Hasegawa 1/48 Hawker Typhoon - Car Door

[propforward]

Latest effort - a car door Typhoon. I like the Typhoon, big ugly brute that it is, and for some reason the car door version really grabs me - don't know why - just like the idea of the car door complete with window wind down. I'm sure the pilots didn't like it much.

 

Still - box

 

 

Contents

 

 

And a few extras I've decided to add to it.

 

 

 

Starting with the cockpit

 

 

 

 

I started by painting the cockpit internals black primer, and then sprayed individual areas with interior green, so as to leave some darker areas around details and try and lend some depth.

 

 

 

After that I picked out details using dry brushing techniques, as well as making use of prismacolor pencils, which make highlighting knobs and switches quite straightforward.

 

 

 

Gradually moving towards a more complete cockpit.

 

 

 

The instrument panel is made up of a resin casting, and three separate etch metal bezels, which are laid on top of three instrument transparencies for dials.

 

 

I must say I'm pretty happy with how this has turned out so far. I still have to finish seat belts and add those, bit dry fitting shows that this assembly will fit very nicely into the fuselage.

 

 

 

 

 

[propforward]

Speaking of the fuselage, as many of you know, fit of the side pieces is not the greatest. Best approach seems to be to glue the side panels into the fusealge, and deal with the gap along the top of the fuselage join. Even then I didn't do too good of a job on the starboard side, but I'm getting there.

 

 

 

A little blending and light re scribing should see it right.

 

Port side went quite well though.

 

 

[Crimea River]

Great start. I have two bubble top versions in my stash that I need to get to one day and will watch with interest.

 

Andy

[Crossofiron1971]

Fantastic work sir!

I had to double take the 1/48 Cockpit!

[propforward]

Thanks - my best cockpit so far. Not perfect by any means, but this is the one that gives me the confidence to break out my Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire or Mosquito - and I think one of those will be started after this build.

 

That or the 1/24 version of this kit, but I think I'd prefer not to do an identical aircraft straight away.

[Christer A]

Car-Door Tiffy?

What's not to like?

I see you've used the Aires pit too, which in my example had a terrible warped floor, but from what I can see that was not the case here.

Great job painting it, I think it looks great!

[propforward]

Thanks! I am very pleased with it.

 

I didn't have any problems with the floor panel being warped, but the two footplates are curved, and shouldn't be. I can probably get them to glue flat, but I don't think that the curvature will be very noticeable once everything is installed, so I'm going with them as is. So far - fit of the Aires set is top notch. my dry fit test shows that the cockpit assembly will fit right in place, without even having to sand off the casting block, so I'm pretty happy about that. Should be installing it soon.

[HOUSTON]

SUPERB start.

 

Looks GREAT from here.

 

Bravo......  

[propforward]

Thanks!

 

Back at it - cockpit is in, and wings on.

 

 

 

 

Got a big gap on the starboard wing root, so next up is dealing with that - and the wing joint seams etc. Gradual progress.

[Roger Newsome]

Looking good and very timely as I'm going to be starting this kit in the near future. 👍

[Christer A]

No seems or ugly gaps on the fuselage. Great work!

[Mr B]

Lovely work thus far. I always wanted a car door but somehow I just missed the boat. Tracking your build....the AM parts and your treatment to them really make everthing pop positively.

 

best regards 

[propforward]

Thanks everyone. I'm looking forward to moving this along - I want to try some new to me weathering techniques - especially paint chipping. Always fun to up the ante a little bit.

[Kitchen Modeller]

Looks great so far - this is a great airplane to let loose on the weathering techniques so I'm interested to see how you get on. Cockpit is great.

[propforward]

Slow and steady - well not that steady - progress.

 

I've been doing clean up of seams. The kit fits together quite well, so happily that has not been too big of a chore, and with that done I started adding some of the more fiddly bits

 

Such as cannon fairings

 

 

I even attempted to poke holes in the ends to add a little more realism later on.

 

 

I painted the lamp inner areas black, then painted the front of the lamp silver. Finally, I dobbed on a drop of crystal clear adhesive (basically PVA adhesive I think), in the hope that the resulting dry dome will look a bit like a lens cover. Probably won't matter once the headlamp covers are on.

