1:32 Revell Hurricane IIC - 5 Sqn, Burma 1944-45

[Kallisti]

This build was started back in December but I've been unable to write about it on Britmodeller until now, so here goes with a slightly mammoth catch-up!

This build is the first in a long term project I've been researching for some time now - the title of the project is "The planes my Dad fixed!". Let me explain...

My father was in the RAF during WWII. He was an electrician and joined up in 1941 and remained in the RAF until demob at the end of 1945. Sadly he died in 1979 when I was 18 so I never got to be able to talk to him as a proper adult. I did, however get him to tell me some stories of what he did during the war. Whenever the atlas or the globe came out it'd be "Dad, show me where you went?" He'd point to Algeria, Tunisia, Sicily, Egypt India and Burma. When my mother died eralier this year, my brother and I went thorugh all her effects and found a load of stuff about our Dad, including an Xmas dinner menu from December 1943, with 81 Squadron inviting him for Xmas.

This piqued my interest so I applied to the RAF to get a copy of his war record. This is quite easy to do - you just need a death certificate (if the subject is deceased) and you need to be next of kin. Thankfully in his effcts we also foudn his demob card which had his service number on so it was very easy to provide identity details to the RAF. It also costs £30 admin fee - well worth it as it turned out! 3 months later I got a large envelope through the post which has a copy of both sides of the paper war record that details his time in the services.

From this I was able to see which squadrons he was attached to at various times and from that was able to deduce what aircraft he worked on. Essentially he was in training school until Feb 42 and was then stationed at South Detling, during which time 280 Sqn was present, flying Avro Ansons. From there he was attached to 122 Sqn during 42, 122 Sqn was at that time equipped with Spitfire Vb and Vc, then in October was transferred to 81 Sqn who were at that time in Gib, supporting Operation Torch, the invasion of NW Africa. So that accounted for his travels through Algeria, Tunisia and then eventually to Sicily in later 1943. 81 Sqn was at that time flying Spitfire Vc (trop) and Spitifre IX.

Then in November 43, we was transferred to 5 Sqn, then based in India. By sheer coincidence, 81 Sqn itslef was posted to India and ended up just down the road from where 5 Sqn was based at that time (Sampam), which explains the Christmas menu invitation! He was then with 5 Sqn for the rest of the war, initially operating Hurrican IIc and IId in a ground attack role. In early 45, they converted to Thunderbolts. In the training section of my Dad's record is also notations for Mosquito and Lancaster, but I can see no evidence in the record that he ever really worked on them.

So that gives me a very interesting selection to choose from. Well to start with I want to do a diorama which includes my Dad at work! In the photo album we have several of him his bush hat and shorts in Burma, so this seems a natural place to start, so here we go with the Hurricane IIc from Revell.


I was lucky enough to pick up at the Telford Kitswap as the basis:





Its not a terribly complex kit - its major downfall being that it has raised panel lines and it is the Revell bodge job of taking a Hurricane I kit, slappipng a couple of blisters on the upper wing, replacing the machine gun insert with cannon mounts and thats it. The panel lines on the wing are all wrong, the nose is wrong, the tailwheel is wrong... and so it goes on!



So to improve the build itself, I invested heavily in aftermarket gear at Telford, picking up several items from Grey Matter Figures such as the cockpit and wheelbay enhancements. here is all the aftermarket stuff I aim to be using:



Moving in a clockwise direction: on the black page you can see the cockpit set in the top left and the wheelbays in the bottom right. Next to that is a set of decals for the lettering in the right colours and size for 5 Sqn in India. Below that is a vacform canopy and next is a set of replacement exhausts, then replacement cannons and finally some masks for the canopy.



In this one we have replacement radiator, main wheels, tail wheel and undercarriage doors. The next photo shows the main part of this set, the resin replacement nose



Of course this is the build that I want to make diorama out of, featuring my dad doing his job as an electrician. So here are the final extras that will be used to create the diorama. In the family photo album, we've got several pictures of my dad from this period and in all of them he's wearing a bush hat, open shirt and shorts. So to get that combination I've got this little lot:



Clockwise from the left: Airfix 8th Ary Multipose figures - this will be useful for the lower body, Airfix 1-32 Australian infantry - this will be great for the bush hat and open shirt torso. Next is the 1:32 Aber hand tools set - you'll have seen the 1:48 version of this in my Mohawk build, I suspect that this set will be easier to put together - not so eye-straining! Finally, I will toss in the 1:32 resin accumulator trolly from Iconair. Now I think this will need to have a compressor motor scratch built on the top, but lets cross that bridge when we come to it!

