Saab J32E Lansen - Tarangus
Box
The main sprues - not a whole lot of parts really!
Yes, this is a limited run kit, and there is some really horrible ejector pin damage on some parts. The main wheel well is for instance ruined by both a big round block of plastic and also a deep trough after the tool.
One piece canopy - the smaller part to the left is the blast shield for the navigator's seat, and the two small parts are for the ejection seats.
Nice color paint references with color mixing suggestion for Tamiya, Gunze and Humbrol. This blue/olive Swedish camo is notoriously difficult to reproduce as the colors would fade and change significantly
Decal sheet is nice with plenty of service stencils - the black print is ever so slightly displaced
My aftermarket stash to be used - a PE/resin detail set, chaff dispensers, jamming pods and vacuum formed canopies.
Let's begin with the air brakes - the resin brake wells require opening up the fuselage sides
The plastic is rather thick, so I did some thinning with my Dremel 4000 (running at the lowest speed @5000 RPM)
A lot of plastic was removed from the inside
Drilling some holes in the air brake panel with a Tamiya pin vise hand drill
Using the drilled holes, I carefully cut open the air brake openings along the panel lines (cutting from the inside)
The resin inner brake walls are equipped with some scratch made details to add some life
Resin & scratch-built inner structure superglued inside the fuselage - looks quite nice!
So now for the air brakes - gosh, these thingies are tiny!
Air brake parts cut out and assembled, but put aside to be installed later
Lots of tiny photo-etched parts
Let's deal with that hideous ejector pin damage
Damaged areas removed, holes filled with plastic sheet and liquid sprue, formed in shape - good as new! I will add some cables later, which will further hide any remaining issues.
The main landing gear well of the Lansen is a feast of piping and cabling and you could spend weeks detailing this area. I settled for the most obvious wires and stuff to give it some life. Primed and ready for some details and washes.
The jet pipe assembly needs some scratch made support to hold it in position
The jet intake is a separate piece - quite a clever solution, but fits really poorly without surgery
Looks good from the outside
The cockpit is also damaged by ugly ejector pin marks - got to fix them too!
Ejector pin damage fixed - primed, ready for detail painting
The nose wheel bay requires a lot of surgery and head scratching to fit together, but looks good once assembled
Some more work done in the cockpit area. Photo-etched (somewhat oversized) seat belts and my own scratch built details added. Joysticks, the red ejector handles, blast shields and decals still missing and will be added later
Cockpit cemented to the right fuselage half and being dry fit to make sure that it is not too wide
This model is a real tail-sitter so I superglued as much lead weight into the nose as I could fit in
Closing up the fuselage halves - the fuselage parts however seem slightly warped and a lot of brute force is required to hold everything together while the cement cures
This is as good as I could get it, but I sure can see a lot of filling, sanding and rescribing in store.
Gaps and steps filled with my own home-made putty - pieces of plastic sprue dissolved in Tamiya Extra Thin Cement
Sanding to shape - the liquid sprue melts into the plastic and creates a nearly seamless bond which works great for rescribing
Rescribing lost panel lines
Wing underside cemented to the fuselage - it fits where it touches and well, a lot of filler is required
Wing top surfaces, fin and stabilizers done, various gaps filled with putty
Fuel tank and landing gears cemented in place - no location lugs makes it a bit difficult to find the right spot and angle. The instructions are terribly vague so you need to have photo references.
The pylons for the BOZ chaff pod are not provided, so I am using a scrapped pylon from a scrapped Italeri Gripen kit and extending it with styrene strips - one finished pylon to the right
My scratch built pylons in place
Priming in progress - UMP Ultimate Primer, Badger Crescendo 175 airbrush
Primed in gray, the Lansen looks quite hardcore! Small errors corrected, the array of antennas have been added and we're getting ready for the first layer of paint! I am still contemplating the colors to use but I think I have them figured out.
Assembling the chaff dispenser pod - each pod has like two dozens of ant-sized fins that need to be removed from the fret, bent in shape and superglued in place in the correct slanted angle - steady hands, steel wire nerves and bionic eyes required!
Underside painted gray
Masked off
Blue sprayed on
Green areas sprayed on freehand and then both colors faded with a lighter shade of the base color - to me it looks more realistic than preshading. Nose cone painted black and wing edges aluminium.
Vac-formed transparencies sawed in pieces to separate the canopy from the part. The windshield itself is cut out the same way from the second vac-formed piece.
Parts carefully sanded in shape with the Dremel 4000 on lowest speed
New vac-formed windshield and canopy - the original one-piece part is on the top. Notice the difference in thickness!
Windshield and canopy frames carefully masked off with Tamiya masking tape before spraying.
