1/48 Hobbycraft Tebuan

Malaysia 50th Merdeka Day Update

by Aidy Abdullah

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  Malaysia National Day 2007 

 

This is the Hobbycraft 1/48 scale "Military" Tutor, finished as an RMAF Tebuan using the kit's excellent decals.

The kit builds up quite ok, but lacks many details and panel lines.  I did add some Tebuan specific parts which were either scratchbuilt or taken from other kits.  Pilot figures are Hasegawa, put in place to help cover the sparseness of the kit cockpit.

The green is Gunze water-based Olive Green, don't know the code as the label on the bottle has long vanished. The underside was painted with Testor Model Master FS36622 Camouflage Grey.  

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Work Done:

 Pilots:

My references show our pilots equipped with life jackets which I added using epoxy putty (Bondite). The details were cut in while the putty was still soft. I wanted to add some shoulder patches but I can't paint it nicely enough so I ditched the idea.

 

FOD guards :

This area was badly damaged last week and I had to remove everything - splitter plates and screen - on both sides. If I do rebuild it this year, I'll probably just use the kit splitter plates.

 

Chin Radom :

This is where the most distinctive feature of the Tebuan is located - the chin radome. Bondite was used for the radome and bulged main gear doors. My reference for all this work was the 70-odd pics I took over 2 trips to the Sg Besi Museum.

 

Fuel Dump Vent:

Some detail work and the fuel dump vent . The fuel dump vent was a modified 1/72 Sea King tail rotor... good thing is that you get 6 blades in every box! I got the angle by visually comparing the model to an almost 1/48-ish picture I printed earlier.

 

Windscreen Blowers:

I re-shaped the windscreen blowers as the kit parts were too squarish. The wing lights were filled with putty as the kit transparencies did not fit at all. I did add some lenses inside and tried to use several different materials for the cover, but wasn't satisfied with the outcome so out came the putty... I didn't worry though as the lights were painted black on top anyway

 

landing Gears:

The landing gears received some hydraulic lines/details made of 32 gauge steel wire. The kit main gears were also lacking the scissor/torque(?) links which I added using strip styrene and bits of stretched sprue.

 

I hope this will be helpful for those wishing to build a better Tebuan. I can't claim to have been very accurate but I think I got most of the more obvious features of the Tebuan covered.

Aidy 

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Photos and text © by Aidy Abdullah