SAAB SK60 - Marivox
Boxes
Flash galore
The fuselage is already cracked in two on the sprue (just behind the air brake opening). Also, if you want panel lines, you'll have to scribe your own.
Nasty molding errors with some parts - the plastic is so thin and brittle that the parts actually shatter and crumble when trying to remove them. I had them replaced with new parts under warranty.
Instructions - pretty rudimentary, so online references are needed. Also the position of antennas and smaller stuff are completely wrong, so you definitely need photos!
Really nice decal sheet for Swedish and Austrian versions
Brass fret included in the kit - it is surprisingly thick so the parts are difficult to bend in shape if you don't have a bending tool (which I do).
The kit's own transparent parts are pretty thick. I bought the Maestro Models vac-formed canopy, but those turned out to have a completely wrong shape and are unusable.
Vacuum-formed canopies purchased from Maestro Models. Unfortunately the shape is completely wrong and makes it unusable.
Extra photo-etched frame purchased from Maestro Models - this is a superb addition, no SK-60 model should be without it.
Fuselage halves carefully sawed off from the sprue, repaired and reinforced with plastic cards on the inside to avoid further cracking.
The over-heavy detailing on the cockpit sidewalls needs to be removed as I will using the Maestro Models photo-etched parts instead
Removing heavy molded-on internal side-panel detail with my trusty Dremel 4000 - these will be replaced with PE parts later. Also I cut open the small side windows, as they had the wrong shape and were more or less completely covered in flash
Excavating the cockpit parts from this molten mess is tricky - the plastic is really brittle and clipping tools would just shatter them. I need to use a razor saw to cut out the entire area and then gradually saw and sand away the superfluous plastic.
A bit discouraging - the cockpit parts are literally drowning in flash ...
... but with some patience everything can be fixed. But the seat's headrests are completely wrong, so I need to fix them..
New headrests scratch built. The seats are now put to the side for later.
I cut open the "blind" walls in the jet intake, and will add some inner detailing later
Cockpit back wall cut from a plastic coffee cup - otherwise you could see through the cockpit straight into the entire inner fuselage
Center separator panel made from styrene sheets and back wall added. Primed and ready to be detailed.
Cockpit floor and walls done. Seats and dashboard will be added later.
Fuselage halves cemented together
Join lines filled and sanded smooth
The nose cone and area behind the cockpit is filled with lead weights to make sure that the model is not a tail sitter.
In the meantime I am checking for other fit issues - for instance, I noticed that the wing needs to be modified somewhat to accept the jet intake. The marked areas should be removed.
The area chopped off with a razor saw ...
... and now the jet intake fits perfectly!
While I was at it, I added a hollow plastic tube from the spare box to the back of the jet intake part to represent the inside of the intake tunnel.
Actually it looks pretty nice - I was even thinking of crafting a small turbine face on the inside, but it would have been too much work for something hardly visible.
The new jet intake pipes need some cutting and messing to fit, but it is worth it.
Yep, totally worth it!
The nose cone is now cemented in place - I crafted some details in the nose gear well, as the nose cone part is otherwise completely empty.
Since there are no panel lines on the kit, I decided to scribe my own using online drawings. I am not very good at scribing, but as long as there are only straight lines, I can get away with it.
For the lines around the fuselage, curved templates are needed. I simply cut them from electric tape.
Place the tape where the engraved lines should be...
... and scribe away. I just need to be careful so they become Matchbox trenches!
The jet exhaust is reshaped for a better fit - I added the bottom half first, added the redesigned pipe and the thrust reversor before the top half is cemented in place
Everything fits *just* barely and a lot of dry fitting is needed before committing to cement.
Stabilizer, rudder and dropped flaps installed. Notice the ridiculous amount of filling around the wings and the engine nacelles!
Extended air brakes added. The kit's photo-etched parts are improved with thin metal sheets.
Cockpit masked off with Tamiya masking tape and the whole model carefully wiped off with alcohol to remove fingerprints and sanding dust.
