worried about the black paint being over powering when its all said and done, especially since I plan on trying more than one shade of tan/sand/brown before I seal it all up to decal.

then I got to work on the crew.

I decided on US Navy blue gray for the RAF flight suits, it just had the right look to me for the blue fabric.

and then I laid it down on a very low pressure, I think I was spraying at something like 15 psi

I cranked up the airbrush last night to do some shading work, for the fuselage I just thinned flat black to a little less than milk consistency and then laid on successive coats of very thin paint

I masked off the front and rear cockpits with paper towels I cut into strips and sealed it with Micro-mask. and masked off the area around the cockpit sill as well as the radome.

nothing but canopy work today...........

Started building up the forward corners of the windscreen frame, am pretty satisfied with the end result, the rest of the filling will be with Mr Surfacer

I had to take a break from the belly racks, I've sanded so much lately it looks it snowed all over my bench  

Don't know about ordinance, but you are doing great work! Maybe this started life as a toy, not a model? It "seams" to have that look about it. You have a stout heart handling this project. Bob

next is the almost completed, accurized rack with the new pallets

Now does anyone know a good source for 48th scale British ordnance? 

thanks stik. It is coming a long nicely all things considered

I got to work on the belly bomb racks last night, for the life of me I couldn't let such a bad inaccuracy as them go. So I broke out the old Monogram 72nd scale model and used its belly racks as a pattern and eyeballed the two pallets as well as their strakes. Now these are by no means correct, they just look right to me as compared to the originals.

Heres the base line rack

other than the filler, this is box stock

Here is the .050 styrene I cut got the pallets and the stock I'm carving the strakes out of

excellent progress.... some more feint hearted folks might call a kit like this "unbuildable". You are certainly wrestling ths into shape very nicely!

and I took some overall shots just to show the progress

And here was my house keeping project that gave my all my work space back  

I've got some putty curing on the canopy assembly to cover up some uneven and low spots from the styrene filling session, I'll post more pictures later today  

here are a few other shots, I've closed the speed brakes and have a tad bit of filling to do on them.

after some experimentation, I gave the entire filled area a light coat of Testors liquid cement and then rubber banded it to the fuselage, that way the cement and the tension from the rubber bands could compress and fill in the really tiny spots would otherwise have had to fill with CA

the majority of my bench time has been getting the canopy/windscreen gap filled.

the red lines are the plastic from a plastic bread bag tie. I figured it looked and felt like styrene, so I sectioned it and it reacted to cement so I used it and Plastruct strip stock to fill the gap.

here we go, took pictures of the last few days as well as last nights progress.

First is the exhausts, MM metalizer all around

not just simple, I see a Tamiya He-162 Salamander in my future after this one

I know that feeling, whenever I build a limited run kit (and this seems pretty darn close to one) building something simple does provide a chance to decompress!

I think the major puttying is past, now its just dressing the low spots with Mr Surfacer and prepping for paint, don't get me wrong, I love detail work, but this kits starting to wear on me. I need to pick something painless to build once I finish this one

She's coming together pretty well- I hope you stocked up on putty though!

working the canopy/windscreen assembly seams and have painted the jet exhausts with MM Metallizer as well as the thrust reversers. The ejection seats are coming a long as well.

Once I get the silver paint cleaned off the cockpit will be masked and I'll be about ready to preshade the fuselage in preparation for final painting.

still working on the final surface treatment before the pre-shading starts. I took her to my clubs monthly meeting on Saturday and heat from the trip (closed up car while I was in BAM) made the finished filler contract once it got warm and then cooled off, so its touch up filler time almost all around.

In other filler news, I gave all the seams a coat of Testors silver to see what the seams really looked like and by and large they came out well, except for the whole shrinkage thing

last night was more of the same, brushing Mr. Surfacer on the spine seam and filling pin holes that used to be air bubbles on other seams. Mr. Surfacer 1200 is great brushed on for this purpose.

I started filling the gap between the cockpit sill and canopy assembly with square styrene stock, its slow going but its getting there.

