Dandie Dinmont

Hi Chris and Troy, thanks for your replies. I think I must have had a different replacement wheel set to your's Chris, it said it was specifically for the Airfix kit and they fitted on the axles without any modifications being needed. I've compared them to the kit versions and they are slightly smaller in diameter and considerably thinner. It would have been interesting trying them in the wheel wells but they are now irrevocably glued to the axles. At least I hope they are. That's a cracking picture of the F100 rear end Troy. It certainly shows the effect I was aiming for, though I fear it may be beyond my skills at the moment. I'd noticed that the rear two pipes were lighter than the front one which is why I had used the Tamiya smoke on them but unfortunately, it turned out that the smoke (this was the first time I'd tried it) was darker than the gun metal . I think Chris is right and they need a bit more grey. Still it's fun trying out this stuff! Thanks again, Craig.

When I started this build in the far off year of 2019, I was very clear about my intentions. To quote myself from the first post: Since then, I have Added the metal panels behind the gun access hatches thinned out the trailing edges Scratch built a new canopy which I can delude myself looks better than the kit original Oh go on then. and a comparison with the kit originals: This marks another modelling first for me, my first bits of resin! The terrifying lung-busting reputation of this dread material ensured that I donned full PPE before parting the wheels from the casting blocks but once off, they painted up nicely. Until now, you may have noticed that the nose of the Hurricane is unusually streamlined. This is because I had stuffed the slots for the exhaust pipes with my nemesis Blu Tac before commencing spraying operations. What was I thinking? Anyway, it had to come out. This was as much of a pain as ever, particularly on the starboard side where I had allowed the Blu Tac to overflow from the top of the slot producing a 'muffin top' look similar to the one I am sporting after 3 months of lockdown. When this was peeled off, paint inevitably came with it: Still, I'm actually getting quite good at brush painting Vallejo Model Air now so it was soon fixed up. My lovingly crafted canopy was attached and looked... acceptable. Various other parts such as the pitot tube under the wing and the tailwheel were attached. For some reason, I had stuffed the tailwheel hole with Blu Tac. Why Craig? Why! Next step was to fabricate a replacement for the moulded on aerial anchoring post on top of the rudder which had departed at an early stage of the build. I ended up making about 6 of these from some thin plastic rod because none of the glues and adhesives in my modelling arsenal seemed capable of attaching them. Eventually, it was good old polystyrene cement from one of the wee tubes you get with a starter set that did the job. Sometimes the old ways are the best. So here's where we are now: There's still a couple of things to do. In particular, getting the yellow spinner to look half decent has so far proved beyond me. And, of course, the engine exhausts. I had been agonising over what colour to paint these. Poring over photos in the walk-round section on this site left me even more befuddled but eventually I decided to go with Airfix's suggestion and start off painting them Humbrol 53 (gun metal). My paint spreadsheet (sad, I know) informed me that I should have a starter pot of this somewhere and some digging produced this: Does that look like a '3' to you? Some vigorous stirring action produced something that looked hopeful so I went ahead and splashed it on. After it had dried, I dry-brushed on some Tamiya smoke which produced an effect not quite totally unlike the one I was hoping for. Perhaps it'll look better when it's dried. Thanks for reading. Craig.

Hi folks, I'm hoping to join in with this GB and build the He 111 which was shot down over Aberdeen on the 12th of July 1940 en-route to bomb the airfield at Leuchars. Is this an acceptable subject for this build? It may not have taken place in the geographic location usually associated with the battle (London, skies of Kent etc.) but it certainly took place in the right timeframe and was part of the Luftwaffe's assault on the UK. Thoughts? Craig.

It always amazes me that Blackburn were able to produce the sublime Buccaneer after a pretty impressive string of duds. Your model is far from a dud though, in fact it’s great! Craig.

That’s turned out really nice, especially the mottling! Good job! Looking forward to seeing what you do with the Gustav. Craig.

You take your eye off Britmodeller for one day and it’s already page 2 of a Ced build. Standing room only I suppose? As someone currently reaching the end of their 8 month battle with the Airfix kit, I look forward to your masterclass on how to do it properly in less than a week. Craig.

