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Matchbox Hawker Fury 1/72


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Well nothing I voted for in the great GB vote for 2016 got through! Oh the humanity! But rather than retire to my (metaphorical) shed to cry I decided to repurpose one of my kits to this GB. Here I have the Matchbox 1/72 Hawker Fury. One of the most beautiful of the Golden Ages planes in my opinion.

I picked the kit up last year from Rare Plane Detectives, when I was on a work trip to Vegas. If ever you happen to find yourself in that deranged city it is well worth seeking out and is an amazing Alladin's cave of a shop. The kit is still sealed in cellophane, I haven't got time to check it out today but plan to sit down and take stock of the contents tomorrow.

I've got a few reference books, 2 sets of markings for it (both for machines from 1 Squadron) and I got the Yahu PE instrument panel. I'm going to scratch build the rest of the cockpit but other than that that it will be pretty much OOB.

Cheers

Segan

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fury1_zpsa9z2qwte.jpg

Edited by Misterfriend
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Great to see another Matchbox bi-plane in the mix.

Looking forward to seeing your Siskin too. The Matchbox biplanes are great little kits, easy enough to build and fairly straight forward to add some nice detailing to.

I like the idea of making something so clean and shiny with almost no weathering too. A nice palette cleanser for the start of the year!

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Nice choice of kit and subject Segan. Have a few of these tucked away in the stash myself along with similar books and decal sheets so will be watching your progress with considerable interest.

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Looking forward to seeing what colour(s) plastic you get! :coolio:

Cliff

It's a rather tasteful warm grey and a very lurid blue! No need to waste time painting this little puppy!

Here's some pics of the plastic. All look pretty good, just two dodgy ejection pun marks on the underside of the top wing. And for some reason I have not one, not two but five windscreens! I was thinking of replacing the windscreen with clear styrene sheet but these look quite nice and delicate so I may go with it.

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fury5_zpskhlpjo8a.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

That was a little longer than expected! Work got in the way of getting anything done but finally managed to sit down today and get a little done. Scratchbuilding a new cockpit, the kit comes with a seat and a floor, which is more than some Matchbox kits! I'm not going to get too detailed as only so much is visible.

fury6_zpshf5cb0mm.jpg

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TBH your work is very welcome indeed, I've got this kit (& one from A-Models, of which I'm terrified) and very little clue about how to go about building it.....I really like inter-war aircraft, I'm just not very good at them. :confused:

Silly thing is.....When I was ten I built it no problem! :mental:

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  • 2 weeks later...

TBH your work is very welcome indeed, I've got this kit (& one from A-Models, of which I'm terrified) and very little clue about how to go about building it.....I really like inter-war aircraft, I'm just not very good at them. :confused:

Silly thing is.....When I was ten I built it no problem! :mental:

The A-Model one definitely looks a trickier build, Matchbox are pretty good at making the struts easier to align and attach, which is nice! I find I spend a fair amount of time just pondering what to do when I'm building bi-planes, rushing into it always seems to end badly, or thats my excuse anyway! I spent most of my building time this weekend just planning the rigging and drilling attachment holes. The Fury has a fair amount of rigging, which I don't mind, as long as I've planned it out before hand.

The fuselage is all zipped up so thats the last we'll see of most of the cockpit!

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Here's a close up of that lovely instrument panel from Yahu

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Cheers

Segan

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I fondly remember this kit. PK 1, Isn't it? IIRC this was my first ever Matchbox kit, and what a difference in ease of build and fit it was compared to the few small scale Hellers I had built before.

I faithfully built all of the series 1 kits that came after it, up to somewhere beyond PK 20. Pocket money was short, but I made these my priority.

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Lovely-jubbly. Such a beautiful aircraft- maybe even prettier than a Spitfire I think... :shutup:

Just spotted something from your pictures- I reckon the compass on the Yahu panel is designed to be twisted 90 degrees to sit horizontally?

regards,

Will

Correct! I luckily spotted it just before it was too late, although not that you can see it as the control column is in the way!

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Really enjoying this. Built it when st released, but obviously not to this level, In fact I had NO tools at all back then. Just twisted the parts off the spru & stuck em together with either Airix's white tubeglue or poly77. Happy days!

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  • 2 months later...

Blimey, finally had a moment to do some modelling. Work and life have kept me away from the workbench and have had to live vicariously through everyone else's lovely builds. Got the main construction done, everything went together very nicely with just the slightest smear of filler. Drilled some holes and location points for the rigging and added some control horns to the elevators. Sprayed the doped sections with Tamiya XF-16 and the bare metal with Alclad Polished Aluminium. I think the Tamiya paint looks a little grainy and I think next time I do high speed silver I may opt for something else, maybe Citadels Mithril (or whatever it's current incarnation is).

Cheers

Segan

fury10_zpse5bjbl7k.jpg

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Ooh that's looking good. The grainy finish on the fabric areas suits it to my eye; a little extra contrast between the materials used in construction of the real machine.

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