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bryanm

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    Airfix 1/72 TSR 2 XR220

    in Ready for Inspection - Aircraft

    Posted

    Good result from a not brilliant but not bad kit.  Good idea to replace the canopies as the originals are thick and don't fit well in the closed position, ditto the airbrakes.  It's XR222 at Duxford - XR219 was shot to pieces at Shoeburyness - maybe the world's most expensive target?

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    Bristol Beaufort Mk I - ICM 1/48

    in Ready for Inspection - Aircraft

    Posted

    Here's my newly finished ICM Beaufort.  It's the first ICM kit I have built.  As has been widely reported what is there is really good but the cockpit is a bit sparse and there's no detail on the outside of the nacelles.  The fit is excellent throughout with just a little more slack than in recent Airfix releases.  The styrene is strange in that it is quite soft with a harder skin on the outside - if you go through the skin it's easy to go too far.

     

    The design is a bit mixed.  Mostly it is excellent and the wing roots in particular are really good.  The turret and its surround are meant to be added at a late stage.  I added the surround and fairing before cleaning up but left fitting the turret itself until after painting and got it in by removing the pin from the bottom of the assembly and snipping out a section of the turrent mounting ring inside the fuselage so the seat would go through.  The turret sits quite happily on the 80% of the ring that is left. 

     

    I usually build from the box but this time I bought the Aerocraft resin correction set which went in pretty well.  The engine design is a bit bonkers.  The 'spiders' (collector rings?) at the front are supported by a zillion tiny exhaust pipes.  After the second one pinged off into the nether regions of the kitchen I gave up and made three spacers from the kit spiders - two thicknesses was enough to give the correct spacing and the result is all but invisible.  In any case the Aerocraft spiders don't have locating holes for the exhaust pipes.  The tail wheel has to be trapped between the fuselage halves when they are closed and is very weak - it didn't survive the cleaning up process so I reinforced it with some guitar wire and reattached it with superglue after painting.  I used foil harnesses rather than spending even more on aftermarket parts and the aerial is stretched sprue.

     

    The decals are very good but very thin and easily fold back on themselves - I didn't ruin any but it was close.  It's brush painted with Humbrol enamels.

     

    The Beaufort is a much chunkier aeroplane than the Blenheim and makes that look quite dainty!  Thanks for looking.

     

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