As I promised, here are the bang seats.

You wouldn't believe the amount of plastic that had to be removed for me to get the pilot figures to fit theses seats, probably a third of the total plastic in the seats came off between the xacto knife and the grinding bit on the dremel tool

After I had a few things worked as far as I could take them for the moment, I decided to take a few pictures of everything together at this stage

I'll have some pictures of the ejection seats tomorrow.  

while said Grand Canyon seam was setting up I went to work on the canopy and windscreen.

Five minute double-bubble did the trick here. then I cemented the canopy assembly to the windscreen assembly since one part seemed to be easier to work with, then I got a surprise.......

Sorry its a little out of focus, but notice the gap between the canopy sill and the fuselage, more filling.......yippeeeeee

So I shimmed the area immediately in front of the windscreen, with plastic stock and then started on the cockpit enclosure

thanks MAgather, I have some more progress to report.

First, the vertical tail is on and anchored, and square to the rest of the fuselage.......then I started filling the HUGE gap at the front of it.

I've filled it twice and may possibly have to add more later today, the last few hits of filler will be Mr. Surfacer, as the putty has done all I asked and expected it to.

I've layered three coats of Tamiya grey putty in an attempt to even out the contours before I hit the area with Mr. Surfacer 1000.

The seam is just in the most awkward place to fill, sand and contour.........

Yeah, she is definitely a labor of love. She will definitely look good flying from the ceiling tho!

On another note, I'm still filling the gaps on the side fairings outboard of where the exhausts will sit, I've started painting the ejection seats am debating the lengths I want to go on the ordnance

I tackled my biggest worry this morning.........the vertical tail. I figured I couldn't get around it, so off I went.

I hollowed out the area ahead of the front end of where the tail attaches to the upper fuselage, then added a piece of sprue to give the tail more purchase when I cemented it in.

A heads up to you fellas with this kit in your stash, think about three steps ahead of where you are as you assemble this model, there are so many variables and trouble spots not thinking ahead could come back to bite you as it almost did me. Bottom line, you'll have almost as much thought energy in this one as you will labor to build it.

Now, the sprue attachment I added was CA'd and accelerated to anchor it to the vertical tail assembly, then I soaked it with Ambroid Pro Weld and rubber banded it to the fuselage, then soaked the seam that ran the length of the tail to the stinger between the exhausts.

Heres how she looks as of the radio show this morning.

I had to extend the areas I already filled to blend the areas I sanded already because of the way the seams were misaligned, while I was at it I treated the low spots left from this mornings sanding session to Mr. Surfacer 1000 and now its at the house setting up so I can sand it after work tonight. Then I'll treat the exhaust side fairings to a CA reinforcement and then fill the gaps on either side of them.

next is the rear fuselage, I'm beginning to think this model and some of the others I bought from an LHS may he spent some time in an attic or garage because of the warpage and resultant misaligned seams, but that's life in this hobby right.

for some reason in up close mode the camera isn't focusing as it usually does, but you get the idea lol

more progress has been made, namely sanding, and filling, the wash and repeat, lol.

Heres a look at the now three tone grey the model is transforming to

The stinger between the burner cans and the side fairings have been attached, the fairings will require filling and sanding to fair them into the surrounding area. 

Lol! I have the Airfix (ADV)& Italeri (GR.1)Tornados in my stash. Both are similar vintage. I hope they won't be quite as challenging as this one here. One day...

While I am big fan of the Tornado, I was thinking I'm glad I'm not trying to wrestle this bird...oh, wait a minute, I just checked my stash.  I've got one of these birds too.  Keep up the good work.

Thats it! See the learning value in a challenging project! Yeah it may be a beast to wrestle into shape, But I think  more pride comes from that sort of work. I like how it is shaping up here!

sorry they're slightly out of focus, they looked better on the camera screen when I took them earlier this AM

Here is the view from the rear

From my experience this layering of Mr. Surfacer will take a day or two to dry completely, so all my work will be on the little parts I havent gotten to yet, like the aircrew, seats and thrust reversers

LOTS of filling last night and early this morning.................

