Trumpeter Supermarine Attacker F1 in 1/48th Scale.

[Alex Gordon]

G'day Chums,

I'd like to chip in with this one if I may.

 

 

Here's what's in the box.

 

 

The instructions would have you start with the wings.Nope,traditionalist that I am I decided to start with the cockpit.

 

 

This is the point when I realised that there isn't one colour call out anywhere on the assembly map.I cobbled these bits together anyway and,for a bit of an encore,found and prepared the mainwheels too.

 

 

What bits I've read about this kit all comment on the minimal fuss fit so I thought it a good idea to find out.I cut the fuselage halves,the jetpipe and the tailwheel bay from the sprues and made them ready for a dryfit.

 

 

The fuselage halves lined up rather well mostly

 

 

The flange for mounting the jetpipe was very tight and held the back end of the fuselage apart slightly.

 

 

To be fair a drop of glue would probably soften the plastic enough to allow the right amount of give but I decided that a quick swipe of the sanding stick would be a more reliable method.The whole of the jetpipe end was going to need thinning anyway so there was no rush to do anything yet.

 

 

The trailing edge of the rudder was going to need thinning too.

 

One side of the fuselage sorted

 

 

The same side rudder half too

 

 

Both sides and the jetpipe edge as good as I am going to finish them

 

 

More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

Edited July 26, 2017 by Alex Gordon
Reworking photo urls

[Grandboof]

Nice work 

Martin H

[Col.]

While this may be neither Supermarine's most famous nor prettiest design the Attacker still has an important place in the history of British aviation therefore makes for an excellent subject within this GB  

[Alex Gordon]

Hello again Chums,

 

Grandboof,thank you for the kind words.

 

Col,thanks for letting me in.You are quite right,this was the machine that gave the Royal Navy the let in to the future.It is,of course,a Spitfire derivative (in the broadest and furthest stretched sense) and couldn't possibly have been considered for manufacture anywhere other than on our sceptered isle.

.

A little more progress to report.The mainwheel halves were glued together and the joints tidied up,the tailwheels were clipped from the sprue and the part lines tickled off with the sanding stick.

 

The tailplane halves were cut from the sprue and arranged for photography.

 

 

Something that I have found is that the sprue gate (runner gate for the purists?) on the thinner edges has been built in to the mating face rather than directly on to the thin edge.It's a method of doing things and,for my money,it needs a slightly different way of dealing with it but it saves all those carpet gnawing moments when the tiny weeny thin bit shatters as you try to cut the part from the frame.The little nubs were close clipped off,scalpelled somewhere near and then tickled up with the sanding stick.

 

 

After preparation,assembly seemed to be the thing to do.Something I will need to bear in mind for later is that both pairs are handed,there is surface detail on both sides that is mirrored and symmetrical and relevant to upper and underside.I'd like to get this right first time if I can,which will prevent wastage of time sorting out something about which I should know better.

 

 

Oddly enough a thinning of the trailing edges seemed to be a good thing to do with these too.When I put the halves together the trailing edges didn't seem to meet at the edge.The piccie below was quite tricky to arrange but what it shows is the straight edge of a brand new Stanley blade stood on the fore and aft edges of the tailplane.The right hand side of the image as you see it is the trailing edge and shows a hump slightly inside the trailing edge that is enough to stop the outer edge going together.It's difficult to see but it's there.

 

 

A scraping and thinning of the trailing edges was a good thing to do.

The canopy is supplied in front and rear portions

 

Masking on inside and out ready for paint

 

Hang on,did I mention paint? Given the lack of paint colour information I felt compelled to go looking for gen.I didn't have to go far .http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/73248-supermarine-attacker-fb1/ 

 

I also found this Primeportal page useful.

 

Matt Black paint was airbrushed on to all relevant bits,in a departure from my usual I used Revell 8 Anthracite because all of my Humbrol 33 had dried up in the tin.

 

I wasn't too keen on the instrument panel decal so I did the scrape away paint with the sharp end of a pin bit,and then placed tiny droplets of Klear into the gauge faces to represent the glassware.Dear reader you can see this image which is about four times larger than the real item.No,it can't be readily seen in position but the attempt has been made.

 

A little bit of silver drybrushing in the cockpit tub

 

The rear fuselage interior,jetpipe and aft turbine disc were sprayed with a drop of silver paint.Once dry the jetpipe and fan were treated to a wipe over with a corner of ground pencil lead laced bog roll with a view to darkening and metallicising (is this a word?) the finish.

 

With all of that done and dried I thought it would be a good thing to shove the whole lot into the fuselage and close it all up.This also included the tailwheel bay which has been cut from the sprue and the sprue gates tidied up but must be feeling like the unwanted relatve at the moment due to the lack of attention being lavished upon,unlike the other bits so far.

 

The thinning of the trailing edges of the rudder created a new snag,not entirely unexpected.

 

The fuselage end of the rudder wouldn't close up.A short cut with the all singing and dancing SAM saw and template type device sorted out that one,just a wipe of filler to hide the gap and all will be well

 

That's all for this time chums.More soon and,once again, thanks for looking in.    

