1/32 Tamiya Mudhen

[eaglecash867]

Slowly working this one alongside the Boss 351 Mustang.

Just have the rear seat to finish and put in.  Anybody who picks this kit up, beware of the ejection seats if you plan to have a closed cockpit.  They sit WAY too high in the cockpit and won't allow the canopy to close all the way, and, well, they're just so high it just looks goofy.  I cut out the middle portions of each of the seat bases and then reattached the bottoms of the seat bases to the bottom of the seat.  Had to carve out the slots for the seat bases in the floor to get an easy, yet snug slide-in.  The cockpit is a mish-mash of kit parts, Eduard parts, and Quinta parts (the belts and ejection handles), with the nasty Tamiya throttles having been removed and replaced with scratch-built throttles that I made by scaling down the measurements I took off my HOTAS Warthog.  I think they came out looking decent...much better than the little pegs Tamiya had as "throttles".  The screens are all the original Tamiya clear parts painted on the front with Tamiya Clear Green and Clear Red to get a good, translucent brown, then I painted the back with Alclad Gold Titanium, and covered that with gloss black.  Just realized I still have to paint the O2 bottle bracket, but that should be easy to do.  

[buddho]

That cockpit looks fantastic.🤓

[handiabled]

The Quinta panels add so much dimension to an office, I look forward to using them in the future. Your work on this cockpit is outstanding!

[brandonk]

Excellent pit. Thanks for the heads up on the seats.

[deafpanzer]

The cockpit looks great now!

[M1Carbine]

Front office looks fantastic.

-Bob

[TJ]

Damn......that looks real

[406 Silverado]

VERY good start up on that interior/ cockpit Eagle. LOTS of eye candy going on in there. These newer cockpits like these lend themselves to a good display of detail simply because just about every space in the pit is used. Great work so far bud.

[themongoose]

This will be great to follow. How much of the MudHen mods you planning to make? I understand there’s a big differences between the C and E vs the MudHen but haven’t ever done one.

[eaglecash867]

Thanks for the comments gentlemen.

Oct 5, 2023 8:52:54 GMT -5 themongoose said:

This will be great to follow. How much of the MudHen mods you planning to make? I understand there’s a big differences between the C and E vs the MudHen but haven’t ever done one.

I might be misunderstanding your question, but the MudHen is the E.  Mine will be an ODS era bird.  I have had this one on and off the shelf since about 1993, actually.  Just got started on it and then the life of an early 20-something happened, which began my 20+ year modeling hiatus.  Most of the work on the cockpit (except for the mounting of the scratchbuilt throttles and the seat) was done around 2019, which was the year I got really bad news at the doctors office that lead to a year-long battle, so back on the shelf it went.  Just got it back out a few weeks ago.  Hopefully I can get it finished this time around.  

[themongoose]

No, I think it was me thinking the Mudhen was a version different from the E and the C. So i still learned something here! 👍

[eaglecash867]

Well, they did have an F-15B that was the test bed for the Strike Eagle program, so maybe that was what you were thinking about.  That was what the old 1/32 Revell Strike Eagle was based on, with the Charcoal Lizard camo scheme.