I made the mistake of caffeine late last night and was up till three this morning slathering on filler.

Heres the low down, I used putty for the base, Squadron up front, and Tamiya at the back. The forward fuselage looked alright until I started to running my fingers across the seam and there was a very slight divet the length of the seam, so I brushed on a coat of Mr. Surfacer 1000 followed by a coat down the seam of Mr. Surfacer 500.

At the rear, the upper and lower halves were so misaligned at the seams (even with the styrene tabs I installed) that I used Tamiya grey putty where the top butts up against the bottom, then added Mr. Surfacer 1000 and then 500 to fill the low areas and blend it out to where I believe it will feather into the plastic.

Anyway, here is the forward fuselage sides

lol the pictures are out of focus, naw, thanks for the kind words, but this kit is a DOG, but on the up side I'm getting lots and LOTS of good solid fundamental practice and getting to experiment with pre-shading. So it could be worse. Hopefully by Friday I'll have the speed brakes/wells painted and the brakes installed, and the vertical on, but not filled. The vertical tail is what worries me, it has two LONG seams at its base and one side worse than the other, but then again the glory is in the struggle

I got a F-14A made by these guys, I wonder if I am going to run into the same kind of seam work. Looking good though !

that's how its shape'n up lol, the seams aft of the wings are gonna be the same way

That model is going to be more putty than plastic by the time you're finished with it.

I started with a base of Squadron White putty and then moved to Tamiya Grey putty for the built up layers.

thanks stik,

I made some progress in the putty department over the last few evenings, and after three layers, I'm still filling low spots around the radome, but its really starting to take shape.

Starting to take good shape there!

stik I'll try that tonight once I'm home from school, with all the pictures I take I shouldve known that

I made some more progress over the weekend, the fuselage halves are together, the nose cone is attached, and the belly antenna fairings are in place.

It took quite a lot of rubber bands to get the upper and lower parts togehter, and I still have to finish cementing the intake areas and the shoulders of the wings,

Just a suggestion, but if you use a sheet of plain white paper behind your model parts that you are photographing, its removes the busy background that your camera may focus on.

I'll take clearer pictures this afternoon..........

did some late night air brushing last night.

Since the wings have to be painted before the fuselage halves can be closed I took the opportunity to try thid style of pre-shading. Here are the results.

Well the quick easy way to confirm is to do an image search. You can have the answer in a moment.

could be the ESCI instructions, they say the inside of the moving parts of the speed brakes are green, but I'll go with white cause you guys say so. and it'll save me the hassle of cleaning and re-setting up the airbrush for a different color.  

That's right I have never seen interior aluminium green on any part of a tornado.

The wheel well interiors are also white.

you are correct, I got the inside of the brakes mixed up with the well interiors, thanks for catching that for me

Just to let you know the air brake interiors are white not green.

I've got a bottle of the tan stik recommended and I think I might experiment with a other tans to get a faded rode hard look

More to follow

and last  are the wings and tailerons, I preshaded them with Dunklegelb Model Master, I thought it would be less harsh than a dark grey or black........but we shall see.

I've masked off the speed brake wells, I just have to decide on the shade of green I want to use, the directions call for "Marine Corps Green" but I think I'm going a few shades lighter.

next up is the seemingly endless seam reinforcement, the bag of Plastruct bits and pieces I have is going to get a workout from this kit.

Heres the rear of the lower fuselage half

and one last tank shot

These two were putty monsters, the only matching seams were where the vertical fins met, ever other one needed putty

well much progress has been made in the last few days.

Both drop tanks have been assembled and the fun fun fun fill, and repeat process started over again. I think I can safely that NOTHING in the box this kit came in will NOT have a seam to fill and sand, or that doesn't require fitting then filling and sanding, but in the end it'll give me a good refresher in the fundamentals of our hobby.

