RAN Fairey Firefly AS5

[abat]

3 hours ago, Courageous said:

Not always the case Andrew. I spent the first 9 years of my working carrier serving in RN Subs, my father was in the Army and from a subject point of view, I'm not interested in ships, subs, tanks , etc but aircraft...go figure.

 

Stuart

Goodness gracious, we have a rebel in out midst! The thought police are no doubt watching. 

[Nigel Heath]

Nice work on the cockpit, looking forward to seeing how it all comes out.

[Courageous]

46 minutes ago, abat said:

Goodness gracious, we have a rebel in out midst! The thought police are no doubt watching. 

I would call myself a defector...

Besides, what colour schemes for subs...black, colour schemes for ships...grey, colour schemes for armour...green/ sand. Aircraft on the other hand...all sorts!

[abat]

58 minutes ago, Nigel Heath said:

Nice work on the cockpit, looking forward to seeing how it all comes out.

Thanks Nigel. I'm pretty excited about this one. I always wanted a firefly but put off building this one due to the resin. Not my favourite material but intricately detailed. 

51 minutes ago, Courageous said:

I would call myself a defector...

Besides, what colour schemes for subs...black, colour schemes for ships...grey, colour schemes for armour...green/ sand. Aircraft on the other hand...all sorts!

Ah yes, the wonderful colour schemes. 

[Martian]

The wheel wells may well have been painted in Sky.

 

Martian

[abat]

1 minute ago, Martian Hale said:

The wheel wells may well have been painted in Sky.

 

Martian

Thanks Martian. I've had word from Steve (who has said airframe in his  garage masquerading as a TT conversion) saying interior green is the go. I guess there would be some variety across aircraft and operators. 

[Martian]

8 minutes ago, abat said:

Thanks Martian. I've had word from Steve (who has said airframe in his  garage masquerading as a TT conversion) saying interior green is the go. I guess there would be some variety across aircraft and operators. 

That could well be the case and of course we have to allow for any repainting during the aircraft's life. I do remember seeing an instruction  somewhere, ordering that RN aircraft were to have there wheel wells finished in the underside colour. I don't know if it is still the case but the Firefly in the Fleet Air Arm Museum last served as a target tug and even had the wheel wells in black and yellow.

 

Martian

[abat]

1 hour ago, Martian Hale said:

That could well be the case and of course we have to allow for any repainting during the aircraft's life. I do remember seeing an instruction  somewhere, ordering that RN aircraft were to have there wheel wells finished in the underside colour. I don't know if it is still the case but the Firefly in the Fleet Air Arm Museum last served as a target tug and even had the wheel wells in black and yellow.

 

Martian

Thanks Martian. It's hard to know what makes sense - leaving factory default, re-painting, etc. I can't imagine it would be much fun painting yellow and black stripes inside a firefly wheel well, bad enough masking it for spraying! But if there's an instruction you think it would be followed. Fascinating stuff, thanks. 

[NAVY870]

3 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

That could well be the case and of course we have to allow for any repainting during the aircraft's life. I do remember seeing an instruction  somewhere, ordering that RN aircraft were to have there wheel wells finished in the underside colour. I don't know if it is still the case but the Firefly in the Fleet Air Arm Museum last served as a target tug and even had the wheel wells in black and yellow.

 

Martian

Thats Royal Navy practice.

We colonials left things as they were and only bothered painting the outside bits.

Thankfully so as that practice allowed large chunks of Hawker yellow to survive on our preserved Sea Furies.

[abat]

1 hour ago, NAVY870 said:

Thats Royal Navy practice.

We colonials left things as they were and only bothered painting the outside bits.

Thankfully so as that practice allowed large chunks of Hawker yellow to survive on our preserved Sea Furies.

Thanks for the clarification Steve. Outside bits makes perfect sense to this colonial. 

[71chally]

Absolutely concur with Martian re the British naval aircraft finish of that era, ie u/c and bays in sky.  I have Fairey Manufacturer paint diagrams for the Gannet and they show sky to be applied.

I would expect the RAN aircraft to be the same from delivery, until majors, repaints or role change.

 

Cracking work abat, really doing the Firefly justice there.

[NAVY870]

19 hours ago, 71chally said:

 

I would expect the RAN aircraft to be the same from delivery, until majors, repaints or role change.

Disagree but I've only been playing with these things for 37 years what would I know.

Edited September 20, 2017 by NAVY870

[abat]

Well here we we are taped together in preparation for some major glueing. The fit looks good at first glance but is really only reasonable with some work to be done improving the fit at the wing roots. The bottom wing is one piece and is 1mm too broad either side of the forward fuselage. The top wing sections will also fit more snugly if the top edge is sanded back at an angle, again by around a mm. Currently when butted against the fuselage they overlap the bottom wing tip (and outside radiator edge) by again around 1mm.  

