Subject: Tamyia 1/48th Sea HarrierFRS.1 review
From: Everett McEwan <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 16:39:09 -0700 (PDT)

Steve I forgot one line (chock blocks) so use this version.  

 Steve here is the Sea Harrier article, I have to still send you
the pictures (I am work now and will send those when I get home)
below is a preview shot for you, it is missing the RBF tags. In
a following mail will be the NeOmega cockpit review (pics at
home) and when I finish it, the RBF article.

Thanks, Everett.

                  Tamyia 1/48th Sea HarrierFRS.1
                        by Everett McEwan

    The Sea Harrier or "Shar," is a Navalised version of the
origonal Harrier which entered service in the mid 70's and is
still in service today with the Royal Navy and Indian Navy. This
kit is an old one (in the instructions history, it does not even
mention the Falklands War) and is lacking detail, has raised
panel lines, as well as many inaccuracies, but was still fun to
build and turned out well. If you are looking for a easy Sea
Harrier you might want to look at the airfix kit instead, not to
mention this kit is not on the store shelves anymore. That said
lets get down to the build.
    Before I got the glue and paint out, I began by rescribbing
the kit as much as I could using the raised panel lines as a
guide, and although I had a few uneven lines and skips it still
made the finished product look a lot better. I found that a
sharp exacto #11 blade worked best although I also used a needle
in some spots. To create the look of rivets in certain spots, I
drilled small holes to simulate the rivets. Not only did I
rescrib most panel lines, I had to had a few new ones and
correct some other ones. The area reworked most was the top of
the aircraft especially in the rear of the main wing, moving
certain lines, adding a fuel access hacht, adding a small
hole/grove in the center, and moving the navigation light to the
side (more on that later). I also drilled out the camera window
and later after painting added a thin window made from the clear
plastic film that came from the package that # 11 blades come
in. At a recent kit swap I got to see why Tamyia had things in
the wrong place, I examined Tamyia's other Harrier kit from that
time period (AV-8A and GR mk 1) and found it is almost the same
kit (fuselage halves are the main difference). They must have
done research on one aircraft and assumed that details were the
same on all, (like the nav beacon) so check your references with
these kits!
  The first thing built was of course the NeOmega cockpit set
(see my review on that <please put link here steve>) and was the
easiest part of the project. The scachtbuilt Hud was done using
shaved strips of plastic stock and again clear film from a
package of # 11 blades. The other work done in the cockpit area
is combining kit rear canopy and the NeOmega rails and bulkhead
detail as well adding the small vent on the outside (plastic
tube cut at an angle then drilled out). 
  Once that was done I did a lot of work on the fuselage halves,
building the blow-in doors around the intakes (in every
reference photo I have seen of a parked Harrier, they are half
open because of gravity) and creating the landing gear bays (the
back one was kind of there, the front one did not exist, it was
just an open hole). The blow-in doors were cut out of the intake
parts before being glued on, and built with a lot of evergreen
plastic stock, supper glue, and sanding like crazy. Although I
used a ruler and tried to macht the kit panel lines, they are
somewhat uneven and sloppy, but in the end better than nothing
and add interest to the plane. 
  On to the landing gear bays, not only did I add ribbing, I
also had to cut a new section out of the rear one that the main
strut sits in. I used photos from ARC's walk around section of a
AV-8B wheel well, because although changed in many ways the
AV-8B kept the origonal landing gear arrangement and I have to
assume the details are similar (if you have any Sea Harrier
wheel well pictures please send to ARC's walk around since I
could not find any elsewhere on the web). I also cut the landing
gears mounting pieces off and drilled holes in both to
accomedate straightened paper clips for strength and added
tubbing to the rear one so that it would be the right height
inside the new bay (or so I thought). After I felt all was done
I joined the two halves, fit was better than I thought with only
minimum filling needed. next came the wings, these were also a
good fit except underneath where they join the fuselage although
I would rather that since it is very hard to see and I got rid
of most of it. The wing fences on the leading edge did not macht
up though and had to be cut and built back up with plastic card.
One nice touch of the kit is that Tamyia includes a Peagus
engine that according to the instructions is meant to be
displayed inside the aircraft with a hacht that can be removed
and placed back after viewing. I instead have chosen to display
the engine separately on a stand (will finish it sometime in the
future) and use scrachtbuilt intake covers on the aircraft.
Because of this I glued the hacht in place and found it is a
very poor fit and needs a lot of filling and sanding as well as
rescribbing after the fit is right. Before glueing the
horizontal stabliser on, I built the four nochted fairings that
sit above and below the joint with the fuselage using more
plastic card, this detail is also missing from the kit. Another
added detail on the wings was the two wingtip nav lights which I
used melted clear sprue and pushed it into the hole I cut for
it. 
   The next time consuming part of the kit was the completely
wrong windscreen canopy fairing, again left over I think from
the AV-8A kit (although wrong for AV-8A too). On the real Sea
Harrier there is a large hump that covers the windshield wiper
motor and a smaller nocht to the side and the hump comes up and
over part of the windscreen. Tamyia of course depicted none of
this and made the joint a straight flat area. I glued the front
canopy in place with super glue (applied carefully!), built up
the area and added the part of the hump that covers canopy with
plastic card, milliput and supper glue. Although it looks much
better and closer to the real thing I wish it had more of a
nocht in the center but it was a very hard shape to build. Just
below this is the air data sensor and in effort to make it look
like the real thing, I decided to replace it with a sewing
needle (measured to scale, cut the top off and drilled a hole
for it) to create a more realistic look.
    My least favoriate part of any project came next, the
painting and decaling. Since I am still learning things (just
returned to hobby six months ago) painting is my weakest skill
and I needed to strip and re-paint this model several times to
get it right. This was my first high gloss aircraft and I used a
gloss white on the underside (Testor's insignia white) and it
worked well but also was a pain in the but. I found it covers
well (can't see through it like flat white) but it is very thick
and tends to build up in big white blobs in the corners if you
don't wacht it, again I think my fault more than the paint. The
top went a lot better, I used Testors Gunship Grey darkened with
a small amount of black (see this site for colors;
http://www.faasig.org/colors/mmpaint.htm) and then glossed it
after with future and testor's gloss acrylic. Because the kit
was an old one I worried about the kit decals and decided to
cover them with Microscale's decal film, and thank god I did.
Somehow I missed one little spot on one of the roundels red
dots(separate decal) and it crumbled into a million little
pieces (painted red in it's place) showing what would have
happened without the decal film. The other decals went on just
fine without any problems-thank you Microscale!
    Next is the weapons fit, I at first wanted to use the Aden
gun pods but they are weak at best and would be quite a project
in of themselves, so I opted to take the easy way out and used
the ventral strakes that go in it's place. The fuel tanks are
almost a standard fit since the Sea Harrier has poor range,
these were from the kit and needed a lot of sanding to get the
mismachted halves to look even. The kit Sidewinders were
replaced with Hasagawa weapon set AIM-9L (standard winder used
on Sea Harriers) since the kit winders were only shapes with no
detail.
   Other than putting on some antennas the other external
addition was the nav beacon on the top of the wing. I made this
teardrop shapped light with super glue gel that I shaped before
it dried. I had been trying to use clear sprue melted but
couldn't shape it right. Be aware that the glue shrinks a little
when it dries so more than one layer may be needed. I also
painted the surface below red first, but since the glue dries
clear it may be fine to paint clear red or green after the fact.

