1/48 Trumpeter JF-17 Thunder

[Gareth Phua]

Here it is. I initially wanted to submit this for a local competition here in Singapore, held by the Airfix distributor.

Unfortunately, I was held up by life and as such, this never made it to the finish line. It's still a work in progress though.

The kit in question is Trumpeter's 1/48 Chinese FC-1 Fierce Dragon, called the JF-17 Thunder by the Pakistan Air Force in their delivery scheme

Information about the JF-17 can be found here

Trumpeter provides decals for the stars, crescent and lightning bolts but seeing as these are white on coloured background, I decided to mask and spray them.

First, trace the elements to serve as masks, and fill them in with a strong colour. After that, will print onto Frisket film, trim out and use as masks. Here's what it looks like now when it's been traced over in Illustrator.

Some simple work...

First, an overall dry fit with masking tape to check for significant problem areas. The fuselage is in 4 parts but the fit from front fuselage(left and right halves) and rear fuselage(top & bottom halves) is surprisingly good.

Next, instead of working on the cockpit, I took another route. I started with the canopy, removing the mold line and dipping it in Future. Here's what it looks like after dipping in Future.

Those who have this kit, you'll notice a thick line at the main canopy running from the rear frame till almost the front frame. Do not remove that, it's the canopy detonation chord found on some aircraft types such as the Harrier. It's molded on the INSIDE of the canopy so you can't really go wrong there.

Next up, will glue up the main wheel wells fuel tanks.

Edited August 12, 2010 by Gareth Phua

[Metallicus]

this going to be interesting!!

[mrcooljules]

i know nothing of this plane or kit...so looking forward to it!

[chaoslord]

i am very interested in this kit. here's to a great build!

[Gareth Phua]

Thank you for the words of encouragement guys!

Put together some sub-assemblies today.

Unlike a usual aircraft build, I started with the wheel wells instead. Glued them up together with the tail fin.

The tailfin is interesting in that it comes in 2 halves for the base only. The tailfin itself is a complete molded piece. However, the 2 blade antennas at the sides of the fin look too thick. I'll probably slice them off and replace them with brass plates instead.

Sub assemblies glued, and given a quick scrub with soap and an old toothbrush. There's something about Trumpeter's plastic that makes me uneasy with not washing it. I experienced some odd problems with my Finback and paint looking quite bubbly on some areas when sprayed. Am not prepared to take a risk here.

The tailfin fits nicely onto the upper fuselage. It simply pops into place! I have not used cement here yet but I suspect after priming and painting, the fit would be a little tighter.

However, what really excited me about this kit was a recent "discovery". Trumpeter actually gives us weighted tyres!!!! I've only ever seen half hearted attempts from Revell Germany's kits and even then, not all of them have this. What RoG gives us are flat bottomed tyres. What Trumpeter gave us were proper looking weighted tyres with the sides of the area in contact with the ground bulged out.

I also decided to go the aftermarket route with this kit, so scored some PE sets and am using my MiG-29 resin burner cans.

So, why a MiG-29 exhaust? The JF-17 uses the Klimov RD-93 engine, a variant of the RD-33 engine used on MiG-29s. I looked at pictures of the JF-17's exhaust and they look extremely similar to the ones found on MiG-29s so I thought I'd see if I can graft the MiG-29's exhaust onto the JF-17. If my luck holds it should work.

L-R: Aires MiG-29 exhaust cans, Dreammodel PLA Air-to-Air missile detail set, Dreammodel JF-17 cockpit PE set.

Here's the kit supplied exhaust compared to the Aires replacement

A slight thinning of the exhaust shroud later and with bated breath...

SUCCESS!!!!!!!! The Aires set was an almost drop in fit for the kit.

After putting together some of the parts. The PE seat & Instrument Panel parts were terribly fiddly but I managed to finally attach them. I am considering changing the seat to a resin NACES seat though as I might have removed too much plastic and now it looks slightly too thin width-wise. This seat looks suspiciously like an SJU-17 NACES seat.

Cockpit PE parts attached to the kit tub.

