Imai Spectrum Passenger Jet

[Guest]

With the passing of Gerry Anderson yesterday, I couldn't return to the Hurricane until I had done something to commemorate Gerry's vision, imagination and innovation, so I searched the stash and found the Imai Spectrum Passenger Jet that I picked up at SMW back in November, so this is what I will be building!

As usual for Imai models, they HAD to turn it into a toy by adding missiles that could be fired from under the wings!

Needless to say, I will be removing this "feature", and instead will be adding some flashing warning lights on the wingtips and maybe a light in the cockpit. The decals look decent, but whether they will be okay after all this time is something I guess I'll be finding out when the time comes!

More to come soon....

[Guest]

So first thing to consider is how I'm going to display it. Well first off I will NOT be using the awful wheels and "undercarriage" that comes with the kit. See the white fuselage in the above shot - that white "blob" that hands down underneath like some bloated bogey is supposed to be where the main wheels go. Give me a break PULEEZE!!! So thats going to come off so it'll be displayed flying...

Then comes the decision on how to do the lighting, and how to power it. This is connected to the subsequent design of the flying display - the base is usually the best place to locate the battery pack. It then comes down to how do you transfer the power to the model. In the past I've had to perform tricks like the acrylic rod with the power plug buried in the end for the Stingray Model and for the Babylon 5 Starfury the lighting kit came with a plug and socket to fit into the existing model stand. For this build I'm going to dig out one of those really useful big Airfix stands and one of my stock of small picture frames, along with a battery box that will contain 4 AA batteries to give me 6 volts to play with.

First off need to do some surgery to the stand to fit the battery box underneath as the back of the stand is quite shallow. The bottom of the picture frame is replaces with a sheet of .75mm thick plastic card to allow enough depth for the battery pack.

The top of the stand has been chopped off at an angle to put the model into a climbing attitude and a 2.5mm power plug is embedded in the top after having had wires soldered onto the contacts. Here is the base without the Airfix stand so you can see the battery box.

The plastic card underneath the batter box has been cut open to allow the batteries to be replaced.

Next, a 5mm hole was drilled in the bottom of the fuselage where the undercarriage "blob" has been cut off and the matchign socket to the 2.5mm plug has been lined up ready for the fuselage to be assembled around it

Next the slots used as part of the missile firing mechanism are filled with plastic strip

Here is the tail and upper engine intake construction - as usual with Imai kits, lots of sanding/filling of joints , followed by re-scribing the panel lines - er trenches!

Next, the wings have holes drilled in the tips and some fibre optic is fixed into the wing

then closed up with some spare fibre sticking out so that when the paint is sprayed later it won't block the fibres.

Finally for this update, a test fit of the main components:

Sadly the most annoying part of the build is the news that the flashign LEDs I ordered from eBay won't arrive until Jan 2nd at the earliest, so I'll have to make do with temporary fixings and testing with static LEDs that I already own, so the upper front of the fuselage will be left off to allow me access to the inside to install the LEDs when they eventually arrive. I'll be using some heat shrink tubing to attach the fibre optic to the LED, an idea I'm copying from the Starfury build!

[mossiepilot]

Another beaut in the making Andrew. I'm looking forward to seeing this completed.

Tony.

[papa 695]

A very nice tribute Andrew, Jerry was my childhood hero. The Thunderbirds was the best program ever I have Thunderbirds 1,2,3,4 and 5 in the stash so may build a tribute myself. But will watch this with interest

[Alan 45]

I loved all of his puppet shows and the models that made them look so fantastic.

im looking forward to seeing the completed build , she looks a beaut

[yak face]

Top work andrew! We all love gerry anderson stuff dont we, cant wait to see this one finished , cheers tony

[Guest]

Thanks guys

Well there was good news today, the flashing LEDs arrived! Very impressed with the eBay shop I bought them from on Thursday!!! So things have progressed apace!

I left you last time with a bit of a teaser about the base - I bet you all thought "black base on a bit of wood isn't going to look good" and I agree, which is why it got sprayed white...

and here you can see my plan to hide the workings! You can also see I've added an on/off switch just to show off

With all the cotton wool - I mean clouds in place it looks like this:

Here in close up you can see the red and green flashing LED's already sleeved with heat shrink tube ready for the fibre optics to be attached.

Fuselage finally joined together but did need some extensive sanding and filling

Here you can see the electronics:

Next, the tail section has been assembled - this too care as the fibre optics have to pass through everything. The fit of the wings was atrocious - needed several plastic shims to fill the gaps!

I forgot to take photos during the assembly of the cockpit and passenger section! Here is a pic of where it is now:

You can't see in the windows currently as they are covered with masking fluid to protect them against the paint that will be on soon, but you should be able to see 2 rows of red passenger seats through the blue tinted window. I sprayed some Tamiya clear blue onto the transparencies to give them a blue tint. I've added some extra detail to the cockpit as well. Out of the box al you get in the cockpit is an empty seat and an upper torso figure, so I added some consoles and whatnot. There is a decal for the instrument console.

