The kit in question was first popped in the mid '80s by both Hobbycraft and Idea and box art depicts an F-15D two-seater, 78-0565, from the 18th Fighter Wing (ZZ tail code) based at Kadena, Okinawa, Japan with the typical Compass Ghost paint scheme in use in the '70-'80s. Like many F-15 kits, there's the legacy items like turkey feather exhausts and the old paint scheme/markings with the red, white and blue star and bar. The box art depicts a bird carrying a full sparrow and sidewinder missile load and a single 610 gallon drop tank on the centerline. Actually, what you get in the box is just the sparrows, no wing racks, sidewinders or drop tank. If you are a 1/144 scale afficionado there's a wide range of aftermarket items for this kit at scalemates.com. This site is awesome! It gives you the complete history of when a kit was produced in all its boxings and by who and often has the instructions available for download. Also, there's build reviews and photo galleries and links to books and reference materials and aftermarket products. I believe you can also manage your stash and see who's buying and selling what you might need.

Instructions are straightforward with correct FS colors to use and call for 2g of weight in the nose. I used a fishing split shot weight. Earlier instructions from Hobbycraft have you using two "runners" which I think are pieces of sprue from the kit. There's the usual seam clean up and typical F-15 construction approach where you build the forward fuselage halves with vertical seams and join it to the wing/body which is a single horizontal seam. I noticed the wing body had a modest shift in the molding where on side was a little deeper than the other but this was resolved with a little scraping and truing. There's a noticeable seam/gap at the fuselage to wing join and I used Tamiya putty and Vallejo acrylic tube putty between the intakes and fuselage to fill that as the Vallejo putty comes with a fine point tip. There are a few concave and convex surfaces to clean up but nothing more than the usual modeling skills needed.

Everything from there including wheels, doors and missiles received an airbrush primer coat of Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey. I like using the Tamiya paint for this as their paint has a good "bite" and you have less of a chance of having your paint job pulling up with any masking tape. I chose to deviate from the instructions and paint the bird in the later "Mod Eagle" paint scheme of FS36251 Aggressor Gray and FS36176 Ocean Gray using the Vallejo Air War USAF paint set 1559905 that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. These paints are airbrush ready. Mod Eagle is a decidedly dark paint scheme (more on that later). I started with the aggressor gray over everything and then used silly putty to mask off for ocean gray. For secondary masking that doesn't actually touch the model, I like to use blue household painter's tape. This keeps the cost down and I'll usually place the tape on my hands to reduce the tack to avoid surprises later. This worked out OK. I use Tamiya tape for all on-model masking. The long noodles of silly putty are made by rolling the putty out as opposed to pulling the material and it's important to keep your hands free of oils with a little IPA so it will stick to the model.

Next up, the bare metal engine area was first painted with Tamiya X-18 semi-gloss black followed by Tamiya XF-16 flat aluminum. I added a small panel area on the bottom for Tamiya X-31 titanium gold for some contrast. Basically, I tried to add a little interest and I departed from an "exact" approach for the hell of it. I painted the turkey feather exhaust cans Tamiya X-10 gun metal. If you want a nice titanium finish on the bare metal access areas on the bottom of the plane, X-10 gun metal gives a deep plated looking finish similar to what old in use titanium looks like. I plan on going that route in the future with my other larger scale F-15 builds. All basic painting of regular colors was done with a 50/50 mix of paint to alcohol thinner with an Iwata Neo airbrush at approximately 15psi. You can use water, too, and sometimes I'll use 70% IPA. Using more water helps to avoid paint build up on the needle tip from rapid drying. For the metallic colors, I used 70% thinner and 30% paint at 15psi and this gave a very metallic, plated luster and made clean-up easier. The vertical fin tips each received a flat yellow band of Tamiya XF-3 which represents the 12th fighter squadron within the 18th Fighter Wing. Then the model received a coat of Micro Scale clear gloss.

Missiles are actually painted FS36375 light ghost gray which comes as a polyurethane from the USAF paint set, no thinning needed. I left the missiles on the sprue to ease painting and decaling and this approach worked well. I used FS36118 gun ship gray for the missile fins as I didn't want them too shiny by using metallics, especially in that small scale. I used the yellow fin stripe decals for the live warhead bands as the verticals were going to be painted, not decaled. The black and red bands are from a set of colored stripe decals out of the decal box which is getting heavier and heavier. I used the red to simulate the red-brown live rocket motor in the back as it was dark enough to look the part.

