Wolfpack

Having arm-wrestled the Pegasus kit a long time ago in a galaxy...........etc. etc, when I saw the announcement, I had to have one. Just right for the planned Battle of Britain display! So, off we go. Annoying ejector pin marks that interfere with the floor (1). I used some card triangles to ensure the joins were vertical. There’s not much for the main floor piece to grip to or to align. The photo etch is too wide for the fuselage. I cut a slot for it to fit into with the trusty P Cutter. The pilot’s office basic, belts, instruments etch to add. Etched belts are supplied for the crew seats, but these will need painting. Still, it saves on the aftermarket purchases. Additions to the interior, instruments, radios, seat frames, locker, accumulators, flare chute etc etc. Detailing the pilot's office involved some really small etched parts, never my favourite. I replaced these with stretched sprue as the tweezers would more readily grip a three dimensional piece and if one went sproing, I had an endless supply of replacements. The kit is disappointing in the amount of detail it leaves out, especially when a great deal can be seen under the canopy. The Observers seat and the TAG's seat are mounted on swing arms and fold away when not in use. I added some legs from sprue and the swing arms from card stock. Each seat base has a 'U' shaped bracket added to it to attach to the swing arms. Looking aft. I got down to a touch of the interior green et al.. Having checked the fit of all the interior parts, making sure the fuselages joined, what happens? You find a piece or two you haven't checked. In this case, the instrument panel and the ribs under to cockpit coaming. A flare chute was added, cut from plastic tube. The radios have been added cut from square rod and detailed with dials as previously mentioned. The whole was rounded off with additional framework. Thankfully, the panel was OK, but the ribs, sheesh. I ended up only using one side having cut the part into three as the stbd side I had already replicated in card and anyway the shelf interfered. Seat belts are supplied on the etch fret so a couple of hours saw it to this stage. Having left the kit alone until my F14 was finished, it's now time for an update. The wings are attached, with added steel pins for support as they are butt-jointed only. A fair amount of filler needed here. The tailplanes have locating lugs, and after a swipe or two with some wet and dry, only needed some Mr Surfacer 1200 to eliminate the joins. The Hook recess needed some 500 grade to fill that as did the u/c legs. It doesn't pay to get big ideas in this hobby. My thought was to open the cockpit so the pilot’s office could be seen. Special Hobby now provides plastic canopies, not vac forms. So, out came the trusty micro saw and off I went. Half way down one side, the greenhouse cracked. Halfway down the other side, the windscreen cracked. Bear in mind that the greenhouse section will support the top wing later, so this had to stay. I now had to have a new windscreen, so I glued the two parts together, filled it with Milliput and when this dried, took off the plastic. A little clean up with W&D and I had a mould. So, out came the clear plastic card, my bits of balsa wood and four bulldog clips. Using these to make a frame round a square of clear plastic, the old push mould method was used to make a new windscreen. I carefully glued the greenhouse crack together and Micro polished it before dipping in clear. I also cemented some plastic strip on the canopy base to assist with fixing later on. The crack is not too bad now and will be covered in the most part by framing. Once the new windscreen was trimmed it was fitted, assisted by small strips of card along the coaming and just needs a touch more blending in to finish. Once framed and painted, I hope it passes muster. Some drawings to show the pilots side opening windows:- The new side windows and sliding hood were cut from clear plastic ready for fitting in the open position later. I have also added some strip for the side windows to mount to. The arrows show this and the windscreen blending, again using 1200 Mr Surfacer. Oh, by the way, does anyone have a front view photo of a Taurus engine in situ. There's a few exhaust supports in there and I would like to know where they are meant to go The engine's assembled, though not without some confusion. There are stubs on the top of each cylinder, which shouldn’t be there, and my initial though was aha, these are what the cowling attaches to. Wrong. They are too short to be any use to man or beast so all were removed. This of course leaves the cowling suspended by the carburettor intake only, not a satisfactory state of affairs by any means. I drilled a hole on three of the cylinders and fixed some sprue in these to attach the cowling to. Unlike the Skua kit, there are no exhaust pipes to fix to the collector ring, which is also missing. There are pipes protruding from the front of the cylinders to mount such on, but that's all. The actual Taurus:- What you get in the kit:- The sprue mounts for the cowling:- Having got that far, I turned to the top wing. It goes together OK, and fits on the top of the cockpit very well indeed. The problem comes with the struts. They all need the dimple removing and replacing with a proper mounting spigot. I used sprue again to give them some flexibility when attaching the wing. Even after this, they are, apart from the two inner ones, too short. The plan to paint the model and then add the upper wing went out of the window. The struts and sprue attachment points:- Having done this, I attached the upper wing with masking tape to align the leading edge and then cemented the cockpit / wing join and the struts. This really was fun............... Wings attached:- Getting the wings on has proved to be fairly easy. Sorting out the struts caused a couple of headaches. After adding the upper wing, I was left with an excellent wing / canopy join and six p*ss poor strut joins. Initially, I strengthened the join with thick superglue so the struts were fairly locked in position. After a day or so letting the glue dry, I used milliput to fair in the wing / strut join. My selection of sanding sticks from Little Cars were too large and unwieldy for the sanding job here, so, using the wooden coffee stirrer provided by McDonuts, I glued then to various grades of wet and dry and trimmed them when set. These worked a treat. The u/c struts were too short and were replaced by Contrail strut cut to size. Having run out of gold old Halfords, Tamiya sky grey was used for the primer. A few rub downs and off we went with the colours. Xtracrylic was used for the EDSG and Poly S for the DSG. For the lower wings, which I assume were shadow shaded at this period of time, I mixed some white with the above colours and it hasn’t turned out too bad. The model is now at the pre-weathering stage, having had to source the serial and codes from the spares box. A couple of dark washes to pick out certain panel lines and then it’s back to the booth for some more gloss lacquer.

