Background
Fast Forward to 2010: After almost 30 years of service, the Canadian Armed
Forces finally decides to replace their fleet of CF-18 Hornets with the new
Rafale B.
This idea popped up
in my head when I saw those 'what-if' schemes of the Rafale by David Aungst:
what about a Canadian Rafale? So here she is: in markings of 416 Lynx Squadron,
based in Cold Lake, Alberta.
Kit
& Construction
Like many others, I used the Revell Germany 1/48 Rafale B kit
straight out of the box, which is just wonderful, as you might have heard from
reviews. The quality of the molding is just awesome, so are the details. The
only problem I had when building this kit was a few minor mismatches,
particularly around the intakes, and a slight gap on the under side between the
wings and the fuselage.
I had to do some
sanding on the area around the intakes. Some of the panel lines around this area
became shallower as a result of sanding, but that was it.
Here is the gap
between the fuselage and the wings. I used masking tape to mask off a
narrow strip, applied putty and sanded and sanded and sanded... |
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Here's the double cockpit ready
to be installed: I liked the detail straight out of the box, so I kept it that
way. The image to the right shows what I did with the HUD: I painted clear green
on just the edge of the clear plastic piece, and it turned out to have a very
convincing glass effect.
Paint, Decals
& Weathering
Here's the model before and after
painting. The paint scheme was the standard Canadian CF-18 two-tone gray scheme,
FS35237 Medium Gray over FS36375 Light Gray. I used Gunze paints. I airbrushed
on the first colour, but my airbrush was performing poorly, so I hand-painted
the second colour, which gave me slightly varied tones here and there which
helped the weathering. The camo pattern was to imitate those found on F-15's and
F/A-22's. It just looks cool!
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Weathering was done with a black
artists' oils/mineral spirits wash, chalk pastels and a little drybrushing.
The decals were from Leading
Edge, and they performed for the most part favourably. Some of them
disintegrated when I moved them off the backing sheet.
This was a fun project, taking a
break from 'accurate' modelling. I hope you enjoy the pics!
Jason
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