Revell Eurofighter Typhoon - Build

Schnemat
so i've started with the next build. i decided to do the Revell Eurofighter. with my last build i figuref out that my sanding ans putty skills need to improve, that's why i chose a but an older kit and yes, it hasn't disappointed me so far, lot's of opportunities to improve my skills 🙂

Michael Phillips
Count me in! I have this kit as well, but have heard some not-so-nice things about the fit and engineering of this kit. Looks like you are taking care of business here though. From what I understand the intakes are a nightmare.

Slavo Hazucha
I'll check in here as well - experience tells that it should be a nice journey to watch😉 So is there an actually good Eurofighter kit in 48-scale?

Schnemat
Thanks for your nice & funny comments! The intake is literally a dozen pieces which need to be aligned, really tedious. But looking at others finalized Eurofighter, it can look good, and that keeps me motivated. And yes, it was also a bit of a disappointment to find out that there is actually no good kit of the Eurofighter in 48-scale. I think it's a good looking jet in reality and it would have deserved sth better.

playtime 222
Watching cos I have this pig too

Schnemat
So after working a bit with filler & putty I sprayed some black color to check and I'm quite happy with it. The gaps near the vertical stab are gone and also the cockpit area looks ok, there is a bit of a step behind the instrument panel, where I'm unsure if the real one has that. But as there was a huge gap before I can accept how it looks now.

Schnemat
very minor progress as other things keep me busy (too many hobbies...). ejector seat is done and looks good, i went over everything (incl PE parts) with a dark panel wash, looks more naturally than without it. also the gear bays are painted and are receiving the first steps of weathering. hopefully i can glue the fuselage together by the end of this week.

Slavo Hazucha
Stylish seat - is that the Eduard PE on basic Revell plastic - looks really good 👍

Really looking forward to the next phases - I know you can pull some tricks with a jet & I am curious how far the Revell Eurofighter can be pushed😉

Adam Gudynowski
Nice 👍

Danumurthi Mahendra
I love the seat. much improvement in details

Maciej Bellos
Following!

Alexander
Following, will look carefully at your take on this kit for possible help/inspiration as I plan on tackling the Eurofighter as one of my next kits.
I actually built it last year in my beginnings in scale modelling and have a much better memory of this kit then what I've heard - but maybe that's because I my have not took much effort into fixing the issus. 🤔 😄

Nathan Dempsey
Nice work. Can't wait to see more.

Schnemat
Thank you all for your comments and interest in my eurofighter build, didn't expect that!😉 I'm going to focus a bit more on the "pain points", so that you guys who have the kit in the stash know what to expect. As you can see in my latest pictures, the top and bottom part of the left wing do not align reasonably (the right side is okayish). As a first step I cut off the outer aileron (ailevator?) so that i can better work on it but i'm still unsure how to correct it. Just filing will not to it, it would leave a huge gap. Any ideas?

Schnemat
@ Slavo & Danumurthi: Yes, this is the eduard pe set on the OOB ejector seat. As i metioned aboive i went over the whole seat with a gloss varnish and then used some black panel line wash (also a bit of dry brushing with grey). It came out nicely. I know Slavo, you are expecting some oils on it, but i still shy away from that 🙂 I will probably go over it with a satin or matte finish.

Alexander
They are called elevons, from aileron and elevator. 🙂

Schnemat
thanks Alexander, i knew it was a combination of sth😉

Slavo Hazucha
If you want to do a really clean job and invest some time, I´d recommend to carefully cut all the moving parts from the rear wing section on both sides, asses the new gaps & widen one of the moving surfaces by gluing a slightly larger piece of plastic sheet to it, once dry file away any surplus so it completely matches the profile - then glue everything back into place with the gap dimensions of your preference 🙂

The way things look on the pics it may also be worthwhile to sharpen the trailing edge on the entire wing a bit after upper & lower wing sections come together...