So here they are for your viewing pleasure, the drop tanks, I'm still working on fairing the lower fins into the tank body with Mr. Surfacer

For a Desert Storm Tornado I am pretty sure it should be a GR.1. I want to say that the GR.3 did not see combat until the Balkan wars of the late 90's and Gulf War II.

thanks stik, I'll look into the testors little bottle, that'll save me some green when I get the paint.

Phil_H- I have no idea what  the exact variant is......this is straight from the box

Rough but you seem to be beating her into shape, nice work!!!

I remember the kit I had now was the Airfix, looked a lot like this one though, I'd swear it was the same mold.

Do we know if this kit is supposed to represent a GR.1 or a GR.4? If it's meant to be a GR.4, the port-side cannon port needs to be filled in.

Calm seas do not a good sailor make... right? Your chugging along nicely here. As far as the RAF sand used, try Testors Flat Tan #1167 from the little square bottle. It is a good match for the color.

PUTTY MONSTER!!!!  But it looks good so far--can't wait to see it done.  Definitely a character builder.

and heres a look at the overall state of things.

More to follow  

here are the major assemblies all heaped together. The wing gloves are going to be major problem areas as far as filling and sanding go.

All the medium grey areas are Mr. Surfacer, the forward fuselage is going to be the worst area for filling, but the up side is there isn't any kind of detail on that area, so it a fair trade in my opinion.

next is a look at the forward fuselage and some of the grand canyon like seams

made lots of filling and sanding progress the last few days, and I tracked the color of paint I need for the desert camo scheme. The closest thing to it is ANA 616 Desert Sand, so next time I order parts and supplies I'll be getting two bottles.

Anyway, here are pictures of all the work..........

First is the low spots on the rudder and vertical tail

well I made some more progress, the exhausts are ready to paint, the vertical stabilizer is just about ready for filling and sanding(lots of low spots from the plastic being so thick), the belly bomb racks are almost ready for sanding( the centers of each piece shrank out of the molds and had monster ejector pin marks), then they'll be ready to be corrected to hold four bombs each instead of the kit supplied two.

This kit is going to consume a lot of Mr. Surfacer and putter before I get to the point of painting the camo, which is another sticking point, the chosen color is Desert Pink with a 301XX FS number, I don't have the number here in front of me to reference, but I have no idea what the color actually is, tomorrow I'll post the FS number and see if anyone here might know.

Tonight its back to sanding and filling, one things for sure, by the time this build is over, I'll have a completely new respect for newer kits....................  

and fuselage halves together

three views of the instrument panels, after I got this far I set everything together to have a look and I am certain the cockpit interior is a mix of too large for scale ( panels, openings and consoles) and underscale, the bang seats and possibly the aircrew).

The lower fuselage half since I started painting

Alright, I have made some kind of progress, at least for the speed I usually build.

Yesterday I cranked up the Badger 150 for the first time in so long I don't even remember when the last time was.

I got the inner wing root areas of both wings, top and bottom sprayed Testors aluminum from the little bottle and dressed up the instrument panel coamings, put the side console decals in their places and did some more parts fitting.

Any way here are some more pictures, enjoy.

First is the aluminum wing pivot areas.

Its going to be the sand pink Desert Storm version, the kit comes with markings for Italy, Saudi Arabia, and the RAF.

The RAF bird is the simplest color scheme, both in colors and weathering, oh and it has a scantily clad lady for nose art lol

I cant wait to see the look on my little cousins faces when I give it to them to hang from their ceiling when its all finished.

This looks really good, what airforce are you doing it for? I ask as I am doing the 1/32 revell ecr and I got hold of decals from HaHen they're absolutely brilliant, and the guy Harold who makes them said if there are any decals at all you want that you cannot get, he can custom make them so long as you send decent photos of the aircraft/scheme you want it's how I ended up with Marineflienger decals. Looking forward to seeing this finished.

I was planning on a few more pictures, but both sets of batteries for my camera died..........

So more pictures over the weekend, especially of the preparations I've made for the Gawd awful forward fuselage seams...........

And a note of thanks to Tim Kidwell for his help in getting this thing set up to post pictures again

and here are some side views with the major assemblies in place.

and with the canopy closed.

