Revell 1/32 Tornado GR1 - Desert War

[BarryW]

Well after that abortive piece of Kitty Hawk junk it is over to Revell junk - well perhaps this kit is not quite so junk like.

This is a 20 year old tooling with decent recesssed detail and my first impressions are of a kit that is better than many new tools. It is light years ahead of the Kitty Hawk and a lot better than my last Revell kit, a 'new tool' 1/32 FW190.

Revel have upped their game with the presentation and packing of this kit.

It now has a strong(ish) top opening box.


The instructions are no longer that mess that we are so used to with Revell, now nicely presented in colour.




I am using the kit decals, unusual for me but there are two very nice options. her they are with the aftermarket that I have for this:


They are now also presenting the plastic in seperate bags, well except for sprue A which was not bagged for some reason...


here is my workbench, cleaned up and set up for this build.



I have not ruled out getting seatbelts for this, or even a.m. seats. I will decide on that as I get on with the build.

[peterairfix]

I am going to watch as I have the very same kit taunting me from the top of the wardrobe but I have been to apprehensive to start it after the nightmares with the last Revell tornado.

[boatman]

HI Barry so the tiger is no go then ?
chris

[BarryW]

HI Barry so the tiger is no go then ?
chris

No, the Tiger is a 'go' but after this build. I did not want to go straight into another KW straight after the OV-10 farce,

[Jim R]

Hi Barry
As I said on the other thread that is no more - onwards and upwards. Glad this kit looks OK.
Jim

[BarryW]

I cut plastic last night, working on the seats.

Here are the parts for the first stage of the seats. Note the deep sink hole, a bit of filler solves that but this is that soft plastic that we often see from Revell which is more prone to this issue and flash than the better quality plastics that companies like Tamiya use.

That said this is a 20 year old tooling and I have seen worse on new toolings (Kitty Hawk and their dreadful brittle plastic for example).


the seats build up well, fit is decent.

Looking at the seat now I should really get some lead wire out, but I have another plan...
Below we see the rest of the seat parts, after a fair bit of clean up. The more complex shapes do result in a fair bit of flash and burring but it is easily dealt with. The i.p. panels and cockpit floor have also been cleaned up but they only needed me to sand off the sprue attachment points.


Looking at these parts I do think this kit will benefit from resin seats so I am going to order them. Not sure about the rest of the 'pit. I will take a look at whats available later before deciding.

[BarryW]

I now have the Quickboost ejection seats on order for this.

[Mickc1440]

Looking forward to seeing this one come together Barry

[BarryW]

Look what arrived today....


Much nicer than the kit parts.

[Vaughan]

That was quick Barry! they look very well detailed.

[BarryW]

They are very nice with just the block to remove and a little clean up.

Here is one side by side with the kit part.

[Jim R]

Hi Barry
The resin seats are far, far better. Worth the extra expense.
Jim

[BarryW]

Tonight I prepped the seats and have applied a black primer to the cockpit parts.



As you can see there are not a lot of components to the pit and is a lot simpler than I am used to. There is some room to add detail but I am not going to do so. I will build with the pit closed and there won’t be a lot seen of the interior so I think what the kit provides is enough. A really enjoyable build so far, fit good overall.

[BarryW]

This morning I painted the cockpit with dark gull grey.

I painted the seats over three masking stages, graphite for the top, field green for the leather and dark gull grey for the main parts. Because of the complex shapes a fair bit of touching up is now needed where paint bled under the masking. Now MRP are no good for brush painting and when you touch up with a brush it lifts the base colour, though it can be done. So I am experimenting, I have laid down a layer of acrylic matt varnish that wo t be affected by the solvent. In theory, when I dab touch ups of MRP it will not lift paint and will make the touching up easier.

Once the touching up is finished I will get on an paint the seatbelts and other details all with Vallejo Model Colour acrylics.

How the seats look now before touch ups and detail painting

[flyjoe180]

Nice work Barry.