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A tale of two Tiffies


DWW

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If you're anything like me, you began a childhood modeller, who later discovered girls and navigated those hazardous youthful waters in a hiatus sea of stormy hormones, eventually re-discovering kits in a new environment of more disposable cash and model quality.

 

Skipping back to those early days, I can still recall receiving pocket money on a Friday afternoon and running hotfoot to the shop on the green with its rotating stand of bagged Airfix kits slung beneath flimsy card headers. Excitedly I would check for new kits or re-visit old ones and then happily head home to expand my airforce with a small toolbox of tube cement, Humbrol enamels and brushes. Nowadays things are radically different; airbrushes, a wide range of hand and power tools, along with a dedicated modelling bunker, mean modelling on whole different level but all this extra capability didn't automatically add up to happier or more productive modelling. Instead, an obsession with the top drawer output of other modellers, along with silly personal expectations of perfection, led me to become a serial starter who finished very little. With over 100 kits in various stages of undress, I knew I was inadvertently trapping myself in a tar pit cycle of building my (then) 300 kit stash in parallel. Something had to give.

 

A friend on another forum had been invited to be a contributor for the re-launched Airfix Model World magazine, back in 2010 and so I hatched the notion that if I were to successfully audition for a place on the team, the discipline of magazine work would oblige me to radically alter my attitudes, while also giving me an outlet for my love of photography and writing. It was a gamble but I approached the (then) assistant editor, Chris Clifford with a list of four kits from the stash and asked him to choose. One was the Eduard 1/48 'Weekend' boxing of their Fw190D-13, in the markings of the iconic field applied camo of 'Yellow 10'. Chris said the complexity of the scheme was such that if I could pull it off, I could have a job. What helped his decision was a few pics of a scratched, hand woven Sopwith Camel seat in 1/32 previously created for the Hobbycraft kit and that, together with 'Yellow 10' was what saw me on to the books of AMW.

 

I think I'd completed four builds for AMW when Chris called me up in August 2013 and said Airfix were producing a brand new 1/24 kit to celebrate 75 years in business. I was sworn to secrecy and attended Telford in November of that year, to stand agog with thousands of others at the overall complexity and stressed skinning. I was simultaneously struck with the notion of what the small boy would have said to have been told that decades later, he'd be unexpectedly handed the biggest gig in Airfix history, as well as an acute appreciation of what the kit meant to Airfix, the design team and board of directors. I was sent two complete slider kits (in case of mishap - they obviously knew me lol) and ten weeks to navigate the 230 odd build steps.

 

From the outset, it felt like building a real Typhoon. I used the lower wing as a jig to accurately align the core framing.

 

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Chris wanted an uncowled front end, so the engine was duly built up.

 

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With wings and fuselage together I felt I was handling something more akin to a wild Salmon. 

 

 

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With the ten week build clock fast evaporating, the final straight came into view.

 

 

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It was a point of great satisfaction (and relief!) to see Airfix's 75th anniversary kit on the flight line - the first to be built and fully completed, it now resides in the Airfix Visitor Centre in Margate.

 

 

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The parts breakdown of the slider was clearly designed to yield the car door version, so when the boss said would I fancy the test shot there simply weren't enough wild horses in the world to keep me from it and when I was asked about a preferred scheme my love of desert based aircraft meant a 451 Squadron RAAF desert filter trials bird was a certainty.

 

This is DN323 at Boscombe Down, photographed by Hawker, before crating up for North Africa in early 1943.

 

 

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My use of Interior Grey Green is spurious anarchy on my part - Hawker's silver lacquer is a much more accurate choice.

 

 

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The slider build obliged 'kit plastic only'. The car door allowed aftermarket in to the equation. Here the full Airscale suite and Eduard brass were shoe horned in with much enjoyment.

 

 

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Radu etch and Barracuda resin carb intake dressed the rad. Black was laid in behind the etch for depth.

 

 

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All nailed together.

 

 

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The replacement turtle deck is a perfect fit. The Airfix instructions omit mention of the anti-collision beacon (the flashed over hole beneath needs drilling out if your markings choice carried one).

 

 

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Closing up the front end is an exercise in industrial grade abrasives, re-scribing and beading tools to restore fastener details. Note the as yet untreated seams inside the chin.

 

 

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The chance for exposed canon couldn't be resisted. In theatre, DN323 moved to full shrouds in short order. I left mine exposed to show off the Mk.1 details turned brass replacements. As the gun bays were closed up all you need are chopped lengths that drop fit into the short shrouds with CA. The downside is the ridiculous nubs that join the barrels to cut sections - ridiculous and I jury rigged an alignment rail.

 

 

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I thought it would be interesting to take the car door aspect and show the s/bd window wound down some 2/3rds. There are no winder handles on the kit sprues, so it was out with strip and punched discs. 

 

 

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Another ten week build schedule and the kit was complete on the bench.

 

 

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I took the model to Telford for inclusion on the Airfix stand and it's now over at Margate as a contrast to the European scheme of the slider.

 

Happy days.

 

 

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TTFN

 

 

Steve :-)             

Edited by DWW
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GEEEZZ, These are magnificent builds ! Exceptionally well done. Thank you for shareing. I love both of them, weathering, detail and pics are wonderful.........Harv :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  :punk:   

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Wow, cool!!!    Id love to see a better/more close up of the brass barrels in situ. 

 

 

Hi Brian:

 

I regret I can't oblige - once the guns were 'blackened', the detail was largely obscured (visible to the naked eye but less so to the camera), hence the pre-painted image.

 

 

Cheers

 

Steve 

Edited by DWW
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Putting a piece of foam in the cockpit to prevent it from being ruined by paint is a stroke of genius!!!!

 

Hi R:

 

In truth, it was various bits of card, bound with masking tape - I can see why it looks like foam though. Now you mention it, foam would have worked too. :-)

 

 

TTFN

 

Steve 

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I'm not sure I understand your reference to the slider. Are you referring to the slide molding process itself?

 

 

Hi: Apologies. 'Slider' refers to the bubble top (as in the hood slid back to open). It's an alternate term to 'bubble top'.

 

Can I slip in a collective thanks to all the kind folks who've already dropped by on this one. :-)

 

 

TTFN

 

Steve :-)

Edited by DWW
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Hi: Apologies. 'Slider' refers to the bubble top (as in the hood slid back to open). It's an alternate term to 'bubble top'.

 

Steve :-)

 

OK, thanks. I'd never heard that particular phrasing before (in regards to the Typhoon), but it makes sense now.

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