So let us begin with the build. One of the first things I noticed was the elevators are cast as one complete piece. Well thats no good if I'm build a parked up machine undergoing maintenance! So I assembled them and then the razor saw came out and they were cut up. The notch that exposes the hinge was cut in and some plastic rod added. Two brackets were also added in the appropriate places to provide the attachment points for later.



I also started opening up the fuselage to expose the electrics that my dad would have been working on:



which also shows the elevators in an earlier stage of construction. Since the plastic of the fuselage is quite thick I chamfered the edges to thin the visible skin:



I've been researching the internal layout of the fuselage so I can scratch build what will be visible behind these panels. Follow this link to the IWM collections to see the sort of thing I will be aiming to achieve, although not with the wellies!

Edited February 13, 2013 by Kallisti

[Kallisti]

Next I decided it was time to look at the undercarriage bay, since I had bought the Grey Matter upgrade. So to this end, the razor saw came out and large rectangular hole was cut into the bottom wing. This was a tricky job and I had to use dymo tape to make sure I kept the right shape. The the resin assembly began.

Let me warn you that although these Grey market updates are beautifully cast and fully of lovely detail, the instructions are really difficult to use. They consist of a couple of pages of A4 which have colour photos printed on with an inkjet printer. The print quality is pretty poor and its almost impossible to read some of the labels on the photos. I emails Grey Matter asking if there were electronic versions - in fact the instructions at one point even say look at their website for more detailed photos, but I couldn't find them anywhere. Its a real shame because these upgrade sets for both undercarriage and cockpit are superb otherwise. I've order the other update set which will update the nose to a proper Mk II with the proper spinner as well - waiting for that to arrive shortly I hope!

Anyway, sadly I forgot to take photos during assembly but here is waht is looks like after its been installed back in the hole cut in the lower wing:





The kit legs are used and attach to the white plastic rods you can see at either extremity. I've got a slight problem with the secondary leg bay as this is one of the areas where the instructions are not very clear. I've got some reference photos of the real thing however so I will be sorting this out. I've used thin copper wire to represent various air hoses and pipes. This will all come up lovely I reckon once its been painted - pity it will be barely visible

So back to the cockpit then. As you saw int he earlier updates, I've cut the panels open under the cockpit just behind the seat. This is where a lot of the electrics are housed and would be where my dad would have worked a lot of the time. First things was to build the cockpit update and then extend the tubular fuselage frame back from it to represent what would be visible in the open panels...



I've yet to add the seat and the instrument panel and upper part of the control stick. There are also a few extra levers and bits and bobs to also add. As for the framework, I need to install a horizontal shelf in the first inverted triangular segment of the frame, plus start looking at putting the extra details in such as control wires, pipes and so on...

So how does this look INSIDE the fuselage?




The observant amongst you will also notice I've added the shelf that some of the equpment will sit on. What this test fit showed is that I need to extend the frame another segment back to that you get the impression it is continuous down the inside. But what about the interior fittings I hear you ask? Ahh well a start has been made:



I found some useful photos on a thread about a 1:24 Hurricane build by Ripaman, which shows the components in this space:




so the above tiny build is representing the component in the lower centre of the first picture, which sits on the left hand side of the lower framework. It will have some wires added to it to conenct to the other components.

[Kallisti]

I then got somewhat distracted the Satrurday before Xmas when the postman delivered the final Hurricane IIC update set from Grey Matter Figures! This included the resin nose I showed in the photo before. Now to fit this nose takes some quite drastic surgery to the main fuselage, so I finally joined the two fuselage sides together and when the glue was dry got the dymo take and razor saw out...

Test fit:


Knowing where to cut was tricky - Grey Matter provide diagrams, but converting a 2D picture onto a 3D model is tricky. Never mind, any gaps are always fillable eh?

I seem to have cut and replaced an awful lot of plastic off this model!



So filling some of the gaps with some plastic shims, I got it fitting as well as I could:




The new nose also required chopping off a chunk of the front of the wing assembly:



and it was only when test fitting the wing that I discovered that there is a large mismatch between the wing joint in the resin nose and the shape of the wing itself. It might have partly been my fitting to the fuselage but it was generally higher up than the wing so various fixes had to be applied and you can see in the above photo the addition of another plastic strip to bridge a gap I created by cutting too much plastic away! This cut was almost impossible to judge accurately due to the complex curves in this area. In the end I've got it to fit but it did take some careful reshaping of some areas, which will almost certainly compromise the accuracy of the profile in this area. Ah well, can't have everything I guess - the profile is MORE accurate with this Mk II nose than the original kit so we are closer than before.

