SH Tempest Mk V "Kicked Up A Notch". January 14/21 New eBook!

[chuck540z3]

21 hours ago, fastterry said:

Jeez Chuck, there's an awful lot of work there to get the wings right, I don't remember having this much trouble with the PCM Tempest. I will of course have to do all this on my Mk II. A quick note about the red and green lights in the wing, they are I.D. lights so you will still have to add nav. lights to the wing tips.

TRF

 

Thanks for that clarification, so I have edited my earlier posts accordingly.  As for the real navigation lights, I will be doing something different with them than called for in the kit instructions.  Rather than paint them clear red and green, they should be left clear with red and green bulbs inside, which is easy to do.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited October 2, 2020 by chuck540z3

[chuck540z3]

Thanks everyone!

 

I should mention where most of my references come from.  There is a specific Hawker Tempest website below with lots of info on both the Mk II and Mk V that I'm building:

 

Hawker Tempest Home Page

 

Within it are several reference photos, with these of NV778, which is the most applicable to this build.  While frustratingly low in resolution, there are pics of almost every part and angle.  I'm guessing the photographer is a modeler, otherwise why bother?

 

Tempest NV778

 

As mentioned earlier, I am doing "JF-E", one of Pierre Clostermann’s aircraft, which is likely one of two, NV994 and NV724 according to this interesting research of same.

 

Pierre Clostermann’s Tempest

 

When researching other builds of this kit, it appears that JF-E is very popular, so I want to do something a little bit different.  Instead of NV994 I think I'll go with NV724, hence my interest in NV778 above, since they are likely very close in manufacturing details.  I am going to try and replicate something like this, with the Cross of Lorraine on the nose, drawing your attention to this defining feature of this fighter.  I also want it good and weathered like this pic below as a tool of war, rather than a hanger queen like a few of my more recent builds.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

Edited October 2, 2020 by chuck540z3

[JayW]

There is no doubt - the Tempest was just one bad ass aircraft.  Had the war extended a few months more, barring the nazi's getting the bomb, these aircraft and thie fine pilots would have been more plentiful and would have run roughshod over mainland Europe even more than they did.  Same for the P-47M, P-38L, P-51H, BTW. 

[Anthony in NZ]

Chuck I am totally loving this and taking lots of notes for when I build my one.  Very revealing information, beautifully executed and informative indeed!

 

Thank you 

[scimitarf1]

Great work on the dihedral - I have not seen another build that has fixed it.

 

Can I ask what it would take to get the upper skins horizontal?

 

Will

[crobinsonh]

That is a great tutorial on how to fix a major problem. At least it is a lot easier now that you have laid out step to step instructions on how to correct it.

[chuck540z3]

Thank you everyone.  Sorry I don't respond to each and every comment, because I find that doing so clutters up the thread and I'd be sure to miss somebody in the process.  Rest assured that I read every one and my "Thanks or Like" to your comments confirms that- and they are much appreciated!

 

4 hours ago, scimitarf1 said:

Can I ask what it would take to get the upper skins horizontal?

 

Will

 

I suppose it could be done, but not with my skills.  The upper wings are shaped wrong to begin with, mostly to clear the landing gear wells, so you would need to make the wells shorter top to bottom.  No easy task, since just getting them to fit together properly is difficult already.  If you could do that, the upper wings could be flattened, but then they wouldn't mesh properly with the fuselage, which would also need to be heavily altered downward.  Last, the upper wings are too long to begin with as noted above, so making them shallower (flatter) would make them even longer at the back and none of the panel line and rivet detail would be accurate.

 

Of course the main reason not to bother is that 95% of the people that look at your model in the future have no idea that the top of the wings should be flat to begin with.  I've been looking at hundreds of photos of Tempests for months now and I only figured that out for myself a few days ago! 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

 

 

 

 

[jenshb]

If the inner portion of the wing should be flat top and bottom, that would increase the thickness/chord ratio of the aerofoil (making the wing relatively thicker further outboard) which sounds odd.  I thought wings typically tended to decrease in thickness towards the wingtips...?

[chuck540z3]

As posted by MikeMaben earlier, the target profile:

 

 

The "Sea Fury FB II" comment is for a different aircraft.  Besides the wing shape, note how the tires toe outwards.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited October 2, 2020 by chuck540z3

[Rocat]

Beautiful, useful and informative updates and posts!

Thank you.

[scimitarf1]

23 minutes ago, jenshb said:

If the inner portion of the wing should be flat top and bottom, that would increase the thickness/chord ratio of the aerofoil (making the wing relatively thicker further outboard) which sounds odd.  I thought wings typically tended to decrease in thickness towards the wingtips...?

There is a very slight reduction in thickness. The wing is elliptical and the reduction inboard to maintain t/c is very small. The top is definitely flat.

