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Hawker Typhoon, Car Door Type


Dpgsbody55

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No idea if historically correct, but the green of the engine is such a beautiful

contrast to the rest of the airframe - as is English Racing Green in general- I'd not change

a thing of this excellent progress. Correct me if I'm wrong. In fact, I'll right click and copy your WIP. Three thumbs!!!!

 

Lothar

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Thanks for the kind words, guys.  It's appreciated  :D .  Regarding the colour choice for the engine, I went with the evidence I found and my own pictures were a help with other colours and parts placement as well.  However, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that engines left the Napier factory painted black.  That would be fairly typical for British aero engines of that period.  As to the fuel tanks, I'll probably use a similar colour to Shawn M's brilliant Typhoon in his "Jurassic Plastic" build.  But that's a little ways off, as it's best to follow the instructions very closely with this kit, which is why my "completed" engine doesn't yet have exhausts.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

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  • 2 weeks later...

The last couple of weeks have seen the wings being built up.  This is the first kit I've ever built in which you build the wings before starting on the fuselage.  First job is to attach the bottom wing.  Lots of clamps were used in this.

 

gU5jLq.jpg

 

Next up is to add the inner structure of the wing.  There was quite a bit of scrapping out of paint as the various bits were added, and then the whole lot was repainted.

 

zJQjHj.jpg

 

Fuel tanks were built and painted flat red, with brass filler caps, then added to the structure together with the guns.  The ammunition boxes were also under construction, as you can see with the ammo belts visible at bottom left still attached to the trees.  The upper surfaces of the wheel wells are also shown here.  There are about 8 or 9 pieces to each of these.

 

5ZgQMY.jpg

 

Here they are in location.  Two of the tanks are visible at the leading edge of the wing.  There will be more detail fitted into each well later.  As to the other 2 tanks, these are visible through various holes in the gun bays.

 

QnUwqM.jpg

 

The next picture shows the wing all ready to be closed up.  Outer wing panels are attached, together with the completed ammunition boxes.  You can also see the top sides of the upper surfaces to the wheel wells.  I'm not wonderfully happy with the final appearance of the gun bays.  They seem a little sparse in detail compared to the engine.  I went looking for pictures of them on the interweb, but couldn't find much at all.  Mostly, I just wanted to add the pneumatic lines to the guns, but as I don't know how they run through the gun bay, I decided to to just wing it, so to speak.  I may well close up one, or both before I finish the build, as I'm not big on guns anyway.

 

The ruler at the top of the page gives you an idea of the size of this model.

 

yHru3y.jpg

 

LzWjNP.jpg

 

Here we have the wing tops going on.  The port side is done, together with the gun fairings.  The landing lights need to be built at this point too, as they are located by the the upper and lower wing halves.  You need to be careful when adding the top wings as they don't quite align with the bottom wing.  The culprit is a rib added to the top wing inner surface which is supposed to go against the rear spar.  I thinned this down because if I hadn't, there would have been a 1mm gap between the trailing edge of the wing, and the trailing edge of the fuselage/wing fairing.  With all the inner structure, you need lots of clamps to hold the parts together well.

 

o2yCA8.jpg

 

So here is where I'm currently up to.  You can see in the next picture that I've started work on the fuselage and tail while I was waiting for the wing halves to dry.  The control surfaces have separate trim tabs which articulate, so care needs to be taken gluing all this together.  I've pencilled the part numbers on each, so I know what goes where when I come to attach them to the fuselage.

 

uQSei3.jpg

 

The fuselage parts are now almost ready to go into place.  But that's for the next update.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited by Dpgsbody55
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Yes, it is a bit of a beast, just like the real thing.  I pity the poor mechanics who used to have to clean and gap the spark plugs every morning - all 48 of them.  Can you imagine doing that on a windy airfield in Holland in the winter of 1944/45??  Thankfully, the kit is not such a problem to build and I'm enjoying it.  I'd love to hear what's next in this Airfix line up.  I've read that Airfix have stopped production of the Mk1B Typhoon, and I see that the availability of the old Spitfire Vb and FW-190 is limited.  I'm wishing now I'd bought the Mk1B Typhoon, though at $285AUD, I'm not sure I could have afforded both.

 

I have the fuselage together now, and it will soon look like a plane, so I'll post another quick update then.  However, I'm not sure what colour to paint the panel under the rear cockpit canopy.  The instructions aren't clear, although they say to paint the parts that go into it in silver/bare metal.  I'm not sure if it should be painted as bare metal, interior black, dark sea grey or underside grey.  Can anyone help?

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

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Just a quick update again.  With the addition of a few parts, it now looks like a plane.

