This
article is about scratch-building an illuminated cockpit for the Revell kit F-4E
(1/32). I divided the full article into 4 installments, so I could go into some
details and describe them as closely as possible.
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Part 1: Building the front cockpit - design of the cockpit panels, adding
lights.
- Part 2: Completing the front
cockpit - the instrument panel and the HUD.
- Part
3: Building the rear cockpit - side console panels. Dry fit of the cockpit tub.
- Part
4: Completing the rear cockpit - the Instrument panel. Final details and
adjustments.
ASSEMBLY
OF THE FRONT INSTRUMENT PANEL
These
are the various parts belonging to the front instrument panel assembly:
the panel itself, two side panels, two MFD housings, etc The match served
as a size reference for the tiny parts. Some of them are still “open”,
others were soldered and polished.
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I
painted the instrument panel with a layer of light grey acrylics. I
backed-up the rear side with a 1mm thick piece of styrene sheet, through
which I drilled the holes for the fiber optics (FO). Then I glued the
FO’s to the styrene part, in the same way as for the side panels
(2-component epoxy). A printed copy of the instrument dials was then
“sandwiched” between the panel and the FO styrene sheet. I use the
same back-light technique as for the side panels.
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BUILDING
THE MFD
The MFD
included an etched housing, a printed cardstock GPS map and a white LED. I stuck
the LED into the housing from below, added a appropriate resistor, et voilà a
beautiful lighted MFD
Later on I would try different – higher value – resistors, to dim the light
somewhat.
Building
the MFD front frame with all its buttons was a nightmare. The buttons are the
tiniest parts I ever assembled. I couldn’t have done it without the help of my
10x magnifying watch-maker lens and a precise layout template. I used Future to
glue the buttons, which provided enough time to get everything aligned.
The
result is just awesome: tiny, but fully illuminated!
ASSEMBLING
THE PARTS
The
front instrument panel came from my custom etch, along with its sub-panels,
instruments and MFD. I could have used Waldron modern jet instrument frames, but
their size was slightly off scale for this build. So I stayed with my own
scratch-built parts.
A night
shot shows the beauty of the illuminated instruments. The gyrocompass light is
too much centered; I will correct this in my next project. Nobody is perfect!
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I
dry-fitted the assembled front cockpit into the kit body. The seat is the
kit part, which I would soon replace with a better resin copy. I had to
cut out the panel shroud to accommodate the MFD. The Tamiya pilot was
continuously raising his virtual pint of beer, happy to be there
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Connecting
all the FOs to LEDs was the next challenge. I needed 5 LED’s to accommodate
all the FO strands. First I bundled several stands into heat-shrink tubes, then
bundled several of the latter into an aluminum socked. The other end received
the LED. Note that I used special orange-colored LEDs, which provided a more
natural light for the instruments than the regular white LEDs.
ALL
LIGHTS ON
The view was truly spectacular, even if some instruments looked over-exposed on
this picture. Note that I painted the first protruding centimeters of FO all
black, to prevent light leakage.
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A
close-up of the front section of the cockpit showed that the space became
cramped. At least the model would not need extra weight being inserted into the
nose. It will definitely not be a tail dragger…
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BUILDING
THE HUD
A
last step in the front cockpit building was to build and illuminate the
board computer and the Head-Up Display (HUD).
The
computer box was made of an etched brass part, carefully folded, soldered
and polished. I glued the cardstock front panel with Future and
illuminated the display with a small 3mm LED.
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There
wasn’t a lot of free space available to accommodate additional numbers of LEDs.
So I came up with the idea to use a single LED to illuminate the computer and
the HUD. I scratch built the HUD elements with styrene parts. The glass is
punched out from a sheet of clear plastic, and painted Tamiya clear green. The
HUD glass is also a piece of clear plastic, which I cut to the required shape.
To simulate the “glass” effect, I painted the edges with clear green.
Again I
had to practice surgery on the shroud to make an opening for the HUD. The result
looked fine to me, especially with the “combo” lightning.
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The
front office approached completion. It was packed with a maximum of parts I
could stuff into it – no wasted space!. The light provided a nice special
touch of realism, underlined by all the wires and electric connections.
These
steps in the construction of the scratch-built cockpit were completed at a much
faster pace, between January and February 2005. The next article will tell the
story of the rear cockpit, where I had to address a couple of extra challenges.
Pierre
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