Nathan Dempsey
I remember needing many clamps in this area.

playtime 222
Looking good so far. Glad it's not as bad as I had heard but it's the only 1/48 game in town. Funny story. I actually worked on the diagnostic software for this... For about 2 weeks cos I lost my temper with utter waste of money and pork-barrelling going on with certain consultancy companies... I called them on their bullshit cos I had too many principles and a father in the RAF. Shame that it ended up with half of the tech in the cockpit coming from the yanks l. Not that euro in the end ????

Daniel
Well it could be worse, recently finished an italeri...this one is already in my shopping cart, so watching with interest! Nice work so far, esp. the seat is a little gem 👍

Schnemat
some progress over the last days (thanks to the terrible weather...). The fit is actually not too bad, only the intake area is really tedious, but with a bit of putty it should be ok. on the bottom side i was not cautious enough and it seems that the glue was not yet fully cured, so there is a small step which will remain. Also at the tip of the wings, the lower part stands out a tiny bit as i did not sand enough. All in all, i'm fine with it, sometimes i'm not careful enough and hurry too much. So if you spend slightly more time on certain areas you can come up with an even better result.

Jos Jansen
How could I missed this...checking in! IMHO the best Typhoon on the market right now, but the engineers from Revell construct a horrible intake...! Good job so far Schnemat...watching 👍

Schnemat
after experimenting with mr hobby surfacer 500 and perfect plastic putty to fill the gaps i think it looks quite ok now. i already sprayed some primer to check the result and had to rework some areas. two questions regarding the canopy: 1) how do you get rid of the seamline? this always ended in a not so nice result so far, so i'm interested to know how you do it; 2) i've seen in some yt videos that they glue the clear part to the fuselage with pva glue prior to painting and then take it away afterwards. has someone of you done that? i would be very afraid of removing it as i would expect the paint to come off as well... already many thanks for your comments!

Michael Phillips
Really coming along nicely I see!

For canopy seams, believe it or not I use a Nail Buffer! Really works great. The one I use has 4 steps, 1-Even out, 2 - smooth, 3 - Buff, 4 - shine. I go through all 4 steps on the buffer and the seam is gone in like 5-10 minutes. After that I dip it in future for protection and to give it some extra shine and remove any small scratches.

Here is the nail buffer I use:

revlon.com/manicure/..buffers/shape-n-buff

Alexander
Looking quite good alreay! 👍

1) For me it is broken down into three main steps:
i) GENTLY scribing most of it away with a sharp knife or alike, then carefully sanding it successively with 1000, 2000 sand sponge and finally a 10.000
buffer
ii) polishing with Tamiya's polishing compounds (all of them), first the course one, then the fine one, lastly the finish
iii) after making sure that the canopy is COMPLETELY clean of any polish residue or anything else, dipping it into Future floor varnish and SLOWLY taking
it out to avoid as much bubbles as possible. Letting excess flow away on a towel and putting the canopy on tooth sticks in a box and close it. After 10
min move the canopy a little bit on the tooth sticks so that it won't stick on them and close again. I let the parts fully dry for at least 2 days
(though in principle a few hours might be enough, as Future dries rather quickly, still better safe than sorry).

2) The problem for me with temporarily gluing the canopy to the main fuselage is, that you obviously have to mask it, and that the masks will lose their stickiness after being flooded with primer, paint and gloss coat, etc., and parts of the mask-"glue" may reside on the canopy. So in essence it may lose its "glossyness"/shine and may even suffer from overspray. It also may be a bit difficult sometimes to put the canopy on, especially when there are pe-details on the underside like hooks or so. Therefore I tend to paint the canopy asap and touch it as few times as possible.

Schnemat
sorry about the very slow progress, but this is somehow a one step forward & two steps back project... but meanwhile the front canopy part is glued on, as always one side is looking very good and the other has some glue residuals sticking around... also the HUD transparent part has turned very foggy, no idea how that happened, it looks like that it catched some matt varnish... Other than that i was able to get rid of the seamline and it looks very good, thanks to your tips and tricks! But now it has a crack (you get a feeling of how the project progresses, don't you?😉😢, fortunately most of it will be covered by paint.

playtime 222
🙁 /me makes a note to Future any HUD glass in future - no pun intended.

