1/48 Airfix Hurricane MK 1

[Calum]

As the Jaguar is currently sucking he joy from the Hobby I decided to start something else. I wanted something quick and simple.

I've heard good things about Airfix's new tooled Hurricane and Spitfire, and as the Hurricane is the Kit for the 2017 NSW Scale Model Show's "Airfix Cup" (details hereif you're interested) I figure I'll kill 2 birds with one stone and knock one of these up. I'm not going to worry to much about detail or any accuracy corrections (if there are any needed) , the aim being a quick stress free build and try out some weathering and using mask for the markings.

I'm going to do this guys aircraft. To most people here he's probably well known but sadly, most people in his homeland wouldn't know who he is.

Rules of the Airfix cup allow alternate markings and addition of sealtbelts so I dug out a Eduard Spitfire set (close enough I'm sure) and added that to the kit cockpit, which is good enough out of the box

Fit here is really good and this all goes together pretty quickly. Including painting to get to this stage only took a couple of hours

Detail is adequate, noting you won't see much of this when it's all closed up

The kit has full gun bays that are a quite nice starting point if you want go to town on detail. But if you aren't going to open them up you can skip a heap of steps and get the wings and fuselage together. Fit here is excellent. There are few small seams to to fix along the fuselage join, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Edited August 27, 2016 by Calum

[Jusjay]

Looking good so far. I love a quick build interested to see how this progresses.

[celt]

I too am interested, the Hurricane is my all time fav.

[Grey Beema]

I made a couple of these in my Fleet Air Arm Aces theme build. It really is an excellent kit and makes up well. I am going to buy another and build it as a Sea Hurricane as all of the bits come in the box. Good luck with it, I'm sure you'll enjoy it..

[Calum]

Fit on this kit is pretty good and I quite like the plastic Airfix have used. That said the 2 areas I had fit issues were the area on the trailing edge of the wing at the wing root.

And the worst area was the panel under the nose. If I'd glued this to mate with the fuselage halves there would be a large step between the wings and the under nose panel. SO I glued it flush with the wings and filled the large gap

I blew up the instructions on the scanner and then printed them out on A-4 label paper. I then cut around the pattern to make a easy mask set. I did the underside (sky), first then the Dark Earth finishing off with the Dark green Paint is Mr Color Lacquers

This project is going to be an experiment in making a mask set. Particularly as their are no decals for the person aircraft I'm doing. I cut a mask set on my Silhouette Portrait cutter. In the past I've used Tamiya masking sheets. This time I'm using clear masking sheet. This has the advantage of being clear making placement easier. Unfortunately it seems to leave a residue from the adhesive. Still I'm going to crack on .

[Calum]

There's some doubt as to the serial number of Parks Hurricane during the Battle of Britain. it is most commonly depicted as P3854 and this is what MOTAT in Auckland have used on their replica . but they've also got a sky fuselage band, and code numbers that are white and massive which IIRC weren't introduced until 1941 so I'm not taking that as gospel

IMG_6832_Detail by Calum Gibson, on Flickr

Having read a couple of threads online, in particular this post which concludes the aircraft could be a N or L serial. And this post which suggests N2520, I've decided to go with N2520

As an aside the britmodeller post and picture also makes the Airfix Hurricane inaccurate for OK 1 as the kit has the access panel on the side which is clearly not in the photo, Oh well

The masking was reasonably successful, although my impatience meant it wasn't as good as it could have been. That said I'm not sure I'd bother doing this again for the roundels for 1/48, especially the fuselage one with 4 colours, decals are definitely easier.

I've also chosen a different style of fin flash from what others have done in the past. . The reason for this was that if the aircraft is a early N series aircraft I figured it could have an early style fin flash. Photos of BoB Hurricanes I looked out seemed to have this style as well.

Enough waffling, onto the photos. You notice there are no close ups

Edited September 5, 2016 by Calum

[pacificmustang]

looking great Calum, despite your efforts to ruin it by painting the roundels Its a great kit isn't it?

Your camo turned out excellent

Bruce

[Calum]

I've managed to get the gloss coat and the stencil decals on.