 

[Nighthawk Calling 1]

Looking good Chuck, great info on sorting the wing dihedral. I thought that this would be a straight forward build, doing the MkVI, when I started it back in March  how wrong was I, I'm winning slowly but your notes will be so help full when I get around to doing the MkV.

[chuck540z3]

October 3/20

 

Now for something completely different, at least for me.  We’ve all done it.  We fought a build until its final conclusion and after a few coats of paint, gloss coat, decals and dull coat, it’s now time to attach the tiny navigation and other clear lights and lenses to the aircraft, that were left off to avoid getting paint on them earlier.  The problem is, these tiny parts rarely fit very well (not once for me) and some need to be painted, so we try and glue them in place hoping they will fit OK and the glue doesn’t show.  A 9/10 model can quickly fall to a 7/10 with some poorly fitting lights, even if it’s a small part of the build.

 

So, what should we do to eliminate this problem?  My last few models had the clear plastic parts pre-fit and painted so that all I had to do was glue them on at the end, but if the gluing doesn’t go as planned, I still had a potential mess to be cleaned up.  This can be a real pain that I’ve had that a few times-  fixing glue marks and re-painting flaws.

 

Like my last two 1/32 Kitty Hawk models (T-6 and F-5E), the clear parts for this model are hard to cut off the sprue cleanly, don’t fit very well and have internal flaws that are hard to fix.  I must be a slow learner, because it seems to me that masking clear parts is a lot easier than fixing clear parts and glue, so I decided to attach all of them now before paint instead.

 

There are three main lights on the bottom of this aircraft.  The Red/Green composite identification light on the starboard wing I created and glued already, as well as a Clear light on the port wing and a red light just behind the wings on the central fuselage.  They can all be found in the reference pages I showed above, but are linked again here:

 

Hawker Tempest Mk V Walkaround Pics

 

 

These two lights have a chrome headlamp background, so I painted a base coat of gloss black lacquer as a primer.

 

 

 

 

 

Then I sprayed a thin coat of Alclad Chrome, after masking off the central black bulb unit with liquid mask.

 

 

 

 

After gluing on the clear lens, Part K7, which does not fit at all and needs extensive sanding to make it slide into the recess of the wing, much like Part K6 on the starboard wing.  I polished this lens with Tamiya polishing compounds, making it almost invisible.  After using the kit circular mask, the outside surround of this light will be painted. 

 

 

 

 

The central fuselage light got the same treatment, with a coat of Tamiya clear red on the inside of the lens to protect the paint from masks and give it depth.

 

 

 

 

The navigation lights on the front wingtips in the references above are clear with red and green bulbs inside, rather than have red and green covers as the instructions call for.  This might have been a post war modification and pics of these lights during the war are scarce and unclear.  While some may have had colored lenses, the pic below sold me on the clear lens look as accurate.

 

 

 

 

As mentioned above, the kit clear parts in Step 36 do not fit the openings very well, have flaws and are hard to cut off the sprue cleanly. 

 

 

 

 

To overcome these obstacles, I did the following:

 

1  Clean up clear parts as much a possible with a #11 knife

2  Carefully sand the opening to fit the part as well as possible

3  Drill a small hole into the back of the clear part, then place red or green paint inside as colored bulbs

4  Glue part into recess using thin CA glue

5  Add thin CA glue to gaps or depressions of the clear plastic.  Do not use CA glue accelerator at this time, because it might cause bubbles

6  Sand down the glue and plastic into a single unit with #1000 grit sandpaper

7  Fix small gaps with more CA glue and sand.  Glue accelerator can now be used

8  When all is well, polish the clear parts with Tamiya polishing compounds, much as you would when removing the seam line on a clear canopy

9  Restore panel line and rivet detail that may have been sanded off.

 

Here’s some pics of the wingtips.  First the left/port wing.  Note the minimal seam line next to the wing plastic, which is polished CA glue instead.

 

 

 

 

The right/starboard wing.  I hesitate to show this side, since I had to move a small panel line and rivet detail outwards to match a panel line underneath.  After paint, none of the legacy detail will show up again.

 

 

 

 

I made sure that these lights looked just as good on the top and bottom of the wing by using the same methods.  The rear lights in Step 35 got the same treatment.

 

 

 

 

With silver paint as bulbs instead.  It’s easier to glue these lights in now, before Steps 31 and 32 when the rear control surfaces are installed

 

 

 

 

 

With all the lights now installed and eventually masked off, I can finish off the tail and start painting.

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited October 4, 2020 by chuck540z3

[zaxos345]

Absolute perfection my friend!! 

 

John

[spyrosjzmichos]

Lovely work as always Chuck! Looking like a stunner already!