Victor K2

More detail painting. The intake nose ring is now shiny inside and out. Lots of undercarriage painting going on - the undercarriage bays look very brown and un-Lightning like at the moment. This is because this aircraft (XS904, as well as XR728) have their undercarriage bays coated in a heavy layer of waxoyl (PX-32).
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Derek

A little progress over the last week - a mix of Airfix kit, Airscale and Quinta.
 
Photos have flagged up a few things I need to improve - but bear in mind most of these images will be showing at larger than life-size.
 

 

 

 

 
And with the seat section dry-fitted.
 

 
Now working on the seat - and the next two formers (partially drilled out).
 

 
Blue skies...
 
Iain
 
 
 

Once again, seems like forever since I've been able to work on the Stuka.
Truth be known, I'd gone about as far as I could with the cockpit and I've been waiting for this little delivery which dropped on the mat this morning.
Sven from 1ManArmy is producing a set of stencils for the kit and kindly sent me a pre production set to try.
Firstly, as with all his stuff, the quality and detail is stunning. As an example, if you're building or know the kit. one of the build options is the Trop kit A5 BH based in Libya and there's a crow emblem forward of the cockpit which is unsprayable normally and would force you to use the decal.

Sven has produced a layered stencil that will let you build the image with paint. It's very clever and, although I'm not building that version, I'm still going to spray it on a mule just for the hell of it. You can see the layers and intricacies here:

 
In short, the realism of the kit goes up a hundred fold IMHO and I'm itching to get going with it now.

Hopefully I can post some results next week

Time to get this airframe assembled.
 
There are some 'hard to get to' areas associated with the intake that are probably best painted before assembly, like behind the splitter plates. I sense a tricky bit of masking coming up.
 

 
Having cut out the auxiliary slots, it will look better if they have a dark background. The same applies to the boundary layer duct openings above and below the wing.
 

 
Thanks to Tony alerting me to the Reskit exhaust, I took a good look at how it is assembled (to allow for painting), as well as how small the thermocouples actually are. My first attempt was a bit overstated, so I redid them. A good shot of Alclad 'Jet Exhaust' helps to tone it down and darken the interior.
 

 
I stuck a ruler down the fuselage, with the intakes in place, to figure out just how long the exhaust actually is. Remember the tail cone is approximately another 3cm to add to this. It's a long plane! 
 
 
 
Before glueing the tail-section in place, I had a look at the airbrake. Initially I felt that it should be closed, but many photos show it slightly open on the ground (as the hydraulic pressure drops, it droops). The inside of the airbrake itself is actually rather nicely done, probably by the 'Chaps from Flaps'. That being said, the hydraulic actuator was clearly made by the 'Intakes and Instructions' crew - very much a 1:72nd scale approach to things! 
 

 
So, I chopped an opening into the fuselage and made a long actuator body that can be glued into the opening. Much better for 1:32 scale...
 

 

 
The horizontal stabs got a bit of refining, sanding the 'roundness' out of the elevator (which many kitmakers employ to get a fake sharp trailing edge), and lightly riveting them.
 

 
At last, it is starting to look like a Hawker Hunter! Even without the wings in place, it has beautiful lines - a real thoroughbred.
 

 
Thinking of Max embarking on the last bit of work on his Hunter, I thought of how many times the placement of gear doors and their fiddly little connecting arms has flummoxed me! I am hoping this solution will help avoid the typical outcome of that step, when I end up looking like a kindergarten kid, full of glue, and not one ice cream stick attached to the toilet roll.  I've reversed the 'paddle pops' from the instructions, drilled holes in the paddles, and inserted pegs on the gear legs for these to fit onto. The lengths are still a bit of an unknown, but at least one side of the linkage won't need glue. Let's see how that goes.
 

 
Nearly time to attach the wings, but I thought I'd finish the wheel wells and flap interiors first, while they are still easy to handle. You'll notice that this is going to be a well used fighter!
 
