AV-8B Harrier II Plus

1
March 21, 2018
Done with the seat. Upper belts made with greenstuff, looking a bit on the thick side up close.
2
March 21, 2018
Basic dressing of the side walls.
3
March 21, 2018
Cockpit and intake done, ready to close the fuselage.
4
March 24, 2018
Spent a couple hours trying to see if I could attach a droptank to a pylon using 1 x 1 mm magnets and paperclips.
5
March 24, 2018
And it worked. Probably not worth the time invested in it though 🙂
6
March 24, 2018
Magnets carrying their weight.
7
March 27, 2018
Wing are on, lerx and leading edge cuffs reworked, canopy seam almost cleaned. Wing assembly went like a breeze, but the LERX shape seems somewhat wrong.
8
March 27, 2018
Gun pod assembled with the belly pylon closest to what few pictures I could find. Nothing good to say about that gun, was quite a pita to try to position correctly. Still needs some work, but the Litening pod will hide most of it.
9
April 10, 2018
Cockpit ready to close.
10
April 10, 2018
Adding bits and bolts to the pylons.
11
June 18, 2018
Joined by a buddy for painting.
12
June 18, 2018
Flying over drop tanks after a coat of Mr. Surfacer. Will require some more work to smooth down some scratches and then, more greys.
13
December 21, 2018
14
December 21, 2018
15
December 21, 2018
16
December 21, 2018

Comentários

1 21 March 2018, 10:27

Cuajete
Following.

21 March 2018, 19:34

Paulo Castro
looking good

21 March 2018, 23:10

Ekki
Watching.

24 March 2018, 16:27

Spanjaard
interesting idea to use magnets to attach the drop tanks... you can have them or remove them any time you want now.

10 April 2018, 06:51

Pierre
Inspired by Milan Mitev's crazy Harrier Youtube Video
Probably makes much more sense in 1/48, there's just more room to drill for bigger magnets. It's not really workable in 1/72 as I made it. I'll try longer pins next time, but the drilling could get tricky.

10 April 2018, 07:04

Ronan
Watching too 🙂

10 April 2018, 08:40

Paul Moore
That's a very cool idea. Maybe you could post a video on how you inserted the magnets for us rookies. Very nice.

10 April 2018, 10:44

Harry Eder
Nice progress 👍

10 April 2018, 11:10

Pierre
Thanks!

@Paul Moore: there's nothing more to it than drilling holes and glueing à magnet in one and a pin in the other. You really don't have a lot of room for error in 1/72 though, and it's tricky to get the alignment right.
The magnets are 1x1mm, the pylons are 1,4mm wide, so make sure to pinpoint the center before you drill. On this particular kit the sway bars aren't on the pylons, so I drilled 1mm until the magnet fit and then added a strip of .5mm plasticard to represent those.

This resulted in a hole about .5mm deep, and the pins look about the right size for suspension lugs but the charge isn't really stable. Will be ok for display and pictures though.

I'll try either longer pins or magnet+magnet next time, like this guy did on his 1/48 helo: Youtube Video