   One of the last things worked on was the landing gear, adding
wiring, plumbing, lights, and other details to the bays and the
gear themselves. After I glued them in, I found that the rear
main gear was some how not touching the ground when I added the
outrigger gear because I had measured wrong, in the words of
Hommer Simpson ...Dhoooo! Oh well, I cut the outriggers down
slightly and added some paper clip and staple metal to the
drilled out inside of the gear to help with strength after I
broke them off a few times. In the end they are now level on
flat surface and life goes on.
    The final touches were added next, Remove Before Flight tags
(steve please insert link here to other article), intake covers
and the boarding ladder. The intake covers were made from
plastic card that was cut to shape before I ever glued on the
intake parts and the straps were made with masking tape painted
black. The boarding ladder was scrachtbuilt using plastic strips
and rod, machting it to pictures in World Airpower Journal. It
was a pain to glue because getting all the rod to hold together
was tough, but finally got it to hold. I also added photoechted
Royal Navy chock blocks from the Airwaves Buccener set. And that
was it!
    I started this kit thinking it would be an easy and quick
build and somehow it turned into a monster, but a good monster.
For me this was another learning experience, letting me try
techniques I had never tried before and perfecting other methods
that I had tried before. For fans of the "Shar" this may not be
the best kit out there but with a lot of work looks good in the
end.

References;
   3 issues of World Airpower Journal 

=====
Everett

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