 
 

 
Cheers,
 
Sean

Last details to glue plus some areas to tweak and Tempest will end up in glass-case.

Back to the story. We last left XF309 in the capable hands of Hawker Siddeley Aviation(Ltd), where she was about to undergo an upgrade to FGA.9 standard. In her case, she was about to become what was known as an FGA.80, meaning that she was an FGA.9 destined for the Kenyan Air Force. Most FGA.9's were updated Mk.6's, but as you may recall, our star was a lowly Mk.4 dressed up as a Mk.5! She would be getting a big makeover, as explained in the following photograph of what I believe is a Mk.5, but will suffice for illustrative purposes.
 

 
On completion of her transformation, our Hunter was ferried to (presumably Nanyuki) Kenya via Malta, where the prolific photographer, Mr John Visanich, took this photograph: https://www.airhistory.net/photo/390322/805
 
You will notice that she now carries the Kenyan Air Force serial number of 805. This is at odds with what some publications say, but I believe it to be correct. 'Wingleader Magazine', for example, had XF309 as becoming KAF 806, but that's just part of the intrigue of tracing an aircraft (or a racehorse's) provenance!
 

 
The airfame 'Wingleader' touted for KAF 805 (WT778) was indeed sold to the Kenyan Air Force, but in pieces - as spares.
 

 
Enough intrigue for now. Here is a colour photo of a Kenyan Air Force Hunter (803) as it passed through Malta in 1974, on its way to Africa.
 

 
It would seem that Revell GmbH put their top team (the 'Chaps from Flaps') on tail-section and propulsion. Despite some warnings about the fit of these extremities, I found them to be superb. I can just imagine Kurt, Willy and Ernst, slide rules in hand, replicating such a very British part at 32 times smaller than it should be. Their team leader, Herr Pabst von Ohain (this is meant to be amusing) took this shrinking thing to a new level, and produced a 10500 lbs of thrust engine at 32 times smaller diameter, and about a 10th of it's scale length! This is a very good thing, as any more weight behind the main wheel axles would almost certainly make the model 'sit on its arse'. Here is a photo of the diminutive power-plant (the little tube below the ruler).
 

 
The tail-section itself, with its drag chute housing, is beautifully moulded and fits perfectly onto the rear fuselage. The photo above shows it dry-fitted in place. In the photo below you can see how well the shape is reproduced. I merely added a little fictitious structure to the internal 'ribs' to finish them off where there is a gap on the top and bottom. The instructions advise glueing and taping the power-plant in place, but being a bit wary of the instructions, I dry fitted things first and discovered one can just pop the engine in afterwards.
 

 
It does take a bit of imagination to look down 3cm of jet exhaust and imagine it to be 30cm, but maybe some very dark paint will help. The thermocouples were added in an attempt to create an illusion of depth. Lets see. Maybe a FOD cover instead? 
 

 
Cheers,
 
Sean

I have to admit that the air intake assembly has taken me a bit by surprise.
 
It is a lovely bit of moulding, but it has an inherent design problem. Come to think of it, real intake ducting for full size jets must pose some engineering challenges too. The snag is that it has to slide into two grooves on the side of the fuselage, and in order to do that it has to be flexible since the grooves taper toward the front. 
 
The instructions don't really solve this puzzle, unless I have missed something? The first step indicates that the parts should be glued together, but held together with tape. I understood this as: tape will be required to hold the parts together while the glue dries. Notice also that the assembly is 'upside down' at this point.
 

 
Tape will definitely be necessary to squeeze these shell halves together!
 

 
I cut auxiliary bypass slots into the trunking, after going to school on all the information that Art Murray gleaned on his Swiss Hunter build.
 

 
And painted the inside a creamy white to look like the flexible intake paint used in the later marks of Hunter.
 

 
Then I glued the intake halves together, not thinking about all the warnings not to in previous posts, and not attempting to slide them onto the fuselage first. Dry fitting is just so boring! Now it was a simple case of following the instructions, flipping the assembly over and popping it onto the nose section...
 
