1/72 Tamiya Rafale C |
Gallery Article by Deun Yu
on
Sept 18 2003
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I
built this Rafale C in the of summer 2001. The plastic parts for this Tamiya kit
(from 1994) are originally from Italy and have raised panel lines. The fit in
general is okay, some parts are rather good, some are very bad. So are the upper
and the lower fuselage halves - they didn't go together at all because the lower
one was completely deformed. I corrected it carefully over the flame of a candle
as far as I could - doesn't look perfect, but its okay.
I
added some details to the cockpit: 3 mirrors for the canopy and a new HUD (the
original one was normal, non-transparent black plastic!). There were also some
antennas near the radome that had to be added to get the Rafale look ing right.
The
intakes were quite a problem. Each intake consists of 2 parts, their fit to the
fuselage is bad! Sanding the joint between these parts and the upper fuselage
was difficult, not just because of the shape of the surface but also because of
the canards which already had to be mounted by that stage of construction. An
overall black paint for the Rafale C can hide the one or the other mistake...
Click on
images below to see larger images
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But
there's a thing to say about the decals - they're surprisingly good, better than
the rest of the kit. The accurately printed decals depict the C 01.
The
kit does include weapons, I just didn't build them. There are 2 external tanks,
2 Magic and 4 Mica.
Because
of the low quality of this kit it is certainly not a typical Tamiya kit. I was
kind of disappointed, but still I wanted it built. And it does look nice after
all, doesn’t it?
Deun Yu
Click on
images below to see larger images
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