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.