Even though it says to use glue (in the corner of the instruction box), even I could clearly see Mr Revell didn't really recommend glue for this step.
 

 
But of course, the intake doesn't slide into position, no matter how good you are at twisted metal puzzles or Rubik's cubes. So I resorted to the next best thing - force!
 
In this photograph, I make it look as if I planned a solution, but of course I didn't. The intake broke. It does however now slide into the slots with a bit of scraping sounds, and If you are intending to build one of these in the future, you might want to just leave the glue off one side of the splitter plates. Then it's flexible enough to squeeze into position...
 

 
Right, now that that is out of the way, I wanted to lightly rivet the aircraft as the basis for some later weathering that reveals where some rivet lines run. Rivet a Hunter??? Yes, I know that seems wrong, but just look at what I did to the intakes. 
 
I have a plan. Most of the rivets are going to disappear under paint, but I couldn't think of a way of only doing some sections. Let's see how it works out.
 

 

 
I accentuated the rivets on the 'shoulder' of the aircraft, since that's where the most of the weathering happens.
 

 
Then I got a bit carried away with the top of the wings. The patterns are really intriguing...
 

 
At least I left most of the underside unblemished by the wheel of holiness. I am really impressed with the flaps. Despite requiring a bit of attention on the ejector pin marks, they are a lovely subtle bit of detail. Mr Revell clearly put his best team on flaps, and the rest were left to work out the intakes, and instruction drawings.
 

 
Apparently the tail assembly and mini-jet pipe have some issues. Maybe I'll actually contemplate that section before reaching for the glue.
 
Until then, Cheers!
 
Sean

hey guys
 
bit more done...
 
..I felt bad when Jay asked about detailing the engine as I had done such a rudimentary job on it, so even though very little can be seen, I added what I could..
 

 
the fuselage formers were bulked out with hard foam and all the template outlines blacked out with a sharpie so I can see the sanding thresholds later.. also added some card formers to help shape the exhaust area around the nose..
 

 

 
I made up a 3D part to lock all the features of the wings together with the spars and dihedral on the outer wing panels and made up ribs from 2mm card..
 

 
 

 
..and the wings & airframe start to take shape - it looks like an air racer without the last few ribs and the wingtips..
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
TTFN
Peter

Back on the bench - going to try and take a run at it over next few weeks...
 

 
Tally ho...
 
Iain
 
 

Have been busy working on classic cars, motorcycles and aeroplanes of late - but, with the nights drawing in here, I've been back to the bench.
 
A little side-track from working on the interior: I wanted to see how the fitting of the wing spars/gear bays and initial ribs would go, as the instructions are very clear about not gluing anything until you have all of this loosely fitted.
 
The instructions then have you carefully bonding everything in place on the lower wing moulding in one go - being careful not to impart any warp in the lower wing.
 

 
The 'wheel' sections of the undercarriage bays were assembled and bonded to their adjacent rib, before laying everything in place (including main spar) on the lower wing and checking fit.
 
All good, so I bonded everything in place with 'Quick Drying' Tamiya Extra Thin solvent - working out from the wing centreline on each side.
 

 
Whilst everything drying I wanted to check everything was correctly aligned, so removed the upper-wing sections from their sprue and dry-fitted in situ.
 
Fit against the lower wing/wing internals was very good, so happy that the internal structure was straight.
 

 
And I couldn't resist a quick dry fit with the fuselage - just to see something a little 'Spitfire' shaped...
 

 

 
Back soon...
 
Iain

Hi all,
 
In further sidetracking news I've been asked to build in a scale I haven't played with since I was a child - 1:24th.
 
And from a manufacturer who's kits I built in my youth - but that was a loooong time ago.
 
The gentleman I've built the Two-seater Spit IX from the Tamiya kit in 1:32 for has asked me to build one of the new Airfix kits for him - with minimal changes this time - and, well, why not!
 
