1/48 Revell/Germany F-8 Crusader

by Greg Buckley

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This kit is a re-released boxing of the original Monogram crusader.  It comes moulded in white plastic with the familiar raised panel lines and has a choice of decals for a US navy CAG bird and a French Aeronavale aircraft.  However don’t let the age of the kit put you off as it is an easy and fun kit to build which requires very little filler.  The cockpit consists of a tub with raised details which responded very well to dry brushing.  This looks pretty effective, but for the resin and etched junkies out there you could really go to town.  However one drawback is the ejection seat supplied with the kit is incorrect for the Crusader and is of the type fitted to the A-7 Corsair.  For this build I fitted it with the intention to fit a correct seat when acquired.  

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The panel lines were left as is as I wanted to complete this kit over a weekend off and it was sprayed with Lifecolour Acrylics.  Panel lines were then lightly sprayed with a thinned dark brown mix and then lightened light gull grey top colour and white were heavily thinned and sprayed again to tone down the panel shading.  This worked really well and I was exceptionally pleased with the result.  I was struck by how the aircraft reminded me of a great white shark, with the grey streaked uppers and with under surfaces with the whacking great intake at the front and fin at the back!  As normal Revell only supplied a painting key for their own brand of paints, why they carry on insisting on doing this is beyond me as their paints do not have the greatest selection of colours and require some odd mixes to be attempted which is not the best way to encourage younger modellers! 

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Johnson’s Klear was then sprayed on to provide a gloss coat for the application of the decals.  The decals where a huge improvement on the normal Revell offering, are thin, glossy, conform well, re-position well and react well with decal setting and solvents such as aerosol; and microsol.  A light overspray of Tamiya smoke was applied over panel lines on the decals to tone them down and then a coat of 50/50 mix Xtracolour flat and satin varnish well thinned with Xtracolour thinners was applied.  

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I really enjoyed building this kit, made a nice change from the normal Tamigawa shake the box offerings and looks the part.

Greg

Photos and text © by Greg Buckley