Fanes

Not sure why, but directly on their website (https://www.axels-modellbau-shop.de/katalog/revell-04968-hawker-hurricane-mk-iib-1-32.html) it's offered for 38.5 €

Little babysteps - the canopy and windscreen are my current nightmares. They will have to wait until I have sorted out all the modelling related stuff. Started a new job last week and hadd wo move to a new home.

It does help a lot - I'm sold!

I was just waiting for Quang to write the same

Fantastic - another Falco!

Ernest, I envy your perseverance! The tape wrap looks incredibly consistent, even in the macro shot. And +1 what Gaz said

I'm a friend of subtle pin washes, so I really like what you did so far

+1 for the Nowotny scheme Maybe a stupid question: isn't that an A-4 instead of an A-8 airframe?

Helpful (planning to do exactly the same conversion) - check Entertaining - for sure

More seam work With the wings glued firmly, all the annoying seams recieved a filling with black CA. It doesn't dry as rock hard as regular CA and is therefor easier to sand and to rescribe. The cowl had some nasty sinkmarks and an inconsistent seam. Luckily there aren't many rivets to restore. The rear fuselage was an okayish fit. Just the antenna base was impossible to align properly. The wingroot join is what it is: work. Will check how it turned out with a coat of primer. Before I apply more primer, I'll fit the windscreen, since it will require a lot of filling, sanding and so on. On the other hand, protecting/masking the cockpit will be a lot easier with it in place.

Good find a nice fix! May I aks a (maybe stupid) question, since the center wing section is now off again: What's the idea behind fitting the center section first and then installing the wings itself later? In my mind fitting all the top wing parts together and then installing them on the struts seemed easier.

Please wait until the DH Hornet kit gets released

Well, the longer I looked, the worse it got. The port wing was more like 4 mm off from the Tamiya wing and the starboard one arounf 1.5 mm. It really didn't look right from straight ahead. So some drastic action was needed. I pulled/tear out all the shims on the port wing root and poured down lots of glue. Some "gentle" force was apllied via tape and now it's curing like that: Unfortunately this isn't the best picture since the camera is slightly off axis and the jig isn't exactly levelled, but you get the idea. New wingroot with not much of a seam

Good point - the dihedral is indeed off. At least compared to the Tamiya parts I have at hand. There are around 3mm missing at the wing tips I tried spreading the fuselage to reduce the gaps and ended up with quite some anhedral. We'll see, what can be fixed..

Thank you very much Aaron - I'm doing my best to keep up the momentum this time! There's some work still ahead. For example the spinner's fit was reall bad from stock. There's quite a gap, which can be reduced by thinning the flange on the axle - something you have to do before closing the fuselage halves. I'm glad that I checked that beforehand. Talking about gaps.... The Derek-B-Method for the bulged belly resulted in some nasty trenches between the upper wing halves and the wing roots. Most of the issues went away with clamping the wings to the fuselage nad using some strong and thick plastic cement. The remaining gaps werte filled with 0.3 mm styrene strips. Once fully cured, I'll start to sand everything smooth. The next days will be mostly seam work (to make the dreams work) on the fuselage and wings. Once that's sorted out, I'll fit the resin carb intake (more filling ahead) and spoiler alert: the horizontal stabs aren't a beautiful fit either.

A beautiful black finish with all the little variations to make it look intersting. I like your photography as well!

Thank you very much for the compliments Quang and of course for pushing me to try new techniques I guess, next up will be to finally finish my PRU pink Spitfire which is a on-off-build for three years now. The next all black build will maybe be a Do 217 in 1/48 (heresy!)

Not an easy task! I had the same issue with my black Fiat CR.42. I haven't done any exhaust stains (because of their position on the real thing), but would opt for something more dark brownish and rather flat. The gun somke stains were applied with flat black in my case. That resulted in a nice contrast to the more rather dark grey fuselage. They will stand out even further if you play a little with the sheen of the surfaces.

That's what I did Dennis Brute force and some smart thinking. I painted the sidewalls black on the outside, put the cockpit in while the paint was still wet and then knew where to scrape/sand more material away. With some clamping pliers we arrive here: That's the best I could get. Not perfect, but at least it's consistent all around. My plan is to leave the fuselage taped together. Epoxy the port side and afterwards the starboard side. The idea behind this is to have time to make the necessary adjustments and to have a strong bond.

Brian - there is at least one other chemical that dissolves CA: Propylene Carbonate It has a much higher boiling point and won't evaporate as fast as Acetone and it's a lot less aggressive as well. Haven't tried it on plastic - yet.

Oh my - an update is inbound It's been a while since I last visited thsi thread and the model itself as well. Thank you very much for the comment Andy, even if it took me nine month so read it Now with the ICM biplane finished up and in the cabinet and finally an ende to working overtime, the pink Spit returns! I had the wooden spars for the camera 3D printed by a friend, since I couldn't get an even result with the slot on styrene strips. They then were painted in a beige base colour, followed by some oils for the wood grain and a heavy gloss to get a varnished look. Here's the rear one already glued into the fuselage: And with the camera cradle pinned into place. Pretty hard to get a good photo with the bright plastic and the dark hole.. With that done I went to test fitting the brassin cockpit and oh boy, that's a mess. I'll let the pictures do the talking. The fuselage's plastic is already quite close to paper thin, but the resin cockpit still pushes the halves apart and sits too low at the front. Further thinning led to the IP fouling the windscreen's fit. The next Spit Mk.IX will be a Tamiya one for sure!

Finally - we're ready for inspection With a free and sunny weekend, the little black Falco was rolled out into the (indirect) sun. Not much words are needed, I guess.

I'm running out of compliments here, Max! I really like your approach building with attention to detail and the readiness to take all things apart to get closer to the real thing. Whenever I feel confident to tackle my own Gauntlet, your build will be my reference.

I have to agree with Kev - that's a black beauty! The rivets have just the right amount of subtleness. Two little things that are bogging me: - the chipping on the port fuselage below the cockpit looks a little random - the white around the red cross decal pops against the nicely toned down white cross (I hope you get, what I mean )

Her you go Chris