1/48 Harrier GR.3 (from Monogram and Airfix kits)
The recent beautiful 1/24 Harrier builds made me dig back and think I should post my own Harrier build of a few years ago. I built this for a friend's father who flew them with the RAF (among his many other duties). I wrote this up for Modeling Madness some time ago, so the 'rest of the story' can be found here:
http://modelingmadness.com/review/mod/gb/mahoneygr3.htm
One thing lacking in that write-up was how I got it to the recipient. I'm in the US, and he is in the UK. So some super-special, deluxe packaging was created :). I built a frame out of foam board, assembled with a hot glue gun, and trapped the Harrier in this frame. Then placed foam rubber inside a plastic bin, put the assembled foam board/model inside of this, then more foam, and taped shut. This went inside a large cardboard box with those foam peanuts. Shipped off to the UK via USPS and it arrived without any damage at all! I don't know if I am more proud of the build or of the packing job! Anyway, it was a fun build and really enjoyed building it for someone special.
This is an innovative way to ship models. Thanks for sharing. I'm ofetn selling made up models on e-bay and this may well prove a useful solution.
Cheers
Alastair
It seems its a good week for Harriers and thats good ! Your Harrier is very nice Paul and the shipping solution is great too.
Awesome! Like this one very much! Well done mate!
Beautiful build and equally nice photography - I especially like that one from directly overhead. Nice all-around job.
Nice, Paul.
Nice work on those old chestnuts, to get such a great result.
Great work Paul, on both the model and the packaging.
Well done sir.
Very nice build Paul. I'm sure the recipient appreciated the effort & result.
Lovely Harrier Paul! Cool idea for the packaging also.
Thanks for the nice comments guys - the recipient did indeed very much appreciate it - and I think was pleasantly surprised it made the long journey in one piece! I don't plan on shipping too many models in the future, but at least now I know a way that works. I'm not really a jet guy, but I have to say I really like the look of the Harrier. It was a very enjoyable project.
Cracking Harrier Paul, love the faded finish.
thanks Gregor - I did that with preshading (which I usually don't do) and then pastels on top of the paint job - I was going for the look seen in a lot of the photos of Harriers found in my research without trying to overdo it.
I Like!
Good work, Paul. Although the Harrier is obviously a jet, it somehow that transcends that category into one of its own.