Chewbacca

I've got a couple of friends who were Flt Cdrs in ENDURANCE in the mid to late 80s. I'll drop them a line on LinkedIn and see if any of them have any that they may have taken.

Thanks for that. Funnily enough it was exactly that technique I used to straighten the wire but even that couldn't cope with some of the twists which was why the larger middle piece comprises 2 lengths of wire. The only thing I would say different to your suggestion is that I tend to do it on an old tile rather than a cutting mat; I fin the harder surface works better. Still doesn't mean that I will get them on straight after I've had to put four 90 degree bends in them though...

At least its easier than trying to do it full size. At least there won't be that agonising moment of getting to the end of a 3 year restoration and you turn the key and nothing happens. The engine is now complete just need the exhaust adding when I put it in the outer chassis but I can guarantee that will break if I do it any earlier. So I turned my attention to the pump gear and main bodywork, and that was when, in the words of Lord Blackadder, we had "a visit from Mr C*ck-up". The doors to the storage bins have very prominent raised panel lines. Unsurprising, I thought, for a kit that's over 50 years old. So that's not a problem, scrape the raised panel lines and scribe new ones. I might not be the best in the world at re-scribing panel lines but at least these are mostly straight lines. And so the offside one was completed. I then picked up the top panel and noticed that its lines were recessed. Strange, I thought, if they can recess those, why not recess the storage bins. Then the reality dawned on me that the storage bins are outlined in gold and it was only at that point that I bothered to check the reference photos. Sure enough, the edges of the bins are raised above the surrounding panel . Never before have I had to add raised panel lines to a model! I tried 4 techniques. Firstly 10 thou plastic rod but that was too brittle and broke whenever I tried to make the 90 degree turns at the corners. with hindsight I probably should have softened it slightly with liquid poly. I then tried extended sprue but it was either too thin or the thickness not consistent enough. 0..1 mm Albion Alloys nickel rod next, but that was too thin and so in the end I settled on some brass wire from the top of an Italian wine bottle. It was about 0.3mm so thickness about right but a bit of a swine to roll out straight. It's not perfect by a long way but I will simply need to make the focus of the model the nearside rather than the offside! Motto of this - always check the references before getting a sharp implement anywhere near the plastic, not matter how confident you are. Where's the embarrassed smiley when you need it...?

I bought one in one of their Black Friday sales - £15 IIRC. I think the problem with using Lusty as the example is that to my mind it fails on both counts of being a successful kit. On the one hand it is too expensive for little Johnny or Aunty Doris but is fairly inaccurate and a bit of a dog for those of us who can afford one. The only reason I bought one was to convert to ARK ROYAL as I served in her when she first came out of the builders and having seen examples of it made up I know I will have my work cut out to make it look right even with the extensive "plastification" needed to make it look like the last of the 3. I do think that Airfix are missing a trick by turning their back on maritime. There are literally hundreds of different classes of ship that have not been kitted in plastic and even more that are only obtainable in ultra expensive resin. However, in recognition that more people tend towards aircraft and military than maritime, for it to work, the key is quality.

Engine almost complete. Water pump is complete and fitted as is the brass tube connecting the pump to the cylinder head. Spark plug leads fitted. Unfortunately I then spotted that there were some extensions to the leads coming out of the back of the distributor before going into the rubber pipe and in trying to drill the holes in both parts I managed to knock off a whole raft of add ons. Now back on but not quite as square as they were before Just got those leads to finish off and then that's the engine done until the radiator is on then I need to work out how the coolant gets too and from the rad. The top pipe looks simple enough but I can't see where the bottom hose goes.

Engine and inner chassis now painted and a fair bit of engine detailing done yesterday. Firstly the replacement fan belt was fitted: This took about 4 attempts as every time I put tension on it to pull it around the top pulley, it snapped. Then the distributor was detailed I then turned attention to the other side and added the carburettor and air filter to the intake manifold And scratchbuilt the water pump The airfilter and water pump "red cylinders" were from scrap sprue cut fro the leaf springs. Waste not want not!

