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Airfix Hawker Hurricane Mk1 1/48


n.vodden

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Hi everybody!

I picked up the Airfix 1/48 Hurricane in Hobbycraft for a tenner when I was last down there, and have just started the build tonight. Already mentioned the kits little niggles ( mainly closed canopy, and a hell of a lot of moulding flash ) but other than that it doesnt seem too bad. I asked for any advice on aftermarket parts, and had some great responses which i really liked the look of, particularly the fabric covered wings conversion kit.

My A6 Intruder is coming to an end ( finally got the stores on it, varnished, decalled and sealed - now in weathering/panel staining ) and I have been absolutely itching to start this one after watching the Battle Of Britain the other day :analintruder: so I started it earlier today. As money is tight until payday - bloody xmas - I'm going OOB on this, and i'm going to pick up another one at the end of the month along with the conversion kit and pre-war decals.... and the Fokker DR1 for the WW1 GB, man this is addictive isnt it :shocked:

So, firstly the compulsory box shot...

DSC01414.jpg

So far, I have just assembled the cockpit seat area, and assembled/painted the pilot as i have decided to include a dude - something I pretty much never do. Not too happy with how he looks compared to my citadel minatures, but he will do :)

pilot.jpg

Need to get the right shade for the cockpit interior, so will be popping into the local model shop on my lunch break tomorrow and spraying it in the evening.

I'll keep you posted, thanks for looking!

V

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Your "dude" is very good. As Walrus says, a bit bright, but i think you'll find that's all for the good, once he's under the canopy. Good luck with the kit - I have the same one in my stash awaiting its moment

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Todays trip into the local model shop ( Antics ) was a little dissapointing as they dont run the humbrol range of enamels - my own personal weapon of choice - anymore, and they have been replaced with Tamiyas range of enamels and acrylics. Of the 5 colours i needed to pick up, only 2 equivalents were stocked in acrylics. Luckily one of them was Cockpit Green so at least i've been able to work that tonight.

Soon as I got in from work i sprayed the assembled cockpit and interior with the green, and once dry applied a bit of Promodeller wash to the detail. The detail in the kit is sparse, so i've not taken it too seriously and my detailing leaves a lot to be desired anyway :P A little shading and picking out of minor details is all im going with on this one, as its mostly hidden anyway.

The pilot has also had a closer matching shade of blue applied so he doesnt look like a power ranger anymore :) Heres how it stands at present.

interior.jpg

Since taking that photo its had a coat of Games Workshop rattle can varnish to seal it in and it looks a lot smoother and even.

I cleaned up the instrument panel to go in there, and the detail on it is terrible, so i opted for the decal instrument panel. Ahhh i love airfix decals... out of register, so thick you can pick them up with your fingers and move them about, and about a full mm too big in each direction :frantic: Had to trim it down loads, and use copious amounts of microset/sol to get it to sit right but its on there now and doesnt look so bad.

Next on the agenda is the control column.....

badlycast.jpg

Apparently there is a stick hidden in amongst that plastic somewhere, but I cant see it. This pic also shows how the exhausts are going to be fun when its thier turn on the block. the openings are round and filled, should be an interesting one to sort out!

Thats as far as we've gotten for tonight. Tomorrow should see the panel fitted, and the fueselage halves mated together. i have test fitted them and there will be some problems to sort. The raised ( ewwww ) panel lines on either side of the engine cowling are about 1.5mm out from each other, and the moulding around the cockpit fairing is atrocious. both sides are completely different from each other so a lot of sanding/filling will be needed there to be passable.

Theres a reason this kit is only a tenner :) But hey, I appreciate a challenge and i'm a glutton for punishment!

More to come

Cheers!

V

*edit* oh yes , and the spinner+prop has been assembled/painted as well *edit*

Edited by n.vodden
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The detail in the kit is sparse, so i've not taken it too seriously and my detailing leaves a lot to be desired anyway :P A little shading and picking out of minor details is all im going with on this one, as its mostly hidden anyway.

The pilot has also had a closer matching shade of blue applied so he doesnt look like a power ranger anymore :) Heres how it stands at present.

Next on the agenda is the control column.....