I had completely forgotten the instrument panel and the windscreen, so these were added and the cockpit then remasked.
Priming with UMP Ultimate Primer
Primed and inspected for imperfections. I also temporarily removed the flaps and the air brakes as I noticed that they would interfere with masking and spraying the camo pattern.
Spraying the blue underside (Tamiya X-14 Sky Blue). Shiny and bright!
The line between the blue underside and the camouflage top needs to follow the yellow decal lines very precisely. I started with copying the decal sheet to plain paper ...
... and used the yellow decal stripes between the blue underside and the camo top sides as a template to cut out the masking for the underside
Mask carefully applied
Minor gaps filled with masking fluid to avoid accidental paint to find its way onto the blue
Top surface camouflage pattern sprayed on freehand - Tamiya paints mixed according to photos: a witches brew of XF-13, XF-62, XF-19 and XF-17.
New masking applied for the metal parts
Metalizer applied - I used AKI Xtreme Metal Steel for this.
Tape removed - looks pretty clean! The yellow stripes under the wing will be represented with my custom made decals as I couldn't make painted stripes crisp and consistent enough.
Alclad II utility gloss coat applied with a paintbrush before decaling.
Staring to apply the decals - the kit's own decals are extremely thin and require a delicate touch, but are beautifully printed. In case you didn't know, "Flygvapnet" is the name of the Swedish Air Force.
Cutting out the yellow stripes under the wings from a spare decal sheet
Yep, looks decent - the idea with the yellow line between the blue and the camo worked out just fine! I am here also starting to apply some careful weathering with Abteilung 502 oils to bring some life to my scribed panel lines. Antennas, gear bay doors, air brakes and underwing smoke canisters still missing.
Semi-flat clear coat applied on the top to seal the decals and the weathering. My scratch-built seats added to the cockpit. I was worried for a second that they wouldn't fit, but fortunately they did! Nice!
Adding the ram air regulator to the smoke generators. The pylons need to be built from scratch.
Assembling the super fiddly gear bay doors - they need to be bent very precisely to match the curvature of the bracing.
The resin smoke generators added and some more minor stuff - and that's about it!
Comments
4 12 November 2019, 19:33
Juergen KlinglhuberYeah!! Saab 105!! - Looking forward to your double build! have fun and keep us informed.
12 November 2019, 19:44
Thomas KolbI have been trying to figure out the best way to perform this build as the instructions only very loosely correlate with what can be found on the sprues and the etched frets. Also there is no build sequence described, so you need to do some work finding the best assembly order. A lot of stuff needs to be fabricated from plastic and metal sheets, as otherwise things don't add up at all. Definitely challenging, but so far, pretty fun!
13 November 2019, 22:14
ErikI've never seen that plane before. Interesting. Looks a bit like a mix of Prowler (front), Alpha Jet (middle) and Starfighter (elevator).😉
16 November 2019, 10:14
Gordon SørensenWatching! I read once that this kit can be "challenging...." Almost reminds me of an Amodel....
16 November 2019, 12:06
Juergen KlinglhuberThomas, I can feel with you, it can be a pain sometimes - 2 of this kits done, 3 waiting - I am really curious about the outcome and your experience. Until now it seems you handle this challenge with ease....
17 November 2019, 08:20
Thomas KolbI have now come to the point where the fuselage can finally be cemented together. I will then add the nose cone and possibly try to scratch build at least some resemblance of a nose gear box. Oh, and to make sure to cram as much lead weight as I can into this model. The next will be the tricky wing and complicated jet intake/exhaust assembly. I think I will need to step back a little to think about how to best engineer this, as I can see a lot of potentiall pitfalls.
17 November 2019, 12:28
Thomas KolbJürgen Klingkhuber, Three kits waiting, seriously? That's certainly a challenge! I don't think I would be able to handle three more of this kit, once these two are finished. I'd love to see your results!
17 November 2019, 12:32
Erik De SmetI have this kit in my stash too, and I think it will stay there, but I am following this interesting build
17 November 2019, 12:34
Thomas KolbErik De Smet, I think you should give it a go, this kit is actually quite fun because it will force you to think outside the box in order to overcome the problems.
