1/32 Special Hobby Hawker Tempest V - Fairbanks JJ+F

[Thunnus]

Thanks Kevin and Alfonso!

 

Ok... the engine is secured on the nose.  One last test fit before I glue the nose onto the fuselage.

 

 

Because of the potential steps and gaps, I'm going to attack this one side at a time.  After the bottom joint was welded with Tamiya Extra Thin cement, I applied glue to the port fuselage joint and used a clamp to reduce the step as much as possible.  No glue has been applied to the starboard fuselage joint yet.

 

 

After a few hours, the clamp was removed to see if the joint held and it looks like it has.  Still I'm going to wait overnight to apply glue to the starboard joint.  But she looks good enough for a session in the light box.

 

 

Here is the port fuselage joint.  There is still some work to do but the majority of that nasty step has been removed thanks to the use of the clamp.

 

 

The other side, without glue yet, has less of a step problem but a bigger gap. It actually looks bigger in person than in the pics.

 

 

The shape of the Tempest fighter finally takes form!

 

[Thunnus]

After I let the port side joint dry, I hopped over to the other side. The starboard side fuselage/nose joint was strengthened by some stretched sprue stuff into the gap while the clamp hopefully held the two mating surfaces level.

 

 

It looks like I got a good joint. I'm going to let this dry for a while before I start to clean up the joint.

 

 

The bottom has some minor joint issues too so it will be a few days before I can start preparing for the painting stage.

 

[Jboldt007]

that truly is a beast of an engine - great work. I've been tempted by Special Hobby's offerings but there certainly is a skill level to pull these kits off. 

[Thunnus]

On 5/18/2022 at 7:40 PM, Jboldt007 said:

that truly is a beast of an engine - great work. I've been tempted by Special Hobby's offerings but there certainly is a skill level to pull these kits off. 

Thank you!  It wasn't that difficult, especially after I ditched the Barracuda resin nose and spinner from the mix. In terms of effort, I think this one has been a easier than the Z-M Ta152H.

 

With the nose permanently mounted on the fuselage, I wanted to double check the landing gear orientation.  The pin on one of the landing gear legs has broken off so I can only dry fit one of them but it should be enough.  Again, my rough rule-of-thumb for the forward rake of the landing gear is if they bottom edge of the landing gear cover is parallel to the exhaust pipes. 

 

 

I've just about worked out the nose joints on the fuselage sides. It was difficult to hold onto the model without touching the engine and I inadvertently knocked off some parts.  Nothing broken so no worries... I'll probably leave those off until the end.

 

 

I still need to clean up the nose joint along the bottom. But once that is done, I can mask the openings and start the painting process. I even bought some servo tape to try Woody's idea for masking the camo demarcations.

[chuck540z3]

Super nice build John and that engine is spectacular!

 

Is that nose fit bad due to the kit itself or due to the addition of the engine?  Having used the Barracuda resin nose on my build, I had some fit issues as well, but since it was created primarily from the kit parts, that might have been the root problem.   In any event due to your tweaks, your nose fit will look perfect after paint.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Dpgsbody55]

Nice work, John.  Your engine installation looks really good, despite the issues with the kit. 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Thunnus]

On 5/21/2022 at 7:40 AM, chuck540z3 said:

Super nice build John and that engine is spectacular!

 

Is that nose fit bad due to the kit itself or due to the addition of the engine?  Having used the Barracuda resin nose on my build, I had some fit issues as well, but since it was created primarily from the kit parts, that might have been the root problem.   In any event due to your tweaks, your nose fit will look perfect after paint.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Thanks Chuck!  Yes, the engine is really well cast and was the primary reason that I bought this kit.  As for the nose fit, I can't really say for sure since I didn't really get a chance to fit the complete nose onto the fuselage and wings.  But I think that the lack of rigidity caused by cutting off the top half of the nose contributed to the fit issues.  Hopefully, it becomes a non-issue after the painting the stage.

 

 

18 hours ago, Dpgsbody55 said:

Nice work, John.  Your engine installation looks really good, despite the issues with the kit. 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Thanks Michael!  It's always gratifying to get any fit issues dealt with and in the rear view mirror. 

 

I am now slowly approaching the painting stage.  I've masked the cockpit and engine off and now I have to do the same for the radiator outlet and the wheel wells.

[Scale32]

Ooh I'm getting excited to see paint!

 

Cheers Bevan 

[dennismcc]

Yes, here comes the really fun stuff

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[JayW]

Amazing how you have taken some pretty lousy fitting joints, and just made them disappear.  Looking forward to your magical skills painting this beast. 

[Thunnus]

Thank you for the comments!

 

The nose/fuselage joint on the bottom has been cleaned up.  I've masked off the wheel wells, radiator intake and exit, mostly with damp tissue.  The radiator exit door has been temporarily glued into place so I didn't have to mask as much.

 

 

The sides joints were touched up a little bit more and then sprayed with Mr Primer Surfacer to check the clean up work.

 

 

Almost ready for painting but I was not sure how to treat the black walkway areas on the wing tops.  Hairspray chipping through three layers (Grey, Green and Black) of lacquer paint didn't seem feasible. Black walkways were not the practice on Luftwaffe aircraft so I looked at my only other Allied build and read through my Corsair build.  What I did there was to chip the blue layer with hairspray and then used salt to created chipping patterns before spraying on the black. How brilliant of me!  Funny and sad that I did not remember this at all. That problem solved, I have started the painting process on the Tempest by spraying Tamiya Silver (AS-12) decanted into my airbrush onto the wing roots and fuselage sides.

 

[Thunnus]

Hair spray, specifically Garnier Fructis Style Full Control Hairspray with the the 24 hour hold anti-humidity formula, is sprayed onto the silver areas for chipping effects.

 

 

I typically employ a 2-stage pre-shading technique.  First, is the panel lines traced in black.

 

 

Next will be a random mottle pattern to give the camo finish a little bit of depth and tonal variation.

[brahman104]

Even in the above state, that's about a million times better than any paint job I typically do  

 

Craig

[scvrobeson]

Always enjoy your pre-shading work. I definitely struggle with that step on my builds.

 

 

 

Matt 

[Thunnus]

Thank you Craig and Matt!

 

After the panel lines have been pre-shaded, I like to add a random mottle pattern to the model.  I used to do this freehand but I found that spraying through a thin piece of scouring pad is a little faster and yields a more random result.

 

 

It's good to mix the mottle pattern with both soft and hard edges.  The scouring pad yields mostly soft edges so when I want to add some hard edge spots, I use a different mask.

 

 

With the pre-shading done, it's time to start painting!  In general, I like to go light to dark so that means usually starting off on the aircraft bottom.  For the bottom color, I am using Mr Color Medium Sea Grey C363 lightened with white at about 1:1.  This aircraft seemed to be heavily weathered so I am lightening my colors accordingly.  I am thinning my paint with Mr Leveling Thinner at about 1:1 or 1.5:1 thinner to paint ratio.  I want a thin mix that I can layer to build up the color slowly and modulating the pre-shade effects as I spray.

 

 

It takes about 2-3 sessions to establish the bottom color.  I've found that a "hot" thinner like MLT settles into the pre-shade and draws the black up into the top layer of paint as it dries.  You have to account for that slow alteration in appearance before moving on to the next color.