1/144 Revell Harrier AV8B

by John Lingwood

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Ok, so how much modeling can you get into a £3.00 kit? as most of you will have guessed this is the 1/144 Revell AV8B, pretty much out of box-except, I just had to fiddle with the ejector seat didn't I, so it got some detailing with stretched sprue, tiny cubes of plasticard and paper seat belts. I should have stopped there, but-
The air brake was cut out from the fuselage, a false floor was put in the resulting gap and a piece of 5 thou shim brass was cut up and curved to make the brake, which was superglued in place with an actuator made from more stretched sprue.
To paraphrase an old warning "no filler was harmed in the making of this kit"- it all stayed in the tube, safe and sound. the only thing to watch out for is the wing. if you pack up the rear end of the recess in the fuselage with a sliver of 10 thou plasticard, you should find a nice smooth transition from wing to fuselage with no gaps. This really is a wonderful little kit! Now I should really have stopped there- but,
The chaff dispenser covers- at least that's what I think they are, are missing from the kit, you get a decal with the outline of the cover so another couple of pieces of 10 thou were cut to match the decal, curved, and glued in place.
Ah! the auxiliary air intakes, bane of a Harrier modellers life, these were reworked using a jewellers piercing saw to create a cut at each side of each intake blade and then cut out to a 30 degree (ish) angle using a number 11 blade and a jewellers screwdriver sharpened to a chisel point to smooth everything off. Do one at a time otherwise you lose the bit in between- ask me how I know!! two or three had to be replaced with slivers of plasticard. And this is where any one of a normally sane disposition would have reached for a paint pot but oh no! I just had to be clever.
Finally comes a pair of pitot tubes and the yaw indicator. These were fashioned by chopping up a piece of Gold Medal Models etched 1/700 ships railing and superglueing them AFTER the model was completely finished, this is madness, I should have stopped at my third attempt to glue the things to the aeroplane instead of the tweezers, fingers and seemingly everything else in the workshop instead of the DARN MODEL. They were touched in at the end by using dilute Humbrol enamel, which sort of nicely leads into the painting.

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Nothing fancy in the office, just painted, washed, highlighted and then drybrushed  to add some hi- highlight, just like it says in 'tools 'n tips except there's less of it to do in this scale.
With the cockpit masked off Humbrol enamels were used using the FS numbers called out in the kits painting instructions, the main body colour was airbrushed on first , and then lightened in the centre of each panel- not that anyone can tell!. once it had dried off- a good couple of days, the masking off was done for the darker upper colour, again, tools and tips to the rescue. Rolled up Blutack ( silly putty?)sausages formed the outline, and masking tape covered the rest. the dark grey was then sprayed on with, once more, a slight lightening of colour in the middle of panels. One week later ( I ain't in no hurry!) came a couple of coats of Future. Brushed on, it's thin enough to cover like water colour, and then the decals went on, a stroll in the park except for the two biggies on the fin which just didn't want to play, would they line up straight? would they hell as like. I ended up cutting soggy decals into bits and putting them on like pieces of a jigsaw, thanks god for Microsol thats all I can say!- and if any one wants a colourful anglo saxon dictionary I think I can now oblige.
With Decaling all done and there's a surprising number for such a tiddly little lump, out came the Xtracolour extra matt varnish and a couple of misted coats to bring everything out to a matt finish. Panel lines were then added using a home brew grey made from black and white artists guache, I like this stuff, it has more body than ordinary watercolour and seems to flow more easily into the panel lines. With a fine brush and a bit of practice you can actually run the colour down the line leaving very little overspill to clean up afterwards. The same mix was also used to add shadows and depth to the auxy. air intakes. Exhaust staining and general filth was added using the bare minimum of ground up artists pastels black and burnt umber mixed together, finally another misted coat of matt varnish to seal everything in.
Last of all to go on was the canopy after it had been dipped in Future ( you do realise modelling as we know it could come to an end if they ever stop making this stuff?), this was hand painted with a fine brush apart from the glazing bar over the top which was a stripe of grey paint on a piece of clear decal sheet. I used an old fashioned bow pen to do this, but it could just as easily be done in a number of different ways, I just took the old fashioned difficult way because I'm a Luddite at heart.
And that was it apart from the base which cost less than price of a decent pint of Bitter from Armstrong bases. A piece of plastic card was cut and painted to look like a corner of an LHD deck and that was about it.
Oh, once last little tip that I picked up from somewhere, I can't remember where or I would add a very public salute to this  wise personage. The easy way to get a Harrier to sit with all its gear on the deck at the same time is to fit the nose wheel and out riggers first, and then adjust the main gear to fit the resulting gap afterwards, so simple and it works! after all that fiddling- I could weep.

Now after all that you think I would have had enough of small stuff- well if I was sane I would, However then Revell went and released the GR7 didn't they- but that's another story. The fool on the hill will return at another time.

John

Photos and text © by John Lingwood