Palo M
How did I miss this one, watching now. Currently building the older kit. Funny to see Eduard's PE matching the plastic, that was a surprise when I noticed it's for a different kit 🙂. The seat you built looks great and I'm impressed what you pulled off with the intakes. I spent a long time on mine, buy they look nothing like what you did here.

Alexander
Coming along nicely, patience seems to be the key so no rush. 👍

Schnemat
Meanwhile the fuselage has been primed. I sanded it with 2000grit sandpaper and it is now super smooth, love it. I always had a very rough surface after spraying and hopefully this will reduce the build up of the rough texture (at least it looks promising...). I also investigated around the main color for a german eurofighter. It seems that the germans use a very blueish grey (thought there are 50 shades of grey but there are definately more) on their planes, which should be close to FS 35237 (Vallejo 71114). The other color which looked close to me was Vallejo 71307. I tested both on an external fuel tank and I think i will go with the FS 35237. Any feedback from the experts before I start with painting the main fuselage?😉

Alexander
Looking good, I am probably going to start mine soon as well. 👍

I would say, the main fuselage colour is less a blueish grey but rather a greyish blue. And the blueish part of the colour is very visible in most pictures I saw. FS 35237 would not be fitting in my opinion, when viewing what google puts out for this colour.
I looked up again what I used for my Luftwaffe Eurofighter back then and it reads 2 parts RC256 "M-485 Blue Grey" : 1 Part RC004 "Flat White". Perhaps you have very similar Vallejo paints. But it certainly will be not that easy to get to a realistic colour anyway I guess.

Schnemat
@ Alexander: color matching is a hobby itself😉 i just googled again a bit about color references for the german typhoon. Hataka also lists FS 35237 in their "Modern Luftwaffe Paint Set Vol. 3". But you're right, also looking at some eurofighter pictures I think it's also a bit too dark... Maybe I should add a drop of white, also to adjust for the scale factor...

Schnemat
playing around with a few additional colors, but none seems to really match. i briefly thought 71257 could be it, but now it looka more greenish than blueish... i think i switch to a spanish typhonn, that color seems to be more straight forward😉

Schnemat
more tests, i think we are getting there, the 71120:71332 mixed 1:2 seems to be close (or the one with a additional one part insignia white 71279)

Palo M
What kind of stand do you use? Is it good?

Schnemat
@ Palo: this stand is being distributed by ammo by mig. i'm happy with it!

Schnemat
So i used the 1:2:1 mix with Vallejo Model Air 71120 (Dark Ghost Grey):71332 (Underside Blue):71279 (Insignia White). I think it looks close enough to the real thing. Unfortunately on the photos it still looks very greyish, but it's actually a lot more blueish.

Alexander
Yeah, photos can be a tad deceiving when it comes to colours. But it looks good so far!

playtime 222
^this. Images are highly variable cos of a whole chain of different mechanisms interpreting the colours. The reason why Pantone exists and all that calibration malarkey 😄 If it's what you think it is, it's fine with us.

Schnemat
i like that attitude😉 there's now one picture in daylight, it looks a lot more blueish

Slavo Hazucha
I think it's absolutely in the range how I see German Eurofighters in photos! Well done 👍

playtime 222
(Luckily, I will avoid this whole 'shades of grey' thing, cos I'm doing the BoB G-NA) And, yep, I was looking thru my RIAT photo stash and could only find the RAF one but to my recollection, your colour is fine.

Alexander
Agreed, Picture No. 48 looks really well and close to the original colour-wise. 👍

Schnemat
was able to spend some time at the spraybooth over the weekend. most parts are now painted and some have already a gloss varnish on it... it's time to decide which insignias of the decal set to use.