Only planned changes at this stage are the Airscale Cockpit Interior and Sutton Harness with, perhaps, some aftermarket decals - we'll see!
 
Opening salvo has been some work on the cockpit - nicely rendered by Airfix in my humble opinion.
 
Still early days - and still at almost blank canvas stage, but I'll try and post some semi-regular updates here.
 

 

 
I'm not worrying about the ejector-pin marks - I really don't think they'll be seen!
 

 
And dry fitted in place:
 

 

 
More when there's more I guess...
 
Tally Ho!
 
Iain
 
 
 

thanks chaps
 
 
It's all photo interpretation Jay - i have no drawings so it's visual scaling. I have quite a few photo's of some areas and mainly used these from the pilots notes and either resto's or projects for sale online..
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
..took about 2 days, and I find the problem is where to stop - I could do the seat and the IP, but I usually do these in metal as they weather so well and give realistic chipping
 
all good fun
 
Peter

Thank you folks - very kind
 
I went to make a basic cockpit tub from 3D and once printed I needed to make some adjustments...
 
while I was at it, I got a bit carried away..
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
still lots to do, but a great canvas, even if it is cheating a bit
 
TTFN
Peter

Nope Kev, I went to take some but by the time I finished today the light was rubbish - here it is on my kitchen table
 

 
..and it isn't RFI yet - I am waiting for the flying wires to be etched from stainless steel - couple of weeks yet
 
Will get some better shots and update the WIP
 
TTFN
Peter

nearly finished - just flying wires to go..
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
TTFN
Peter

No rest for the wicked they say, so with the paint drying on my S6B it's time for a new project..
 
I built a Hobbyboss Sea Fury back in the day and added loads to it including a visible engine and I have always wanted to make a large scale one. The problem was (and is) it doesn't fit in my display cabinet. I remeasured it the other day and somehow got my sums wrong and thought it would fit so off I went and started researching.. Turns out I was right the first time, the airfame is a beast and won't fit so will need a home once complete (or I get a bigger cabinet..)
 
My last one was the civil demonstrator G-AKRY, but now I just proved to myself I can paint an aeroplane, this one will be a service machine. Choosing one is harder than I thought - it's got to be RN, but to be honest, they were all painted the same
 
for now I chose this one VX620..
 

 
I started with Jumpeii Temma's plans and checked these with Will at DBMK on the one they scanned - they were bang on, so I designed the parts for my cutter..
 
also made a 3D cowling..
 
..the brass bar is to keep the keel rigid..
 

 
..the keel was taped to a flat sheet of acrylic and all the formers added - I also 3D printed a wingroot section to help alignment..
 


 

 
..I have had problems with plastic card cores flexing during construction so I clamped an ali bar and added the other side, moving the bar as I went..
 

 
..very quickly the fuselage took shape - it is huge..
 
..the floor is too high here and had to be chopped out and lowered - this is the problem with not having drawings
 

 

 

 
..having designed the cowling, I spent some time doing the prop, spinner and a basic engine front..
 

 
I think it came out pretty good - it defines the aeroplane so has to be right..
 

 

 
..starting to look like the brute it is..
 

 

 

 
..so thats it - off and running with a new build
 
..A plea for help - if anyone has any good interior pictures of the cockpit, seat, seat bulkhead, rollover structure, please drop them here or PM me
 
also if there are more unique RN schemes out there I am definately open to a rethink
 
TTFN
 
Peter
 

that looks fab Tom, so glad you could make it fit
 
It is so fragile I bet it's been heart in mouth working on it
 
Jay - I used some drawings and photo's I found on the internet so I think it's as close as I could get it
 
Peter

Howdy, partners!
 
I’ve put aside other jobs on the Stirling for the time being as I was really keen to get the new canopy to fit. I hate dealing with transparencies and cockpits in general so felt it would be good, psychologically, to get this part done, and then hopefully it’ll just be a drop fit towards the end of the build. 
 