 

 

 

I should be on to priming the aircraft in the coming days, and then it's a matter of metal coat, chipping layer and starting to get the colours on.

 

[Christer A]

The Tiffy Car-door revival continues. Good work on those cannons!

I forgot to ask, and the pictures are a little unclear, but did you use the resin bits on the side of the instrument panel?

[Roger Newsome]

Looking good so far! 👍

[propforward]

Thanks guys! I did use the resin side console things - I'll see if I can get a pic of the cockpit as it is now. I have actually removed the seat and the head armour piece now - it kept getting bumped while I was working on the wing joints etc, but it will be easy to reinstall, and taking it off makes masking the cockpit easier at this stage. Lesson learned.

[propforward]

Well..................finished headlamp lens.

 

 

It's a bit "meh".

 

Under the cover, once painted though, good enough.

 

 

I took a few pics of the cockpit, before masking it up. Not great pics, but you get the idea.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway - good bye to those for a while, because we're at paintin' time!

 

 

Not very exciting, but I always think a model looks kind of cool when it's first primed in black.

 

 

 

Now - I want to do some paint chipping on this model. I have some Vallejo chipping medium - but I'm not sure how it works with lacquers, and what any significant time delay between spraying the chipping medium, and then applying multiple camo coats will do. So -unusually for me - I'm going to do some testing on plain plastic sheet first. I tend to be a bit gung ho experimentally, but there's enough work into this model that a little testing makes some sense before committing to the process. So there will be a further delay before more painting progress. Although there are plenty of fiddly bits to tend to as well.

 

[Christer A]

A BIG thank you for those cockpit pictures!

I foresee a few interesting dry-fit runs in order do get those upper instrument panel sides in place.  

 

The Tiffy sure looks good in black though. Too bad they were never used (much) as a proper all-black night-fighter. That would've looked awesome!

[Greg Law]

Looks like my one at the moment. I will be interested in how you handle it next. I'm doing a desert one when I get back to it. The decals are on the way now.

[propforward]

4 hours ago, Greg Law said:

Looks like my one at the moment. I will be interested in how you handle it next. I'm doing a desert one when I get back to it. The decals are on the way now.

Ooooh - a desert scheme will look excellent on this. I look forward to seeing that - great choice.

 

 

5 hours ago, Christer A said:

A BIG thank you for those cockpit pictures!

I foresee a few interesting dry-fit runs in order do get those upper instrument panel sides in place.  

 

The Tiffy sure looks good in black though. Too bad they were never used (much) as a proper all-black night-fighter. That would've looked awesome!

Definitely do some dry fitting. I attached the side console pieces to the insides of the fuselage, rather than the instrument panel itself. I found that a little easier to handle. It all goes together quite well though.

 

I think a Typhoon night fighter would look fabulous - only trouble is I haven't figured out how to shade an all black scheme yet. Must work on that though, because that is hindering my desire to make a Lancaster, and with those 1/32 scale ones coming out.................

[propforward]

Not too much to report. While I research and test some chipping methods, I've been prepping some other parts and some of the fiddly bits.

 

Sigh. Ejector pin marks.

 

 

Although not all that bad really - not very deep and once the putty is dry they'll clean up quickly.

 

Fiddly bits. Undercarriage doors and gear - seams cleaned up and about to get paint.

 

 

I made some test pieces for chipping. These consist of a black primer layer, aluminum metal layer, the chipping medium - thinned and sprayed, then gloss black undercoat, and then the colour layer.

 

Unfortunately the chipping medium orange peeled badly, as you can see here. It orange peeled on its own. I decided to press on just to see how it chips, but it won't do if it's going to make my paint look like this. Need to practice more - maybe I didn't have optimum thinning or spray conditions.

 

 

Anyway - only a first go, I'll do more research.

 

 

[Col.]

Lovely work so far

If you are looking to do some limited chipping I can recommend Windsor & Newton masking fluid or even butter as masking mediums.

[propforward]

Interesting - thanks! I'll test those out. I'm going to make a couple more test subjects and try a few approaches before committing to the actual model.