Jump to content

1/48 Academy Hunter F.6


Recommended Posts

I've started working on Academy's 1/48 Hunter F.6

As is fairly well documented, the Academy Hunter is a very nice kit however it does have a few areas that let it down slightly on the accuracy front. I'm going to try and rectify these where I can with scratch built or home made corrections, with the exception of the ejection seat as I have a few rather nice Neomega replacements asking to be used. I have an Aeroclub Hunter F.6 in the stash that I'm using as a yard stick to compare my corrections to.

I've had a bit of a trawl around the net and picked up on some of the most obvious areas that are lacking in the kit. These include (but are not limited to..)

1. Wheels too small

2. Tail cone too long and the aperture is to small

3. tail bullet too long

4. Horizontal stabilisers to far to the rear

5. Cockpit too shallow and...

6. ...the seat is 1/72 rather than 1/48 scale

First thing I've done is to make some replacement wheels.

Taking my measurements from the Aeroclub kit, I cut out several plastic disks to approximate the correct thickness and diameter of the wheels and glued them together. I then drilled a hole through the centre to mount them and help me hold them. I made the centre core as the main part of the tyre and then a ring to represent the outer edge and to give me an indent for the hub. It was then a matter of shaping the circumference and rounding the edge of the type off.

wheelsbuildup.jpg

Rather than try and make the rather fiddly hub, I elected to use the kit's hub by cutting away the tyre and leaving enough material to shape the outer edge of the hub as per my reference pictures and then glued them in place. I used a similar method for the front wheel however for this one I drilled out the entire centre of my scratch built wheel and used the full hub from the kit part and pressed it in to the new tyre.

wheels-frontandrear.jpg

A comparison shows the relative sizes of the new wheels compared to the kit's main wheels (I'd already re-modelled the kits front wheel so I couldn't do a comparison for this)

wheelscompare.jpg

Karl

Edited by Karl
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The next part requiring attention is the tail cone.

The kit supplied part is too long and the aperture at the end is too small.

Again, taking my measurements from the Academy kit and references I've found on-line, I trimmed about 3mm or so from the narrow end of the cone. This immediately made the end wider but not quite enough.

tail-conecompare.jpg

My solution was to create a triangle of plastic with the wide end large enough to increase the width of the aperture to the desired size. This also had the effect of pushing the bottom of the tail cone down to the desired shape.

I glued the top of the tail cone parts together and the lower part nearest the fuselage joint and inserted the plastic triangle and glued it all together. It was all taped up for 24 hours to set solidly. It was then just a matter of removing the tape and filing and shaping the extra plastic to the right shape. I ran some superglue along the inside of the joint to brace it as much as I could and I also filled the inside with a little filler to even it all out just in case you could see any of it past the jet pipe.

tail-coneandwedge.jpg

This is how it looks test fitted to the fuselage (I still need to shorten the tail bullet by about 3mm in this picture)

newtail-coneattached.jpg

Karl

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've done some work on the landing gear.

The kits landing gear struts looked thinner than they should be so I've padded them out a bit by removing some of the detail moulding and then used some Aeroclub hollow rod to 'fatten' them up. The nearest rod size was a bit too thick so I thinned them down a bit and cut them open and slid the rod around the bare struts. I then added a bit of pipe work for detail though it's not easy to see in the pictures with it being all grey at the moment.

gearandwheels.jpg

Next section to work on is the too shallow cockpit and 1/72 scale seat.

I'm not going to try and do anything with the kit seat; it's far too small. I've got some Neomega replacement seats and I'm going to use one of these. I'll keep the kit part for the spares box as it looks quite nice and might go in to a 1/72 kit!

A comparison of the two parts below: Left is a correctly sized 1/48 seat and right is the approximately 1/72 seat from the kit.

seat-front.jpg

seat-side.jpg

Karl

Edited by Karl
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice fixes Karl. I beefed up the main wheels on one of my Hunters by wrapping plastic card strip around the wheel - but I do like your method!

