Tunnan Work in Progress

Mossie · January 29, 2009, 02:09:42 PM

After seeing Spinners Tunnans on his Strike Fighters thread, it seemed like Divine Providence when I saw some on the shelf in my LMS. So I came away with one of the Airfix 1/72 kit (nearly got two) & got it started. It's ended a lull of a few months & I've been hitting in fits & starts.

It's not a bad little kit at all, one of Hellers when they were at their best. Raised panel lines & not much internal detail, but it looks every part a Tunnan. It goes together well, that is until you get to the nose area! There are two options, a J 29F fighter & S 29C recce bird. Both have quite different noses & these are supplied as an insert on the lower fuse. These kind of parts never seem to fit too well on the best of kits & that's definately the case here. I've ended up destroying a lot of the surface detail in the process, I might get into rescribing one day!

Puttied up:

What's this for??? You can see some of the PSR around the nose ring.

More to follow.

Simon.

sotoolslinger · January 30, 2009, 07:00:43 AM

Dangit, I hate when a nice kit turns into a putty monster. I mean I make mine that way on purpose

pyro-manic · January 30, 2009, 09:13:48 AM

I'm having the same issue with mine. That nose part does not fit well at all...

What will she be wearing, Mossie?

John Howling Mouse · January 30, 2009, 10:24:31 AM

Looking forward to further progress. This sort of fit problem does make a model-builder wonder: How do such flaws happen in the first place and don't the model manufacturers know that their molded product simply doesn't fit (or do they not care)? Realizing that mold tooling costs are their highest expense, I can understand why they might not be inclined to re-tool a flawed mold but wouldn't this make them want to get it right the first time?

And I'm not picking on Heller, either. I think most (if not all) the model manufacturers out there have essential parts that simply do not fit.

Mossie · January 30, 2009, 05:14:13 PM

Baz, I've always thought that something strange goes on when you get large over & under fitting parts as opposed to side by side parts. They rarely seem to fit properly for some reason. This is a late seventies kit so you expect a few eccentricities, but the rest of the kit goes together fine. The strange thing is, the recce nose has a slightly worse fit. Part of the problem is it's a simple butt join, no location pins to help. I seem to have problems with this kind of join. I've abandoned two helicopter kits recentley & been put off starting a third because the large glazed areas tend to have just this kind of join.

Quote from: pyro-manic on January 30, 2009, 09:13:48 AM
I'm having the same issue with mine. That nose part does not fit well at all...

What will she be wearing, Mossie?

Paint!

All will be revealed in due time! She's going to be a J 29R, a proposed radar equipped version that was never built. I've found a description saying the radar would have fitted in the top lip, along with this plan view off Air Vectors. I've seen some pics of Soviet aircraft with a similar set up & the radar would generally sit as high as possible so it restricted the intake minimally. Without a three view, I'm going for the same approach.

Mossie · January 30, 2009, 05:19:25 PM

The piece of Milliput was there to act as a surface to drill the nose, I would have caused problems for myself trying to drill at an angle. I started with a very tiny drill bit, then gradually increased it to a 4mm bit. Trouble is, the Milliput split when I got 1.5mm (I'll use a bit of styrene instead next time) & the bits tended to ride up slightly after that, which caused the drill to bite higher than I would have liked, damaging the coaming. Milliput will be my freind once again!

For the radar, I found a Rockeye cluster bomb in the stash that scaled to pretty much the right diameter when I compared it to a scaled up plan view. With a little bit of sanding, I got the end to the right shape. I glued it in & left it in over night. In the morning it had settled slightly lower than I would have liked, but I can live with it.

Daryl J. · January 30, 2009, 05:25:23 PM

As a spectator, the location looks pretty decent from this end.

Daryl J.

Mossie · January 30, 2009, 06:00:24 PM

Well, I'm happy enough, but it's about 1mm lower than I planned. Not much I know, but enough for me to realise it's a little lower than my reasoning above! Also, the amount of sanding I've needed to do has thinned the radar a little & that adds to the effect. I'm not going to loose any sleep over it, it was meant to be a quick & dirty build to pick me out of a lull. I'm taking more time at it then I meant to, somethings never change!

sotoolslinger · January 30, 2009, 06:23:24 PM

In my world that is exactly how the engineers designed it.

Mossie · January 31, 2009, 05:23:55 AM

Gap Milliputtied up:

Coaming re-instated with more Milliput, canopy on primer on:

Next stage is to paint it. I'm going to attempt to airbrush it, although my efforts haven't been great up until now. I'll report back soon!

Eddie M. · January 31, 2009, 06:30:06 AM

Nice rhinoplasty! Watching your work gives me hope for a couple of my projects.

Ian the Kiwi Herder · January 31, 2009, 06:49:23 AM

Nice nose-job Simon, now for G*d's sake, dont let this one end-up in the 'pending' corner...... come-on get one finished, bud

Ian

sotoolslinger · January 31, 2009, 07:28:40 AM

Very slick work on that shnozz

Ed S · January 31, 2009, 07:35:49 AM

Nice nose. It looks like some of the Russian early jets that had similar radomes stuck on the nose.

Ed

John Howling Mouse · January 31, 2009, 09:35:59 AM

Nicely done, Mossie----keep it coming.