During this I did attach the upper wings to the lower section. I painted the inside where it might be seen through the cannon shell ejection slots NATO black. My next task is just settling the seams down as the fit isn't very good. Same with the fuselage.

As for the rescribing - at first I wasn't sure whether I'd do it, but the problems with the Hurricane I wing panels and the replacement nose has made the decision for me - so much sanding has been required already that the original surface detail is rapidly disappearing or has vanished already. The Grey Matter Figures set does come with a good panel line illustration on the wings which I will use along with other sources as a rescribing guide. The fuselage doesn't change all that much and the resin nose has good inscribed detail already.

I have to give my thanks to Mark at Grey Matter Figures for getting this set out to me so quickly, especially since they are having issues with their online shopping cart so this all had to be handled manually!

Oh and finally a piece of good news - I finally took a closer look at the propeller that comes with the kit and it turns out to be a Rotol prop! About time I got a break on this build

On Christmas Eve, I went into my office and was one of only 3 people there. Come lunchtime they left as well so I put in one more hour and came home! That afternoon then saw some building with teeny tiny pieces of plastic card, rod and spare bits of PE fret to continue with the internal components:







Still a couple more boxes to build that go on the right side of the shelf.

In the meantime, the wings and fuselage has had a load of filler liberally applied and sanded down, then I put some primer on and repeated the process. Wing is now drying from the latest round of primer and the filler should have dried on the second round of the fuselage. All in all the joints are remarkably smooth! The primer on the wings showed up some residual panel lines, particularly the machine gun panels, so they got sanded down a bit further.

Then I went through my reference books again, bookmarking all the useful photos. I've got the following in my "Hurricane" library: Squadron/Signla Publications Hurricane Walkaround, Hawker Hurricane Inside and Out by Melvyn Hiscock, Haynes Hawker Hurricane Owners Workshop Manual, Hawker Hurricane by Peter Jacobs (Crowood Aviation Series) and finally The Hurricane II Manual from the RAF Museum series. This last one is a collection of the actual technical manuals that would have been used by the ground crew and it really feels like I've got a connection to my Dad back in 1944 as I am sure he would have been looking at the same circuit diagrams and schematics as I am looking at in this book!

[modelfan]

Looking good i am sure i made a big 1.35 Hurricane IID many years ago can you make the MKIID wih this kit?

[Kallisti]

The last photo in the previous post was of some of the small components to be put into the opening. Here they are again, with some extras and with some paint on:



From the left there is the battery, the radio transmitter, the IFF Transmitter, oxygen bottle and in the front is the IFF instruments that sit at the bottom of the framework. At the back is another small piece that will sit on the starboard side behind the radio transmitter. I don't have any good pictures of this piece so I'm going to use a bit of artistic licence on that.

I've also added some control wires that would be visible when these panels were open, using nylon "invisible" mending thread:



yeah well great photo that, the invisible thread is um invisible... lets try it with the flash



You get a better view in the full size version here

So back to some of the other parts. I shopped out the tail trim tab, then reattached it at a slight angle and added some wire to represent the actuators:



I've also drilled out the slots in the rear of the fuselage where the tail actuator connectors emerge from the inside of the fuselage to connect to the tail. More wire will be used to represent them when the time comes to attach the tail. I've also cut out the trim tabs from the elevators and will do the same with them later.

Next, I've constructed the Volkes air filter that comes as an additional sprue in this kit. Its not a very good fit together but a bit of sanding sorted that out. I chopped out the blank front plate that is visible inside the filter inlet and replaced it with a bit of brass mesh:

Next, I decided to further complicate matters when I realised that the pipes that served the underwing radiator will be partly visible in the open space...

So lets start by cutting a hole in the wing where the radiator would be connected...

of course the inside has had to be painted ahead of attaching it....

The pipes are being represented by some electrical wire that is about the right diameter which will be painted metallic grey and shaped appropriately when the fuselage and wings are joined at some point in the near future

[Kallisti]

Looking good i am sure i made a big 1.35 Hurricane IID many years ago can you make the MKIID wih this kit?