Instrument Panel primed with metal primer and painted flat black to prepare for detail painting.

Seat with PE parts and painted flat black in preparation for drybrushing and detail painting.

Wheel wells painted with gloss white (doesn't cover as well as flat white) and attached to the bottom fuselage. Will cover it with another layer of flat white, gloss coat and then give it a wash.

Front fuselage dry fitted with the cockpit. Fit is very good here.

Dry fitted the rear and front fuselage again just to see if the fit is still as good. I am pleased that it is still as good.

Some other parts glued together and primed. I removed some of the many rivets on the tailfin and rescribed some panel lines.

Edited August 14, 2010 by Gareth Phua

[Mark M]

i will keep my eye on this looking good!

[chaoslord]

great progress man! keep it up

[Deino]

Very nice ... esp. the exhaust !!

Have You seen this ?

Cheers, Deino

[Gareth Phua]

Deino, excellent picture reference! Thank you!

A little progress today...

Some bench time yielded the following results.

Resin exhaust primed and gloss black painted for the cans. For the exhaust itself, Alclad Polished Aluminium, Pale Burnt Metal and a light misting of jet Exhaust was used. I'll then lighly mist it with Tamiya clear blue. The flameholders (that's the thin PE piece) was merely primed and a bit of clear blue misted over it. I have however, also made the mistake of misting Tamiya clear blue over the exhaust shrouds.

Next, the exhaust and shroud were painted with Alclad Polished Aluminium, then post shaded with Jet Exhaust and Tamiya clear blue.

The main wheel wells and nose wheel well have been attached and given a light wash with Ivory Black oil paints. After a flat coat, I will hand paint the pipes. Also, I've also just been told by Skuadron17 that those balls are to be in Russian Blue so yea, a light blue will need to be mixed up and them balls handpainted.

The cockpit has been painted and drybrushed before detail painting done.

Instrument panel painted, MFD given a coat of Future with a No.1 brush

Cockpit tub given a light oil wash. Gonna let it dry a few days before flat coating it then drybrushing the details.

Canopy masked on the inside and out, followed by adding the canopy framing supplied in the Dreammodel PE set. My verdict, PE is a real bitch to work with sometimes. :blood0ni:

Cockpit dry fit to front fuselage

One thing about kits with 4 part fuselages, the fit is usually terrible. With this, surprisingly, the fit is superb! I have not glued the 2 halves of the front fuselage yet, but see this...

Edited August 15, 2010 by Gareth Phua

[Martin_C]

Hi,

Trumpeter decals aren ´t good - white half-moon on rudder and bottom of fuselage. I painted this marking too with selfmade mask (according to decals ). I made mask in Correl Draw , but this marking in the decals differs from that on real plane. I had to very upgrade them . All other marking (stars, and lightning) are all right.

This is my JF-17 in progres and masks are after upgraded.

Martin

Edited August 16, 2010 by Martin_C

[Metallicus]

that is looking real nice!! great progress!!

[Gareth Phua]

Martin, thank you for sharing your tip. I agree, Trumpeter's decals are really dodgy. They shattered on dipping in water when I tested a small section out. In any case, I don't trust large decals so I too made a scan, traced out the art work and printed it onto the back of Frisket film to use as a mask.

In any case, here're the results of the first few coats of colours after priming.

White sprayed, masks cut and added to the airframe, Gunze 66 (bright green) sprayed, masks removed.

I sprayed the red areas with yellow first, in this case, RLM Yellow. Then I sprayed Super Italian Red.

I used the kit's decals for the stars as the small ones were way too small to even cut properly.

Surprisingly they were rather opaque. I handbrushed Future over the yellow stars to help them settle in without silvering.

I next proceeded to some minor touch up of paint bleeding and that's when disaster struck.

In a nutshell, I was impatient and didn't ensure my masks were on nice and tight coupled with the fact that the paint was thinned too much. This caused massive bleeding of paint to the white areas. :shithappens:

So I thought, ok Plan B. Use the decals to cover up the paint bleed. No joy! Trumpeter's decals shattered on application! No, I am serious, it literally fell apart into a gazillion pieces. This even after I sprayed on a few coats of gloss onto the decal sheet.