Slavo Hazucha
Nice work on the different panels - They variety should blend in & look really great once you give it the usual service Eurofighter wear 👍

Schnemat
thanks, i've never before spent so much time on masking and painting different areas, but it was worth it! and i'm still not done, figured out a few areas to improve. masking is already done, need to find some time to actually don the painting...

Ricardo Reis
Nice - what's your opinion on the kit, so far?

Germen V
very nice

Schnemat
sneak peek after a two day decalling marathon... and as always, there's one decal that didn't went well and it's a very obvious one, grrr... and the other thing that annoys me ia my gloss coat, which is very sticky (even three days after spraying) and it catches dust like crazy. And in some areas it is also again very rough... i still have to figure out how to properly airbrush the vallejo varnish.

Schnemat
@ Ricardo: well, it shows its age, some parts have dents and scratches, propably already out of the mould... there's also a huge amount of flash, i really had to cut some pieces out of the flash. the fit is not that bad, with the exception of the air intake which is a nightmare. and they should have included a standard decal set, not only the special version (like they did in the rafale kit), i bought some after market decal set, but i'm still missing a few decals for the fuel tanks, pylons etc. but due to the lack of alternatives and treating it with a jut of patience it can end in an acceptable state (at least i hope it will be like that in my case)

Alexander
It looks great.👍 Don't worry yourself, I still experience the same problems but from the overall feedback I get it only plays a small role in the general impression of the model and I am sure it will be that way with your's as well!

playtime 222
Thanks for the heads up on the decals!

Schnemat
Well, i have to correct myself on the decals comment, there are decals for the pylons and drop tanks. what's missing are the decals for the AIM-120B's.

Schnemat
meanwhile all decals are on and one more gloss coat on top of it. At the moment I'm waiting for some PLW i ordered which should be more suitable to the blueish-grey finish of the Eurofighter. In between i experimented with very small magnets, which a put into the wings and the pylons/droptanks. I'm very happy with the result, the align very nicely and so i can swap the loadouts to my daily liking😉

Daniel
A fellow believer in the mysterious powers of magnetism 🙂 very nice build so far 👍

Schnemat
Nose cone is on and also the engine exhausts are glued to the fuselage. The panel line wash is complete, but it looks very ugly around the engine area, it just doesn't work properly there, however the panel lines are very weak in that area which might be the reason for it. Even though i used a very light blueish grey PLW (AMIG-1613) it almost got too dark (the german typhoons always look very clean with almost no noticable panel lines).

Whiskey Actual
May I ask can anyone tell me where I can get one of those mounts/stands?

Alexander
Looks really great! 👍 Can't wait for the final reveal.

Jos Jansen
Your gray is spot on mate...really already a stunner 👍!

Schnemat
@ Whiskey: This stand is from ammo by mig.

Schnemat
ok, removed the wash around the engine which almost ended in disaster... I think I used a bit too mich thinner and rubbed too hard, the gloss cover started to peel off... But it looks now much better, and the damaged parts are not too visible, i'll stop now (otherwise it will just get worse...😉 )

Alexander
I know this feeling all too well, but it does look good.

Daniel
aah, now I can see and really appreciate the blueish gray 🙂 Nice!!

Michael Phillips
That paint looks dead on and masterfully applied. Can't wait to see the final reveal!

playtime 222
Looks fine overall. I can see the panel line by the fin fading out. A little re-scribe might have done the trick but it will be fine from the front and not that noticeable from the back either. I'd call it a win.

Schnemat
it's finished! painting that smoke outlet on top of the left wing scared me almost to death... very subtle weathering on the bottom, besides that i leave it clean. hope you like it!

Alexander
Looks great! Very nice paintjob on clean and concise build! 👍👍
Finished just a day before I planned to begin mine.

Jos Jansen
Very nice Schnemat...a beautiful Typhoon!

Nathan Dempsey
Great finish. I think you achieved a perfect match on the overall color too.

playtime 222
Marvellous