aharris57

Yes, I agree @Zephyr. It's such a well proportioned aircraft. The replica one used to live just down the road from me at Land's End Aerodrome when I was a kid, and it's been great to watch the real one get restored and finally fly over the last 25 years.

Hey @Thom216, no need to be sad! Before I had a small piece of plastic that didn't fit whereas now ... I still have a small piece of plastic which doesn't fit. Hardly a tragedy in the greater scheme of things. One only learns by screwing up; in my case frequently and in the biggest possible way. At the suggestion of my local model shop I'll try the Airfix replacement parts service. The re-boxed kit was last re-issued about 5 years ago, so maybe they have a few on the shelves. Failing that, maybe @Marklo's suggestion of moulding myself a new one. Cheers, Andy

Turns out that the worst that could happen is that it curls up like a shrivelled old lettuce leaf at first exposure to heat! Thom216 did say gently ... So anyone got one of these in their stash in Australia that they would be willing to part with? Everything for sale in the UK seems to be $70 postage with who knows how long to wait. I really must get in the habit of buying two of everything I intend to build! There will be a short intermission in this build thread, so watch this space.

@Thom216 oh I do like that idea, thank you. Off to boil the kettle right now. What's the worst that could happen?

Latest thought: saw "bonnet" in half longitudinally. Join back together with a strip of plastic card underneath, slightly closing up the gap at the front to the required width. Fill the cut with Tamyia white putty, sand and polish like crazy. Might that work?

@Troy Smith thanks for that info. I'd had a look on Scalemates and the timeline just went back to 1980 as "new tool". I'll cut it some more slack if it's late '60s; it's really not bad. I just wish the detail was recessed rather than raised as I really don't want to re-scribe it all if massive amounts of filler are going to be required. That aircraft nearest the camera in your photo, the one that @Marklo modelled, is the subject of a colour side elevation and underside view in the Alex Crawford book. It's a nice scheme, but I'll stick with all-over silver for mine.

Thanks @Marklo yes, the panel is totally wrong. You can get aftermarket ones from Eastern Europe but the post is so slow to Australia that I've just painted it and gone with the flow. Really the purpose of this build is to play with natural metal finish and rigging, but I'd like to get the outside looking like a Fury. There's a good reference work for modellers that I've got: "Hawker Fury and Nimrod" by Alex Crawford. It has a fold-out set of plans in 1:48 which are proving invaluable.

Hello fellow Britmodellers. I had thought my next build was going to be an Airfix 1:114 HP42 airliner, but that looked tricky so I thought I'd get some practice in with natural metal finishes, silver doped fabric and biplane rigging first. So I've decided to throw together an old 1:48 Airfix Hawker Fury Mk 1 first. Seemed like an easy enough plan. I remembered building one about 35 years ago without difficulty. Well, either my memory is playing tricks on me or my standards were a lot lower back then! Although it's a simple thing to put together, the moulding and the fit leave a lot be desired. The tooling was made in 1980 and mine is the 1989 re-box, which I picked up for $15 at the local model show for a bit of nostalgia. The fuselage halves go together well enough, but the issue I have is the "bonnet" panel is way too wide and a bit too flat at the front. Back end locates well enough on the centre section of panelling in front of the cockpit, it's just the front end that's distorted, as you can see in the photos below. I don't want to open out the fuse to suit the panel as if I do that it will be too large for the prop spinner's diameter, which at the moment is perfect. Is there any way I can persuade the front panel to conform to the fuselage? It's thin, but hard, stiff, brittle plastic. The "bonnet" is intended to be kept loose so that you can see the top of the engine, but I'm going to glue mine shut. The kit's engine is pretty basic, although mine came with a rather lovely resin RR Kestrel in the box, which would be wasted in this kit, unless you cut away the lower panels as well, build the firewall and engine bearers, then go to town on pipes and wiring. Maybe in another 20 years I'll have collected the skills necessary to try that. Obviously the previous owner had given up on that plan! My thinking is that if I leave the engine bay engineless I can do the polished metal finish on the cowling, then poke the pre-painted exhaust stubs through with tweezers working through the propeller aperture. It worked on the dry run ... Andy

Well folks, that's a wrap. Feel free to follow my next fun-filled adventure as I attempt to wrestle with Airfix's 1965 tooling of this little horror: Cheers! Andy

A week on and I forked out for that second kit. Glad to say that with much less soaking time (15 seconds in slightly warm water) the fuselage registrations behaved much better and are now firmly affixed to the little Comet. Also did the underwing rego and stuck the lading light on with a blob of gloss varnish. The light is very thick and distorts the silver reflector I painted behind it leaving a rather miserable grey blob. Next time - now I have a second kit - I'll try vac forming one out of an old shampoo bottle and a blunt pencil. Infinite number of chances to get that right! I now declare this build finished, so here are the final pics:

Thanks @bigbadbadge and @Terry1954. I'll try to get hold of some liquid decal film to strengthen the next ones before I have another go. I do have plenty of spares for the other liveries which I can experiment with on the Lynx fuselage test mule.

More progress today. First off the undercarriage wheels and mudguards go on. Easier than expected. Then time to unmask the canopy, apply some decals and cement on the props: The decals are extremely thin and need handling with care! Every gold decal you can see broke up an application and had to be carefully rebuilt in position on the aircraft. Both fuselage registrations broke up completely and could not be salvaged. Do I fork out $30 for another kit, just to risk the same outcome? If I do I shall cut the registration into individual letters and apply it a bit at the time. Spacing it will be a pain but safer than risking it in one go again. I still need to do the underwing registration and deal with the nose light. Getting there slowly. Finally, here's something I disagree with!

Rubbish weather led to a fruitful afternoon of Comet construction. First off I primed the beast by spraying it with a highly thinned coat of Mr Surfacer 500. This was an experiment. I was pleased with the result, a matt surface with a very fine texture. I practiced first on a gash Lynx helo fuselage I had in the spares box. I tried spraying the Lynx with Mr Color gloss black, but the gloss wasn't really shining on the primer, so I decided to wet sand the model with 2000 grade paper to reduce the primer texture. I also took the opportunity to fill a few pinholes that showed up in the filler on the fuselage spine behind the canopy. Primer shows up every defect! Then ready for the topcoats ... And there you have it, Black Magic is finally black. Also made a start on spraying the props, wheels and mudguards. With a fair wind I might get it finished next week.

Nearly ready for paint. The canopy is on and I've attached the exhaust pipes. These are so small I found it impossible to clean up the massive sprue gates before attachment, and once on the model I couldn't do much with them either. Just the tail skid left to attach before priming. Two q's if I may: 1) How can I mask the undercarriage bays; 2) What's best to remove rubbing down dust before painting? Cheers.

This is a replacement thread for my old topic which has gone invisible for some reason. Old posts should be accessible here: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235099702-kp-models-172-dh88-comet/ and I'll add new ones below. @alt-92 @billn53 @VG 33 @Darknark @Tentacles you'll need to re-follow this new thread if you're interested to see how the Comet turns out