Thanks Bill! :)

Karl

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome work so far, Karl! Me likes! :worthy:

wheelscompare.jpg

One question just outa sheer 'n' utter curiosity; it's not important at all, Karl, but have ya checked whether the new enlarged wheels fit inside the kit wheel bays?

Real like the Hunters, especially the T.7/T.8 'n' T.68s. Can hardly wait to get hold of the new proposed 1/48 conversion by Philippe Jacques Productions for this year.

Cheers, Karl

Unc²

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome work so far, Karl! Me likes! :worthy:

wheelscompare.jpg

One question just outa sheer 'n' utter curiosity; it's not important at all, Karl, but have ya checked whether the new enlarged wheels fit inside the kit wheel bays?

Real like the Hunters, especially the T.7/T.8 'n' T.68s. Can hardly wait to get hold of the new proposed 1/48 conversion by Philippe Jacques Productions for this year.

Cheers, Karl

Unc²

The Aeroclub ones fit - and they're similar in size to Karl's. Academy's wheel bay is okay in size - its just in the wrong place!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Unc,

Looks like they do :)

wheelsandwing.jpg

Bill - are the wheel bays really in the wrong place?... I don't think I'll be able to manage to fix that one....

Karl

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Unc,

Looks like they do :)

wheelsandwing.jpg

Bill - are the wheel bays really in the wrong place?... I don't think I'll be able to manage to fix that one....

Karl

I'm pretty sure they are - I don't think its by an awful not though. I'm not sure where I heard that one, as Its been a long time since I built one - but I 've never bothered trying to correct that one on any of mine....not an easy fix at all, and who'd really notice?

I'll check some drawings and stuff when I get the chance...

Edited by Bill Clark
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great work Karl, going to follow this with interest.

Missed out on one of these on ebay the other day - didn't realise there was quite so much wrong with it - especially the seat - even I could correct that!

Cheers

Simon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Aeroclub ones fit - and they're similar in size to Karl's. Academy's wheel bay is okay in size - its just in the wrong place!!!

Hey, Billy! :bye:

How's it goin,' mate? Thanks; it's good to know. I really didn't have a single clue 'bout the wheel bays bein' in the wrong place on the Academy Hunters either. As Karl stated; that's a flaw which would be too difficult to fix, I infer.

Hi Unc,

Looks like they do :)

wheelsandwing.jpg

Hi Karl!

Such a clever picture there, mate. Thanks. :thumbsup: So, the original wheel would look hilariously small inside its bay, huh? :hmmm: Sumthin' to keep in mind when convertin' the FGA.9 to T.7/T.8 standards; is that correct or would ya use a different version as a basis for it?

Cheers, lads

Unc²

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mmmm, I'm liking this one! Good worj and keep the photos coming! I can't wait for the PJ Productions conversions too and have a few of the Academy Hunters in the stash, but where's OzH? He is also working on a conversion set.

And Bill, please...

I'll check some drawings and stuff when I get the chance...

Don't do that! As soon as I think I've got all the corrections I need in place, along comes one I've not heard of!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, Billy! :bye:

How's it goin,' mate? Thanks; it's good to know. I really didn't have a single clue 'bout the wheel bays bein' in the wrong place on the Academy Hunters either. As Karl stated; that's a flaw which would be too difficult to fix, I infer.

Hi Karl!

Such a clever picture there, mate. Thanks. :thumbsup: So, the original wheel would look hilariously small inside its bay, huh? :hmmm: Sumthin' to keep in mind when convertin' the FGA.9 to T.7/T.8 standards; is that correct or would ya use a different version as a basis for it?

Cheers, lads

Unc²

Hi Unc², I'll need to check my references about the wheel well!! I can't remember where I heard about it being in the wrong place. Seeing as the Academy kit is getting on a bit now (over ten years?) it could have been anywhere!! I've built a few of these kits and I've never bothered attempting to correct the wheel wells. The other problems with the kit are well documented, in the modelling press, on here, ARC, Hyperscale and I suspect other websites during that time.