The gear was painted Tamiya flat white and Model Master acrylic flat black was used on the tires after they were mounted on toothpicks. The canopy was masked off and painted flat black followed by ocean gray at the same time the plane was done. I chose to leave the vertical fins on the sprue for paint and decals and that worked well. I'll talk about what I learned about the vertical fin decal placement in a bit. The kit decals worked quite well and went down with no silvering with Micro Scale Micro Set followed by Micro Sol if they were over the panel lines. This model has very deep recessed panel lines and I chose not to try to inlay any panel line color as this would look too chopped up on such a small model. I did go this route only on the bare engine access areas on the bottom of the plane and the exhaust cans using black tempera paint. Finally, a coat of Micro Scale clear flat sealed everything in. I used super glue medium to install the verticals, gear and the exhaust cans. I didn't try to putty in the verticals to the fuselage at it looked close enough. The cockpit area received flat black as it's a flat area and there is nothing there to look at. I mixed up some Testors canopy glue with the ocean gray and installed the canopy. This worked well as the fit isn't perfect but you can add some of the glue around the back and it came out fine.

Some Lessons Learned

Mike Butry got a call from Aaron Damiano, a non-member who had a model he wanted built for his grandmother as a remembrance of her husband, a WWII Navy veteran. The model was the Revell USS Missouri. Mike asked me who I thought might be interested in the project and I gave him a couple of names. After thinking about it for an hour, I decided that it was something I wanted to do and asked Mike to connect me up. He did, and the kit was in my hands.

Revell has had a couple of different Missouri kits in their catalog over the years, starting with a 1/535 box scale virtual toy that has been reissued many times since 1953, and also issuing a very nice WWII 1/350 kit in the mid '80s and again in 2002, as updated for the Gulf War I believe. The kit I was given was a 1985 reissue of the 1953 kit marketed to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Japanese surrender documents ending WWII. The instructions were similar to the originals but with the addition of a nice summary of the surrender ceremony and Missouri's part in getting there. It also included a plastic medallion with a potted history of the event.

Aaron's wife had picked up the kit at a garage sale, knowing that his grandfather was aboard Missouri for the last part of the war and was present for the signing ceremony. This made the specific kit she found particularly appropriate.

Like many of the young men at the time, Aaron's grandfather, William (Bill) Leitz, volunteered for the US Navy following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He served aboard Missouri from 1944 to 1946, rising to Seaman 2nd Class, 2nd Division, Gunnery Department.

The kit box art was really good and inspiring, but the model itself put me off when I first opened the box. 1953 all over again. The Revell Missouri is considered the father of all other plastic ships. It's been in production almost continually since then. The number sold was astronomical, because it was something new as a model and it had great play value. The hull height was truncated and flat bottomed which made the upperworks look more formidable and the flat bottom meant you could push it around on the rug and rotate the main turrets to fend off the enemy. All that detracted from the scale viewpoint, but, boy, what a toy.

I made up some of the subassemblies and temporarily assembled the model to help develop a plan for painting the cast-in-place details. I also decided to trash the girder type stands and mount the model on cribbing to camouflage the flat bottom look a bit. Surprisingly, there was very little flash and most everything fit reasonably. I did add some tabs under the deck to push out some minor warps in the hull to deck fitup but that's the only addition I made to the kit.

I painted it in the 5N/Deck Blue/5H Blue/Gray Measure 22 scheme she carried at the surrender ceremony. Painting the different colors on the cast in details wasn't a lot of fun and it certainly isnt perfect, particularly at horizontal and vertical intersections. Once it was all together and matt coated, it looks reasonable at three feet away. All the turrets are glued solidly in place and the limited rigging shown on the instructions was omitted to avoid dusting catastrophes. The large holes in the deck for rigging were ignored.

The model is attached to the wood plank base with screws through the hull bottom, installed from the top down through the holes for the turrets. I think the 1/8 square cribbing makes an attractive and simple base.

All in all, I think it turned out pretty good. At about 20" long, its a nice size for casual viewing and, with the limited amount of small stuff hanging out, it can be dusted reasonably safely.

I'm glad I got the opportunity to build a model that will mean something to the family of a WWII veteran. It's easy to forget that there are people, places and events behind much of what we model. They shouldn't be forgotten.