Well I guess you could - you'd just need to add the underwing cannon sponsons - PLUS correct the nose and remove the cannon fairings. At least the IID had the same panel lines as the Mk 1 wing for the machine guns so you could just rescribe what was already there as opposed to a different pattern as I had to (more on that later!)

[Kallisti]

the time has come to a) paint the cockpit assemble the components behind the cockpit. The cockpit got a coat of XF 71, while the fame behind got a metallic grey coat. Then came the very fiddly task of locating and connecting all the components:

Instrument panel:

(larger version)

For this I used some excellent references plus the Airscale WW2 RAF Instrument dial decals plus some from the cockpit placards set. These are fantastic and add so much detail to the cockpit.

So how does this look inside the fuselage? Lets try it out...

Hmmm okay thats not bad

I've now discovered that I appear to have lost the gun sight that came with the Grey Matter Figures resin set! Looks like I'm going to have to do some more scratch building!

Next, I finally got around to the job I wasn't really looking forward to - rescribing!

Wing topside:

Underside:

In fact it wasn't as difficult as I expected - I used a LOT of dymo tape, but only made a handful of small mistakes which were fixed with a drop of Mr Dissolved Putty and some careful sanding.

The other item I realised was totally missing was the inside surface of the emergency escape door, plus the various map pockets on that side of the cockpit. The panel was simply a thin piece of plasticard, with some holes carefully shaped and with a wire behind to represent the locking mechanism, plus a pocket sculpted from some green stuff epoxy putty and a map case made from more thin plastic card, which was a tricky assembly as the plastic card side preferred to stick to the tweezers rather than each other!

It was only after I tried fitting the door to the inside that I realised I had made this first one upside down!! So another piece of plastic card was shaped and the fitting transferred! You can see this version fitted here:

This has now been painted and last night I did some more intricate work on the cockpit, adding some wires and seat belts. I've also managed to find a spare gun sight in the spares box, left over from building my Tamiya IX a year or so ago - I used the newer gun sight in that model so had to older one left over! Phew! its a tiny thing and quite complicated so so I'm glad I didn't have to scratch it totally! I am having to scratch build the mounting to the instrument panel and the angled glass plate got swallowed by the carpet monster so that too had to be scratch built.

[Kallisti]

Bit more done in the cockpit...

Seat belts added

Here you can see the control column and just about make out the control wires that have been added

and here finally is the gun-sight, mounted in the right place

So for a bit of a break from the aircraft itself, I turned to the base. This is a trusty old picture frame sourced from Oxfam, with a layer of claycrete stained with artists acrylics, dusted with various ground scatter, wood logs, small boulders, plants from long green and cream hairs and a scattering of mixed herbs nicked from the kitchen...

This is 11" square which is big enough for this model. So what about what else will be appearing in the diaorama? Well how about this:

its the RAF Accumulator trolley in resin from Iconicair and this iwhat it looks like assembled:

I'm sure there's been discussions about the various inaccuracies of this kit - ie the wheels being post war versions, but lets face it, there isn't much choice so I'm making do with this one. I'm not sure exactly what colour it should be to be in Burma - RAF Blue or Olive Drab or sand? I can't fond any definitive information about it so I'm going to go with what I feel will work - a blue base coat, over-painted with sand with the paint flaking off in places. Well thats what I'd like to achieve

Finally in this update, some tools from the 1:35 Aber PE set

Spanners:

Toolbox compartments with wires added to attache the hinges

and finally with hinges added...

and yes it DOES open and close as it should - although if it still works after painting I'll be very surprised!

[Work In Progress]

Before you go too much further, may I offer a question which I hope is helpful and just in time -- are you planning on correcting the 'doghouse', just behind the canopy? It should have a distinct kink in the contour rather than flowing in a curve into the spine.

Pics too big to post directly but the correct contours are seen to advantage here (on R4118, which is a I, but it's the same on the II):

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/7/4/2/0849247.jpg

Basically the trick is to saw a slot at the rear of the plywood area, let in a plastic sheet bulkhead which matches the contour of the front of the doghouse, and then build up with Milliput.

[Kallisti]

bottom! Missed that one and no chance of fixing it now - the build is much further advanced that this now - I'm posting all this as a "historical" build and will continue with it later I just ran out of time last night to continue to post...

