Dandie Dinmont

Dennis, So sorry to hear about Martin, the little buggers really worm their way into your hearts. Take all the time you need. My thoughts are with you and your family. Craig.

Quick update this morning. Fired up with enthusiasm, I masked the underside of the Hurricane. I used a mixture of standard and flexible Tamiya masking tape, the latter being a recent acquisition and being used for the first time. It seemed to go on pretty well but the proof of the pudding will of course be when it comes off again. Next, the spraying. This was rendered more entertaining than it might otherwise have been by a series of brief powercuts, courtesy of storm Dennis. A wiser modeller than I might have abandoned things after being plunged into darkness the first couple of times but I persevered. Looking at this image in the cold light of day, it's obvious that some respraying will be required to cover up some of the bare patches I paid insufficient attention to. Understandable in the circumstances I feel. I am, however, impressed by the Vallejo model air's ability to cover up my other airbrushing sin, that of applying too much paint. When I packed up last night, there was a definite paint run and blob on the rudder which I was sure would require rectification. This morning, it looks fine! Craig.

That looks really good Chris. Out of interest, what colour did you paint the inside top of the radiator fairing (I.e. the bit formed by the bottom of the fuselage)? I’ve been assuming it would be some variety of aluminium rather than the aircraft underside colour but I’m willing to be proved wrong! Craig.

Ah! Gale force winds and rain passing the house horizontally. Perfect modelling weather! First item on the agenda was to investigate the strange object which my dear wife presented me with earlier in the week: I fear she may have misunderstood me when, impressed by @CedB's recent adventures, I mentioned that I'd been looking at vacuum machines on Amazon. It may be of some use though, everything it sucks up ends in a nice clear compartment so it may be possible to wrest some stuff back from the carpet monster's gaping maws. Anyway, onto the Hurricane. Somewhat nervously, I started masking the white paint applied last week with Tamiya tape. With most of the airframe swaddled, it was off to the spray booth! All you experts will be shouting "you haven't masked the starboard tailplane you eejit!" but I ask you, what's the worst that could happen? Paint was sprayed: And after some work on another project which I hope will be appearing in the RFI section soon, and with fingers crossed, the masking tape was peeled away. It'll need some smoothing out but I'm pretty happy with that. The black looks black and the white is still attached. You will notice however that the unmasked white tailplane has indeed copped it, nothing another 6 coats of white won't fix. In fact parts of the fuselage has been caught in the fallout as well. Pre-shading maybe? If the weather is as bad as expected tomorrow, I might even get the first coat of green on topsides (I'm using the masks Arma made available online which I believe require a reversal of the usual colour order). Now for something completely different, at least for me. As someone born without an artistic bone in their body, weathering has been a black art to me. Recently however, while browsing through this site, I came across a post by @Troy Smith which mentioned a weathering technique by Roy Sutherland. "I could do that" I thought and resolved to give it a go, starting with a location which would be well hidden if all did not go well, the inside of the Hurricane's radiator scoop. Here's the front face of the kit radiator with a wash of the nearest Humbrol brown to hand, designed to create the impression of French mud having been copiously applied. I'm actually quite pleased with that, though it perhaps looks more rusty than muddy. If I'm still pleased with it when it's all dried off, I'll do something similar to the wheel wells and undercarriage once they've been uncovered. Thanks for reading, Craig.

Thanks Heather. I’ve just realised I have a couple of X-Wings in the stash as well. They would count right? 🙂 Craig.

I have an Edward 1/48th Se5a and Camel (Revell reboxing) in the stash, will buy the Airfix 1/48 Tiger Moth if it ever makes it into the shops and dream of one day being able to do justice to a WNW kit so I’d like to join in please. Craig.

You have made a superb job! I have one of these nearly finished, and will build a few more because as many have said, it's a great kit, but they won't look nearly as good as this. Craig.

Thanks for this. I'm hoping I'm done with primer for this build but I'll certainly give it a go on whatever I tackle next. Craig.