 

Edited June 29, 2017 by Alex Gordon

[Grandboof]

Looking good  

Martin H

[Alex Gordon]

G'day Chums,

 

Martin,thanks for looking in.

 

A little more progress to report.The fuselage joint came up rather well,a little light tickle with the sanding stick made all the necessary refinement.The photography doesn't show this too well,I need to adjust the lighting a bit.

 

 

There was a slight gap behind the rudder but I'm putting that down to my thinning works around there.

 

 

On the underside there is a circular louvre represented

 

and another rectangular pair either side over the jetpipe.

 

I thought these could do with a bit of attention.I highlighted them by rubbing a pencil over the high spots leaving the engraving more visible and then set to with a new scalpel blade.I made a series of perpendicular cuts followed by an oblique cut in each line,the last cut lifting the plastic to represent each slot.

 

 

There were a few slips along the way and the photo of the rectangular ones doesn't look too convincing but they should look half decent under a coat of paint.

Next to be done was to assemble the mainlegs.

 

The retraction jack on both sides came up a little short.

 

I made some replacements from telephone wire and wire insulation (the orange bit).

 

The intakes were the subject of my next attention.

 

The kit splitter plates looked a bit overbearing to me

 

and the fit wasn't quite there.Some fettling required then.

 

I dug out a sheet of thin plastic card,the same thickness as my SAM saw

 

I then cut some strips and a pair of plates.

 

I then cut a couple of strips off a new slab of Blu Tack and placed these on the bench.The kit parts were pressed into the blu tack to set out where the new strips were to sit and the strips set up appropriately.A couple of cocktail sticks were tried to lift the plates up to the strips but they weren't quite wide enough for the job.

 

The contact faces of the outer sections were thinned and shaped a little,left hand done right hand original.

 

A light tweak will make all well.

 

 

More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

 

Edited June 29, 2017 by Alex Gordon
Reworking photo urls

[Col.]

You've certainly made a great start to this one Alex and those of us with the same kit in our stash are getting pleanty of good tips 

[Hewy]

Super improvements, great job, well worth the time spent

Glynn 

[Alex Gordon]

Hello again Chums,

 

Col,glad you're enjoying this one.I haven't seen many builds of this one so I'm happy to highlight any snags with it that I find.There are a lot worse kits out there I can assure you and I'm not one for Trumpybashing just for the sake of it.

Glynn,thanks for looking in.Your kind words are appreciated.

 

A little more progress to show.The lightening holes in the undercarriage torque links were drilled out

 

 

The mainlegs were masked up for painting and then the torque links were glued on and then the whole lot was set up using Blu Tack to attach the door links to the legs.They're quite a complicated affair these mainlegs aren't they.

 

The wings were then cut from the sprue and tidied up ready for a spot of chopping about.

 

 

 Suitably chopped and prepped.

 

A spot of gloss white paint was sprayed on the mainleg and intake components.Berger,the stuff I was using on doors and skirting boards a couple of weeks ago,was my slather of choice.It will yellow eventually but it not as rapidly as Humbrol and it works out cheaper being as I had this left over from the job so basically it's free.

 

Once this had dried I sprayed a drop of Sky at the outer faces of the maingear doors and the bits of the intakes I won't be able to reach when they are closed up.

 

More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

Edited June 29, 2017 by Alex Gordon
Reworking photo urls

[Col.]

Looks to be going together well Alex. Nice touch folding the wings; was looking at the seperated tips and it brought home how small these aircraft were that this was all they required to fit in a carrier deck lift when machines such as the Barracuda and Buccaneer had to be folded up like a posh restaurant napkin.

[Alex Gordon]

G'day again Chums,

 

Thanks for chipping in Col.I haven't put this next to my Seafire 47 yet but I don't think that there's a huge difference in size.

 

Anyway,a bit more work done.The flap components were cut from the sprue

 

 

These were cleaned up and put together.Guess who forgot to thin the trailing edges? Hmmm.I forgot to take a photo of this bit but it wouldn't look too spectacular so I don't suppose it really matters.

 

The maingear wells were glued in

 

 

The intakes were glued on.A spot of filler will be needed but nothing too serious

 

 

 

And guess what? More of those louvres to open up.I think I'll do all the fillery first so that I don't bung them up.More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Alex Gordon
Reworking the photo urls.Again.

[Alex Gordon]

Hello again Chums,

A little progress to report
I offered up the wings to see what pitfalls might await.The joint with the fuselage didn't look as promising as I had hoped.

 

I did my usual and glued the upper surfaces first.Every build I've read so far mentions the lack of dihedral so hopefully this way round will go some way towards correcting that problem.

That was set aside to sort itself out and I decided to turn my attention to the seat.

 

Temped together it looks reasonable but nothing like the real thing.The same seat went into the Westland Wyvern so I borrowed the resin one from my Classic Airframes kit for comparison and pattern purposes.

