The Hawker Beechcraft Dragon MRA1, the Nimrod's replacement- Resurrected!

[PR19_Kit]

Mossie, I owe you a beer at the very least. 

The paint is FLYING off the Dragon, most of the underside is clear after a session with the toothbrush, so now it's upside down to get the tailplane and fin treated.

Things are looking promising. 

[Rick Lowe]

multiple passes with the scalpel I guess. I DON'T relish that bit at all.

Don't blame you - 'ware fingers! (Voice of Experience...  )

[PR19_Kit]

After a week of soaking in the Fairy Power Spray most of the paint and primer has come off the Dragon. Sadly so has the entire masking set and the mount I made for the IFR probe as well!

It's still going to take a LOT of sanding and flexifiling to get  the rest off, and there may be some parts that I just can't get at around the engine pylons, but it's better than the disaster that it was.

[Rick Lowe]

So a good result, if not an ideal one. 

[PR19_Kit]

After a month of soaking I hauled the Dragon out of its bath last night, rinsed it off thoroughly and shook it around a bit before leaving it in the airing cupboard over-night.

This morning it's dried off nicely and is ready to carry on with its much delayed build, but.............

Some of the paint is STILL there, so the first stage is a thorough sand all over. Goodbye vortex generators etc............

[PR19_Kit]

After spending some hours sanding the Dragon I've got most of the rubbish primer off now, sadly along with a lot of the fine detail too, specially the lovely vortex generators on each wing. One of the large observation windows has fallen off inside the fuselage and is rattling about in there. There's no way I can glue it back in place as it fits from  the inside, so if I can wriggle it out it's bound for the bin and I'll replace it with some Glue'n'Glaze instead.

So now the Dargon's back to where it was over TWO months ago, on June 9th, except it's totally bald now!



Time to start the painting all over again.

Oh yeah, the IFR probe over the cockpit has vanished too, no idea where that went, and the probe itself was white metal! 

[PR19_Kit]

I've got the first coat of Hycote grey primer on the Dragon, and it's a zillions times better that the previous rubbish that I tried.

When the model was in the paint stripping bath the Fairy Fluid stripped the masks off the numerous windows on the model so I got an other 'custom made' masking set as the first one came with the kit. Sadly, the 'custom' bit wasn't 'custom' enough and I had to trim the edges of the various masks! If they can't get it right, why bother?

While I was wating for the primer to dry I assembled the weapons load for the Dragon, which will be two AGM-84 Harpoons and four AIM-9L 'winders. In my ignorance I got the ones recommended by various people, the ones from ResKit 'because they're the best'. Hmmmm, the best they may be, but the resin fins on them are SO thin that trying to glue them on is a nightmare! Not only that but two of the 'winders main wings snapped clean off while I was trying to cut them from the mould sprues! So now I've had to make some new fins and wings from styrene, i might as well have scratchbuilt the darn things!

Sorry, lovely and detailed thought they may be, those are the last ResKit things I'm buying!

[Captain Canada]

I agree with the detail thing. Sure, they are lovely, but most of us stick paining whiffers don't need that level lol.

[Spino]

While I was wating for the primer to dry I assembled the weapons load for the Dragon, which will be two AGM-84 Harpoons and four AIM-9L 'winders. In my ignorance I got the ones recommended by various people, the ones from ResKit 'because they're the best'. Hmmmm, the best they may be, but the resin fins on them are SO thin that trying to glue them on is a nightmare! Not only that but two of the 'winders main wings snapped clean off while I was trying to cut them from the mould sprues! So now I've had to make some new fins and wings from styrene, i might as well have scratchbuilt the darn things!

Sorry, lovely and detailed thought they may be, those are the last ResKit things I'm buying!

That's one of the reasons I typically 3D-print my missiles these days.  In order to make the fins on them thick enough to print correctly, I have to make them so thick that they won't break easily as well, a nice bonus.  Course when it comes time to cut off the supports, the nose sections of the Sidewinders tend to snap off just below the fins because of the layer orientation of the prints 

[PR19_Kit]

I don't have that option Spino, so I have to purchase them, but it won't be ResKits ones. I think I'll stick the Hasegawa weapons sets in future, I've got a few of them, but most are in The Loft back home just now.

[zenrat]

Eduard missiles (well, the 1/72 ones anyway) tend to be resin bodies with PE fins.  I've yet to assemble one but I suspect they will be fiddley as all buggery.

[PR19_Kit]

These BLOODY ResKit Harpoons are all resin, with 4 resin wings and 4 fins per missile, and trying to get them to stay in place while the glue sets is a NIGHTMARE! I thought I was ready to prime them, and then one of the resin fins came off as I was setting them up for that job, and now I can't find it, so that'll be a FOURTH styrene one!

The ResKit 'winders are just like yours Fred, with PE nose fins. For some reason you get MILES too many to do all four missiles, so perhaps they're expecting me to lose some! 

[zenrat]

I don't have any Eduard 'winders but I do have a set of Vympel R-73s which have 12 fins per missile and so will be 50% more fiddlier than them.
 

[PR19_Kit]

I don't have any Eduard 'winders but I do have a set of Vympel R-73s which have 12 fins per missile and so will be 50% more fiddlier than them.
 

Aggggghhhhhhhh!   

[Rick Lowe]

5- or 10-thou card fins would be my pick.
Only if the missile is plastic, of course... if it's resin, then back to square one with the superglue...