Starting on the Tamiya 1/48 F-117A Nighthawk. Will be adding the Ares resin cockpit detail set. To start with the upper fuselage required trimming for the resin cockpit tub to fit as well as removing the top of the kit dashboard. The resin dashboard with the supplied photo etch looks awesome. For the display panels I painted them chrome silver and then applied a coat of Tamiya clear green. Working on the cockpit tub then detailing the ejection seat.
This week I finished detailing the cockpit with photo etch accessories. Then the forward landing gear bay and strut was detailed with some 32 AWG wires. I decided to close the bomb bay. The kit had the bomb racks extended and I prefer a clean look. Next came the assembling of the fuselage. This had a minor issue. The resin cockpit tub is a little taller that the kit tub. I had to grind a channel on the bottom of the tub so the landing gear bay could fit into the channel allowing the fuselage halves to fit together. Beginning the detailing the fuselage now.
The F-117A Nighthawk is now finished. The kit was a nice kit to build. It included a weight so it sits correctly and it included masks for all the clear parts. The only thing I did not like about the masks was they were not pre-cut. It took some time to trim them to fit correctly. The decals were ok. They are very thin and the larger ones took some finesse to line them up. Overall it came out very nice.