Bernd Korte - thank you! But I deliberately leave out the most tricky panel lines, like circles and ovals as I think those are beyond my scribing capability.
17 November 2019, 19:11
Juergen Klinglhuber🙂 Thomas - once I get up the nerve to start with those three - I let you know 😉
Unfortunally I have developed a passion for that birds - the real one's that are still (!!) in service here in Austria. So it's only a matter of time to take a deep breath and pull the kits out of the stash and put them on the table,....
17 November 2019, 19:22
Thomas KolbI am waiting for warranty replacement of some totally deformed jet exhaust parts that were more or less beyond repair... As soon as they arrive in the mail I will continue building. In the meantime I finished scribing the entire kit, it turned out quite nice without any slips or crooked lines.
24 November 2019, 18:01
Thomas KolbI finally figured out how to build the engine nacelles, as I am unable to make the kit parts fit. I added the bottom halves first, of course heavily sanded in shape. From there I crafted a top half, partially from the kit part, but also by using styrene sheets and a lot of liquid styrene. Finally I built my own thrust reversers, as the kit versions are totally unusable. I will later add metal frames to the reversers to make them look a bit more like the real thing. The jet pipe in the middle will be crafted from a hollowed out styrene cylinder with the tip of the kit part inserted in the middle.
Wow, this is really a lot of work for a tiny model - I hope it will be worth the effort.
26 November 2019, 22:25
Łukasz GlińskiThomas, could you share your recipe for liquid styrene? Is it nitro-based?
Extremely challenging project, reminds me a bit of my Iryda, but I knew so much less while building it😉
27 November 2019, 08:28
Thomas KolbLukasz, actually quite easy: I cut a sprue tree in tiny pieces (5 mm) and put them in a bottle of Tamiya Extra Thin cement. After a few days the styrene has melted and turned into a goo. If it is too thin, add more plastic, if it is too thick, add more cement. You can then simply brush it onto the model where you want to fill large gaps.
It is a bit messy, but the good thing is that when applied, this stuff really melts into the plastic and becomes a part it - you can scribe and cut it just like the original part and will not crumble like putty. You can even use it to completely reshape parts (e.g to make them thicker or longer), but you will then have to use several layers with a day of waiting time between layers, so it is a bit time-consuming.
27 November 2019, 09:01
Urban GardiniExcellent work so far on this famous Putty Queen the Devourer of Putty!
3 December 2019, 09:00
Thomas KolbI have been crafting my own metal parts to combine with the photo-etched parts. The landing gears are next - the horror.
Urban, thank you! Yes I cannot remember having used this much filler on a single project - like ever. This little kit doesn't give anything away for free.
3 December 2019, 18:05
Roland SachsenhoferAre you really going to tame that beast?
You are! Unbelievable and stunning!
3 December 2019, 19:01
Thomas KolbBacktracking my steps little with the new warranty replacement parts for the engine nacelles. The original parts kept caving in as the material was simply too thin (errors in the molding process). The replacement parts look much better! I also made new seats and added some improvements. I am starting to realize that this kit is not at all as hopeless as people say. Sure the fit is pretty crappy, but it just takes some fantasy to fix most of the the weaknesses.
16 December 2019, 20:25
Roland SachsenhoferIt keeps growing into a precious gem - and a reference build for this lovely plane
17 December 2019, 09:39
Thomas KolbBlue underside sprayed with gloss Tamiya Sky Blue - next will be the camo on the top, but the blue undersides are still slighly tacky (I obviously used too much retarder in the paint), so I will give it a few days to completely dry before doing any serious masking.
11 February 2020, 21:33
Łukasz GlińskiI see that Swedish self-isolation has actually begun 😉
That underside scheme is awesome, makes we wanna buy on of these crappy kits.
