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

[alaninaustria]

Lovely work mate, have you seen that 1man Army has airbrush stencils available for the Tempest in 1/32? That might just be something for this lovely build!

Cheers

Alan

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  I really appreciate the positive comments!

 

6 hours ago, alaninaustria said:

Lovely work mate, have you seen that 1man Army has airbrush stencils available for the Tempest in 1/32? That might just be something for this lovely build!

Cheers

Alan

Thank you Alan! I have a set to try out on my next Dora build but I hadn't realized they made a set for the Tempest.  I opted to get the HGW transfers for the Tempest instead so we'll be using those to replace the kit stencil decals.

 

I decided to glue the rear deck behind the cockpit.  There is a gap between the seat supports and the back of the seat so I added some small plastic shims to bridge the distance.

 

 

The wheel wells were given a dark brown pastel wash.  This took much longer than normal because of all of the stuff in the wheel wells that I had to work around. Extra attention was making sure to eradicate any telltale stains and to repair any paint damaged by the wash operation. A flat coat was applied to seal the deal and I temporarily mounted some of the landing gear components in place for these pics.

 

 

Weathering is not quite done on the wheel wells but they are close to being finished.

[LSP_Kevin]

Already looking fantastic, John!

 

Kev

[Thunnus]

On 4/26/2022 at 9:17 PM, LSP_Kevin said:

Already looking fantastic, John!

 

Kev

Thank you Kevin!

 

I used the windscreen to manually trace a mask that can be used to help seal the cockpit prior to painting.

 

 

The clear parts have been masked.  The Special Hobby kit comes with masks but they are of the black vinyl variety ala Montex, which I do not trust.  I much prefer the yellow Tamiya-style tape that Eduard uses for its masks.  So I used the kit mask as a template and cut new masks on a Tamiya Tape sheet using the Silhouette Portrait Cutter.

 

 

I had trouble getting the gun sight mount to fit within the windscreen.  This is probably my doing... the resin part had both of its forward pointing braces broken off and I cut off the braces from the plastic part to replace. Most likely the orientation was wrong.  Anyways, I snapped off those braces and replaced them with sections of brass tubing, which were sized and placed AFTER the gun sight mount was temporarily glued with PVA glue.

 

 

The gun sight assembly was then removed and the glue joints reinforced with CA glue.

 

 

I repainted the arms black to help hide the glue joint and glued the gun sight back into the windshield permanently.  I've elected not to paint the interior frames of the canopy and windshield but have masked painted the exposed edge of the windshield black.

 

 

The outer surfaces of the landing gear covers have been painted Medium Sea Grey (Mr Color C363) lightened with some white.over my normal black mottle preshade.

 

 

Additional weathering has been applied to the wheel wells.  First, I gave it some light chipping by dry-brushing Testors Silver along exposed edges and bolt heads.  And then a watered-down mix of brown pastel wash was splattered into the wheel well. Subtlety is the key here and any obviously big spots of wash are wiped away.

 

[ROM]

Hello. very impressive and inspiring build. A pleasure to follow!

makes me want to open my box!

[Kagemusha]

Absolutely wonderful work John, such a stunning aircraft.

[Martinnfb]

x2 

[chuck540z3]

Love everything you do to this kit. Very inspirational.

 

Cheers,

Chuck

[Thunnus]

Thanks guys!  I appreciate the positive comments very much!  Gives me fuel to keep going!

 

Not much of an update as today was more of a looking/thinking type of session.  Still trying to figure out the engine attachment sequence and I'm taking a look at the wing drop tanks with their weird clear pylons and trying to decide if I want to use them.  Playing around with one of the pylon parts resulted in a crack but Special Hobby said that a new clear sprue is on its way so I may still be in business.

 

The outsides of the flaps and landing gear covers have been painted, given a brown pastel wash and then sealed with a flat coat.  Not sure how I am going to weather the undersides of this Tempest so I'm holding off on weathering these for now. I can flip the gear covers over and paint the interior sides and weather them if I need something to work on.

 

 

The clear lamps on the tail were glued into place.  Not the greatest fit here so I had to do some sanding and get them flush. Obviously, these will have to be masked prior to painting.

 

 

The windscreen, with the gun sight secured, has been glued into place.  I'll give this a coat of black and then clean up the joint to make it nice and tidy.

 

[alaninaustria]

Very nice work mate!

Cheers

Alan

[Thunnus]

Thanks Alan!

 

Here is one of the underwing drop tanks. Pretty sparse attachment detail, which normally would not be an issue but since the pylons are actually clear, some fuel connection lines might be needed.

 

 

Using what few references, I could find, I fashioned some fuel hoses using copper wire.  No room to route the lines around the rear attachment point so I drilled a hole through it.

 

 

Not perfectly accurate but it's an improvement.

 

 

Futzing around with the still detached nose section, I thought that the kit part for the radiator exit flap actuator was way too thick and I also didn't like how far open it held the flap.

 

 

So I am going to substitute a thinner brass tube and shorten it so the flap is not open so wide.

 

 

There is also some sort of straight antenna on the belly that looks too thick to me. Haven't found a suitable replacement yet but it will be replaced.

 

 

Was it normally painted yellow?

 

 

I finally glued the upper wings to the lower wing section, making sure I lopped on some tube glue along the top edges of the wheel well walls to get them to seat properly.  I also remembered to put in the dual lens wing light. Some time will be spent cleaning up the joints but it's a good step forward.

 

 

 

[dennismcc]

Hi John the aerial is for the Mk.III IFF, and the yellow is I think a post war Health and Safety measure, if I remember correctly the aerials were probably stainless steel.

Attached is a link to a post on Britmodeller when I asked about the Mk.III IFF on the Hawker Typhoon and was kindly answered by the late Edgar Brooks, the Spitfire expert.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234971087-hawker-typhoon-aerials/

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited April 30, 2022 by dennismcc

[Thunnus]

Thank you Dennis! No yellow!

 

I've been cleaning up the wings and with that almost done, I tried another dry-fit of the engine-bearing front fuselage.  The engine bulkhead has two supporting posts that I glued in and they really help keep it upright in the correct position.

 

 

The fit isn't great but it's getting better as the big assemblies get permanently attached with glue.

 

 

 

There are some gaps that worry me because I need every inch of contact area to make a solid join but I'm feeling better about it.

 

 

I think I'm getting a little anhedral on the wings so I'll see if I can make some sanding adjustments to make sure the wing bottoms are flat.

 

 

Since the flaps are already painted and the fit looks ok, I think I'm going to attach them after all of the major painting is done.  It will save on some masking and reduce the potential for damage.

 

I think I'm ready to start looking more carefully at the engine now.  I think it will need to be assembled and painted prior to attachment of the nose to the fuselage.

[Dpgsbody55]

Very impressive.   I'm liking this a lot.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[scvrobeson]

It's all coming together now John. Can't wait to see you tackle painting the engine.

 

 

 

Matt