I modified the gun pods by drilling holes and adding a cylinder for the barrel opening, and also a small rod as barrel inside. I also glued the exhaust vents and added some putty to the seams.

The front landing gear well is just an opening right into the rest of the plane, and does need some form of attention.

While pondering that, many of the small parts ended up in a paint “forrest”.

And the glass parts got a dip in Pledge/Future floor polish. The cast/copy is so bad that there’s no detail on the glass surfaces.

More putty and sanding! 🙂

Masked the canopy and front glass, making up for the missing frame.

I made a HUD display and put the pilot in place.

More in next part.

Håkan

I had to break up the tail a bit as it didn’t align right. managed to damage the rudder some. Easy to fix with some putty though.

Putty was also needed along the fuselage seam.

Putty was also used to cover some ejection pin marks.

After some sanding, the seam looked pretty okey. Usually have to put on a cote of primer to check if more work is needed.

The hardest area to clean up was in the wheel bays and air brake. Sorted that with a tool made from a piece of sprue, sanded slightly in an angle and with a small piece of sanding paper on top.

The cleaned up parts.

The wings built and test fitted against the fuselage.

A fit that wasn’t very good, and had to be adjusted some by taking of a bit from the tabs. After some work, the fit was acceptable.

Some putty and cleaning up on the wing joints.

Next, more putty and sanding.

Håkan

First I added detail to the seat, as it was a tad too simple. As I’ve decided to use the pilot I didn’t need to do any belts.

The pilot got some color on the uniform, and the cockpit and fan got a cote of black.

The pilot and seat got some more colors. I mostly worked with different tones of green/olive green. White helmet and black gloves and boots.

Silver (Hu11) was painted on the fan, and then masked off, and the cockpit side walls was painted a medium grey.

The pilot got some shadows and dry brushed highlights.

and the cockpit got some grey.

I test fitted the wings, and they don’t align. Part of the problem is the tab that prevents the upper wing half to align nicely to the fuselage. Also the wings halves doesn’t align, which needs to be sorted.

After removing the location tabs, the fit was a lot better.

Once that was sorted, I glued the fuselage halves.

This concludes this part.

Next, puttying, sanding and assembly of small parts.

Cheers,

Håkan

I’ve started this build as a part of a group or buddy build, dedicated to the Harrier 50 year anniversary. I have both the Tamiya and Hobbycraft boxings of the same model, and choose the HC one to build, as the decals to the Tamiya kit had a yellow tone to the white areas. Having no replacement decals made it an easy choice. In retrospect I should have choosen differently, for reason that will be explained later in the build.

Anyway, as I had a deadline to follow, I had to get cracking with the build. As there was a bit of competition, with prizes included, pictures of the box and contents with some sort of time/date stamp was required.

Those pics were taken with my android, and not so good, but they filled their purpose.

The first things to be done is the cockpit and the engine. I choosed to not show the engine, but it still needs to sit there in order to hold the exhaust vents.

The engine was a pretty quick assembly.

Sadly the fit in the fuselage, mainly to the intakes, wasn’t very good.

So I decided to do something to sort that. i started by cutting the location tabs, and cleaning up the intake cone. I also removed the tabs from the fan and cleaned that up too.

The alignment of the engine and fan cone wasn’t good, so I cut away the fan, so I could get that part sit right. I also glued the cone parts to the fuselage to get them to sit right.

I painted the fan too, even of much of it won’t be seen once assembled.

It looks kinda crazy with the engine tilted that way, but it actually aligns with the openings for the exhausts. I don’t know if HC have made some error when copying Tamiyas kit, but in my point of view, it’s pretty possible.

Next up is the cockpit and fuselage assembly.

Cheers,

Håkan