Somehow it looks bit Russian to me 😉
en.wikipedia.org/wik..Aerospace_Forces.svg
24 March 2020, 12:22
Thomas KolbBernd, Paul, Lukasz, thank you! Yes, this six week temporary work stop may get me back on track with my model projects! BTW, this is really a weird paint job - clean, glossy and neat blue-yellow undersides and tatty, worn and faded camouflaged top sides (which I will tackle next)... kind of like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
24 March 2020, 12:42
Martin von Schreckensteinomg whats going on here? that is some incredible work! I consider myself patient but this is a whole new level🙂
24 March 2020, 13:42
Thomas KolbI used various Tamiya acrylics to mix the brown/green/blue hues for the camo and applied the pattern on freehand - on the aircraft in service today, it is almost impossible to see where the different colors meet, so there was no point in using mask templates. I then also applied a clear utility gloss coat before starting decaling and oil paint weathering.
5 April 2020, 09:32
Thomas KolbDecaling underway - the kit's own decals have superb quality and conform beautifully to the surfaces and panel lines using my standard decal setting/softening solutions. I struggled a bit to get the top "FLYGVAPNET" decor correct - the letter E is split in two parts and need to be placed around the inner he wing fence, so everything needs to be lined up with extreme precision.
6 April 2020, 23:25
Thomas KolbDecaling underway - the kit's own decals are super thin but are really crisp and conform beautifully to the surfaces and panel lines. I struggled a bit to get the top "FLYGVAPNET" decor correct - the letter E is split in two parts and need to be placed around the inner wing fence, so everything needs to be lined up with care. The yellow lines between the blue and the camo require extreme precision - I am so glad that I used them as masking templates, or it would have looked awful.
7 April 2020, 06:09
Thomas KolbUrban, Gordon, Erik, Pierre, Lukasz and Alec, thank you guys! Your kind comments means a lot, so I can push through the last grueling hours with this kit! Absolutely, hands down the most difficult model I have ever built.
Lukasz, he he, yes, for a second I was seriously worried that the seats wouldn't fit in and I would have to redo them.... but they did, with half a millimeter to spare! Phew!
9 April 2020, 11:48
Thomas KolbPretty much finished the model - I guess some small stuff could still be scratch built and added, like small antennas and stuff, but I honestly don't think it will do much of a difference. I learnt a lot and I would probably be able to do a vastly better job next time (I actually have another kit in the stash) - but for now I am pleased that it is done! I will add some more photos later!
11 April 2020, 09:54
Mid FranconianThis is an absolutely stunning model! You did a great job on this Marivox kit!
11 April 2020, 10:31
Łukasz GlińskiWow, can't believe it's the same kit as on the first pics. Outstanding! 👍
11 April 2020, 13:03
Thomas KolbThanks guys for the nice compliments! 🙂 See, this is what the Swedish self-quarantine does - letting us finish seemingly impossible and endless projects.
11 April 2020, 13:55
Roland SachsenhoferThat is just cool and worth any congratulations: a great build and a great outcome!
12 April 2020, 16:26
Andy BallAn unusual subject. A difficult build. A masterful execution. A glass of [.......] deserved.
12 April 2020, 17:49
Erik De SmetThis is an excellent result, Thomas, rewarding all the efforts you have put in it. But on picture 1 I see two boxes, do you intend to make a second one ?
4 May 2020, 14:41
Daniel KlinkGreat Result Thomas! Superb Job
@Urban..Made my day...cant'stop laughing 👍
4 May 2020, 15:17
Urban GardiniNice, then it's mission accomplished. I all of a sudden got the idea for the meme and checked if it was possible it was not just possible but really easy to pull it of!
4 May 2020, 15:39
Thomas Kolb@Daniel, thank you!
@Erik, yes, I bought two kits to have some major spare parts in case I screwed up the first kit. As it turned out, I didn't need to sacrifice the second kit, so I will later try to build it as the regular C-version (the light attack version). I suppose it should be much easier, since I know all the pitfalls now.
5 May 2020, 12:24
CuajeteVery nice aircraft. Fantastic job and result. Congrats!
Waiting for your next Saab-105 kit 😛
17 May 2020, 18:22
