Hi guys. For those of you who might be interested…here’s the next build on my list. Its the 1/48 Hasegawa F-22A Raptor.
This kit has received alot of bad press because of the out-of-scale panel detail. Because of this many people won’t buy it. This doesn’t bother me at all. I think this kit looks fantastic and I can say, having built the Academy F-22, that this kit seems way better. Plus, I got it for $24 with S&H! Can’t beat that!
Anyway, here’s the first update. I’m going to install an Aires resin cockpit:
This requires a little bit of surgery to the upper fuselage part. All that is needed is to carve out the molded IP coaming and add some shims to the rear sides. I forgot to get a pic of the original IP coaming, though. Thankfully, this has been one of the less labor intensive surgeries I’ve done:
Here’s how it looks with the cockpit loosely installed:
Definitely looking forward to this one. =] I’ve heard all the same and have been dying to do one eventually one of these days…but with a lot of reluctance. I hope you can put that to ease.
Well, heck, for 20 something bucks you really can’t go wrong. In fact, I saw one on eBay last night with a bid of $16 including S&H I think. And you really don’t need the AM stuff. The details in the kit parts are pretty decent.
The only AM replacement that might be the most beneficial would be some resin wheels…which I did get. The kit wheels are kinda sterile. And maybe the resin exhaust if you plan on displaying it with the vectoring nozzles open. Although I did get the PE details for the exhaust area.
YESSSSSSSSS! I’ve been dying for someone on here to do a WIP for the raptor. If it’s going to be anything like your other builds, I’m in for a treat. I have this kit in my stash but I’m holding off until I’m confident I’ll do it justice. I will be watching closely
I should mention that I’m going to build this F-22 with the weapons bays closed. I am doing this because I think the F-22 has way better lines when the bay doors are closed. After all, this is a stealth fighter, right? Plus, you really don’t ever see the F-22s parked on the ramp with all the doors open and missiles hanging out. One benefit is that it will save alot of work. Another benefit is that I will have six spare AIM-120C AMRAAMs and two spare AIM-9Xs.
And yes, I am going to try some weathering. I’ve come across some pics of F-22s that are surprisingly dirty.
Before I glued the doors in place I had to install the weapons bays:
In the pic above you can see that I’ve also attached the guide/reinforcement pieces that align and join the upper and lower fuselage halves. What I did was I attached 1 or 2 of the parts at a time. As the glue dried I dry fitted the upper fuselage half to the lower fuselage half to assure that the alignment parts were seated perfectly. This worked out very well.
Here are the doors glued in place:
The doors did not fit perfectly into their spaces. I had to use a bit of filler to get rid of some gaps. I used Aves Apoxie Sculpt to do this. After applying the Aves I wiped away the excess with a cotton swab dipped in Alcohol. Otherwise the doors are reasonably flush with the outer skin.
Looking forward to seeing this one, Fly. Are the Eduard wheels and tires separate pieces, or are you just that good at painting them? If they’re separate, I’m definitely gonna start buying them instead of trying to paint them…
Thanks Devil! I hate to sound boastful but I’m pretty good at painting them.
I start off by painting them Mr.Color Tire Black (C137). Then I paint the treads something close to Dark Gull Grey (C317) to make them look dirty. Then I cut out my own circular masks using a drafting circle template and a sharp #11 blade. I have US and Metric templates to cover as many sizes as possible. Then I paint the wheels white. Lately I’ve been using Mr. Color C316 which has a slight off-white color instead of plain gloss white (C1)…but these wheels were painted with regular C1 white. I’m not sure why I did that but I don’t feel like re-doing them.
And, of course, I’ll give them a wash once I have the wheel wells painted.
I’ve assembled the vertical stabilizers. Hasegawa’s offering here is way better than Academy’s. The stabs are very thin and much more accurate than the thick Academy stabs. But the way they chose to separate these two parts makes it a little tricky to sand seamless. Here you can sort of see the parts:
Here they are attached, filled with Mr Surfacer and sanded seamlessly:
Unfortunately, I did sand out just a little of the raised detail. This may not really be an issue, though, because of the way these parts will be painted. There will be a light grey “outline” on the parts and the edge of the grey almost exactly follows the raised detail that was lost. It shouldn’t be a problem.
I was playing around and dry fitting the canopy to the fuselage part. I couldn’t believe how precise the fit was! This is the tightest fitting canopy I’ve ever seen on a model. When I rub my finger across it I can’t feel any seams! It almost makes me want to pose her with the canopy closed since this happens so rarely!
Thanks alot, Joe! I’ll make you a deal…you make something modern and I’ll make something from WWII[;)]. We’ll get out of our comfort zones.
I think I’ve gotten alot better at weathering and detailing my models over the past year or two. I feel like my Academy F-22 is just a bit sterile. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m happy with the it turned out. I believe I did a good job performing all the basics like filling seams, painting, etc. And at the time that was really about the best I could have done. I just feel like the stuff I’m making today is a bit more interesting to look at.