Here you go Dennis: Yes, and thankfully not. They plug into the top of the wing. Only a three bladed prop in this boxing but note that this is from a starter set. If this is anything like the new mould Hurricane, there may well be other boxings with additional parts like the two bladed prop and the early canopy. Others will know for certain. Hope this helps, Craig.

Thanks for that. Very interesting read. Craig.

Slide Rule, Shute’s autobiographical account of the building of the R100 and the formation of Airspeed is another title well worth reading by anyone with an interest in aviation. Charity shops (if they ever reopen) are often a fruitful source of his works. Craig.

Mr. Surfacer and gentle sanding were employed to cover up my elementary error: Next, I turned my attention to the tank cover in front of the cockpit. This was a good fit in parts but it was more difficult to achieve a satisfactory fit overall. I know that the armoured plate on the cover should be slightly proud of the fuselage, the difficulty was in avoiding giving the impression that Supermarine had recycled some armour plate from the side of a battleship for the purpose. Eventually, I got something I was reasonably happy with: Encouraged, I turned my attention to the wings. Perhaps it's because of the removal of the wingtips but there didn't seem to be a very positive fit between the tops and the bottoms of the wing. Having read somewhere that the join between the upper surface of the wing and the fuselage could be problematic, I took the bold decision to ignore the instructions at this point and glue the wing bottom to the fuselage before attaching the upper surfaces Beginning to look like a Spitfire! But what's this? There was a ridge all the way along the join between the wing upper surfaces and the fuselage which, no matter how many walk-arounds I consulted, I could not convince myself was a feature of the original aircraft. Perhaps I should have attached the upper wings first then fettled the lower wing? With a sigh, I got to work with the wet and dry but unfortunately, before much progress could be made, one of our cats dropped into the litter tray that is one of the less attractive features of the mancave, a 4000lb cookie of such pungent noxiousness that even my airbrushing respirator was useless against it and with a strangled whisper of "Abandon mancave!" I was forced to retreat downstairs. Such are the conditions under which I am forced to work (and come to think on it, this may explain a lot about the standard of work I achieve). I'll give it a couple of days then don the army surplus NBC suit I usually use for trips to the supermarket and see how things are looking. Thanks for reading, Craig.

Here follows Dandie's useful guide to producing a Hurricane canopy from household odds and ends: 1. Carefully insert some scrap paper inside the reasonably shaped but undeniably chunky canopy you have filched from a better kit and draw a line around the outside of the canopy. 2. cut out the resulting shape carefully. Use this as a template to cut out the same shape in a handy piece of thin clear plastic packaging. 3. Wrap this plastic shape around a 7mm drill bit, secure with masking tape and plunge into a bowl of near-boiling water, taking care to avoid spilling said near-boiling water all over yourself as you carry it up the ladder to the mancave. Wonder why you didn't conduct the plunging operation nearer to the kettle. 4. Trim until you have something that in a bad light might be said to resemble a Hurricane's canopy 5. Make the ill-judged decision to paint on the canopy frame by hand reasoning that you can always straighten things up afterwards with the business end of a cocktail stick. 6. Realise that you have produced something that would be compared unfavourably to the crude fumblings of a 5 year old and besides the paint's already flaking off. Scrape off all the paint and revert to plan B which is to do the framing using some sort of tape. Look into Filmoplast, highly recommended by @CedB for this sort of thing but only find it in 50m lengths which seems excessive. Decide to use good old Tamiya masking tape instead. 7. Cut masking tape into thin strips while bitterly regretting not picking up one of the fancy cutting boards being sold by @Duncan B and @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies when I had the chance. Paint the strips dark green (when previously trying this technique, I have painted the tape then cut the strips which leaves a masking tape coloured line at either side of the frame. Learn from my mistakes!) and apply to canopy producing this: (this isn't stuck on yet, when it is, it should conform to the fuselage a bit better). 8. Decide that enough is enough and call it a day. I know I've said this before but surely it must be close to being finished now? Thanks for reading, Craig.

Hi Jaime, Reading of your issues with this kit sent me scuttling up to the man cave to see if my copy suffered from the same problems. Luckily, it seems all present and correct though it does feature some of the chunkiest ejector pin marks I have seen in a long time which, to add insult to injury, are coated in some sort of black gunge (mould release agent maybe?) making the marks even more prominent. I’m looking forward to seeing you complete your build. Craig.

