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Paul Mahoney
21 articles

1/48 Harrier GR.3 (from Monogram and Airfix kits)

November 23, 2014 · in Aviation · · 14 · 2.7K

The recent beautiful 1/24 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.

Reader reactions:
3  Awesome

9 additional images. Click to enlarge.


14 responses

  1. 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

  2. It seems its a good week for Harriers and thats good ! Your Harrier is very nice Paul and the shipping solution is great too.

  3. Awesome! Like this one very much! Well done mate!

  4. Beautiful build and equally nice photography - I especially like that one from directly overhead. Nice all-around job.

  5. Nice work on those old chestnuts, to get such a great result.

  6. Great work Paul, on both the model and the packaging.
    Well done sir.

  7. Very nice build Paul. I'm sure the recipient appreciated the effort & result.

  8. Lovely Harrier Paul! Cool idea for the packaging also.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. Good work, Paul. Although the Harrier is obviously a jet, it somehow that transcends that category into one of its own.

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