Op Granby Jag, in 1/72

Started by Greg Kittinger · 27 · 6 years ago
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    Greg Kittinger said 6 years, 9 months ago:

    Well - instead of the Cheetah as my second entry into the GB, I stumbled across an article on a Desert Pink Jag, and got the bug. I pulled a Hasegawa kit from the stash, boxed as a GR 1 from Op Granby, and got it started. Had to secure some decals, as those in the box looked pretty pitiful, and I'll only use the flight instrument decals.

    IF by any chance I don't get lured by my Privateer build, I may have time to still knock off the Cheetah... I've already received the resin nacelles/engines and decals for it, and am just waiting for the 2 canopy sets I bought, so who knows what may happen..?

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    Jeff Bailey said 6 years, 9 months ago:

    Sounds interesting, Greg. I know you'll do well!

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    Greg Kittinger said 6 years, 9 months ago:

    Just getting cranking on this one. Got the main part of the fuselage together, the gear doors glued shut (and heavily sanded down to blend/fit better!), and the metal under the tail painted. Hasegawa provides a pretty blank cockpit, but at least has decals for instruments.

    1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

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    Greg Kittinger said 6 years, 9 months ago:

    The Hasegawa kit has the LRMTS lens molded as solid grey plastic in the nose - this will never do. I cut and filed away the area, found a chunk of clear plastic from old sprue and sanded it down to insert into the nose. I drilled a hole into the back end of the insert and painted it silver to depict the lens. The glued the chunk into the nose, sawed it off and sanded polished. I will fill in some very slight gaps with Gator Glue once painted. The one thing I wish I'd done before I closed it up was to paint the back black behind the silver lens.

    The Jag is pretty much built up - just need to do a bit of Mr. Surfacer for some fine filling, and ready for paint. Will test my effort to overcoat the usual green/grey scheme with the Desert Pink camo and sand back off the wear areas on the drop tanks first, then will proceed with the aircraft.

    5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Ferry Dierckxsens said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    Great to see another 1/72 Jaguar in the GB. I think it will look fantastic in this deser pink camo.
    The LRMTS lens is something to adjust in my Jaguar built as well. Some clear sprue must be living in one of my parts boxes.Thanks for sharing how you did this Greg.

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    Robert Royes said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    Very creative Greg.

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    Greg Kittinger said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    The only additional bit of detailing I felt I needed to do was on the airbrakes. The brakes didn't really fit well in the closed position - gaps were just too big and would look bad filled. But they weren't molded with the holes, and the inside contained no detail. Here's a reference photo.

    You can see that the kit molded the "holes" as raised bumps, so first step was to sand that off.

    Then drilled pilot holes and used a knife to open up the openings - it was't a very clean job as small as they are, and I had to get creative with sandpaper and third hand tweezers to sand them as smooth as I could get them.

    Then used sheet styrene to create the back side and open up the slots in that piece as well. Overall, once done and from a distance, I think they'll at least look more realistic.

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    Paul Barber said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    Loving the attention to detail - Greg!

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    Paulo Castro said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    Very good detail and scratch build skills.

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    Allan J Withers said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    Well done Greg, a little or so extra work can make so much difference !

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    Greg Kittinger said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    Found one more spot I decided to add some detail to - I drilled out the gun exhaust ports and used a razor saw to deepen the vent grills. The model was also missing 3 of the 6 holes on each side, so added those. (sorry if the pic is a bit fuzzy - my camera had a hard time finding focus...)

    2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Chuck A. Villanueva said 6 years, 8 months ago:

    Nice work enhancing the kit Greg.

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    Greg Kittinger said 6 years, 5 months ago:

    Ok - I've got paint on, decals on, and am getting ready to get into the detailed paint work (probably using oil mapping to dress up the way the pink finish "stained" around panel lines and such). I'll post pics shortly, but in the mean time thought I would post here what I posted in the Trading Post - I only used one set of 6 that were included in the decal set, so if someone else would like to have 1/72 decals for a Desert Storm Jag, I'll mail them out at no cost to you. (of course the pics posted sideways - I forgot to leave margin to keep them oriented properly...wish we could fix that on the site...)

    2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

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    Paul Barber said 6 years, 5 months ago:

    Looking at the options I can't wait to see which decals you chose!

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    Morne Meyer said 6 years, 5 months ago:

    WOW. This is going to be a STUNNING Jaguar!