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Another classic kit
from Dynavector, this time the TSR2. I have seen the 2 surviving TSR2's at
Cosford and Duxford in the UK but it wasn't until I had it on the work bench
that I realized how big this plane is. I have photographed the model next
to a Phantom to give an idea of size.
The kit fuselage comes in 4 quarters, the front section split vertically and the
rear horizontally. Each section is the length of an average 1/48 kit.
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Construction
basically followed the instructions in the kit and the excellent review by Ted
Taylor, with a couple of exceptions. Firstly the rear fuselage was reinforced
around the weapons bay by gluing some plastruct box section over the inside of
the weapons bay doors. This keeps them nice and flat and provides and anchor for
the cross beams to keep the width correct. Because the finished model is so
heavy I anchored the supports for the undercarriage bays here as well. Secondly
I dispensed with the kit exhaust nozzles and replaced them with electrical
conduit. I have done this on a few kit now and the TSR2 was fitted with 20mm OD.
Available at electrical stores for $2 per meter, its cheap and easy to work.
This allows you to have a jet pipe with no internal seams to worry about and
also allows them to be fitted after the fuselage has been joined, thus also
allowing the join for the fuselage halves to be made and sanded to a crisp edge
which would not be possible with the pipes in. The conduit was sharpened to give
it a thin edge and looks the part (photo 3). Photo 9 shows the structure in the
rear fuselage as describes above and also the frame to allow the insertion of
the jet pipes later. One of the pipes is resting in place. Ted noted that
the kit is weak in the front corners of the rear fuselage so I filled these with
PVA glue to prevent me from sanding through them later. As it turned out not
much sanding was required but I think the extra strength is good on a model this
size.
Photo 9 also shows
the front fuselage assembled as per the instructions. (see bottom of article)
I added some more detail to the cockpits which was lucky as the canopies are
crystal clear and the interior can be seen, even the rear cockpit despite the
small windows. The rear fuselage was taped to a piece of 2x1 timber and the
front offered up until perfect alignment was achieved and then they were glued
together. The main joint was laminated at the rear of the intakes and came out
very strong. An excellent piece of kit engineering. For the undercarriages I
glued the legs to the fuselage before fitting the bogies and adding brake lines.
Thus ensuring the 6 wheels are all on the ground.
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The finished model was painted
with Humbrol 130 white as recommended by Ted with under and over shading to give
depth. The tail and underwing areas are Alclad II Steel and Aluminum
respectively. A wash of Raw umber was added after the final cost of Kleer
(Future) to pick out the detail.
One of the hardest things about this kit was photographing it. White is very
hard to photograph and it took a lot of fiddling with both camera and software
to get some detail to show up. Also the plane is so huge I couldn't get it onto
my usual background hence the close cropping and no profile view!
Colin
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Photo 9
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