It
was with great enthusiasm that I bought this kit. On first glance
everything looked really good – hundreds of beautifully molded sprues firmly
packed into Hasegawa’s usual high quality boxing.
It
was only once construction commenced that the horror became evident. Nasty
fit everywhere. The engineering of this kit in the forward fuselage /
intake area is not good – I suppose Hasegawa was trying to accommodate future
releases of GR.7/9 versions? Problem areas aplenty:
-
Nose
to fuselage fit
-
Intake
to fuselage fit
-
Gun
and ammo pod to fuselage fit
-
Incredibly
nasty seam between upper wing and fuselage on underside of LERXs
-
Unsightly
gaps between intake trunking and forward fuselage
-
The
nasty seam on the canopy which required an hour’s worth of fine
sanding, polishing, more polishing and more polishing and finally a
hairline fracture in the embrittled clear plastic just added to the
frustration.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Anyway,
after several on and off builds over a period of two years the model was
ready for painting and an end to the frustration was in sight.
Painting was quite complex around the intake area and exhaust areas. I
used a combination of XtraColour gloss and Model Master matt greys.
Happily, the decals were the usual superb Hasegawa offering and went on
very well with MicroSol/Set. Weathering was achieved with pastels and a
final coat of XtraColour matt varnish ended the project. The kit
comes with wing tanks, LANTIRN pod and Sidewinders. I added an LGB
from the Hasegawa weapons set for a standard operational weapons setup
Anyway,
I suppose the end result is OK and it goes nicely with the rest of my
modern jet collection.
Malcolm
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