1/122 Revell Lockheed EC-121T Warning Star

Gallery Article by José Alvarez on Nov 11 2013

 

 

Lockheed EC-121T Warning Star at Camarillo Yanks Air Museum

Hello everyone. 

Here's my recently modeling work. It's about the Lockheed EC-121T “Warning Star” at Camarillo Yanks Air Museum. 

I liked it very much since I saw a video of this plane on Facebook when it took off from Chino California after 7 years of restoration. Those Vids are a must to watch…

As I had the Revell Super Connie 1/122 scale from 1956 on my stash and I didn't know what to do with it, I decided to use it for my conversion. I started by gluing the Windows to the fuselage halves then painted the hole interior with black, including the windows. I glued the original fuselage doors in place and filled them with putty and sanded them smooth. Then I rescribed a new back door more aft from the original one. Now I joined the fuselage halves. I have to mention that this is a very, very bad kit. Full of extra plastic to remove and sand and cut, engine nacelles didn't fit at all so I had to fill the seams with CA and sand, fill them again and sand'em again until get the final shape. I don't know why I like this kind of kit…LOL!

 

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For the radar under the fuselage I used an old and dusty and broken C-121 radar cover and adapted it to the belly on my Connie. The air scoop behind the front landing gear strut is made from scratch using a old air-scoop mouth, then I shaped it using plasticard. The original windshield was a real waste, so I replaced it by reconstructing the windshield frames with plasticard, filled with putty around them and polished the frames. Then I covered each window with Model Master Window Maker glue. Excellent product indeed!...

Then I sealed the model with primer to check joint errors and then painted the final coat not before paint some pre-shades around the fuselage. I used Mr. Color Gray to paint the model and then some light gray and white to produce the shades between the panels and lines. The U.S. AIR FORCE markings on the front fuselage were made using frisket masking film. The U.S. National Insignia are from my spare decals box and the “Yanks Air Museum” and tail insignias are made using decal paper and my inkjet printer. I masked new rounded windows on fuselage end drill Little new ones then painted them with …Navy Blue and placed a drop of Future and Model Master Window Maker to give'em realism. Then I glued the aerials and antennaes and tip tanks static bars and pitot tubes which were made from stretched sprue. 

Hope you like it guys. See ya next time. 

Cheers

José Alvarez

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Photos and text © by José Alvarez