So, I had no choice, it's time to do the nasty. Sand off that offending area, and respray it.

After careful sanding, re-priming, pre shading again, white, mask and bright green....

This time, I used the white star too, just because I was fedup with the paint bleeds on the curved areas. And yes, even those did tear.

[andym]

Nice pics of the two Farnborough birds here:

http://pakdef.info/pakmilitary/airforce/ga...Farnborough2010

HTH

Andy

[Gareth Phua]

Nice pics of the two Farnborough birds here:

http://pakdef.info/pakmilitary/airforce/ga...Farnborough2010

HTH

Andy

Andy, my mouse's right click button's shot to bits after this but hey, I am not complaining! Thank you good sir!

I think I might get the Bronco offering as well.

[Graham T]

Nice work, especially the paint scheme - you are very brave. Is it just me or does that plane look like the offspring of a Grippen & F-16 with a smattering of F-5?

Edited August 17, 2010 by Graham T

[Gareth Phua]

Nice work, especially the paint scheme - you are very brave. Is it just me or does that plane look like the offspring of a Grippen & F-16 with a smattering of F-5?

Funny you should say that Graham, because when I first saw this, i thought it looked like the b*stard child of an F-16, F/A-18 & F-5! Haha. Perhaps brave would be the wrong word to use. I feel stupid actually. Heh.

[Metallicus]

that is a absolute beaut!!

[Gareth Phua]

that is a absolute beaut!!

Thank you Metallicus. I just know somewhere along the way there WILL be another glorious screwup, but we'll see how that goes.

[Flying Penguin]

Gorgeous build! Have one of these waiting to be done in the same scheme.

Did you print directly onto your masking frisket? Hope you don't mind me being incredibly cheeky, but the masking came out so well I was wondering if I could get a copy of the file you used to print from? I am currently dreading the cresent decals....

Regards,

Jamie

[Gareth Phua]

Gorgeous build! Have one of these waiting to be done in the same scheme.

Did you print directly onto your masking frisket? Hope you don't mind me being incredibly cheeky, but the masking came out so well I was wondering if I could get a copy of the file you used to print from? I am currently dreading the cresent decals....

Regards,

Jamie

Jamie, I'll be happy to send you the file. What I did was to mirror it, and print at the BACK of the frisket film since the front does not take inkjet well. It still runs but holds the outline well enough for me to trim it. I'll see if I kept a copy of the mirrored file so all you need to do is print it.

PM me your email addy and I'll fire the file off to you asap. I just need to know which format you prefer.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Gareth Phua

[mrcooljules]

i like it, as i said at the start, i knew nothing of the real plane but would watch the thread...

rather interesting even though its not my cup of tea

[Gareth Phua]

i like it, as i said at the start, i knew nothing of the real plane but would watch the thread...

rather interesting even though its not my cup of tea

Mrcooljules, a little information about the aircraft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JF-17_Thunder

Funny thing is, apparently China, which produces the aircraft has not managed to convince the PLAAF to take it, and it seems the only customer at the moment is the Pakistan Air Force.

Instead, China has adopted the J-10 and J-11 (license built Su-27?).

My facts are a little muddly so forgive me if any information is way off, which is probably is.

[mrcooljules]

Mrcooljules, a little information about the aircraft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JF-17_Thunder

Funny thing is, apparently China, which produces the aircraft has not managed to convince the PLAAF to take it, and it seems the only customer at the moment is the Pakistan Air Force.

Instead, China has adopted the J-10 and J-11 (license built Su-27?).

My facts are a little muddly so forgive me if any information is way off, which is probably is.

thanks, just read it

very ugly plane but i like your model

[jynski]

I'll be watching this thread closely. I just bought the Bronco kit. I'm also using the Aires Mig-29 cans, NACES seat and Dream Models PE. May post a work in progress when I start. Mine will probably be a whif with maybe Tunisian markings. Good luck.

[Gareth Phua]

It's finally done.

Link