BlrwestSiR

Nice start Rog and like Rob said, a great comparison between this and the Beemax kit.

Thanks! What work desk? Oh you mean my pile of tools that I keep within easy reach..

Perfect start Chris. When fitting the intake, don't worry about the step at the bottom. It's best to make sure the intake matches up to the fuselage as smoothly as possible. Any step at the bottom will be covered by the wing and won't be seen. You can thin the fuselage insides to tweak the fit to the intake but it's well worth doing as you can save a lot of sanding and filling later. One last bit of AM you might consider. AMS Resin did replacement vari-ramps. They'll fit the GT intakes (or any other brand's for that matter) and add a bit more detail. Hopefully B&B has the moulds for them if you decide to get some. Here's another pic I found from my last F-4 build. Good old mass production lol. Carl

Woohoo! Glad it arrived safely. If postage wasn't so expensive I would have sent the Tomcat box intact just to have some fun. As it is, the Cutlass probably isn't much more work than building a Tamiya 'cat.

The Cylon frisbee really doesn't leave much room for anything else on my bench. So I guess I best finish it before I go back to one of my other projects. With that in mind, I did the detail painting on the canopy. First I did the frames and panels in Light Ghost Grey. This was done freehand. The grey was then masked off and I sprayed the semi-gloss black. Unmasked. There are a couple stripes on each outer wing. I again masked things off and then sprayed them. I used Extra Dark Sea Grey for these. With both sides done.

Fur does her best to keep me in line. I'm probably one of the few modelers who has a cat in their lap while they're at the bench.

Wow, impressive re-do. Can't believe you got the glass out without it breaking.

Can't wait to see this build. MFH kits are crazy detailed.

Really nice build with your typical high standard of finish. And speed.

Thanks folks! When I first picked up the kit, I didn't quite expect it to be as big as it is. The hull just fit inside the box, not what I was expecting. Onto today's progress. Fur stopped by to check on the nozzles and gave her jab of approval. I used UV gel to glue the LEDs to the back of the nozzles. Then it was time to install them and close up the hull halves. All the wires have been run through to the cockpit, which there thankfully isn't one. With the canopy in place and on its stand. Getting closer to the finish line.

Well, if they're large scale which I think the site defines as 1/35 of larger or they're large in size and a scale model, I imagine the standard sections would apply. Otherwise, the non-LSM section would make the most sense for now. They're not horribly strict on things around here.

Really nice work Peter. The missiles look fantastic.

Continuing the lighting, I installed the coaming lights and ran the wiring through the panel and then the coaming. The panel was then glued to the coaming. I then glued the louvers to the upper hull. The mid sections were next. The next section was the rear of the cockpit. I did a test fit of the upper hull to the lower with the canopy in place. Lastly, I glued the vanes into the engine nozzles. The fit was a bit loose so I used a clamp to tighten it up.

Paul, sorry to hear about the CA spill. Any chance you can use debonder to clean it up? The CA shouldn't have done any damage to the plastic unless it kicked off thermally. I had that happen once when I put a dropper full of CA accelerator into the CA bottle by accident. The bottle got really hot and smoked. Then it hardened into a solid lump.

Thanks Pete! Welcome aboard. We're a fun group here. If you like the dog, you should see my cat when I'm at the bench. She's often in my lap or worse, on the bench.

The second wing is now on. Size comparison.

Time for fun with lights. The wing lights I bought are synchronized so that they'll blink in unison. Which means they're connected to one another. So I had to run them through the lower hull and then out to the wings. No biggie, except it meant I have to run them through the lower hull, then through the upper wing and then glue the LED to the lower wing. In order: 1) run through lower hull 2) run through upper wing 3) glue LED to lower wing 4) glue upper and lower wings together 5) glue wing to lower hull Now to repeat for the other side.

Peter, I probably have ADD or something. Honestly I have no idea how I keep track of things myself at times.

I finally picked up the YF-22 kit from the LHS today. It looks like the exhaust nozzles could work for my F-15.

I got home from work today and Jimmy was on the couch fast asleep. He didn't even wake up when I came in. Just kept sleeping.

And then some! But worth it for being able to get some fairly rare kits at a really great price.

Finally made it to the LHS today. Work took me nearby so I ran in and grabbed the YF-22 I need for my F-15 J build. The LHS set aside a couple extra kits for me. That's the most I've spent in a long time at my LHS.

So what are you going to do when the Tomcat I sent you shows up?

I did some more paint work last night which was basically post shading the model. I'm masking off the odd panel and then spraying a slightly darker grey to break things up.

Thanks Peter! The coaming lights were the hardest to sort out. The rest are going to be much easier to install.