Hard to believe that that Huntress is 1/700 scale. Superb detailing. The problem with the davits is a common one I find with PE. Sometimes it is just too thin. Whilst I acknowledge that I normally work in 1/600 rather than 1/700, I usually take the kit supplied items and thin those down rather than try to thicken the PE But great work.

After much deliberation I decided to go down the hairy stick route, at least for the chassis/engine components, so first paint applied last night. Shame with that was that I wanted to use Alclad, at least for the engine block and of course that can't be brushed (trust me, I have tried!) so that ended up being Hu 11 as that, I thought, was the dullest I had but of course on this occasion it came out far too bright and shiny. Trip to LMS later today to have a look and see what Vallejo or Tamiya can offer me that looks like a dull light coloured steel/aluminium I also took the fan belt off the two pulleys and cleaned them up. Then the fan blades themselves came off and were replaced with suitably twisted scraps of PE: They're now all painted in Vallejo natural steel (sadly too dark fro the block but perfect for the fan according to the references I had)

This looks amazing. Hard to believe its scratchbuilt

Not sure I quite follow the logic. Airfix have never had a presence in 1/700 (I think we can ignore the ex-Academy Titanic) yet they have tooled both the Type 45 and ILLUSTRIOUS in 1/350. Given that one of the main purposes of the T45 is to protect the carrier, I would have thought that 1/350 would be the ideal scale to release it in. There are several 1/350 models of the Nimitz class which is nearly 10% longer and most of the recent 1/24 aircraft have been £100+. I still don't think we'll see one though, much as I would love to see it headline the launch at Telford.

Finally made a start after a week of utter mania and then house guests over the weekend. I think it is true to say that this kit is suffering from a plethora of ejector pin marks. None especially deep, just lots of them. The engine block and cylinder heads are together as is the pump drive transfer box and now waiting for the filler to set before I can smooth off. Although I cannot see in any of the references, I am sure that the flywheel would be solid and not ollowed out at the rear, so accepting that it will be fractionally overscale, I have glued it to a 5 thou sheet of plasticard to make it appear solid. When its completely dry I will have to drill the centre of that out as the driveshaft sits inside that Next step is to strip down the cooling fan and fanbelt which is way too thick. Intention is to remove and retain the two pulleys, then craft a new set of fans from some cast-off PE frames and make the fanbelt from 5 thou plasticard, hiding the joint under the drive pulley. I'm struggling to work out the best approach to painting the chassis/engine. Put it all together, spray it red then mask and Alclad the metal bits? Or spray the metal then mask and spray the red.

Sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I said: I am referring to the contract between Airfix and its suppliers. We do it routinely with our customers. Some of our contracts contain a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that states very clearly that if we fail to deliver a percentage of our deliverables on time and to the quality satisfaction of the customer, our performance payment for that deliverable period, that is an intrinsic part of the legally binding contract, will be abated by an agreed amount (again that amount is stated in the contract which we have both, supplier and customer, signed up to). So supplier A delivers goods B to the customer. Contract states that 90% will be paid within 30 days if goods delivered on time. The balance of 10% will be paid after 90 days if there is less than 5% of the goods returned by, or complaints from, end customers/retailers. It focuses the mind and improves QC. We have never missed a quality KPI. If the suppliers think that those terms and conditions are too harsh, they are at liberty to renegotiate them before they sign the contract (probably by a mitigating reduction in price anyway), or not take the contract. Anyway, can we get back to our thoughts for 2019? How about a 1/350 HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH? (and I'll take either, the current aircraft carrier or the WW1/WW2 battleship)

Problem with passing the buck back to the retailer, as they are legally entitled to do, is that in most cases the margins are so small that it's not worth the retailer's effort to return the models that they have to refund/replace, so its the retailer who takes the hit. result, they choose to reduce their risk by reducing their Airfix orders. I have it on good authority that this has happened recently with one well known national retailer (from someone in the buying department of that organisation). It should be very simple to ensure that the supplier improves his QC. The contract should contain a KPI to say that if there are more than a certain percentage of complaints from any specific batch, payment for that batch should be reduced/withheld. Anyway, we're getting off the subject. What do we think we'll see in 2019...