Here is the torso figure painted up to be Captain Scarlet:

Since the photos were taken, the fuselage and tail have had primer sprayed and the front canards added to the fuselage (I forgot them until after I'd sprayed primer!). I've also removed the spurious probe from the nose of the fuselage. You can see here

that there is no probe - SIG

Dum dum dum da da da dum...

[Andy2035]

It's a real shame they all rely too much on CGi these days, I used to and still do prefer the old Gerry Anderson models and programmes...

This is looking great, I do like the LED touch, may I ask, do you get the LED's and the Fibre Optics in a complete set...

[Guest]

No the fibre optic cable was left over from the Babylon 5 Starfury build and the LEDs were boughto ff eBay a couple of a days ago. I went for LEDs that already had resistors connected so I didn't have to worry about that. This means they will work okay from a 6V supply, ie 4xAA batteries.

I would like to find a place where I can source further fibre optic cable, but none of the searches I put into Google come up with a shop that will do a hobbist-style amount rather than 200m drums!!!

[Guest]

Love your Sci-fi models Andrew!! It's a real beauty.

And your touch with lights is great, made it different!

Have fun

[yak face]

No the fibre optic cable was left over from the Babylon 5 Starfury build and the LEDs were boughto ff eBay a couple of a days ago. I went for LEDs that already had resistors connected so I didn't have to worry about that. This means they will work okay from a 6V supply, ie 4xAA batteries.I would like to find a place where I can source further fibre optic cable, but none of the searches I put into Google come up with a shop that will do a hobbist-style amount rather than 200m drums!!!

Andrew , a good source of short lengths of fibre optic is the cheap battery powered ufo lamps . You can pick them up cheap this time of year and the battery compartment ,switch and led might be useful too. Heres a link to an old post in the unconventional materials thread (its about halfway down the page) its got a pic of what im on about , cheers tony http://www.scale-models.co.uk/quick-tips/7842-unconventional-modelling-materials-list-6.html

[Guest]

Look around you local pound shops and pick up some LEDs in the sales for 50p (you get 20 LEDs and a battery pack) Last year there were all colours available. (Including flashing sets but i'll expect the flasher component is in the battery pack at that price)

Also there will be some fibre-optic xmas trees going cheap, there's plenty of short lengths on those table top style for a couple of quid.

As for the model ... well ... its the same old story ....

You take a couple of bits of undetailed plastic ..... work your "Andrew Magic" ...... and end up with a top quality build we mere mortals only think of doing..

nuff said

[Guest]

Thanks Colin, that is high praise indeed

Thanks for the link to the thread Tony, that is a bloody good idea! We have a garish pink Christmas tree in the office (we LOVE the tackiest most tasteless decorations we can find in our office) which is also fibre optic, so maybe I can nick a branch from it

I am almost at the end of this tribute build, so here is one final progress report...

Now that all the main components are ready for paint and final assembly, I did a test of the flashing LED lights... oh dear, they were not very bright. The problem is there isn't enough fibres to carry enough light to each wing. Its a bit late to add more so instead I'll just add MORE POWER!! (urf urf!)

So now there are 2 6v battery packs hidden under the cotton wool!

Now we come to paint and there is a bit of a masking job here to get the colour demarcations on the wing. First off the wing and fuselage were sprayed with a custom mix of XF-16 Aluminium with a drop of X3 Royal Blue added to give it a slight blue sheen. Once this was try I masked up the tail to spray the blue over the top in the upper fuselage and tail:

Next will be the white on the strip down the fuselage and the bulky lower part of the tail...

In the mean time I finally remembered to attach the canards at the front of the fuselage:

This is after a bit more masking and painting to get the darker silvery-blue band on the nose and the red band around the middle and the mid-grey panel where the cockpit and passenger section will slot in.

With the cockpit and passenger section slotted in:

and from the other side

After this, the wings and tail were finished off but I forgot to photograph the progress - it was a matter of spraying several coats of white primer then some gloss white over the top, then repairing the damage caused when the masking tape came off The fibre optic bundles were mated with the relevant LED, using the heat shrink tubing plus a dab of CY glye to give a good seal and then the wings and tail were attached to the fuselage.

Once this was done, I started with the decals from the kit. Sadly these almost immediately started falling apart, but I was able to use some of the Spectrum roundels from an Angel Interceptor in the stash, so this wasn't a total disaster. The Angel decals are a bit smaller than those with the kit but they went on okay and will do the job.

When fitting the wing and passenger section together I discovered a large gap, so this had to be filled with a plastic scrip which was then painted the same colour as the fuselage.

Its virtually complete, I just need to take some decent photos of it, but that will have to wait until I get some daylight in the conservatory at the weekend...

[Guest]

I will be waiting for this pics Andrew!!

Love it so far!

Cheers. Polux

[Guest]

Thanks Polus

So I'm calling this complete now and here are the photos to prove it!

To be brutally honest, the paintwork could be better - had problems with the masking due to the panel lines - er trenches and the fit of some of the pieces. The LED lighting doesn't really show up very well unless you are at a particular angle - ie edge on to the wing

I can't honestly say this is one of my better builds...