I reckon you're doing an admirable job on this one. The pilot looks excellent (c'mon, it's a 30 year old(?) Airfix pilot, fer gawd's sake) and the cockpit detail will be fine under the canopy. I can see that you've got some decent skills with a paintbrush too. Have fun with that control column...

Jeff

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Theres a reason this kit is only a tenner :) But hey, I appreciate a challenge and i'm a glutton for punishment!

I'd better not tell you about my Hasegawa one I picked up for a tenner then :tapedshut:

You're doing a fine job of making a silk purse from a sow's ear so far - keep up the good work ;)

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I'd better not tell you about my Hasegawa one I picked up for a tenner then

:fight: no fair

have two of the older boxings in the stash and fortunately the flash is no where near as bad iirc

the control column shouldn't be too bad to clean up- jus a bit of a pain.

the grip had a texture to it but will be hidden by the pilot's hands

the stick has the wires and a chain so a bit of simple scratching might help

Any ways is looking good so far :D

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Hi all.

Last night was a complete bust - took 4 and a half hours to get home in the bad weather and driving ( normally a 30 minute journey! ) and the car was abandoned a mile from home... so very little was done last night. But as fate would have it, we've had a clean foot of snow overnight so I can't get to work! All public transport is off too, so its a day stuck inside, with models waiting to be worked on... oh what a shame :shithappens:

I've fitted the gunsight and mounted the instrument panel in the fueselage, and test fitted everything together and its taking shape.

preparedinterior.jpg

prefitting.jpg

Some shots showing how much you can see of the interior

cockpit2.jpg

cockpit3.jpg

The fit of the fueselage halves is perfect to be fair, and i doubt any filler will be needed just a quck sanding of the joins. These have since been glued and taped up, and its setting on the table now. I've painted the inside of the wheel wells alluminium but it will need a second coat. Once that is done it can be joined to the wing base and the wings assembled.

I've still got the control column to sort out, thats on the cards for later this afternoon when the little one has his nap. Im hoping to get the wings and tailplanes attached today, and move onto any filling and sanding so i can prime it ready for the main colours to go down.

I haven't got the right shades of dark earth and dark green, and the nearest shop that stocks them is 15 miles away through heavy snow so theres no rush :) Plenty to be getting on with for now.

V

Edited by n.vodden
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The tailplanes and main wing section were assembled next, but unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures during this stage :(

They were mated to the body and required a lot of whittling down of flash to get it to fit, and even then there were some pretty alarming gaps!

here she is sat with the wings held in place by tape to make sure they set true

9braced.jpg

In this next shot, you can see the worst gap of all, where the base of the wing root/trailing edge area mates with the fueselage.

10badgap.jpg

Once this was all securely set, i applied plenty of filler to the areas that needed work.

11filledgap.jpg

12filler.jpg

The gun ports have been fitted as well, and the whole thing was sanded down to get some nice smooth curves and its come together nicely.

It has now been primed with Humbrol rattle can grey primer and is drying in the kitchen. The filled areas look lovely and you cant see the joins at all, even that horrid one underneath is passable now!

I'm not in work this Friday so I intend to lay down the light green colour for the underside while I have time, and while I wait for the snow to clear to get to the hobby shop i'll get cracking on the undercarriage. Incidentally the Hurricanes underside colour is listed as 'beige green' and I always thought they were painted a light blue underneath. When i bought the Tamiya acrylic in the right shade, and it was labelled 'SKY' i thought to myself.... On what planet?!

I cant decide wether or not to pre-shade this model. I had my first experience of preshading with the A6 i've got being weathered at the moment, and it went really well Its subtle but enough to have a brilliant effect. Would it look out of place on this model, or is it worth the effort?

Any suggestions or example pics would be very welcome if anybody has them.

Thanks in advance

V

Edited by n.vodden
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The build is looking good.This is making very interesting watching for me,I've just started building the same model after a long time out of the cockpit so to speak.The skill's are a bit rusty but the tips on here are great.Modelling sure has moved on, the standard on the R.F.I thread is fantastic. I'll be unashamedly picking up some pointers from this build!! :whistle:

Edited by smit11
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Hello again :)

I'd like to say thanks for the encouragement and comments that have been made, you are too kind :-) And that one of my models should help somebody is both rewarding, and suprising at the same time heh. I'm continuously in awe of some of the work posted on the RFI board. Some of them look real and you couldn't tell they are a model - a true testament to the skill of some of the people on here that i'm aspiring to reach one day!