 

I've also made the deals for the AVM pennant (Not sure if Park had one on the aircraft but I'm assuming he did) and what I have taken to being a Cerberus on the right hand side of the aicraft. There are only 2 photos of OK 1 that are known to exist, This one is the only one I'd seen 

 

 

However whilst discussing what this could actually be over at Kiwimodeller another image came to light that gives a much better view of the symbol on his Hurricane

 

 

A bit of work with Paintshop Pro and I had something that looks close enough for me .

 

 

The Airfix stencils went down Ok.

 

 

 

 

 

[stevej60]

Excellent work on a very interesting aircraft Callum,sorry I,m late in finding it.

[Troy Smith]

hi Callum

 

Probably too late, but some detail points.

the upperwing roundels are too far outboard, (I see this a lot BTW) 

the roundel centres are 80 inches inboard from the wing tip

http://www.boxartden.com/gallery/index.php/Profiles/Camoflage-Markings/03-Hawker-Hurricane/Hawker-Hurricane-Camo-and-Marks_Page_19-960

 

N**** and L**** serials when applied at the factory were an odd 6 inch high, your are too big and too low.

  That said, repaired L**** serial planes that have ben refabriced i presume then have standard 8 inch

the 6 inch high style and size are seen here

 

you will want to use the De Havilland prop unit in the kit,  be aware that it is possible to fit either set of blades to either spinner, I have seen at least two build on here with DH blades on a rotol spinner ...

 

N**** serial planes have 5 spoke wheel, if you have an Eduard Spitfire VIII/IX/XVI, they all have 3 hubs, covered, 4  and 5 spoke, you should be able to use these in the airfix wheels.

 

Great work on the cerberus logo, (could be on a roundel blue background, compare tones)

 

Despite my hardcore anorak comments above,  a very well constructed and finished model, excellent work!

 

HTH

T

 

[celt]

As a Hurricane nut myself,you have done a good job on her.

[exhausted]

I love that you opted to paint the markings on. Sometimes the results aren't as "perfect" as the decals, but they add some realism and character to the build. 

[Calum]

9 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

hi Callum

 

Probably too late, but some detail points.

the upperwing roundels are too far outboard, (I see this a lot BTW) 

the roundel centres are 80 inches inboard from the wing tip

http://www.boxartden.com/gallery/index.php/Profiles/Camoflage-Markings/03-Hawker-Hurricane/Hawker-Hurricane-Camo-and-Marks_Page_19-960

 

N**** and L**** serials when applied at the factory were an odd 6 inch high, your are too big and too low.

  That said, repaired L**** serial planes that have ben refabriced i presume then have standard 8 inch

the 6 inch high style and size are seen here

 

 

you will want to use the De Havilland prop unit in the kit,  be aware that it is possible to fit either set of blades to either spinner, I have seen at least two build on here with DH blades on a rotol spinner ...

 

N**** serial planes have 5 spoke wheel, if you have an Eduard Spitfire VIII/IX/XVI, they all have 3 hubs, covered, 4  and 5 spoke, you should be able to use these in the airfix wheels.

 

Great work on the cerberus logo, (could be on a roundel blue background, compare tones)

 

Despite my hardcore anorak comments above,  a very well constructed and finished model, excellent work!

 

HTH

T

 

Thanks for the info Troy but I shan't be changing anything at this stage as it's flat coated now. It's just a fun build to contribute so we have some entries in next years Airfix Cup. 

 

I'll have a look at the wheels though as I've got some Eduard leftovers in the stash. 

Edited October 7, 2016 by Calum

[woody37]

Just caught up with this, lovely paint job

[Calum]

 When I looked a the instructions again I saw what I did wrong.. I I used the red inner circle as a reference. along with a panel line as the reference to align the mask. Unfortunately I should have aligned the panel line on the inboard of the red of the roundel, I did on the outboard ..... DOH !! And apparently the font and location of of the serials is wrong as well. I call these sort of things AE's (Anders Errors)

I briefly considered fixing it but because the marking are painted, and there's a bit of paint on them Id's near to sand it all back otherwise the impression of the roundel will remain. It will mean far to much work for this kit so I'm just going to leave it as is.

[pacificmustang]

I call them Gibson Goofs

[Calum]

9 hours ago, pacificmustang said:

I call them Gibson Goofs

NO prizes for seconds... you should be used to that though ... Plus you'll get another chance to experience it in another few weeks  

[Calum]

All done see here