US Marines - AV-8B Harrier II - Trumpeter 1/32

[themongoose]

So many possible schemes to do! I really love the winter camouflage, maybe a night attack version, Desert Storm maybe? Well I'll have some time to decide as this won't get really going until after NATS but I better start the thread so I commit myself to doing it



I've got a good deal of aftermarket for it so it should come out looking more like a Harrier than Trumpy tried to make. I won't correct everything for sure as it does look the part as is in terms of overall profile. In the end though who knows what rabbit-hole I'll go down once I actually start assembling plastic



Well i was on the road for work this week so decided to drag this kit along and do some assembly in the evenings! Pretty much just some standard assembly. Thought i would show the mods i’ve made so far using Dave Roof’s tweak list (from the LSP forum thread pages as Trumpy really messed this one up).
i cleaned up the rough molding on each side of the fuselage




filled in the vent alignment marks trumpy put in. I decided on a day attack harrier so these needed covered up.



Sanded off the square radar



filled in the duplicate access panel



i also got rid of what i think are mold insert marks around the extension from the wing leading edge. In bright light i see these will need a little sanding before primer to see if everything is gone.



Forgot to grab a pic of the fire access ports on the LERX. I drilled them to face forward as suggested. As expected I’ve contemplated going overboard and fixing the nose up. Dave put some good overlays in his thread and i think i can reform the nose relatively easily. I am skipping one of the mods that isn’t really seen, the thick vertical band that trumpy made proud of the surface in the intakes. Doesn’t look hard tho so I bet i change my mind on that. Will get back to this after NATS gang. See you then!

[406 Silverado]

Oh man.......a 1/32 scale Harrier!! Wow!!! This outta be one heckuva treat right here.

There's already a slew of work being done on this and we haven't even started the assembly process yet. 

[kyledehart5]

Holy cow!!! Incredible in 1/32. Look forward to watching it come together.

[handiabled]

Bookmarked this! Nice work on the corrections!

[themongoose]

Jul 14, 2024 1:12:06 GMT -5 kyledehart5 said:

Holy cow!!! Incredible in 1/32. Look forward to watching it come together.

You know, it is bigger than I thought it was going to be. Even in person I always that was a small chair but it’s probably still 16 inches long maybe so some detailing should show up pretty well. Although there isn’t a lot of detail on this thing. The plastic is kind of barren.

[themongoose]

Ok this is embarrassing…any designer worth a crap should know not to put giant ejector pin marks here, let alone on a complex curve surface!!!

[keavdog]

Man that is huge! Ya - not the best place for ejector pin marks...

[kyledehart5]

Gigantic AND annoying. 🤦🏻‍♂️ what a pain.

[handiabled]

What were they thinking when they...... oh wait, it's a Trumpeter kit. Carry on!

[406 Silverado]

Jul 30, 2024 21:45:44 GMT -5 themongoose said:

Ok this is embarrassing…any designer worth a crap should know not to put giant ejector pin marks here, let alone on a complex curve surface!!!

Jul 31, 2024 8:47:29 GMT -5 handiabled said:

What were they thinking when they...... oh wait, it's a Trumpeter kit. Carry on!

 Yup......when you say Trumpeter and injector pin marks......you've said it ALL. 

Sorry you're having this issue Chris. I'm sure you'll move past this obstacle but you shouldn't have to. 

[Steve Zuleski]

Impressive project, Chris. What a huge kit, promising to be a doozy when it's done, bookmarked.

[Medicman71]

Any kit maker that puts ejector pins in the intake should be taken out and publicly flogged.

[brandonk]

This is already looking better than all the 1/48 kits out there. Bookmarked.

[deafpanzer]

WHOA! You are going BIG this time. You definitely have my attention too. Good luck!

[themongoose]

Making a little progress this week. Nothing special going on yet, just some assembly 

fan’s looking good




seams on the fuselage look good in bare plastic. We’ll see what it looks like when i get to primer. I’m getting pretty good with the black CA so hopefully nothing to see when we get there 







Getting the internals to match up was tough.


it’s enuff to make me wonder whether to leave the wheels down or do an in-flight display. Any thoughts from you guys?

[armornutii]

   I'm a " Lazyboy" modeler so if it's a bunch of work on something that will be difficult to see without a mirror....I put her in her natural habitat...about 3 scale feet off the deck pulling a dust rooster.....but that's just me. You Chris on the other hand are a master...and can make a turd look like a polished gem.

[themongoose]

Dude you’re hilarious 😂 and now…WTH is a dust rooster? Hilarious and i don’t even know what it is. Must be your delivery 👍

[handiabled]

In-flight would be pretty awesome    

[armornutii]

Aug 27, 2024 21:59:40 GMT -5 themongoose said:

Dude you’re hilarious 😂 and now…WTH is a dust rooster? Hilarious and i don’t even know what it is. Must be your delivery 👍

 A dust rooster you ask??? Well sir in actuallity it's a rooster tail...only dry....dust rooster

[themongoose]

I’m preparing to change the look of the nose. Following Dave Roof’s thread from Flying Leathernecks i rescribed the nose hinge line 3/32” forward.


you can see also when i went around the panel with a needle in a pin vise to establish the rivet location before sanding down the way to proud panel.



I found letting the area dry just a bit that the dust in the holes dries different so it’s easy to locate the holes and then make them uniform.
And finally some bondo! Will clean this up later and use some fine filler to smooth it out. Let’s hope the angle looks right!




Following up on my question about wheels up…i looked over the Eduard set i have and it has high potential to clean up alot of the crap fit in the gear bays. That has swayed me to put the ole girl on her legs!
Next question is…do i score the wings and add the wing kink or not? Those of you who’ve followed a few of my builds can probably guess the outcome no matter what i say at this point in time 🤣
cheers guys 🍻

[M1Carbine]

HOLY AFTERMARKET BATMAN!

Looks freaking awesome so far. Im tuned in.

-Bob

[kyledehart5]

This is an amazing project!!

[brandonk]

It's been a hot minute since I went through this much extra work on an AC. This is gonna look stellar and I can't wait to see more.

[Steve Zuleski]

A lot of detail work, means this is going to be a doozy, excellent!

[themongoose]

Soo glad you guys are enjoying this! I don’t want to disappoint anyone so let’s keep this build going 🍿
Next up is the kinky wing  
what i decided to do was scribe the backside of the wing from the forward fence back to the flap edge on the outboard side. I cut some brass and bent it to 10deg. Best i could come up with was to measure the dihedral off a front on shot of the Harrier.  Once i locked in the angle i filled the scribing with black ca and assembled it all. 





now that looks more like a Harrier Jump Jet!!
I’m working on blending in the leading edge along the dihedral. With the change in angle the top and bottom don’t line up anymore. Some bondo glazing putty should do the trick. More tomorrow when i start sanding the nose and wings 

[themongoose]

I’m working on a bunch of smll stuff. Couldn’t help putting some primer around the fuselage to see how my bondo job came out…







Ohh yeah! Pretty happy with that 👍 1st time too, no rework even.

The worst of the misc stuff oddly has been the flaps. They don’t fit at all. I had to cut off the positioning tabs and sand all the sides. 🤪

[kyledehart5]

Great work!! Everything is looking awesome. Fantastic work on the wings.

[handiabled]

Superb work with the corrections! It looks like you nailed the dihedral perfectly to me!