1/48 Revell Eurofighter Typhoon

Gallery Article by Ian Scoley on Jan 31 2011

 

I was given this last year as a present from my brother in law... A very welcome change from socks and the first time I received a model for Christmas in more than 30 years! 

In truth, this is not a plane I’ve ever had much interest in, but I started it last summer as a bit of light relief after a big Tamiya Tomcat and have come to really like it....some beautiful lines in there when you look closely. 

It’s built pretty much built out of the box....I usually look for resin and photo-etch, but in this case I wanted to build it quite quickly and the quality of detail in the kit is pretty good.  First dry-fit of parts looked a bit shabby, but in the end it went together really nicely...not much putty, just a few drops of super-glue to fill the odd gap.  Only real gripe, as usual, was with the intake ducts and some annoyingly visible sink marks.  Also, go easy with the canopy, the windscreen frame is verrrrry fine and the glass shows crazing where the sprue attaches regardless of how careful you are.....thanks to Revell for the fast replacement! Oh, and there’s no APU exhaust.....use a drinking straw!

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My main problem with this plane was the really drab grey camouflage scheme.....somehow, US jets can get away with it....but this just looked dull. I also didn’t like the way the plane sat on it’s wheels....no poise.  So, after a browse on the web, I found several shots of the plane “ex-works”.....without paint, just bare composite. Problem solved, this looked great!.......painting it was another question...couldn’t find much good reference material, but enough to get the overall effect.

Painting followed the normal routine, grey lacquer primer, quick rub-down with1200 grit and then pre-shaded with dark acrylic over the panel lines before the multiple top coats of Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics, thinned with Clear (I have since found out that normal Vallejo is not designed for airbrushing, but the Clear helps it through the gun and allows layering of shades).  Masking was a bit of a nightmare, especially removal of the Tamiya tape.... with so many different panels, I had several occasions when it peeled back to bare plastic. Metals are Alclad. Decals are applied over Clear before a top coat of clear matt acrylic.  Final light weathering (again, not usually visible on a new plane!) is a combination of enamel wash and pastels.  The decals are straight from the Luftwaffe option .....not accurate to the actual plane, which is virtually bare at this stage, but I really like the way the stencils look.

To improve the poise and add some interest, I went for take off, with the wheels retracting. Modifications to the undercarriage were a bit fiddly, including the addition of cables and extending the nose gear shock etc.  It also highlighted another minor flaw with the kit.....the wheels are way too big for the wheel wells, something the purist would fix, but I decided to leave it as I discovered the problem during final assembly! 

In the end, I like the way it turned out......Piloted by the Invisible Man, it is mounted on a simple bent aluminium frame fitted into the tail-pipes.  If I did it again, I would try a different approach to the masking....some areas ended up with too many layers, losing detail and shading. Hope you like it.

Ian Scoley

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Photos and text © by Ian Scoley