The painted windshield attached with Micro Crystal Clear - the fit is ho-hum, but still better than the kit's own part. Too bad no windshield wipers are provided... The canopy will be attached later in open position.
Applying the gloss varnish before the decalling - Alclad II Gloss applied with a paintbrush. I actually find it easier to create a smooth utility gloss with a brush than with an airbrush.
Carefully polished with various micromesh cloths for a satin sheen. Just be careful not to cut through the varnish coat!
Starting to add the decals - the biggest ones first. Mr Hobby decal solutions are used to "melt" the decals into the paint. They are incredibly effective on the kit's decals; they become completely embedded into the paintwork.
Dabbing away the excess water and decal solution
Main decalling done, previously botched dayglo fields fixed and faded to match the worn camouflage.
Adding some heavy weathering with oil paints and pigments. You can hardly overdo it, the Lansens were literally oozing oil and liquid from every seam! Oops, I forgot to paint the top of the fin black, need to do that too!
Air brakes, seats, underwing pods, ECM operator blast shield and open canopy added. Windshield tinted green... I think I am done!
Finished. I can still spot a few mistakes, but frankly, I don't care.
The air brakes are sweet but are barely hanging in there by the tiniest drop of superglue. Look at them sideways and they fall off.
Rear view
Cockpit view. I Dremel-sanded the thick blast shield to a fraction of an inch of its life to make it a bit more scale realistic. It also made it much more transparent. The navigator's rear dashboard is most likely grossly incorrect: not being able to source any reference photos, I just winged it. Sosumi.
Top view - the fading might seem excessive, but trust me, that is what the Swedish climate does to paint.
Here you can see the resin pods (embellished with a few custom made decals). Oh my, how I remember the struggle with that landing gear bay a few months ago...
A boarding ladder would be nice, but I think I won't bother.
Didn't I already upload a picture like this? Well, whatever, here is another view of the air brakes.
Here you can see the slightly tinted windshield (Tamiya Clear Green). There should be windshield wipers too, but none are included and I just wasn't able to scratch build it myself.
Comments
4 12 October 2019, 11:47
Thomas KolbI am just starting the build of this kit - given the complexity of the aftermarket parts I will be using and the limited-run quality of the kit, I can already see that this is not going to be a quick build... Yesterday I started cleaning up some of the parts, which are marred by large mold gates and ridiculous ejector pin marks at some very visible places... like in the middle of the cockpit and the landing gear bays. What were these guys thinking?
13 October 2019, 07:01
Daniel MysakNice to see the Lansen here. I´m very interested in the kit but the poor quality and the high price stops me from buying yet. Looking forward to your progress.
13 October 2019, 07:26
Bernd KorteNice project! I still have the Heller kit in my stash. That kept me from buying this new one.
13 October 2019, 14:21
Oleg SmilykIntresting project,Thomas.So you have chaff dispensers and Petrus,what included in the box.
13 October 2019, 19:00
Thomas KolbOleg Smilyk, only that bulbous central fuel tank and two rather simple Sidewinders are included in the box. The missiles are only valid for the B-version. The two BOZ 3 pods and the two Petrus/Adrian pods for the E-version need to be purchased separately.
13 October 2019, 19:59
Thomas KolbThis evening I cut out the openings for the air brakes on the fuselage sides. This was quite a nerve-wrecking task because it is really easy to mess up big time. I also had to perform some pretty serious plastic surgery on the main wheel wells to get rid of the hideous molding damages. The double cockpit/nose gear well assembly needed a lot of work too - the parts as designed hardly fit together at all.
I will next tackle the ejection seats - for some reason only the metal frame of the seats are provided in the box, no cushions or a parachute, so I need to look for references to build my own parts. Should not be too difficult.
14 October 2019, 19:45
Dave FlittonI have the Heller as well, looking to see what you do this this...er..thing.
14 October 2019, 21:13
Thomas KolbOleg Smilyk, sorry I misunderstood you. No, there are no decals for the Maestro Models pods, only the main part in resin and a small sheet of photo-etched details.
15 October 2019, 18:19
Thomas KolbIt seems that the seats were in fact really just these hard-shells as molded in the kit. The pilot and navigator put on parachutes upon boarding, so the ejection seats didn't have any back cushions. In the pan of the seat was a survival pack in case of ejection over hostile territory. This package was formed as a cushion to sit on. It all looks pretty uncomfortable, but I guess it was like that in the 50's... Anyway, I formed the survival pack/cushion from styrene sheets, and will leave the back of the seat as they are. Seatbelts will be added of course after painting.