Probably because the war was over by the time they entered service and we'd given all the Avengers back to the Spams (lend / lease DYK), who promptly dumped them over the side. Also note that the FAA later had to buy some Avengers for AEW aircraft. Try putting that on a Bacarudada! Also interesting is that if the Allies had invaded Japan, the FAA fighter sqdns would have dumped their unmanageable Seafire XV's and recovered the Seafire IIIs from the scrapyard. Even though they still couldn't bale out of 'em cause the giro gunsight was in the way. Jeez, it appears the only decent bit of kit the FAA has ever had has just been scrapped! W

Barracuda: British designed dive bomber that took two hundred years to enter service, was so crap they swapped it for Avengers ASAP in the Pacific and cried buckets when they got 'em back after the war. British Dive Bomber: Mainly ugly and flew like bricks, ext Skua which actually did something useful. W

I saw one completed by taping the pieces together then applying the cement. A perfect join. DO NOT get rid of the step at the bottom of the fuselage...................it's there on the actual thing! W

Well, call me controversial, but doesn't Brett Greens finished model look awfully like a Spitfire? I thought that was the whole purpose of the model. Of course, being one of the "meatheads", I probably don't know anything anyway. Still looks like a Spitfire though! W

Well, I finally got my model to the adding the superstructure point. I had been test fitting if for days, sanding down where necessary and it fitted great. Added cement and guess what, the bloody thing exploded! So, having spent two months, a fortune in paint, masking tape and electricity, I decided. I binned it. A more exasperating kit I have yet to build (or attempt to). Anyway, if anyone out there (apart from Jonathan), is giving it a go, good luck, bon voyage and here are the corrected schemes for "RNLB Pride of the Humber" that I could figure out from photos. Enjoy. W Initial scheme: Current Scheme:

Thanks for the info Jonathan, finding all these snippets in a multitude of threads is nigh on impossible. Would have been nice if they had stated such on the instructions though! I still think the paint number references are naff though, they could at least have named them so's us builders can scource the colour of our choice................ W

Who the hell's Candance Bergen. Anyway, Bill Shatner does a great impersonation of a man with mad cow's disease! W

Built from Dragon's 3-in-1 kit. Wittmans Tiger used at Villers Bocage. W

Started mine a few weeks ago. Disappointed by the poor colour references. I mean, numbers of Humbrol paints in this day and age, come on! Lots of detail left out, but unless you leave the rear hatch open, you can't see it anyway. Open bridge detail poor too and this you can see. The transfers for the Humber lifeboat are wrong, it should read "Pride of the Humber". A couple of progress pics: W

Liam Try these:- http://www.taphilo.com/jg26/bf109-db605-en...ht-44260002.JPG http://www.taphilo.com/jg26/bf109-db605-en...ft-44260002.JPG For pipework, I use fusewire in various ampages and even solder if a large dia. pipe is needed. W

Thanks Dave. W

Anyone know when shadow shading was introduced on FAA biplanes? Thanks in anticipation. W

And now, the real thing. w

Surely that should read .45 calibre? W

Nick I think that postwar RAF aircraft were 'painted' in "High Speed Silver" and were not bare metal. It's also quite possible that no anti-glare paint was used. Presumably we had some Ray-Bans left behind by the spams after 1945. W

Hey, that's as may be, but at least someones bitten the bullet and given us a 'Spicy'. And 'Thunderjug', you might prefer a nice pair of jugs, but you can't beat a deck full of pussy!!!! Wolfpack

What fence? Another attack of the 'Farrarfinger'. Don't remember Zemke flying F-14s! Wolfpack

My EDSG looks nice! Wolfpack

Panel lines, panel lines? Who cares, they're easy enough to remove. Ask yourself this. Are you a modeller or a mouse? Closely followed by this. Who else would have given us a kit of the Fulmar? Hasejimigawa? I think not. Be grateful for what you get, I've waited years for this and who needs resin etc etc? Wolfpack.