Sorry for the protracted period of radio silence. I've been away for a while and, full disclosure, I'd started the Hurricane before I started posting here so the initial breakneck pace was mostly catch-up I'm afraid. This is more indicative of my normal build rate. There has been progress though. In an effort to return Camm's finely sculpted conk to its original shape, I used one of the fuselage halves from my other boxing of the kit to shape a template to match up to the sanded snout. Ironically, the card for this impromptu tool came from a box that once held a kit of the Hurricane's greatest enemy, the Bf109 (Boo Hiss). Much sanding later: Good enough. Or was it? Encouraged, I got out my airbrush. When I was researching airbrushes and related matters last year, my impressionable head was turned by the allure of Vallejo Model Air paints. Paint you could spray straight from the dropper bottle! Wide range of authentic colours! Easy cleaning! This was the stuff for me! Eagerly I ordered up a big bottle of grey primer and the RAF pre-war - 1941 fighter paint set. Of course no sooner had these arrived than I started reading posts on this and other sites about how these fine products had a propensity to detach themselves from a model if looked at wrongly. Part of the reason for selecting the Hurricane from the proto-stash was to give these paints a fair try, reasoning that if it all went horrible wrong, it would at least be child's play to strip the model and use Tamiya Acrylics instead. The Hurricane was duly primed. I like the coverage and the self levelling qualities of the Vallejo primer. What I don't like is the difficulty I have in telling the difference between the colour of the primer and that of the Airfix plastic meaning that I will quite often keep spraying until the stuff starts dripping off the the model. Another thing I don't like is that the primer is prone to peeling off in great chunks if sanded a little too vigorously. I noticed while taking the above picture, a ridge near the windscreen I hadn't spotted before. Having been burned before on previous projects, I started applying featherlight strokes with the finest micromesh cloths I had available in an effort to reduce this annoying bulge. Sadly, my restraint was in vain as the area under attack still peeled away (I'm wondering if it was because I was wet sanding). Stifling a manly oath, I cut away the affected area and sanded away with my customary vim and vigour. Sanding done, it was time to apply some actual paint. I thought I'd start with the white portion of the underside since that seemed easiest to cover up afterwards. It's a bit hard to see in the photo but I can assure you that the starboard wing is indeed white. After it's had sufficient time to dry (I'm thinking two to three years), I'll mask it up and see what the black looks like.

I've been away for a couple of days without internet access. Can you tell me how many of your builds I've missed since the Sioux please Ced? Anyway, watching this one with keen interest. Craig.

I was so impressed with this, I couldn't help parting with cash when I saw the same kit in my LMS yesterday. Craig.

Thanks Troy. Being able to focus on a model and clear your mind of all other thoughts is one of the big benefits of this hobby, I think. There's been a little more progress on this. Unable to put it off any longer, the time had come to join the fuselage halves together and attach the wings. Having devoted probably more thought to this than I should have. and having noticed the the only place the fuselage joins at both the top and the bottom is at the very front and rear, I cemented these first getting the best join I could, then worked my way forward and back towards the cockpit, adding the fillet under the tail and then the wings as I went to try and ensure the shape of the fuselage was correct and any gaps minimised. To help with this, I used the time honoured 'run TET along the seams, wait a couple of minutes then squish together in the hope of a wee ridge of molten plastic popping up' technique which was fairly successful. On one of the other modelling sites I visit (I know, shocking), they're always talking about seams which can be cleaning up with a swipe of a scalpel blade. There's obviously something wrong with either my scalpel blades or my swipe because these things never clean up as nicely as I would like, my swipe either removing not enough material or too much. Practice, practice I suppose. Anyway after much swiping and not a little sanding, I began to suspect that things had gone badly wrong up front. It's a little hard to see in the photo but in my efforts to avoid an unseemly seam, I had sanded the nose flat. Drat, drat and double drat!, as a famous aviator once said. Luckily, as part of my efforts to buy success in modelling, I now have a large number of filling compounds available to supplement the 10 year old tube of Humbrol filler that served me well for so long. Not that I know what to do with them, but at random I seized the jar labelled "Mr. Dissolved Putty" and started blobbing it along the offending conk. It didn't look too bad and the fumes from the jar were making me feel a whole lot better about things. I took up my sanding sticks and settled down to some rhinoplasty. Craig.

After reading this thread, I’ve just replaced the last two ceiling mounted halogen lights in the house with LEDs and I’ll be fitting a smoke alarm in the loft tomorrow. Thanks for the great advice Jamie and I’m sorry about everything you had to go through to be in a position to give it. Craig.

That’s really turned out well Ced and the bombs are a great finishing touch. If you don’t mind me asking, what do you use to suspend the finished articles from the ceiling? After seeing how good this looks, I’m wondering if this might be a solution to my own storage problems. Craig.

If ever something sounded like a recipe for disaster, it’s this but you have somehow managed to end up with an intact, nice looking cockpit. Good job! Craig.

That’s exactly the sort of irrefutable proof I was looking for! Thanks Ian! Craig.

I remember seeing seeing the Blue Eagles doing a display in an Aberdeen park when I was a youngster. The actual display went without incident but the team also had a Westland Scout as a support vehicle which obviously created a greater downdraft than the Sioux. When the Scout departed, the wooden benches at the edges of the park were blown in all directions. It’s a miracle someone wasn’t flattened by flying furniture. If there’s any beer left, I’d love to sit in for this. Craig.