So, to work!

Before I went to bed last night, i fitted the intakes and gave it a quick blast of primer so it would be all ready to work on today. Heres 2 pictures showing the primed model ready for painting. The gaps at the wing root and underneath are nicely filled and smooth now.

13primed.jpg

14primed2.jpg

After this mornings trip to the Dentists I stopped off at Lendons Models in Cardiff and picked up the dark earth and green enamels i needed for the upper body, and a bottle of Tamiya thinners to use with the light green acrylic for the underside. I had weird results thinning Tamiya acrylics with water and since read on here that they should be used with thier own thinners, unlike citadel/vallejo etc which can be watered down.

Over the course of the day I have laid down 3 thinned coats of the shade and gotten a nice smooth, even finish across the entire underside.

15basecoat.jpg

as you can see in the corners of the pics, the undercarriage have also been assembled and painted in alluminium, and the covers painted green to match the underside. All of this is now dry but im going to give it a few more hours and then mask it up tonight, ready to start laying down the dark green and earth.

its going to be interesting as I have never sprayed camoflauge before. All of my models made before i returned to the hobby were brush painted, and since switching to an airbrush ( and never looked back! ) the model's I have done have been solid colours, or solid lines between colours so this is the first 'wavy line' and im unsure how to broach it. I've read about frisket films and other methods but think i'll go with thick Tamiya tape cut to the curves and then applied, which is what i usually mask with.

Very little will be done this weekend as I have archery squad practice all day Saturday, and then a tournament shoot on Sunday so free time will be at a premium - but i'm going to try and squeeze the wheels in and get the undercarriage supports shaded so they can be sat ready to fit after painting.

Thanks for looking!

V

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Those old Airfix kits turn out all right, for sure. They do take little bit of actual modelling to get them sorted - but the end result is worth looking at.

And the price can be downright fair.

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Frisket is like a very thin sticky backed plastic that can be cut to curves and then peeled off the backing and stuck/burnished down to get crisp edges around curves. I've never used it, but my friend Mahijeet in work used some to mask up his laptop before spraying it with a custom paint scheme ( everyone keeps singing the Dell Lollipop song at him now! ) and he said it was great stuff to work with. They sell it in Hobbycraft as well as it happens, have a nice selection of Badger airbrushes/accessories and masking materials.

Nah not playing with the flaps on this one. This one is being built out of the box, and come payday i'm going to get another one with the fabric wing conversion kit, pre-war decals and go to town on it :)

Know what you mean Dahut. Most of the airfix kits i've built arent that detailed and require a little work, but they are quite cheap and everywhere stocks them so they invariably end up in the stash. Picked up a 1/72 Sea Fury the same time i grabbed this Hurricane, only £4

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Evening :)

Yes the frisket he had was quite thin and flexible, but very workable. It was about the same thickness as a thin A4 poly-pocket for a ring binder. had that kind of feel to it as well.

I managed to get a bit more done this evening. First on the agenda was to mask the entire underside prior to spraying, to protect the light green.

16masked.jpg

Once that was done, i sprayed on a thinned coat of Humbrol enamel dark earth. I gave it a few hours and just put down another coat.

17darkearth.jpg

thats still drying now and i'll give it a full day to settle down. When I get back from the shoot tomorrow im going to mask off all of the areas that need to stay dark earth, and lay down the dark green shade on top of that. When all that is finished i will fit the undercarriage and tailwheel, and coat it all in Klear to seal it all in and prep it for decalling!

I'm a bit worried about silvering so im going to make sure its a smooth and high gloss surface and use plenty of microset/sol so they set flat. the side markings in particular have VERY large spaces of clear carrier between the letters and the roundel, I may in fact cut away a lot of it and apply the letters individually. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it :)

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Evening all! Time for an update!

