Giorgio N

Thanks a lot for your comments Troy! White it is then! Now however I'm curious to find some subject to build with the India White bands, would make for an interesting model... Let's see some more progress now: I added all the lower cockpit details on the wing: With the fuselage closed and the wing completed the instructions suggest the modeller to glue the wing to the fuselage. However I decided to add the camera under the fuselage first. The instructions have this step later in the build but since the camera is supposed to be inserted in a hole drilled under the fuselage I considered the risk of losing the camera inside the fuselage if I wasn't very careful. Doing this with the fuselage open on the bottom avoids any risk. It also allowed me to block the part in place by adding a dollop of silicone sealant into the fuselage where the camera sits. According to the instructions LE208 featured one camera only, protrudin slightly from the fuselage and here's my interpretation: Some filler will be needed around the camera. For a number of reasons I failed to drill a hole of exactly the right size....

Very nice, much better in this area than the Hasegawa kit. I'm really looking forward to this kit

Thanks ! I'll start a thread with this Mk.I then. Sounds like a good push to finish a kit previously languishing on the shelf of doom...

Found the model, it was indeed in the P-40 box... Here's what it's like at the moment, internals painted and wing assembled: Let me know your thoughts, if it's under 25% I'll happily complete it as part of the GB. Markings would come from the Hurristory Eduard set. The original plan when I started the model was for an SAAF aircraft in Ethiopia, I may well stay with this option.

Good to have the colour confirmed ! My aircraft is serial LE208 so came after the KX range. I wondered if the wheel wells could have been Azure but looking at the history of the aircraft I went for MSG, I believe this aircraft left the factory with undersurfaces in this colour I have indeed read of this being a possibility for LE208. However the only picture I've seen is not too convincing to me. The ID stripes seem to be lighter than the centre of the roundels. True that the roundels are much smaller than the bands and this may have an effect on how the relative shades look like. What do you think ? For me it went the opposite: I bought Eyes for the Phoenix several years ago just because I wanted to know more on RAF recce Spitfires. Reading the book I was amazed by the various markings and started to accumulate kits to build the variations shown in the book. The other Hurricane in this box will be built as another SEAC based aircraft. The glue is from AMMO, it's a thin glue that is applied with a small brush. It seeps between the parts through capillarity and I have to say works pretty well. Personally I still love the old glues in a tube and generally use this one only to complete the job. The blue colour makes it easier to undesrstand where the glue has reached and where not. Problem is that it also runs through the panel lines! Does not seem to attack plastic when this happens, hopefully this will be the case here on the fuselage d

Sorry, forgot to answer to this... Yes, I agree, they are a bit too large and bulbous. On my next build I'll try to reduce their size or see if I can replace them with parts from the hasegawa kit, of which I have one in the stash. The hasegawa B/N will donate its wings to an RF-4E to build and RF-4B, so the ECM fairings will not be needed, The RF-4E wings will then be joined to the B/N fuselage to build a J. IIRC the Academy J also includes the longer ECM fairing for the N, may be another alternative

Good to know ! I'll see if I can visit Sunday in the afternoon then

Abolutely ! For types in SEAC the effect of weathering seem to have made the scheme even more drab, with several pictures showing very little contrast between the colours. A bit of a challenge to get right on a model. Now the white stripes were added at a time when friendly fire was more dangerous than enemy aircraft so they made sense. Funny how in many occasions we've seen air forces trying to find the most effective camo schemes only to add coloured stripes, bands and other means of quick recognition to tell friend from foe...