This looks good! Room for one more in the cheap seats? Craig.

Weathering’s over-rated. Don’t dig any further and be happy with the great finish you’ve got. That would be my suggestion anyway. Craig.

I'm not sure you're going to get anything as concrete as a choice out of this Wince but hopefully it may be of some use. To recap, the Airfix canopy has at least two issues: . It's too small to fit over the aircraft's spine in the open position . The framing is all wrong The following photo illustrates the first problem Like a pea on top of the Broad Hill as my dear old dad used to say. The frame issue is illustrated here with both the Airfix on the left and the Rob Taurus aftermarket in the middle having the central horizontal frame far too high. Only the Arma canopy on the right is close to the mark. So, my cunning plan consisted of two parts, designed to address both these problems. I would carefully sand all the framework off the Airfix canopy, thinning it out at the same time, then I would then gently heat the canopy to make it flexible enough to widen slightly thus allowing it to sit in place. Both pretty high risk activities but I couldn't use the canopy as it was. Astoundingly, part one of this scheme went without a hitch. Unfortunately part two did not go so well and at the slightest application of heat, the canopy not only became flexible but curled up on itself at the front. Careful sanding removed most of the damage but also resulted in a canopy 3mm shorter than is should have been. Here's the final effort compared to the Arma offering (my gold standard in 1/72 Hurricane canopies). Would it be noticeable? Sadly I feared the answer was 'yes' and so plan B was formed. I would use the open canopy option from the Arma kit for this Hurricane, then buy another Arma Hurricane to provide an open canopy for the PE bedecked original Arma Hurricane. The second Arma Hurricane would be built with a closed canopy. Got that? Satisfied with this scheme, I retired to bed. In the cold light of the morning though, doubts began to intrude. There's no denying it, that Arma canopy is a thick old chunk of plastic In fact, apart from the length and fit issues, I definitely preferred the look of my butchered version With the brain fizzing from the morning coffee, I dug out some clear plastic packaging, cut a strip from it and plunged it into near boiling water, It instantly folded up on itself but a second attempt, wrapped round a 7mm drill bit produced this Which trimmed down a bit (a bit too much actually) produced this which in turn produced this It will need redone but I think we may have a winner! You may have noticed from some of these photos that the Hurricane has acquired its legs. This was another job which I had been dreading, cutting the spindly pieces from the massive Airfix attachment points, then threading them through holes in the wing rib to find the appropriate holes seemed an activity rife with potential for disaster. But perhaps I'm getting better at this lark, or perhaps the Gods of modelling were smiling upon me because it all went rather smoothly. Getting close now! Thanks for reading, Craig.

Looks pretty great to me, especially considering it’s your first attempt at this sort of thing. How many builds have you on the go now? I can’t keep up! Craig.

Another great build Ced and a ceiling to be proud of! Craig.

It's probably because it's Monday morning but I'll a little confused by this. Which windscreen is too high? The Airfix one, the Rob Taurus one or both (I guess the latter seems the most likely). You did suggest this but it was out of stock when I made the order. I'm going to try sanding down the Airfix one but I fear I'll have as little success as you did. Thanks for all your help with this Troy, I appreciate it. Craig.

