I'm pleased to report so far that I have nothing to report. Man, this'd run & run on some websites

Just been outside & taken a few snaps of the bits:







Couldn't resist taping the fuselage to see where Neil had his fit issues... it's a "taxing" joint alright

Its going to be fun watching you build this¥ the only critiscism i had of the model on first view was that I thought the leading edges are a bit "brickwallish" and could do with some sympathetic reprofiling.

BTW, does it include the markings for the squadron that was hastily formed with seahawks taken out of mothballs to replenish the Harriers lost down south....?

It would have done, but a Skyhawk flew across the Atlantic & shot them all down with one missile before anyone could get a shot of the markings

Good choice Sir

Progress of sorts, but no pics yet. Yesterday I built up the cockpit & added some wires to the backwall, plus a few rivets that are evident from some of the cockpit pics I've been seeing lately. I also added a footwell rest from thin styrene sheet, which I noticed on a few airframes. That seems to be painted a lighter grey than the cockpit around it. I've painted up the IP, and just primered & then airbrushed the cockpit Panzer grey, ready for a black wash later.

I also built up the nosewheel wheel, which has great potential for disaster, given that it doesn't locate very precisely in the mounting points. I'll probably put some ribbing on the sidewalls once I've hidden the seams. I also cut off the nose gear strut with a razor saw, so that it wouldn't impede painting the wells. i've added a brass pin from rod to the landing gear leg & drilled a hole in the correct place in the well, so that I can get a precise mount when I put it in. I can also offset it to one side for a bit of interest.

Last thing so far has been assembling the tail. It's fairly straightforward, but fit's a bit imprecise again. This is no Wyvern kit... It's got some quite challenging seams/joins to deal with, and there are some odd messy ejector pin marks here or there.

Some of the reference pics I've seen have white, or very pale grey gear wells, but the instructions want me to paint everything silver. Anyone got any advice or corroberation of one or the other?

Reet... I've bodged the cockpit together & it looks ok. The moulding of the Pavla seat wasn't the best, and strikes me that they could do with retiring their moulds a bit sooner.

All I need to add now is the ejector seat handle & the clear part of the gun sight, and she's done.





I'm just working on painting the jet exhausts, and then I'll move onto the intakes, which look like they're going to be fun!

Very good start Mike.

Looking at buying this kit, so I will pay close attention to your build

Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes

Amalso building this kit.

I am at the priming stage and have a few hints

1: Cockpit tub fit is inprecise and can foul fort lateral fusalage seam.

2: Add plently of weight

3 When fitting til unit "squeeze forward fus abd superglue for near perfect fit

4 Wingls a little thicker than stubs. Look at Cleavers build over at MM for a novel approach

All in all I love this kit will post pics when I have finished

Cheers

Sean
IPMS AVON (UK)

Thanks for the tips Sean, I'd totally forgotten about the weight...

Good work on the pit but the dials in particular - out of interest, is your eye sight good?

Actually, looking at it again today, it looks a bit crap to me at that scale... Looks better in the flesh

My eyesight's a bit better than average for my age, and I don't wear glasses. I do model almost all the time with a magnifying visor on though, and feel I can't get close enough without one... I love 'em

Nice work squire - that pit doesn't look like the easiest to paint and you've done a cracking little job

Nice 'pit Mike

Very nice little pit!

Thats a great start. Hopefully the rest of it will go together as well.

Been quiet on this one, mainly because of being a bit tom & dick lately, but I've been making steady progress. The cockpit's in, the intakes are in & painted:



I've detailed (a bit) the main gearbays from a few grainy pics I could find online, painted them up & installed them:



That meant I could finally close up the front fuselage halves. This was fairly clean fitting, apart from the right hand side of the nose, which had a noticable step. That's been dealt with using sanding sticks & rescribing, so I moved onto the joint between the rear & front fuselage halves. I'd already built up the rear, omitting the poseable arrestor hook, which I cut the locator pins off, so I can fit & glue it later in the build, to save me snapping it a few dozen times.

Learning from Neil's difficulties with the front to rear joint, I decided to glue the top surface as flush as I could, and then glue & deal with the bottom joint once the top had cured. I think I benefitted from this approach, as the step was minimal, and quite easy to clean up. There's a panel line on the joint, so I rescribed that, and will shortly correct the mis-matched panel lines you can see on the top, using a bit of CA to fill the joint, then rescribe it so it goes straight through to the kink further back on the fuselage.



The outer wings are built up, with the airbrakes extended, and the wingtip lights drilled out from behind & colored before attachment. The landing gear's also built & detailed, waiting for a coat of pale blue/grey, which seemed to be just one of a few colors used - others being sky, aluminium, even black at times. blue/grey will give a bit of color variation. The auxc fuel tanks are built & smoothed off, and I'm now working on the gearbay doors, which have got some truly massive sink marks to fill with CA. I might add a bit of detail to the insides yet... not decided.

More later...

I have got to get me one of these, I love the Sea Hawk, and my dad had some involvement with them when he was in the RN.

Have some pleasant memories of going to the an RNHF event a decade back where the Seahawk was supposed to be flying but the thing would not start so we all went back to the crew mess for drinks!

It's a funny kit. In some ways it's very good, in others it's a throwback to how I imagine Trumpeter made kits 5 years ago... kind of rough around the edges. I'm enjoying building it, and so far have got past all the bits that were causing me trepidation. Not the best job in the world, but it'll do - it's also the closest to OOB that I've done lately, which is nice

looking good Mike, I know what you mean about OOB it's very refreshing

Looking good Mike

Nice to see your still working on her - wheel bays look good

Fankyou... I've been working almost exclusively on this one, as I'm paranoid of missing the GB deadline. Wouldn't do for an Admin to fail to finish now, would it?