As you saw in the previous post, the kit canopy was too big and incorrectly shaped. When I cut the fuselage ages ago, I used the kit transparency as a guide, not realising at the time how ‘out’ it was. As a result, I’ve had to build up the fuselage around the cockpit to match the new canopy - plastic card and Milliput white has done the job without issue, and it now drops in perfectly!
 
A reminder of what I had in the kit:
 

And after a few hours tinkering:
 
 
 
 
 

That’ll do very nicely…
 
Until next time,
Tom

Decals and wash applied. Rivet lines are inconsistent in depth so after flooding them with black they look exaggerated, so I used white-gray in places. I used this mixture (and brown/light brown Tamiya enamels) to add some worn effect, dust streaks, smudges where it was most "tormented" by maintanance. Even front canopy doesn't fit perfectly, some sanding needed...

..teaser...
 

 

 
..the primer was fine when applied over clean fine sanded surfaces and this model has had a LOT of masking so it needed to be
 
getting some stainless steel flying wires etched and a mask for the serial - once thats done it's glamour shot time
 
Now where did I put those Sea Fury drawings...
 
Peter

aaaand the primer is coming off again.....
 
..I got as far as a topcoat of silver, then the first attempt at masking and the paint just came off with it
 
I think there a couple of reasons for this - my test mule was fine (my 1/18 Fw190), the primer is properly on there and takes tape / fingernails and is pretty hardy, the only difference I can think of is I cleaned that with thinners the moment I painted a spot, wheras the S6B was cleaned with thinners the day before yesterday - I think the aluminium oxidises so quickly that it caused a problem with adhesion. The other thing is the S6B is polished with wire wool so it's like trying to paint a mirror, so I am starting with the floats and stripping all the paint off and giving it a key with very fine sandpaper, then a clean before paint and it should work..
 
... this is why I don't paint models...
 
Oh, and Sea Fury - correct! I built a 1/32 one before as my first ever contribution to this forum so have lots of research already and love the aircraft - such a brute
 
trouble is I got my measurements wrong and it does not fit in my cabinet, so it's either wings folded (yuck) or get another cabinet... no idea of the scheme yet..
 
TTFN
Peter

After a winter of bad weather, work has started again on the Lightning. Multiple paint corrections are in the process of being carried out.
 

 

 
One problem that occurred after stripping the pitot probe of paint was that it broke in half through fatigue cracking - Trumpeter plastic seems to react in strange ways to glued and thinners. The upshot was that it was unrepairable due to its thin cross-section (I tried, and it failed again). I had no option but to make a new one. This I did by cutting a length of 1.6 mm diameter aluminum rod and filing and sanding it to shape (The length of the pilot probe in 1/32 scale is 70.3 mm).
 

 

 

 
Derek

thank you all, very kind
 
So, the painting stage is looming....
 
I needed to get some new etch primer as it only has a 12 month shelf life and frustratingly it is still not here yet..
 
I have worked out the colour (I think) - some of the original paint is still on S1595 in the Science Museum (it was repainted ages ago in the wrong blue, likely roundel blue) so I did some samples and arrived at what i think is a reasonable match given the limitations of eyeballs, digital sampling and light
 
I took all my similar blues and did a tester, photographed in natural and artificial light and ended up mixing a shade from what I had - this is the analysis..
 

 
It is what it is, there are no colour pics so sue me if I am wrong...
 
..while waiting I busied myself and there is absolutely no construction remaining..
 
Pitot tube done - complex little thing..
 

 
..cockpit canopy done, another complex little thing - i hate doing transparencies as they are just a huuuuuge opportunity to fu#k up..
 

 
also all the beaching gear was made of plastic and wood, and the wire wheels finished..
 

 

 
..again with no colour photos, I painted them what I thought / interpreted - basically battleship grey as it's likely marine paint..
 
..added the petrol cans and trolley..
 

 

 

 

 
..and thats it - the next time I post, it will be all painted.. wish me luck
 
..in other news, I have decided on my next subject - something I have wanted to do for ages but thought it wouldn't fit in my display cabinet - I measured again and I think I can just squeeze it in - any ideas?
 