17 October 2019, 19:26
Łukasz GlińskiHow come I missed this one? I have no glue😉 how you guys manage to put those tiny PE frets together looking so clean... Mine always end up soaked in CA glue.
17 October 2019, 20:29
Treehugger@Łukasz Gliński, I don't know what he did, but you can use a special tool for applying very small amounts of cyanoacrylate, tool looks like photo etch loop (ring,that soaks up and releases liquid on contact). I think you can also use the tip of a sharp pointy plade, but I haven't yet tried that myself. Also a good idea to get a bottle of de-bonder. Also, not something I have used, but I have it in my stash.
19 October 2019, 18:56
Łukasz GlińskiAlright, these ideas sound interesting, I have to try it one day 🙂 Thanks
19 October 2019, 20:08
Thomas KolbThis weekend I did a lot of work in the cockpit - unfortunately nothing fits without at least some level of surgery, but I am slowly getting there. I cemented the resin air brake inserts and jet intakes in place and added some internal bracing for the jet pipe - it would otherwise just kind of hang in mid-air with nothing to hold it in place, not sure what Sword/Tarangus were thinking.
I cemented the cockpit tub in place - without the seats, as they can be added later. I also added a ton of lead weights into the nose to avoid a tail-sitting model later. Some more dry-fitting is required and then I am ready to finally close up the fuselage halves. The fit however seems a bit so-so, and I can already see a week spent filling, sanding and rescribing.
3 November 2019, 18:10
Erik LeijdensLooks like a challenging kit. You've done a great job so far. Always liked the Lansen. Looking forward to the finished model!
8 November 2019, 22:43
Thomas KolbModel primed and pretty much all antennas and bay doors are in place - now I am preparing the pods and canopy, and then it is soon time to apply the first color layer.
22 December 2019, 18:20
Thomas KolbFinally painted the camouflage - I was aiming for an extremely faded Lansen where the blue almost turned into some kind of turquoise and the green into a weird greenish brown. I mixed the colors from 3-4 different Tamiya paints to try to match the photos I found online. I also used my newly found post-shading technique where I add a brighter shade of the main color to emphasize the center of the panels. Of course I will later add proper weathering with oils and pastels.
4 February 2020, 21:04
Daniel MysakCamouflage looks great, nice worn out style. Love the swedish jets with there many different shades of their camouflages. I build three Draken yet and all look different 🙂.
6 February 2020, 18:46
Thomas KolbI have been struggling with the replacement canopy - not having worked with vac-formed transparencies before, it was a bit of a challenge to get the fit exactly right, but in the end I think I managed - sort of. Unfortunately the windshield part is a little bit too wide and does not fit perfectly, but there is not much I can do about it.
15 February 2020, 13:08
Thomas KolbYesterday evening I started adding the decals, but I won't bother with some of the tiny black stencils as they are in fact totally invisible on the camo. I however botched up the position of the dayglo decals on the top of the wings and also nicked one while foolishly trying to move it after it had settled... so that will need to be fixed before continuing.
18 February 2020, 09:03
Daniel MysakHow about painting the dayglo, so you can fad it a bit wth yellow to fit the look of the camo?
18 February 2020, 09:08
Thomas KolbDaniel, yes, thanks for the tip! I did in fact fade the decals with some yellow overspray, but I will now just spray them directly on the wings - I think it both looks nicer and is actually easier.
18 February 2020, 09:31
Daniel MysakI also think so. Try to start with yellow as base and thin layers of orange.
18 February 2020, 09:33
Thomas KolbI started to apply weathering effects with Abteilung 502 oil paints diluted with AK Odorless Thinner, and various Tamiya weathering pigments. I don't think I can overdo it, these old aircraft were literally oozing oil and grease from every seam! I then need to finish the cockpit, add the extended airbrakes, the jet pipe and also the underwing pods, but I am starting to see the finishing line!
23 February 2020, 07:28
Thomas KolbFinally finished - a lovely model, surprisingly big for this scale. This was a rather difficult, but nonetheless very entertaining project.
20 April 2020, 11:42
Eduardo SotoGood looking aircraft. I love the colors and the soft blending of the camouflage. great job.
20 April 2020, 12:46
Thomas KolbEduardo, Dave, Łukasz, thank you!
@Łukasz, if you mean the metal things extruding from the sides of the fuselage, they are the four air brakes. On the real aircraft they are automatically extended together with the landing gear. Very strange contraptions.
20 April 2020, 13:39
Andy Ballyou've wrestled at every stage with the kit by the looks: and reaped the reward, splendid!
20 April 2020, 13:53
Markus Antoniusgreat - don't do that... you will push people into buying crappy short-run kits 😄
18 May 2020, 08:42