Heres the back seaters hole.....

I believe the seats are out of scale, or the crewman is, but once its all painted and buttoned up, no one is gonna notice lol

heres the guard I made for the swing wing gearing.

heres another assembly hic-up, due to the way the fuselage is split, I've had to make spreaders for the lower half and will have to add styrene reinforcements to the halves to get more gluing area once I get to the point that I'm assembling the halves.

a close up, the canopy and windscreen frames are separate from the clear parts, they are going to be a REAL pain once I get to assembling them.

okay finally, lol

I have made some real progress in the last few weeks, correcting mold misalignments , getting parts together and LOTs of sanding.

Here are the results so far.

This is the upper fuselage assembly with the windscreen, canopy and vertical tail just sitting on it for fit purposes.  

made some filling and sanding progress, unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity for photography as of yet.

As far as the progress goes, I made new mounting holes for the tailerons and whittled down their mounting axels to fit the styrene tube I used to make the new mounts. The mold misalignments on the inboard sides of both tailerons have been evened out with the ever present Mr Surfacer 500.

All the low spots on the lower fuselage have been filled with Mr Surfacer  1000 and sanded smooth.

The wings are complete, only thing left to do is even out the trailing edges of both flaps, they too were marred by mold misalignment. I'm also making a guard to insure the wing sweep gears don't become misaligned in the future.

The vertical tail has also been assembled, there were no locator pins for alignment and the left half was slightly warped, so out came the Testors liquid cement, metal spring clips and slow seam work. Even having taken the time to attempt getting the halves aligned left me with much seam work to do and two very large dimples at the base of the tail just above the burner cans.

Pictures to follow tomorrow, by then I should be about a leg up on my homework.  

Thanks for the compliments fellas, this thing is a BEAST...........

It has NO recessed detail, anywhere........

No, the plastic is pretty well done and not pebbly in texture, reacts well to Testors liquid cement and is so far very easy to sand.

As for its origins, I have no idea wheter its been reboxed by other companies, but its definitley not up to todays standard.

Youre probably right about it being a warmed over model of the prototype, but they didnt even get the fuselage bomb racks right, lol.

I have either this kit somewhere, started on it and never finished. It was pretty rough as you say though I don't remember a pebbly surface.

Was the Airfix 1/48th Tornado a reboxing of the same kit or a different mold?

I have the RAF Jaguar from the same line of those kits. I am enjoying watching you wrestle this beast into shape here.

This one sounds like a real bear to work on. I'm not sure, but it may be the early ESCI kit of the prototype/pre-production aircraft with updated "Desert Storm" markings. I don't know if the kit was ever updated to GR.1 standards.

Does this kit have that odd, almost-pebbly surface texture like other ESCI kits of that era?

I have the same kit!  So I'll be watching your build on this to see how she goes together!  I was in Desert Storm and actually had the opportunity to work with the Brits and their beautiful Tornados!  So I had to get this kit when I saw it!  Thanks for posting the pics!  I look forward tot he rest of the build!

Eagle90

I'll take some close ups of the massive forward fuselage seams and the work I've done to the ejection seats and post them in a day or two

The wings, these are another monsterous set of parts. The flaps are seperate, were warped, and arent right shape to fill up the trailing edge openings, one side was also misaligned, so lots of filling and sanding...........One of the wings is pretty much finished, but I still have a few low spots to fill after covering the seams with silver paint to bring the blemishes out, I'll take close ups a little later

heres the lower fuselage half, since its gear up I had to fill the nose landing gear doors with strip styrene, CA, and Mr. Surfacer. Of all the gear doors the nose was the worst of them, they fit pretty well, but were 1/8 in below the surface of the rest of the fuselage underside.

I'll take some better pictures once I have the chance, other than the aircrew, this is the only real addition I'm making to the kit.

I hinged the speed brakes and am using stright pins for the hinges, just thought the model would look neat with the brakes popped

The box.........anyone else remember this line of models?