The CA seat is taller and won't fit under the canopy so any modifications will have to take this into account.
More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

[Alex Gordon]

G'day Chums,

A spot of further progress to report.

Having spent a goodly portion of the last few days finding a replacement photo hosting entity and working out how to use their facilities this thread has turned all experimental in the photo presentation department.This probably hasn't escaped you but I think I've got the hang of a couple of providers methods so we can settle back into the usual sedate routine.

 

Have you ever come across the occasional word that sounds absolutely disgusting but means something quite innocuous?
Try this one,Fescalised.

I'm given to understand that this is the process used to make the shiny sliding bit on hydraulic rams and oleo legs.

 

I used self adhesive aluminium tape to do this.The tape itself is rather thick,being as it was some left over from a Velux sun tunnel,but a lot less hassle than tinfoil on its own with superglue.

With the upper wings being glued and set hard I dry fitted the lower wing fuselage section.There were slight steps at both the fore and aft ends.

 

These were fettled to make the whole section sit further into the recess and then the fuselage portion only was glued into position.The wings were left unglued so that I could work the dihedral into them when set.This was left to sort itself out for a couple of days.

I turned again to the seat.Using some fresh blu tack I used the CA resin seat to make a mould of the seat sides.

 

I then mixed up some Gorilla Glue five minute epoxy and poured this into the mould.

 

This will be left for a couple of days to properly harden before I find out if I can get the blu tack off them.I only really want the shapes of the sides,not the moulding that's on them,so that I can scratch up some plastic to match,I've tried to trace the outline but not got on too well so another method had to be found.

 

The wingtips were next for attention.I was thinking about the red and green position lights which are not represented in the kit.A quick look at the BM walkaround showed me where they were but not the shape so I had a bit of a cast around the usual suspects and came up with this walkaround
http://walkarounds.scalemodels.ru/v/walkarounds/avia/after_1950/attacker/

which yielded these images

 

http://walkarounds.scalemodels.ru/d/89593-3/attacker_0045.jpg

http://walkarounds.scalemodels.ru/d/89567-3/attacker_0019.jpg Not my piccies so I'll just give the links.

These gave me a suitably good idea of position and shape and told me that this could not be done on the kit wingtips because they are the wrong shape.A light sanding was in order,left hand original,right hand modified.

One on top of the other to better show the difference

 

Further bits will be added.

I rounded off by manipulating the lower wings to meet the uppers using progressive glueing with Plastic Weld,brute force and stategically placed strips of insulating tape.This involved widening the upper wing recesses for the cannon fairings so that the wing halves could slide a little relative to each other.

 

 

That's all for this time chums,more soon.Thanks for looking in.  

Edited November 14, 2017 by Alex Gordon

[Alex Gordon]

Hello again Chums,

 

At last I've managed to make a spot of bench time.Here's how the seat side castings turned out,one de-blutacked and one not.The cleaning off process is a little time consuming.

 

 

Both sides cleaned off and the plastic sheet shapes cut which is all I wanted in the first place

 

 

Now I can make the seat look a little better.More soon chums,thanks for looking in.

[AdrianMF]

This is a fabulous lesson in how to improve a kit! I particularly like the louvres - very nice scalpel work.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Ray S]

Yes, some great work here, and one or two ingenious tips too.

 

Ray

[Alex Gordon]

G'day again Chums,

 

Adrian,thanks for the encouragement old chum.I've thought of another method of making the louvres because these don't quite look up to snuff,they're a bit messy and inconsistent,Having seen your F111 build I think you've got the edge on how to improve a kit.

 

Ray,thanks for looking in.Hope you're enjoying the trip.

 

I've had a spot of bench time today.I picked up where I left off with the wingtips.A quick squint in the big box of bits of wire yielded a short length of telephone wire which looked about the right sort of diameter.

 

 

I cut off some shorter lengths of the insulation and dug out the right size drill bit.Now I don't know what you think but I find that drilling holes into an edge can be a fiddly job so I started by scalpelling a nick where I wanted the holes to go and then gently working the pin vice using my fingertip as a guide and support to stop the drill tip wandering too far away.

 

 

A dribble of superglue did the fixing

 

 

The next thing I thought I'd do was sort the seat out.

 

 

I did a bit of a cheat by shortening the side panels and chopping off the bottom edges to suit the core of the kit seat.

 

 

It'll look near enough once it's finished and fitted

 

 

I made some side panels for the headbox .This will be visible so I'm going to need to do a bit more than a quick and dirty

 

 

While digging around for photos I found  this piccie  which gives a reasonable view of the leading edge of the fin.More scraping and shaping to do then.

Upper half sorted lower half as supplied

 

 

I then slathered a bit of milliput around some of the gaps and left that to set while I went off to play Mirage.

More soon chums,thanks for looking.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Alex Gordon
Spelin.

[Alex Gordon]

With great regret chums I'm not going to make the trip.

 

Unhappy.

 

I've had to edit this missive because the forum software won't allow me to type A R S E which is the word I have chosen to use as my expression of disappointment with my failure to get it there.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Alex Gordon
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