Did I mention that I had a "little" problem with the glue on the fuselage? Well, here's the proof... While I was letting the glue seep through the joins, some went on my finger and I placed the finger on the fuselage. Glue immediately smeared a large part of the fuselage side. I hope the plastic has not been attacked, looks ok now but I will only know for sure after priming. It was a vert annoying thing, more so as the rest of the fuselage went together pretty well The only area where fit wasn't great was on the lower engine cowling. This area will however be covered by the tropical filter so no need to work hard to fill the gaps. The picture above also shows that the belts look much nicer than I expected, they have a nice realistic 3.dimensional feel in the way they drape over the seat

Good to know they look fine! I am also using my smartphone camera and this worked well enough.. recently however it seems to me that colours are not as sharp as I'd like. Wonder if I've inadvertantly touched some setting... The white stripes are exactly one of the reasons I chose this aircraft, makes for an interesting contrast with what is otherwise a very drab scheme. The model will also sit well beside the Spitfire VIII I built a while ago in the same scheme. I would first have to find the model... it's not in the original box (a Eduard "Hurrystory" box with 2 extra sprues set thrown in by the previous owner), I have a feeling it's in the box of a different kit, probably the P-40 I was building around the same time,,, will search properly during the weekend

Very true, although other putties aren't much better in this regard. When I know I have to rescribe I prefer to use CA glue as filler or sometimes UV curing resin (expensive but pretty effective)

There are several acrylic water-soluble fillers on the market today. Perfect has been mentioned, I can add AK and Vallejo and there should be a few more. They may not be as tough as other fillers but they are very easy to use and work well in many applications. Not ideal for reconstructing parts but great for filling small gaps

And let's see the wings: It hal was easy enough to glue the wheel well parts, no fit issue at all there. With the wheel well assembled and painted, it was time to glue the upper and lower wing halves together and then paint and detail the lower cockpit area Not much to report here, everything went together finw. I painted the wheel wells in Medium Sea Grey, again because I have memories of the later Hurricanes having this area in the undersides colour. The blue smear are the result of an accident with the Ammo liquid glue I'm using. Fortunately this glue doesn't seem to attack the plastic... at least I hope so, particularly as I've had a much worse accident on the fuselage.... PS is it my screen or do my pictures look very washed out and dull? I can't seem to get any decent colour lately...

Thanks both ! Yes, looking at them now the belts look pretty good. I still feel that the later "Steel" series from the same Eduard look the best but they are also trrckier to put in place, particularly when it comes to the quite complicated design used on the Hurricane and Spitfire. Regarding the kit, my first impression is that it's clearly ahead of every other Hurricane in this scale, the detail is nice and builds easily. Have to say that the tolerances seem very tight, I've had to work a bit to get a good fit of the interior parts. I had started a Arma Hurricane I in the past and at some point stopped working on it as the internals threw the fuselage halves alignment off. Now I see that their Hurricane Mk.II has been simplified in this respect and fit is much better in this kit, that is a move to be commended from Arma. I should get back to that started Mk.I, I'm pretty sure it's under 25% built so I may finish it here

Thanks everyone, hope you'll like the completed model! Let's see some work, starting as usual from the cockpit. Here Arma supplies a decent number of parts but not too many. To me it looks like a good compromise between detail and ease of build. even considering the couple of 3D-printed parts. It didn't take much to get to this point: A few words on the work I put in the cockpit: the instrument panel is done using the decals supplied in the box. These fit pretty well over the raised instruments moulded on the plastic part. I'm sure it's possible to have more detail using aftermarket parts but really for most modellers a very good result can be achieved what's in the box. The cockpit was painted in overall Grey Green, this because my understanding is that from a certain point Hurricane IIs were painted this way instead of the mixed Grey Green/Aluminum finish used on earlier build aircraft. To add more depth to the finish I drybrushed some areas with a very light green and then applied a wash. This came out a bit too dark but I'll live with it. I'm planning a closed canopy build so I guess the dark wash will help in making things more visible... As planned I added aftermarket seatbelts. I was pretty sure I had some Eduard RAF early belts in the stash but in the end I found I had none. I have some from microdesign but the last early one remaining missed one of the lap belts. I then realised I had two options: an AML PE set, that looked very good, and an Eduard Superfabric set. In the end I decided to opt for the latter, leaving the more realistic AML set for a future open-canopy build. These superfabric belts are very easy to use being self-adhesive and easy to adapt to the shapes of the seat however they are not IMHO the most realistic solution. Still, correcting them with some paint here and there they don't look too bad. Next step will be sorting the cockpit floor, that in this kit is part of the wing assembly