[Kallisti]

So now we have got to mid-late January when things slowed down a little because or external distractions. Progress continued however - this was when the wings went on. The problem was the wing cord of the wings was much deeper than that of the fuselage joints! So this required a careful build up of the complex curve. First was to fill the coarse gaps with Mr Dissolved putty:

This was left overnight to dry out. Then a layer of squadron white putty went over the top and again was left overnight to dry out. This was then carefully sanded down, trying to keep the complex curves smooth. A bit more filling and sanding left a reasonable surface. To smooth the whole lot off, a coat of Mr Surfacer 500 was painted over the joints and again left overnight

The final stage was to sand this down and get a nice smooth finish:

It was while taking that last photo that I realised I was dumb and had prayed silver in the wheel wells instead of cockpit green as I originally planned as this was common on later Hurricanes. I'm happy with the wing joints now - I thought it would be harder to get a good joint, but it just took patience!

In other news, work continued on the properllor:

I've tried to represent a faded yellow tip using a mix of yellow and dark yellow. I painted the spinner metallic grey, then dabbed a few spots of masking fluid in streaks. Then once the tips were masked, I sprayed it with Nato Black. Next day, I peeled off the masking fluid then using a piece of kitchen towel polished up the matt finish to a more satin look.

In the background you can see the resin exhausts painted up but not yet weathered. All the while other bits were drying I continued on the figure to represent my dad. His uniform was painted in XF 49 Khaki and exposed skin given a once over with some flesh -coloured paint. A oil wash with burnt ochre was then applied and it was left for a day:

I then started on the head. Now I've not been very good with heads in the past so I looked up some tutorials on how to paint heads in 1:35 (although this is 1:32 of course!) and found a very good one on Missing Lynx which I'm following. Here is how the head looked after the first session - please excuse it being so dark - its bloody hard to photograph this thing without it being totally washed out with the camera flash!

The big downside with oil paints is of course the drying time! I had to leave things alone for several days then came back to

touch things up again with some more oil wash to accentuate the shadows better:

The face in this looks a bit "Black and White Minstrels" because the light seems to have picked up lighter areas around the eyes which are not all that obvious when you view it live. I've quite pleased with how this look. Sadly it doesn't really look much like my dad, but I guess thats asking perhaps a bit to much.

What else? Lots of spare time to work on other bits and bobs like the cockpit canopy, which got masked up inside and out and painted. I'm using the canopy that came with the kit rather than the vac formed one I bought. The kit one is not bad, with nice moulded frame detail.

I saw a mention of Value Gear on a forum this week and that reminded me I had picked up 3 sets at SMW so I had a look through the various piece and found some that might work in this context.

These are several crates with some tarp or tents over the top. I gave the crates and initial coat of buff, then overpainted roughly with red brown to give the wood some colour variation

The tarps got painted khaki drab and one in Khaki, with the straps being painted a variety of colours from lenoleum brown to buff to desert yellow to give the straps some variation. Then an oil wash was applied to accentuate the creases etc.

In the background you can also see the landing gear which was also given its initial silver and metallic gray colours. Unphotographed as yet, the tool box got sprayed silver, then given a coat of hairspray. Once all this has dried it'll be painted blue and then chipped/worn. Sadly it now no longer opens and close

[Shalako]

Your Hurricane looks fantastic mate and what a great way to honor your Dad's memory.

I was wondering, is this an original Revell's mould or, did they re-box the Matchbox Hurricane?

Looking forward to see the diorama finished.

Cheers

Sernak

[Kallisti]

Hi Sernak

Sorry I've got no idea on the history of this kit - maybe someone else does?

[Smouch_249]

Very nice work.

Look forward to seeing the finished products.

Cheers,

Michael.

[HL-10]

Some very impressive work going on with this project

[Phil Podmore]

How did I miss this!

Great work!

[MPaul]

The work you are putting into this looks amazing, and its a great diorama with huge personal meaning to you as well.

This is the best kind of project in my opinion, as it bears so much significance for you. Thank you for sharing the build, and a bit of your father's history during the war.

[FZ6]

Looking good. You've done some great work there and I look forward to seeing further progress.

[Mr B]

Really nice work with all that putty.....and always great to build a model or dio with personal connations.....

looking forward to the final product

rgds

mr b

[Skids]

Wow that Hurricane is looking really top notch, keep up the good work

[Kallisti]

How did I miss this!

Great work!

Because I only started posting it yesterday (Its a looong story covered in other posts in other parts of this forum...)

Thanks guys, glad you are enjoying the build - its been quite a challenge, but a very worthwhile one!

[Kallisti]

Now we are up to the last week of January and the crates got their final oil washes, matt varnish and a little bit of pigment dusting on the boxes:

Trust me they are matt finish!

