F-15E EAGLE
Tamiya 1/32 Scale

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Most aircraft models start with the cockpit and Tamiya's F-15 is no exception.  My first step was to remove all the detail from the control surfaces since I am using the Eduard interior set.  It was a little nerve wracking since the details on the kit parts and the Black Box set are so nice.  Also, the BB kit only comes with a rear control panel so if I screwed up on the front one I did not have a spare.

At this point I checked my references and discovered that the F-15I has an all black interior while the USAF version (and the Eduard photo etch set) have a grey interior. 

USAF Version     IAF Version My first thought was to use the Eduard set anyway since it looks so good (and since the control panels were now detail free), then I thought "maybe I can paint the photo etch panels."  I thinned down some Vallejo Flat Black to somewhere between a wash and airbrush thin and flowed it along the edges of the raised details.  After two coats it came out looking quite nice.  The colors are still a touch off but not too bad.

All the cockpit tubs and control panels are complete and ready for assembly.  After the yare assembled there will be a little more weathering but all in all I think that they turned out quite well.  The Eduard photo etch kit was fantastic.  I love the detail on the resin cockpit kit but there were a lot of things that could be improved - most notably the instructions.  There was a large pour plug on the bottom of each tub that needed to be removed but I obviously did not test fit things sufficiently because my last test fit revealed that the front landing gear bay would not fit under the cockpit.  With everything painted and all the fine detail in place using the Dremel was a less than exciting prospect, and washing off the resulting dust also removed most of the weathering pastels.  Oh well, live and learn.

With the cockpit mostly done it was time to move on to the front wheel well.  The kit had little detail and what was there is mostly wrong. 

I cut a section out of the bottom to make it easier to remove the molded in pipes and hoses and then created new ones from styrene tubing. I used styrene rod and channels to detail the wheel well A little bit of wire and some paint and voila.

Before finishing the front of the plane I wanted to get the radar put together.  I scraped off the detail and am going to rebuild it.  Here are a few pictures of the process. 

This is before any detail was removed This is scraped and primed Here it is with a base color ready for the details to be added.  Notice the addition to the round bulkhead section.  This is the hinge for the nose cone.  The kit was designed so you could open and close it but it looked terrible.  It will look much more like the real thing when I am finished. Added some grab handles, wires, connectors and a little paint and hopefully it stands up to the expanded scrutiny of the camera lens.  It has actually been a month since I finished the wiring.  Right now it is sealed up for painting the main body of the plane but when I get the chance I am going to revisit it.  Of course it looks better in actual life size than zoomed way in for these pictures.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the paint colors just right.  I really think the color of green and tan used makes this F-15  paint job really pop.  See the inspiration picture at the top of the page.  Note that the colors are a little different that other IAF paint jobs.

These are the samples I used to check the camouflage colors The view of my workbench and all the colors I tried and mixed together for just the grey. This is my green test on an old tank kit.  I am amazed how different the pictures taken with a flash look from the ones without.  Neither are very close to how the color actually looks.   Here is the test model with all the camouflage colors applied.  Looks good I think.

While I was testing camouflage colors I was also finishing the cockpit, front wheel well and putting it all in the front fuselage. 

Here are all the parts squeezed into the front fuselage.  I had to do quite a bit of grinding on the bottom of the Resin cockpit bottoms because the would not allow the wheel well to fit.  Not a real pleasant job since everything was painted and finished.  I had to do a lot of touch up work after cleaning up all the dust, and it was all caused because I did not test fit everything before hand.

I did a little extra labor to finish the intakes

Eduard photo etch grills on the intake ramps looked much nicer than the kit parts.  I just needed to keep from clogging up the small holes with paint. The intake trunk assembled with no way to paint the straight edge boundary between the white intake duct and the grey area at the front of the duct.  Most planes I have seen are white all the way. To solve the problem I just cut the intakes at the demarcation line.  I then painted the front grey and the rest white.  I have definitely lost my fear of cutting expensive kit parts to pieces.  When I glue the pieces back together there will be a little seam that I will not be able to fill but it should not be noticeable to any but the most thorough of examinations. Seamless resin intakes are popular for modern jet models but there were none available for the F-15 in 32nd scale so I had to sand the seam myself.  Not too bad considering that my finger barely fits in the pipe. Here are some pictures of everything put back together. And a view down the pipe.

I finished one of the things I was most excited about - The Aires Exhaust kit.  I got the kit because the F-15I has the turkey feathers in place where as the US F-15s do not.  The Tamiya kit did not have the correct exhaust nozzles.

Here are the parts of the kit laid out with the resin plugs cut off. Here are some of my reference pictures to compare. After examining my references and looking at the back end of the turbine blades on the kit parts vs. the Aires parts I decided that the kit parts were the best.  In fact the resin and PE part did not look anything like the inside of the exhaust. I painted and detailed the inside of the exhausts first. These pictures were taken during the beginning phases of the process. Then masked the inside and sprayed Alclad II lacquers on the outside.  Jet Exhaust went on the turkey feathers then I masked and added dark aluminum where they iris over each other. The exterior portion of the inside was sprayed Alclad aluminum, washed with black and dry brushed with Tamiya Flat Aluminum This was sprayed with Alclad Pale Burnt Metal overall then masked and a ring of Duraluminum was sprayed on the top and a ring of Pale Burnt Metal shaded a bit with a darker color (you cant really see this in the picture). After removing the ridges that the kit exhaust attached to I test fit the exhausts into the fuselage.  They wont be glued in till the painting is done on the rest of the plane.  I have to say that I am very pleased with how they turned out.  Maybe the best looking part of the plane so far.  The down side is that I should probably distress the outside of them some but the Alclad looks so nice that I don't really want too.

The rear wheel wells were not devoid of detail like the front one was, but there was still room for a few added details. 

Here are the wheel wells without any detail added. I added a few wires and some styrene pieces. Primed everything. And painted them white.  The pictures without the flash look more grey but rest assured that they are in fact white. Finally some color followed by a black wash and white dry brushing.  I may have to do some touching up but the errors that are so obvious in the pictures are not even noticeable on the actual thing.  To give you an idea, zoom out on the pictures till each wheel bay is an inch square and you will get a good idea how it looks.