 

 

You can see the issues better in this close up. There's also work to do inside the radiators. At present the vanes don't fit flush at the end so some filling will be needed. In fact I took the outermost vane off each resin radiator as it was never going to look good. 

 

[abat]

Spent quite a few hours on the build today. These specialist kits require an extraordinary amount of fiddling and fettling to get them together. Can't complain though ... not many other choices for a 1/72 Firefly and you certainly get your money's worth time-wise. 

 

The wheel wells / radiator resin pieces have been fitted and the bottom half of the wing glued into place. The fit of the top wing components have been checked and fettled. I did it this way, rather than glueing the wings together first so I could be sure of the fit of the top wings against the fuselage. 

 

I've used putty to blend the radiator smoothly into the wing and replaced the resin vanes with some card to improve the fit. These are pretty fragile and will no doubt break off when I try and sand them to fit the top wing on. The radiators were painted NATO black and then given a dry brush with metal. i pre-painted the radiator intakes with sky but obviously need to tidy this up once the putty and vanes are finalised. The top wings go on once the radiators are sorted. 

 

You can just make out some pencil marks on the forward fuselage marking the propeller hub and the space for the missing carburettor intake. I'm still undecided how to proceed in representing the intake. Special hobby have provided some space under the hub where I could open up an intake, or I might fashion one from card and blend it in with putty as per Navy Bird's build. Whichever, the bottom of the propeller hub should mark the top of the carburettor intake.

 

 

I also cleaned up the propeller blades, glued and sanded the fuel tank and radar pod (more filling and fettling no doubt) and re-made the arrestor hook from some 0.5mm evergreen rod and the kit's resin hook. There's also a fair bit of putty and sanding required to tidy up the wing join under the fuselage. 

 

 

An enjoyable build, and at this rate, I should be done by Christmas. 

 

[perdu]

I have the fuselage alone of an Airfix Firefly, shall I fettle some tidiness into it and cast the nose section for you

 

I think their nose intake area is reasonably decent

 

It could be in the post by Monday afternoon

 

I never threw it away, its all I have left of my brother's kit building days, no wings or other stuff

 

I do have the Falcon canopy though. ☺

 

 

[abat]

44 minutes ago, perdu said:

I have the fuselage alone of an Airfix Firefly, shall I fettle some tidiness into it and cast the nose section for you

 

I think their nose intake area is reasonably decent

 

It could be in the post by Monday afternoon

 

I never threw it away, its all I have left of my brother's kit building days, no wings or other stuff

 

I do have the Falcon canopy though. ☺

 

 

Now there's an interesting thought. I'll send you a pm to explore the idea further. 

[abat]

Wings on, let the putty begin. Try as I might, the alignment was just a little off due to my ham-fisted manipulations. 

 

 

While waiting for said putty to dry, I started to put the propeller together. My first attempt using the grid on the cutting mat and some blue tack blobs to line everything up ended in dismal failure. Everything looked alright until I tried to fit the spinner over the top and everything twisted out of shape. I then made a jig based on an imps article sourced through google. 

 

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2003/12/stuff_eng_tech_propeller_jig.htm

 

One blade down and so far working. I made sure to check the fit with the spinner on as well. In order to get what I think is the correct diameter (13' or 55 scale mm), the propeller root doesn't extend far onto the spinner base. I certainly wonder who came up with the idea to cast blades separately in these limited run kits and why. At least they're not resin!

 

 

Hopefully the hub won't be stuck to the plastic card when I work up the courage to turn it 90 degrees for the next one. 

[abat]

4 down. Once it's all set I'll bed it into some epoxy or thick superglue to give it more strength. The jig worked really well and hopefully all blades are oriented evenly. 

 

[perdu]

That prop is scary

 

Rather you than me

[abat]

1 hour ago, perdu said:

That prop is scary

 

Rather you than me

Thanks a Bill, yeah, looks like it'll break if you look at it the wrong way. If I did it again, I'd leave more of the sprue on the ends rather than trimming to the indicated length. I'll likely mount a central plastic disk the height of the stubs and then another disk that overlaps the stubs to keep it sturdy. 

 

The sanding marathon has commenced. Nothing quite sits perfectly in the most awkward places so several rounds of putty, sanding, primer and re-scribing are now in progress. 

[k5054nz]

I'm really enjoying seeing this come together. But yes, that prop...I admire your ingenuity in making up the jig!

 

On ‎20‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 6:03 PM, NAVY870 said:

Disagree but I've only been playing with these things for 37 years what would I know.

 Possibly my favourite comment I've ever seen in my time here.

[abat]

Bit of rugged Fairey engineering. 

 

[abat]

1 hour ago, k5054nz said:

I'm really enjoying seeing this come together. But yes, that prop...I admire your ingenuity in making up the jig!

Thanks, and credit to Google and the IPMS Stockholm crew 

[Courageous]

Those blades are going nowhere! Good job.

[71chally]

Cracking strengthening work on that prop, H.E.Chaplin & Sir Richard would be proud!