This is a great thread! Well done Karl - you're doing a sterling job. The Academy kit does build up into a nice kit- but really does need these corrections......I wonder if we'll EVER see a really accurate 1/48th scale Hunter issued that will save us doing these corrections? Revell/Airfix? You lot listening?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a great thread! Well done Karl - you're doing a sterling job. The Academy kit does build up into a nice kit- but really does need these corrections......I wonder if we'll EVER see a really accurate 1/48th scale Hunter issued that will save us doing these corrections? Revell/Airfix? You lot listening?

Thanks again Bill; I was hoping that a new series of 1/48 Hawker Hunters was going to be announced by Airfix during the last round of upcoming releases. Still, there's always next time!! :pray:

Thanks to everyone for there kind comments so far :thumbsup2:

Karl

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Not had much time to work on the Hunter due to work, but I'm on holiday this week and I've been working on modifying the too shallow cockpit tub and attempting to add a little more detail to the area behind the ejection seat.

At one point - having not done enough research on-line, I thought I'd got a handle on what I needed to change and commenced work. However, after putting in a new rear wall I woke up at 6am the morning after I'd done it and suddenly realised it was wrong! so I got up and removed the alterations before I went to work and had another think about it - and a harder Google.

So, starting from the beginning. The kit part as it comes is too shallow:

tub-originalkitpart.jpg

So to make it a bit deeper I carefully cut the floor out of the tub with a sharp knife and added about 3mm plastic to the bottom edge of the tub and glued the floor to the inside of this. 3mm extra depth gave me enough room to install the Neomega seat and leaving enough room to clear the canopy as per the reference pictures I'd found. My references also showed that the area to the rear of the seat was a sort of well area that held other bits of equipment and wiring so I tried to incorporate this to.

This is the initial deepening modification and equipment well opening:

tub-firstdeepmod.jpg

The main modifications after this was to extend the bottom of the instrument panel so it sat in the cockpit normally in the modified tub. The equipment well was boxed in and the rear bulkhead detailed with equipment boxes and wiring detail. The ejection seat has a flat rail-type item that ends in a boxed in section towards the back of the headrest that looks a bit like a squared off funnel - this was made by laminating layers of thinner plastic and the filing to shape. The kit's joy-stick was also made a bit longer to make up for the deeper tub. To make it easier to detail I removed the rear of the cockpit bulkhead from the fuselage halves and fabricated a new one and attached that to the tub.

newtub-2.jpg

newtub-1.jpg

newtuubandseat.jpg

As I'm typing this up the modifications don't seem too much, however I seem to have spent ages modifying this part of the model - I think it's due in part to heading off in the wrong direction and having to undo it all and start again - but I'm glad I did; even though you probably won't see much of the modifications to the area behind the seat, I know it's there - sometimes I think I don't know when to stop!!

Karl

Edited by Karl
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The gun-bay / landing gear bay part as it comes out of the box appears to have no actual ports for the gun barrels, so I though I'd add them by just drilling them out - simple...

Well, no - drilling where I think the gun ports should be removes too much plastic from the 'trough' area rather than on the line of the gun - if that makes any sense. So I cut out the trough areas on the gun bay and added some lengths of tube (cut in half length wise) to the inside of the gun bay and then filled and shaped the filler in the trough to more closely approximate the reference pictures.

Original kit part:

GunBay-kitpart.jpg

Inside, during modifications - modifications to the left:

GunBay-inside.jpg

Modified troughs with ports:

GunBay-modifiedpart.jpg

Karl

Edited by Karl
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Karlie, mate! :bye:

How's progress on yer F.6 build been goin' as of late? Any updates? Me's got one enquiry here with respect of "them" exhaust diameter enlargement:

tail-coneandwedge.jpg

Say, do we need to add the same plastic wedge upside down on the opposite side of the exhaust cone? Check the white area outlined in red on the picture; is that another white plastic wedge by any chance? Me's been wonderin' aloud all day long now... :hmmm: Skull's steamin' already.

Cheers, bloke!

Unc²

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...