Thanks Jamie. I had seen that before but hadn't realised that it was that AFO that you were referring to

Fascinating thread. And to think that for years I used Hu27 for 507A and Hu64 for 507C. Forgive me for being a little dull Jamie, but both of these links appear to point to the same file? I'd be very interested in seeing the facsimile of the original document (purely from its historical context if nothing else) Thanks

Only just spotted this thread after I saw the link to it from RFI. I thought the finished model was very good - even more so now I see what you started with! The only really minor observation I would make - and this isn't addressed at you Stuart - is that there are a fair few references in some of the early posts to Navigators. Remember, Navy Buccs had Observers (and we're very proud of having kept that title since the very early days of the RNAS)!

I can only echo what others have said: superb finish.

That is excellent

Will do some research - thanks

Thanks, I think I follow that. Will need to invest in some better flash equipment I think

Ahh trappers. One of few benefits of being a civvy - no annual trap ride! As far as I could tell from the reference material I had, the difference on the radiator intake was minimal so I left it as is.

That looks really nice. Sir Freddie was an old boy of my school and I remember being captivated when he came to speak to the 6th form. He was probably the inspiration behind a fair few of my school friends becoming successful businessmen after university. It was a real travesty the way that he was forced out of business in the 80s by what these days would probably be deemed a cartel.

Thanks Rich

The other elements that are too big are the U/C bays. Although this was well documented online so I was aware of it, you really do need to sand back the top until it is almost transparent or the wings won't meet at both the leading and trailing edges. I went too far on the corner of one of mine and went through!

I actually finished the aircraft that forms the central basis of this back in February time but then put it to one side and didn't finalise the project. So whilst putting the figures together for the Carriers Ahoy Seahawk, I thought this would be a great opportunity to paint the aircrew figures to complete the Firefly. The basic kit went together as well as you might expect for a mixed media, limited run kit with no alignment tabs and a plethora of butt joins. The resin was actually lovely and the cockpits looked really good once they were complete - it was almost a shame to fit them into the fuselage. Unfortunately that's where the problems started because the resin wasn't a great fit to either cockpit space and meant that it was near impossible to get the Observer's canopy to fit properly. I'd shaved off as much as I dared but still they were a tadge too wide. I tried a new pre-shading technique on one lower wing - a fine line permanent marker. Complete disaster. It took about 17 coast of Vallejo Sky to cover it up and even then it's still way too prominent. Fortunately the model is glued to the base so its impossible to see unless you go looking specifically for it. I also didn't notice until I took the photos that the propeller blades are somewhat swept back. The final photo with the close up of the aircrew seems to show silvering on the decal; I think this is a symptom of the flash as to the naked eye it seems fine. The figures are from CMK, ostensibly RAF WW2 aircrew. I wasn't especially impressed - the mouldings on other resin figures I've had have been better and there was a lot of fine rubbing down to get rid of seams etc. The pilot (with his back to the photos) originally had a moustache so milliput made that into a beard. The kit represents an aircraft from 1792 NAS embarked in HMS OCEAN in 1946. The squadron was especially formed for night fighter duties which possibly explains why the Observer is looking wistfully up at his cockpit with a nervous disposition. If he is like me, I used to hate night flying. Punching off the deck into the dark knowing that at least 50% of your brain for the next 2 hours is completely pre-occupied with trying to find mother again in the middle of a dark and featureless ocean, or go for a swim, and then totally placing your trust in your pilot to land the thing on the deck in near zero visibility; I imagine it was worse in the 1940s! [