I imagine that in most of your homes, the carpet monster is content to operate at ground level devouring whatever may come its way. Not so in Maison Dandie where the old CM has three furry accomplices who roam the workbench at night seeking tasty morsels to dispatch down below. One of the prime suspects in the case of the missing seat. This, I think, must have been the fate of the hurricane's seat. The last time I can recall seeing it, it was attached to the end of a cotton bud held in a clamp for spraying purposes. One of my furry nemeses must have brushed against it and sent it who knows where. As I mentioned previously, I have another copy of this kit so could have in theory have used the seat from that. This seemed like saving up trouble for future me though and besides, I had rather been taken by the notion of breaking my scratch building duck and producing a home grown replacement (I blame Britmodeller for this). So that's what I did. Images were googled, estimates were made, plasticard was cut and filed, curses were uttered and this was the final result It's not perfect by any means. I really should have used thinner plasticard (but on the other hand 0.5mm was all I had to hand) and I think the seat is too long and would imperil the knees of the luckless pilot but (unlike the original) it is more or less the right width, as far as I can tell, and I'm not displeased with it. This masterpiece was painted up, attached to the rest of the cockpit framework, and it was time to acquire another new skill, fitting PE seatbelts. This took some time and induced a fair amount of eyestrain but the job was finally done, to my satisfaction at least. (I should say in passing that the job would have been impossible without my recently acquired Pixnor tweezer set. If you are one of the few who is not yet part of the Pixnor collective, get yourself over to this topic and see what you've been missing). Here's the finished article propped up on the aforementioned tweezers The observant will notice that driven reckless by unaccustomed success, I have also added the handbrake?, gearlever?, oh, seat adjustment lever which is a prominent feature of the starboard side of the Hurricane cockpit. Determined to make the title of this topic less and less accurate, I also thinned out the trailing edges of the wings though I didn't take this too far suspecting that my deadly combination of exuberance and clumsiness, if allowed full reign, would result in the chord of the wing being reduced by a good quarter. Hopefully, it will still be an improvement when it's all cemented together. And that, I think is my next step. A precautionary review of the instructions to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything (I have remembered to add the light to the bottom of the wing, in case you were wondering) and then put the basic airframe together. Wish me luck! Craig.

Oh, and I should have said that the current build is coming along very nicely. I wonder if I might consult the Britmodeller hive mind on a matter of some importance? I was discussing the subject of this project with a like minded colleague yesterday and he observed that I was pronouncing the name of the aircraft wrongly. He puts equal emphasis on all three syllables (lysander), I put added emphasis on the middle syllable (lySANder). As the possessor of a fine classical education (C pass, latin 'O' grade 1978), I naturally assume that I am in the right but I wonder if anyone knows for sure? Coffee time bragging rights are at stake! Craig.

Commiserations about the blue feelings Edward. I think this time of year (at least in the Northern hemisphere) the lack of daylight and the miserable weather has a lot to answer for though like @Troy Smith, I've found this year that taking regular Vitamin D seems to help for some reason. When you add to that, the natural anti-climax after your wonderful trip over here at the end of last year, well a certain lowness is understandable. I totally agree with the notion of the therapeutic benefits of our hobby. I wouldn't dream of equating my occasional feelings of glumness with the soul crushing depression so many people suffer from but I find that popping upstairs for a few moments and focusing on an aspect of a project I'm working on gives me a real freedom for a while from the worrisome and stressful thoughts which intrude into everyday life, and makes me feel better about things. Of course, coming back downstairs to be informed that 5 hours have passed, the cats need fed, the dogs need walked and the cup of tea I'd said I'd make before heading up has still to materialise takes a little of the shine off the experience. Craig.

Hi Jamie, Just came across this. Since I grew up underneath the Dyce flightpath in the 60's and 70's, I've seen a lot of these and even got a flight in one, thanks to a civilian instructor in my ATC squadron who flew them for a living. I'll be catching up with this thread, and looking out for updates, with great interest! Craig.

On a related (though not related to modelling obviously) note: Some years ago, my wife and I were returning from a holiday in Sri Lanka. Our Airbus turned onto the runway and started quivering as the pilot held it on the brakes whilst spooling up the engines for takeoff. Just as it lunged down the runway, the largest cockroach I have ever seen in my life fell onto the seat-back in front of me and started advancing menacingly in my direction rattling its wing case and gnashing its venom dripping fangs. Being a man of infinite resource, I instantly slipped off my fashionable footwear and began vigorously belabouring it whilst uttering many loud cries of revulsion and disgust, an action which caused a certain frisson amongst the more nervous travellers surrounding me and which (I now realise), with a less understanding cabin crew, might well have resulted in me being carried away in chains when we finally reached Heathrow. Craig.

I too had a flood of superglue on my workbench this weekend though in my case, it was caused by one of our cats knocking over the bottle while I had the spout off to try and unbung it. Amazingly, the beast in question managed somehow to avoid becoming permanently attached to the desk, fortunate since it would have been a real pain to have to work around him. Me410 is looking great Ced. Craig.

Having read that thread about the kit, you are clearly a man without fear Ced. May I watch from behind the settee, Dr. Who style? Craig.

The article you link to, and the other one on the site about carrying out air experience flights with the Lysander (and I only ever got to fly in a Chipmunk 😞 ) are fascinating reading. I had no idea Lysanders were so much of a handful to fly. Gives you even more respect (if that were possibly) for the young men who flew them into small fields in darkness with no idea of what was waiting for them on the ground. Craig.