Full Monty TSR-2

[General Melchet]

Thanks fellas...flattery will get you everywhere    

Chris as for scheme, it's down to either an 81 squadron machine with grey/green topsides and LAG underneath and 'D' style markings ,or a 12 squadron machine with low viz markings in either blue/grey/lag or wraparound..circa mid 70's...

Markings will come from the excellent Model Alliance set....

Ordnance will be either two Blue Waters or  TV guided Martels plus the huge 1435 gal tank......it'll be one heavy mother when finished ..just glad I upped the brass rod axle diameter size !!!

Progress will be slow on this one due to all the dry fitting, research, dry fitting, swearing, dry fitting, etc, so please bear with me...

Cheers all,

Andy

[ChrisF]

Ive pretty much decided on a 13sqd Recce bird for mine... but theres a few others in the pile before that... and i need a new airbrush before i let loose on her...

[Mossie]

How about the wraparound, with a tank that they haven't yet got around to painting still in LAG?

Hang on a minute, blue/grey/lag?  Nearly missed that one, sounds 'ntresting Andy!

[General Melchet]

Sorry Mossie.......colour blind, result of a war wound received at SMW 1990 !!!...that should read green!!....mind you a PR blue one would look rather nice..Hhhhmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

[Mossie]

I've sometimes wondered about pre-raspberry ripple RAE & A&AEE aircraft from this era, gives you a free reign to paint your aircraft in pretty much whatever scheme & colour you want!

[General Melchet]

Quick....call out the guard, call out the guard.....nail big pieces of crooked wood against all the windows...progress has been made on this one!!!!!   After what seems like an eternity and with Telford looming large on the horizon, I've finally managed to splash some paint onto the TSR this week.

I didn't take many pictures of the tortuous job of scaling the intakes and adjusting the cones, intake widths, interior walls of these intakes, top inlet louvres, dorsal bulge, underside width errors and all the associated work that went into what I foolishly thought would be a five minute job and make me think that it would have been a darn sight easier just buying the Dynavector kit in the first place!!!!, but here are a few that I did manage,


These shows the intake and mid fuselage areas that needed drastic treatment, because the fuselage was so much wider than it should be the only way Airfix could manage to fit the intakes was to make them quite a bit smaller than they should be. The shock cones also presented a problem as they were now way too narrow and the way I got around this was to add 6mm Plasticard under each of them, superglue and sand to shape using Chris (Stringbags) drawings for frontal and profile scale.




The louvres on top of the fuselage are completely wrong on the kit and slightly out of position and so new ones were built up using scrap card and Milliput. As previously mentioned the dorsal 'bulge ' was way too pronounced and the wrong shape and so all this was sanded back to level and gradually built back up again using Milliput.







The intakes actually tow out slightly which is well caught in the resin replacements though as these were designed to fit the kit they are way too small again and so extra width was added using plasticard and filler. The inner parts of the splitter plates had to be built up from thin card as the kit parts were too small and thick. These plates stand away from the cone as well so this was done using scrap card a s a backing.





Hopefully in this shot you can see the new shape of the fuselage and intakes which I think looks a lot better than the kits effort.....all ready for priming...(the original plastic canopies were fitted for spraying as I'll add the vac ones right at the end)..











With the gloss white now added, (three shades of to add a bit of contrast, no pics I'm afraid) the bottom id masked up ready for the top sides grey primer...




The primer was then applied, sanded, and sanded again using Micro Mesh and then the top coat of Tamiya medium sea grey applied. Once this had cured for a few days the camo was masked out using Tamiya 6mm and ultra thin jammy dog tape and using a set of proposed camo guidelines that I have and then the thing was ready for the Tamiya RAF dark green to be applied,





Same went for the new resin tail surfaces,






And then the moment of truth...the peeling off to dsee how much overspray you've managed to  achieve!!!






And luckily..none at all!, which is a change, but then again I did spend 3 hours masking the damn thing!



















Now with the tailplanes and fin Kleared and some decals applied, all the main structure parts are finished,






Next up unveiling the underside and applying the decals to the mainplane and spaying the nose cone with Tamiya NATO black, (as well as fitting the recently acquired Qickboost pitot tube). After that comes the canopy, gear, intake relief doors and weapons..the Martels are ready and I've  just finished building the Blue Waters, and then of course all that lovely weathering.......... so plenty still to do!, :hobbyhorse:

Cheers all,

Melchie....

[Hobbes]

 

[ChrisF]

Assuming i actually MAKE it to telford this year i will def be keeping an eye out for this one !  GREAT work !   

[Pablo1965]

How can I loose this thread? WOW, this TSR will be a great model, an awesome plane, and the proud of his own, whom I envy.

[Devilfish]

Beautiful!!!


I start mine in the new year.....promise!!!

[General Melchet]

Thanks everyone, I'll do my level best to get her done in time but I have an awful lot of things on at the moment. Sadly I don't expect the F-111K to be ready for the show but I'll see what can be done...

Andy

[NARSES2]

Superb workmanship