A bit of tinkering with the main airframe is in order today, including sorting out those wandering panel lines on the top, then a coat of primer & some pre-shading, methinks

After a coat of primer over the re-filled seams & the moved & rescribed panel lines I sprayed the underside with Xtracrylix sky, after a Panzer Grey preshade, which incidentally made my airbrush clog for the first time in ages

I think it needs a little more sky to fade the preshading a bit more, as I think it's still a bit stark. I'll get that sorted tomorrow, then mask off the topside once it's dry.

As with every other build I've seen you turn out Mike, nice work. Saw this kit when I was wandering round the model shop in Elgin the other day and having seen how you've got on with her I wish I'd taken one home now.
At this rate you'll run out of projects and be back to the Valiant

Nice (and speedy) build so far..... where do you find the time, I've looked all around my place and there isn't any spare-time anywhere !

Ian

Give me your address, and I'll send some of my spare time over

Generally, I have 2 evenings for modelling a week, and if I'm lucky one day at the weekend. All of which are when Caz is out teaching dog training, or walking the muppet with her walking group. It's a great way of keeping harmony, I find. I've been off tom & dick for the last 2 weeks too, but I spent almost the whole of the first week asleep, and only did a few hours modelling a day for the latter half of this week, when I was starting to feel a bit better. I think what may give the appearance of speed is the fact that I'm doing work on at least 2 and sometimes 3 kits at once. F'rinstance, today, I oversprayed the sky on the Seahawk to soften the pre-shading a little further, set that aside, masked up the canopy on my Hawk, sprayed that, the Kleared it, peeled it & admired my handiwork Then I got the Skyshark parts out of their box, installed the flap actuating hinges, and set that aside to dry before I install the flaps.

Now I'm just adding the landing gear to the Hawk, while I have a look at how I'm going to attach the three auxilliary fuel tanks to the Skyshark. I've also been contemplating what to start next, as the Hawk is probably going to be finished this week, and I need my "building" fix.

Looks great Mike - all these quality builds I find myself being tempted back to the dark side of 1/48 jets!

Do it Nev! Are you not in the GB yet? You've still got 2 months to start & complete an entry, you know

I masked up the undersides of the main airframe, wings, and canopy this afternoon, then sprayes a patchy coat of Xtracrylix RAF Dark Sea Grey, which I then laid down a thicker harmonising coat, so that the pre-shading just barely shows beneath the paint. I'm quite pleased with the results, but I need to touch up the wingtips, as neither of them has full coverage





I've got a few bits of airframe to spray metal on this & the Skyshark, so when I've raised myself from my deathbed tomorrow, I'll mask up & spray those too. You wouldn't believe how much sweat's pouring out of me while I'm just doing a simple thing like modelling... I bet I smell bad

The pre shading looks smart on the lighter colour particularly. The kit looks like it has some sweet top surface detail too

Looking good Mike, might just tempt me into the 48th scale with this one...

Karl.

Join us, Join us, Join us, Join us, Join us, Join us, Join us

No - my 60s stash is actually surprisingly small, mainly Airfix 1/48 Lightnings and I couldn't source a T-Bird conversion to build the T.4 chase plane for the TSR2 that I wanted to do - and I want to finish my Crusader II and Avenger first. Then I've got the Trumpeter 1/32 SBD-1 awaiting me

Odd... my T-bird conversion came through from Neomega about a week after ordering It's very nice with loads of detail. If anything, the weak point is the forward fuselage shell, which is typical short run injection styrene and consequentially a bit vague, with an Aeroclub logo on the inside - it's a collaboration afterall

Thats looking yummy Mike, very nice masking job indeed

Looking good .. nice masking

Are they back up and running now? As for the Aeroclub conversion bits, I've already done one and very easy it was too. "Ideal first conversion project" was Uncle Bill's assesment in SAMI, and he was right

Yeah, I ordered mine around the time someone (may have been you) found out they'd closed down production. Clearly, it was just production, and they must have had the stuff I needed in stock. I ordered mine there & then so that even if they didn't have them in stock, I'd be somewhere near the beginning of the queue when the conveyor started moving again.

I thought they were EXTRA Dark Sea Grey, however I am also known to be, frequently very wrong. Whatever, that is a very cool looking machine. Getting impatient to see it completed.

Ian

That's what the color call-outs on the instuctions said for me to paint it... I'm just doing as I'm told

Hmm, off-hand I'd go for the EDSG as well. That's what every other FAA machine of that and subsequent eras seems to have been painted with only a few exceptions. Sorry mate, I know that's not what you want to hear but at least it's easier to fix now than later.

Hmm... will check what it says, and also check what I used...

Instructions do say Dark Sea Grey, Which after checking is the correct number H331 in the Gunze Sangyo range. Has someone stuffed up, or what?

All the other kits I have are EDSG What's going on 'ere then?

Odd... this build from HS shows it a very similar shade to mine...



...and this shot from a walkaround seems to back up my color choice:



What's goin' on 'ere then?

This one is a bit darker, but I could claim "scale effect" on the paint

clicky

This one's even lighter still!

Using preserved/restored aircraft as reference for a model needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Especially aircraft that have been sitting outside can fade - as indeed the Sea Hawk in the pic above - even the top of the tailfin is a pink shade...

Jens

Its a gaff on the kit instructions - it should be BS381C 640 Extra Dark Sea Grey.

That said, BS381C 638 Dark Sea Grey would give a weathered scale effect!

I'm with Jonathan! You could tell I didn't want to re-paint it, couldn't you? I think that with the addition of a panel wash, and in contrast with the decals, it'll look dark enough to be a slightly shabby looking Seahawk