 

The fuselage is made up of 4 parts and I thought this might lead to an almighty mess if I tried to put it together at one go.  The area behind the cockpit on the upper surface of the fuselage has to be removed from each half and a new part let in, which I glued to one fuselage half only using the other half clamped together by way of a holding jig.  Once dried, I attached that half to the cockpit/wing structure after a bit of test fitting of all parts, and some fetteling.  This half was left to dry.

 

uKSHDA.jpg

 

The picture below better shows the cut out required behind the cockpit, and the part let in.  You can see the cut out in the right half which is yet to be attached.  I've glued the fuselage half to both the wing and the last frame of the cockpit area.

 

sakAef.jpg

 

Once this was dry, it made a secure base to attach the right half and bottom section all in one go, which successfully all aligned.

 

NQbbrj.jpg

 

Next, the tail plane went on and dihedral was set with tape.  Once dry, masking tape was applied adjacent to the joint and filler applied, then the rudder went on.

 

JeaLF6.jpg

 

Here, the ailerons and flaps are going on, together with some of the lines and hydraulics in the undercarriage bays.  I attached the flaps first, which required some minor adjusting with the file, then the aileron.  This was to ensure unhindered movement of the aileron.  I've also painted the hydraulic lines in steel, only because it's slightly darker than the silver background so it should be more visible.  There are more details to go in, but these will be added after painting.

 

zsdgYb.jpg

 

YcFhdh.jpg

 

The ailerons are attached by a hinge similar to Trumpeters control surface hinge in concept, but Airfix's solution is one piece and plastic.  As you can see from my picture, it's a nice tight fit, simple to fit, and the aileron has good movement.  Mr Trumpeter, please take note!!.  However, it's important to ensure that all excess glue is removed from the joint between the rear wing spar and the upper and lower wing surfaces to obtain that free aileron movement.  Flaps are closed up, as they were retracted as per standard RAF practice immediately after touch down to kill unwanted lift and keep mud and dirt out during landing and taxi, and my models reflect this.  If planes were left parked with flaps down, usually the pilot would receive a polite rebuke from the Flight Sargeant.

 

I've also started "philling and philing" (I'm polite, so I try to keep my F words down to a minimum :innocent:. ) 

 

Next up will be the cockpit canopy and associated parts, then I'll probably start painting.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited by Dpgsbody55
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  • 2 months later...

To all those who may have been following this build, I'd like to let you all know that it is still in progress, though not much more has been done.  Life......  Oh, and the great photobucket rip off, who will not succeed in ruining our forum!!

 

As you can see, I've restored all the photos courtesy of Imageshack with whom I have now opened an account and who also presently have a 50% discount on new accounts.  So for all those still unsure of what to do regarding future photo hosting, this seems like a cheap alternative at US$18.70.  I may just go nuts and restore my other 2 builds (Mig 3 and Meteor Mk4) as well, but that's in the future.

 

Right now I'm off to sort out more photos of the progress to date, which I hope to post before weekend is done.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited by Dpgsbody55
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I can't speak to ImageShack's history, but I haven't come across any bad reviews of them lately, and I'm OK with $40 per year to host my photos.  It's the third party hosting thing I'm interested in, as I can back up my photo's myself.

 

The problem with free sites is that they can quickly become pay sites, as the Photobucket experience shows.  I wonder how much business they've lost because of that move.  Perhaps if they'd introduced a more reasonable charge, many of us would have gone along with it, however reluctantly.  Hopefully, ImageShack will learn the lesson and not hold a gun to their account holder's heads.  Maybe that's why they have a 50% off sale now, to pick up some of PB's lost customers. I dunno, as my crystal ball is presently in the repair shop.  But like many, I'm presently removing my pics from the PB site and will eventually close my account.  If ImageShack do a "Photobucket" on us, I'll complain loudly to them as I am a paying customer so I can do that, then close that account too.

 

There's no guarantees with any of these things.  I hope it doesn't come to that.

 

To Bomber_County, I also haven't built much Airfix in almost as many years.  As a boy living in the Cotswold Hills in the 60's, I'd rush down to the village newsagent with my pocket money and buy 2 1/72 planes in a bag.  Then I came to Australia where I found less Airfix and much Monogram and Revell, but I still built the Airfix 1/24 stuff when that came out.  I built and painted the 1/24 Messerschmitt in a weekend once.  Then nothing til the 90's when I built the 1/24 Hurricane, which is still dangling from my ceiling.  Next up was the Spitfire Vb built in 2015 which was a rehash of the old 70's kit.  You could say the kit is rubbish by today's standards, but I took the real estate agent's view; lots of potential  :lol: .  As to the present Typhoon, well, it's mind boggling how improved it is over the other Airfix offerings in that scale.  Can't wait for the next one.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited by Dpgsbody55
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