TTFN
Peter
 
 
 
 

Painting stage, all of "decorations" painted using mask or handpainted like bell-emblem on tail (not perfect but had no decals unfortunately). Im not a fan of black-basing rather like to brighten surface using surfacer as a base, then I modulated primary colors making efects of worn metal surface. I will use decal roundels i'm not patient enought to mask them :).


 

 

 

 

Members  209 Gender:Male Location:Sheffield, UK Author Posted just now It's been a while. Redecorating the hall and a little trip to London got in the way and we're off to Portugal on Sunday so I thought I'd better get a little update up on the meagre work I've done in the last few weeks.
Just to top it all off, my laptop (steam driven and I DON'T mean the games platform!) crashed on Saturday last week so I've just finished a re install and putting all my dodgy software back on, just joking Microsoft and Adobe.
So first up, the floor was fastened to the port fuselage. This isn't strictly Airfix instruction manual but I'm figuring it'll pay off later....I think.

 
Next up was to add some general dirt and grime then start to look at the gunner's area.
I'm using the ammo racks from Airscale's kit, of course, and it differs from the kit parts in that there are two extra magazines which fit on the starboard wall which I'll sort later but also the two main racks are considerably larger than the kit parts. So large in fact, I had to take off the rear portion to get a reasonable fit. I may even need to take more. I'm thankful the crew aren't being fitted.
 
The next major issue is the waste cartridge storage bag/box. I've seen so many conflicting images and even the contemporary manuals themselves concerning this damned bag.
This diagram comes from the 1938 manual for the JU 87B

It clearly shows a metal frame with a hessian type bag slung from it, as does this lithograph type picture from the 1939 B1 manual

This also shows the magazines we'll come to later.
But then, same manual, very next picture down the page is this, which approximates the Airfix kit part of more of a metal box affair

If I had hair, I'd be tearin'. I've decided to go with a bag type arrangement as I can't really see how they'd empty the box unless it had a bag inside it.
The Airfix kit has the whole fixture fastened, wrongly, to the stanchion holding the magazine racks in a very flimsy way. 
It does fasten to it but the holder for the bag is much more substantial and bolted to the rear of the fuselage as well. So I fashioned this as a rough approximation.

NOTE: Below the bag, you can see a map holder and a gas mask cannister. I've added them to the fuselage as they aren't in the kit or moulded to the sidewall, and made a scale map from an actual bombing map from August 1940.

It fits here

You'll notice I've done some, hopefully, subtle dirt and grime and grease additions as well as some chipping in worn areas. The wiring's been replaced with real wire and the Morse key added. The red and white bar takes the cables from the rudder pedals aft.
Also corrected is the trailing aerial winch. On the kit it's all one part as here:

Whereas, in actuality, it was split as in the photo
Before fitting the bag structure, I needed to make a little cover for the rear of the fuselage. The kit is very rough and on the real aircraft, it was a much neater arrangement with a few info plates on it. I'll marry everything up when the two sides come together.
 
Next in came the magazines for the rear gun. They're a vast improvement on the kit part, if a bit of a tight squeeze 


They'll be levelled up later of course
Onto the other side. The Airscale kit provides the oxygen bottles for pilot and gunner and the 1939 manual gives us the routing of the oxygen pipes which run to the oxygen filling port on the starboard side of the fuselage. Anything oxygen was blue on Luftwaffe aircraft. The regulators, I chucked together from a couple of bits from the spares box.

The oxygen pipe to the masks is a wire core, wound with thinner wire then covered in shrink tubing and painted olive green. I've scratched up the circuit breaker panel as well.
Lastly, I've decided to fit the inner wing sections before closing up the fuselage as it'll be easier to clamp them together to get a good fit than it will if I'm clamping a completed fuselage.....CRACK!!!!!
Hopefully I'll get another update in before hols. Thanks for looking