Next, the figure is almost complete. This has had multiple oil washes followed by a bit of drybrushing to bring up the folds and creases. The head was attached this evening and the only other thing I might do before the GF arrives is attach the hat.

The view that will be most common in the diorama

The shinyness comes from the oil washes. I will be giving it an all over matt varnish spray to tone that down.

and finally, the Volkes filter is being fitted. This was a bit of a trial as the version provided in the kit was designed to fit on the original nose which was a MK I. Since the MK II has a longer nose, the curve is all wrong, so this had to be sanded, fitted, filled and sanded.

Still needs a bit of something here, although thinking about it I maybe ought to scribe a panel line in the joint as these were essentially bolted on so it wouldn't have been a smooth joint. Hmm, only just thought of that as I posted this!!!

I also realised I forgot to take a pic of the wheel wells now that they have been painted up properly, but as you can see I've stuffed them with tissue to protect them against the spraying that will be in the near future...

Other things that have been done but not photographed: tail wheel painted up, cannon barrels painted, undercarriage legs painted. along with the inside of the landing gear covers, tools for the toolbox painted.

The first week of February includes my birthday and my GF came over from Portugal to help me celebrate.

...a week goes by...

Actually it was a very enjoyable week even though hardly any modelling work got done. Celebrated my birthday on Monday with my girlfriend in London, had a great time. She's likely to be making more visits in the future now she knows how nice my new house is, so I'm going to have to do some work on getting the shed habitable as the model gear will bet forced out into the shed. In the meantime, as soon as she left, it all got put back in the workroom and progress was resumed!

It is now at thepainting stage, so first off lets try some pre-shading...

Yeah, okay I'm not very good with the pre-shading yet. Still need to practice it more! Next was the underside. This was a custom mix of Tamiya XF 18 with some buff added to fade it out a little. The paint surface came out VERY matt, so had to be sanded down a little, but worked out okay. The pre-shading doesn't really show through very well - again more practice needed.

On the topside, I sprayed the inner port wing with a patch of flat aluminium and coated it with a layer of Klear and then when dry, a layer of hairspray. This is to allow some paint chipping where there will be wear from the pilot mounting the aircraft. It will also be the area where my father's figure will be sitting.

I then masked the entire underside and once the hairspray patch was fully dry, sprayed the entire topside with another custom mix of XF 52 and buff again to give it a faded/sun-bleached look. While this was drying I scanned a page from the On Target Profile 12, Hawker Hurricane in RAD and Commonwealth Service by Aviation Workshop. This page depicts a Hurricane IID from 5 Sqn in July 1943. I resized the scanned image and printed it out to use as templates for the masking of the RAF green. The scan and print out came out slightly small which worked nicely as I was using blue tac to shape the exact demarcation lines of the camo so this worked out well.

The detached tail and elevators were similarly masked and one of the removed panels from the port side was also masked to add the green camo. Again I used a custom mix of XF-81 Dark Green 2 (RAF) with some buff to simulate the sun fading and sprayed this as well. Once the masking was off, I could finally see if my masking of the open panels and cockpit had leaked...

and I am very pleased to say that they didn't!!! Phew!

I then removed the tissue packing/masking from the wheel well:

I've also done the paint chipping on the port wing and next job will be to give this the whole things a spray with Klear to form the base for the panels washes and initial weathering.

Finally for this update, I order some laser-cut paper Jungle foliage which I've then painted with oil paints to give an interesting variation to the vegetation:

Not entirely sure it works well - I may need to add more to make it a bit more "jungle-like" - any suggestions?

That brings things up to date to last weekend. I've given it a coat of Klear as a barrier for the weathering and done a pin was using diluted oil paint to bring out the panels. The rudder and elevators have been attached and the paint chipping done on the port wing where the figure will site and where the pilot would have climbed on. I attached the bush hat to the figure which made me realise that the torso is at the wrong angle - its at about 45 degrees and lets face it when you are sitting trying to fix soemhting with a screwdriver you usually try to sit upright, unless its a very awkward location... hmmm that must expalin it then... okay no problem then lol

Edited February 13, 2013 by Kallisti

[AnonymousDFB1]

wow, that's looking great Andrew

[bentwaters81tfw]

That looks great. I suppose to make the dio more reaslistic, you could dig a trench and put a few crates in it.

[Col.]

This has made for an enjoyable read Richard. Very tidy work so far