Convinced by all your kind words that the weathering job was at least passable, I broke out the airbrush and gave the Hurricane a couple of coats of Xtracrylic flat varnish which damped down the weathering effects a little more. Satisfied with this, I attempted to remove the canopy and windscreen which had been serving double duty as a paint mask (suitable covered in masking tape of course). I wish I could remember what I used to attach them because they were impressively firmly affixed to the fuselage. I eventually succeeded in prising them off without ruining things. If you squint closely at the above picture, you will note that I still have some areas to paint and after my last post, I reaffixed my home made navigation lights, sanded them into shape and touched up all the collateral damage around them. Puzzlingly, one of the lights seems to be larger than the other, perhaps due to some over-zealous wingtip sanding, but I intend to address this by only photographing the model from the side from now on so that no comparisons can be made. For spraying the model, I had been in the habit of inserting a bit of thick wire into the nose of the Hurricane to provide an impromptu stand/handle. Extracting the wire after one session, I found this on the floor of the spray booth Clearly I had gone a little too deep. Now that the canopy was off again, I could assess the chances of replacing the problem pedals. Lacking a DIY home endoscopy kit, I rated the chances at zero. So it goes. Here is what I hope will be an interesting and informative comparison, despite my lousy photography. On the left is the kit canopy, widely regarded as being more representative of the Hurricane prototype. My faithful ruler puts the distance between the base of the canopy and the first horizontal frame as 4.5mm. On the right is the canopy (albeit for a Mk.IIc but I don't think they differed that much) from my recently acquired Arma kit. On this canopy, the distance is 3.5mm. And in the middle is the Rob Taurus replacement vacform canopy which as @Troy Smith foretold is a direct copy of the Airfix canopy and also comes in at 4.5mm. What to do? The Arma kit comes with both an open and a closed version of the canopy so I could use the open version on this kit and the closed version on the Arma kit when I come to build it (given that this will likely be my first attempt at building a fully PE enhanced cockpit, hiding it somewhat is an idea not without merit). On the other hand, the Rob Taurus canopy cost me 50 quid (admittedly £47 of this was for the 1/48 He-111 plus PE that I added to bring it above the minimum amount for a Hannants order) so I'd like to use it. But I'm going to try something else. As a wise man once said, I have a cunning plan... Thanks for reading, Craig.

Matt, you are a genius. But to be fair, I'm a genius too because that was the exact solution I came up with yesterday evening after much cogitation . This, combined with a big blob of glue from one of the numerous tubes of old fashioned polystyrene cement I have collected over the years was enough to see the tank fixed in more or less the right place. Pleased with this, I hurried to get the fuselage joined. Not too bad (the tank cover is just dry fitted at the moment and will require a little fettling) and incidentally confirming @Sturmovik's prophecy that the tank wouldn't be visible once things were closed up anyway. But alas! At my moment of triumph, disaster struck in the shape of a big gluey fingerprint on the port fuselage side. Rookie mistake! Thanks for reading, Craig.

I firmly believe that one of the great benefits of belonging to a community like Britmodeller is that you can profit from the experiences of those who have gone before you. So it is that I implore that portion of the BM hive mind which has built this kit or its other boxings to impart to me the secret of how to attach the oxygen tank(?) (part C1) behind the pilot's seat. I've been following the instructions, the cockpit is glued into one fuselage side but the fuselage isn't joined together yet. The pertinent part of the instructions is: Easy right? And yet after half an hour this evening of prodding, poking and gentle manipulation with my Pixnor tweezers (and when your Pixnor tweezers aren't up to the job, you know you're in trouble), I had to give up without getting the part anywhere near the correct location because I knew I was going to end up breaking something as I got more and more frustrated. Luckily, this was only trying to dry-fit the part. I shudder to think of the mess that would have been made if glue had been involved. And so I ask you all, is there any easy way to do this? I'm really hoping the answer isn't "do it before you glue the cockpit in place". Thanks in advance, Craig.

Hi Dennis, I’d say the second set of pictures are more in line, they’re a reasonable size but they’re loading quickly over my rotten internet connection so they can’t be too big. I don’t want to muddy the waters but I wonder if you’re going the wrong way about this. I too use an iPhone for my pictures. I use the iOS flickr app to send them to my free Flickr account without worrying about what size they are then, when I want to use the picture in a post, I click on Flickr’s export button, then the BBcode option and that lets me select the size of image (800x600 is what I usually go for ) that should be sent to the Britmodeller servers. This gives me a bit of code that I can paste straight into my post and produces images of a reasonable size. I don’t know if Imgur allows you to do the same but it seems likely. Please feel free to ignore me if this is just confusing the issue, or ask if you want more details. In short, the second set of images looks fine to me, and the Spitfire looks great! Craig.

I can only agree with what everyone else is saying, for a first model after returning to the hobby, this is an amazing effort. You're making the rest of us recent returnees look bad! Craig.

Thanks Troy! One of the great things about Britmodeller is being able to benefit from the expertise of people like you. Craig.

Too late! I’d already snapped my version off. No harm done though, given how easily they came away, they would never have stood up to the amount of sanding required and I was able to recover them so I can always glue them back on a bit more firmly. Thanks for the heads up Chris! Craig.