Once the dark earth coat was completely dry, i masked up the model ready for the dark green. I followed the pattern on the decalling instructions, its not exact but its close enough :)

18camomask.jpg

19camomask2.jpg

On top of this i sprayed 2 thinned coats of dark green Humbrol enamels. Due to the matt and dark surface it was going onto it looked fine after 1 coat, but i put a second on it to ensure good coverage.

When i removed the tape, disaster!! lesson learned, dont skimp on materials and use proper Tamiya tape! It had bled under in a few places, and left sticky residue behind. These were easily rubbed off and touched up, but still made me panic a little!

It has now had a coat of Klear to seal it all in and its darkened the colours and made everythign nice and flat/even, instead of that weird 'dry' finish you get with sprayed matt coats.

20camo.jpg

21camo2.jpg

22underside.jpg

Those areas where you can see I touched up the paint are practically invisible to the eye, but the camera flash has highlighted them due to the different finish between the sprayed and brushed bits. Subsequent Klear coats should blend it a bit more. Its currently having 2hrs to make sure its completely dry and I will put down another coat before bed. i want to get a few coats down to ensure its ready for the decals. I also noticed in those pics a bit on the starboard wing where it meets the fueselage at the leading edge, where it has bled under, so that will be sorted out before the next Klear coat as well.

I've also assembled the wheels and they are setting ready to sand the seam down and paint them. Once they are finished they can be fitted along with the tail wheel.

Its coming together nicely :)

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Hi everybody!

Bit more progress to report. The Hurricane has had several more coats of Klear ( including liberal amounts brushed onto the side to prep it for decalling where the huge lettering is! ) and it was finally ready to go tonight.

Before I proceeded, I fitted the undercarriage legs in place. The wheels have still not been completed but they are on the to-do list.

23undercarriage.jpg

In that picture you can also see that I have fitted the leading edge light covers. I wasn't entirely happy with the empy silver box underneath as called for by the instructions, so wanted to put something in there to simulate a light. Nothing too fancy ( my scratchbuilding sucks ) so i used 2 circular moulding tags off the clear parts for my JU87 Stuka, glued in place and painted the 3 thin black lines to emulate the real lamps' grill cover. It doesn't look very good, but better than nothing in there at all.

So on to the decalling! In a fashion most unlike Airfix decals, they went on a treat! The wing roundels are very thick, but thats nothing a touch of Microsol can't fix. I did have problems however with the side panel ones. The one on the port side had been folded in packaging, and was close to disentegrating and it took large amounts of microset and water to get it remotely into position. Its not where it should be ( off by about 5mm, offset rear to the otherside ) but I had no choice as it had grabbed firm and wasnt coming loose without destroying it :( Meh, it looks fine from either side, for one of my models - it will do :)

All of them have been applied, and the paint around the cockpit edges touched up. Here is how she is looking at the moment.

24decalled.jpg

25underdecalled.jpg

The spinner isn't glued in place, it still needs another coat of matt black - i'll do that when I come to paint the wheels and fit the tailwheel and antenna mast also.

Before I go to bed i'm going to give them all a dose of Microsol for them to bed down, and assuming they all look fine i can give it a blast or 2 of Klear tomorrow evening after archery, to seal it all in ready for weathering. Its looking far too 'still got the factory sticker on it!' at the moment. I'm not going to weather it heavily, just some staining from the gun ports, exhaust soot and streak, and panel lines to give it a broken-in feel.

*edit* forgot to mention the exhausts still need painting as well, will do that and the canopy before I move onto weathering. *edit*

Edited by n.vodden
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Hi all!

Just a quick update for now. The canopy was masked out with tamiya tape..

27canopymasked.jpg

and then painted with interior green to show through the cockpit, and then the dark green that covers that area of the camo scheme.

This has now been fitted in place, and the pilot walkways and exhausts have been painted black. The wheels have also been fitted.

28readyforweathering.jpg

Tonight I am going to weather the exhausts and fit the tailwheel and radio mast which have been painted, then seal everything in under a coat of klear ready for

the weathing to begin. I want to get this model finished by the end of the week if possible, So i can begin the next project ( Fokker DR1 ) for the WW1 GB that starts soon.

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