Second attempot on the Airfix 1/48 Meteor F. Mk. 8
Second attempt. A better result, having discovered the mine fields the hard way the first venture down the trail.
The secret to the Meteor is: glue the nose cap halves to their respective fuselage halves before further assembly, to get perfect alignment. Same with the wing/fuselgae fairing pieces - glue to the fuselage before further assembly and get perfect alignment with the fuselage half. The result is the nose wheel assembly will be in the correct position, and there will not be a gap in the wing-fuselage assembly when you bring the two sub-assemblies together. I only used mr. Surfacer on the fuselage center seam.
Kit was painted with Vallejo White Aluminum (over a gloss black primer) for the lower surface, and Tamiya Dark Grey (a good version of Dark Sea Grey) and RAF Dark Green.
Did this as a later F. Mk. 8 with the "big mouth" intakes which were also installed on some earlier aircraft as well as factory-installed on late-production Meteors. I used kit decals for national insignia and stenciling, and Hannant;s 48-043 for the individual aircraft markings for a meteor of 64 Squadron. this was one of the sheets originally done for the Classic Airframes kit, and has been reprinted now that the good kit is out.
Basically, the Airfix Meteor consigns the Classic Airframes kit to the status of door stop it has always aspired to. With a little care, it comes out great.
And you cannot assemble the canopy closed. You should also scrape down the attachement area of the windscreen and the similar are on the fuslegae halves to get the windscreen to sit down at it should and not ride too high. That is the kit's only problem (other than the assembly tips above).
So even if one engages in "plastic surgery" on the forward fuselage/canopy rails AND the bottom of the windscreen, you still can't get the main canopy to align correctly? Or am I missing something?
You can get the windscreen to sit right. The canopy sits too high when you try to close it, but it looks fine open.
Maybe if you "shaved" down the bottom of the main canopy as well, it would improve the alignment...or not. I've never done one, so I'm sure you've considered all possibilities. But as you say, it looks fine the way it is.
Tom, construction issues aside, I noticed in both the previous posting and this, you chose not to use a wash to 'pop' the panel lines in the natural metal areas. Not a criticism as such, just curious about the pristine condition of a service aircraft.
In my experience around the real thing, NMF (or painted, as in this case) doesn't really do that. The most I would do (and likely will with the third Meteor, which I am doing as the Israeli FR8 that shot down a Vampire) is to preshade the undersurface with different shades of black and grey primer to "age" the silver paint.
Ok thanks. I noticed Christian with his recent Shooting Star used different shades of metallics, so the variation is obviously another road to take from basic washes.
Looks real good Tom, nice paint job.
Nice looking Meteor.