1/48 Kinetic Harrier GR1/3

[ElCapitan]

Now that I've cleared my backlog a bit, it's time to bring this one out the box. I bought this as a treat for myself when I got a pay-rise earlier in the year, and I've been looking forward to it a lot. I've always loved this version of the Harrier, especially the green and grey camouflage. This kit is supposedly excellent, so hopefully it's fun to put together.



Generous amount of plastic in the box, with all the sprues in separate bags.



As is usually the case with aircraft, the build starts with the cockpit. PE seatbelts are provided, which is quite nice. I don't particularly like how straight they look, but it's probably more natural looking than if I bent them in a gravity-defying way. Detail looks nice on the instrument panels too.



These will be primed and painted tomorrow morning, along with some other bits and pieces - air intake, landing gear bays.

[Garion77]

beautiful kit indeed ! Seems to have a lot of pieces ! Will follow for sure.

[digger303]

[MrBowcat]

Looks like a nice kit.

[Tomcat64]

Oh cool - I've looked at that kit more than once and not pulled the trigger yet so will be really interested to hear what you think of it.

[ElCapitan]

Thanks guys. I'm enjoying it so far!

The cockpit, landing gear bays and intake have all been painted. The cockpit still needs a bit of weathering on the side panels and bulkhead, but other than that I'm happy with how it's looking so far.







The cockpit, front gear bay and intake all go together to form a nice sub-assembly, which is pretty cool.



Once I've weathered the cockpit I'll just put together the thrust nozzle mechanism before I put the fuselage halves together.

[BigWall]

It's coming along nicely. Nice work with the cockpit!

[ElCapitan]

After a bit of fettling around the rear landing gear bay, I managed to get the two fuselage halves together. I'm not sure why it didn't fit easily - whether it was through an error I made, or the part just wasn't well designed. Probably the former!



Next up will be the rest of the intake parts. Annoyingly, there's a big ejector pin mark in the middle of both of the inner surfaces. A bit of vallejo plastic putty sorted them out - we'll see how they look once primed.

[RangerNeil]

Cockpit work is truly impressive - well done!!

[ElCapitan]

It's starting to look like a harrier now. I put together the wing piece without too much drama, and added the rest of the intake parts. They all fitted together nicely. The tail fin got some filler treatment at the root, but in all honesty I could have got away without doing that if I'd wanted. There are some very narrow gaps to the front and rear of the wing piece that will get some filler too.



It's around this point that I start picking it up and making jet noises. Anyone else do that?

Tail stabilisers and nose will be next, before all the small fiddly parts.

[ElCapitan]

Quick update:

I'm almost ready to prime, but upon attempting a dry-fit of the thrust nozzles, I discovered that the swivel mechanism actually makes it impossible to get them into place. I'm not really sure why Kinetic have done that. I was only really using it as a way of getting the angle of the nozzles correct, but should have just not used it. I'll try to shave them down enough to get the nozzles in place.

[digger303]

Quick update:

I'm almost ready to prime, but upon attempting a dry-fit of the thrust nozzles, I discovered that the swivel mechanism actually makes it impossible to get them into place. I'm not really sure why Kinetic have done that. I was only really using it as a way of getting the angle of the nozzles correct, but should have just not used it. I'll try to shave them down enough to get the nozzles in place.

Awe crap what a bugger damn

[ElCapitan]

Having received a clear sprue from Kinetic, I've managed to get this ready for priming at last.

[ForeverPlasticKits]

Great build, soon the paint i hope?

[digger303]

PAINT PAINT PAINT......

[Tomcat64]

Great to see it with the canopy in place and ready for paint

I missed the update about the nozzles and remember having similar problems with the Airfix 1/48 Harrier a few years back; I just put it down to Airfix at the time but maybe it's something they all suffer from

[ElCapitan]

PAINT PAINT PAINT......

Your wish is my command!

Primed in Stynylrez primer before I painted the camo using Tamiya XF-58 and XF-77. I used vinyl masks for this, but the instructions were terrible, so the entire front half had to be masked using blue-tac worms unfortunately.



I've glossed it too, with aquagloss. I'm one of those people who does see benefits in gloss before decals, having tried both methods several times.

I should get onto decals tomorrow hopefully. I foresee a bit of a problem though - the roundels for the underside are supposed to go just where the outer pylons are, so I'll likely have to do some cutting to make them fit round them. Should have left the pylons off till the end

[Tomcat64]

Great to see it in the camo colours, and sorting out the wraparound is a real PITA - especially on a harrier where there's no tail-pipe to hold it by.

Could you nip the pylons off and reattach them after the decals or is that more like to cause too much damage?

[ElCapitan]

Could you nip the pylons off and reattach them after the decals or is that more like to cause too much damage?

I though about doing that, but they're stuck fast. I might try to get a blade underneath and lever them off while softening the join with TET.

[Kevthemodeller]

Very late to this one, cracking so far, lovely cockpit detailing and the paints looking good

[ElCapitan]

That's all the decals done. I managed to cut the underside roundels to fit around the pylons which turned out to be a lot more painless than I expected.



Next I'll do a bit of light weathering before a satin varnish and it'll be done

[BigWall]

It's looking nice!

[digger303]

Nice

[Tomcat64]

Nice work Rob and well done on getting those underwing decals sorted without damaging anything.

[Kevthemodeller]

Looking even better Rob

[ElCapitan]

Thanks for watching and offering encouragement everyone

I finished this off with some subtle panel liner and then a coat of Vallejo satin varnish (first time using it, quite impressed).

The final pictures of the completed model is at viewtopic.php?f=45&t=29962