Navy Bird

True fact. I really wish Airfix would scale this down to braille scale. They've listened to our pleas about the Lightning, so I think we should be very vocal about doing the same with the Sea Vixen! Cheers, Bill

Welcome back, Nobby! It's a sure sign that the world did not end yesterday! Cheers, Bill

Thanks for all the comments, guys! With your advice, it looks like it stays on my build list. Which is a good thing, as the mouldings are really quite nice. And with the new tool 1:72 Airfix Typhoon coming in 2013, these two should make a nice pair. I went through my PE stash last night, and lo and behold I have a couple of Eduard frets for the Academy Tempest as well. I don't remember buying those either! Yikes! I wonder what else I'll find as I dig through all this stuff... Cheers, Bill

Here's the post I stumbled upon: http://www.britmodel...showtopic=76149 Thoughts? To me, it seems like a lot of trouble to fix a small error, if it's really an error. But I've been known to do crazy things too! Cheers, Bill

Wow, I just found a build review here on BM that I actually replied to back in 2011! Holy smokes, the mind is gone! No recollection whatsoever. Anyway, the bloke building that one lengthened the fuselage by 2mm, interesting cut he made too! But it looks like he never finished it. So is the fuselage really short by 2mm, and does it really make that much difference in the overall model once it's done? Adam, thanks for the heads up on the decals. I seem to recall that I've had trouble with Academy decals before, but to tell the truth I don't build too many of their kits. Cheers, Bill

Hi mates, I've just had a go through my stash, and found a 1:72 Academy Hawker Tempest V which I don't ever recall buying! It has a handwritten price tag of $5, so I must have picked it up at a show. Looks nice in the box, fine engraved panel lines and all, but is this a good kit? Let me know what you guys think of it. Thanks! Cheers, Bill

I'll second that any day! The more I look at my Matchbox Victor sitting in its decades old box, the more I hope this is on Airfix's list!! Cheers, Bill

Very nice indeed! Steve did a great job building this kit - it's a stunning replica of the Vixen! I love the Vixen myself, it's such an interesting combination of graceful aesthetics and some really oddball engineering (the offset cockpit and "coal hole.") Cheers, Bill

Absolutely love it! Thanks for sharing this, I think we all get tired of grey aircraft, and we often forget what colourful alternatives there are! You've done a great job on the model! Cheers, Bill

Great stuff, everyone! Thanks so much! One thing I noticed in the drawings and now in the picture that FredT supplied, is the center frame running lengthwise in the middle of the sliding canopy, as well as an additional lateral frame also near the middle. Was that an FAW.1 feature? The photos that I have of XS587, which is the FAW.2 bird I'm modelling, does not have this feature. It's a one piece perspex with the framing elements around its perimeter, none crossing it. Cheers, Bill

Thanks again, I love those drawings! And to think that someone made them with pencil and paper on a drafting table, not with a CAD system. Hard to find technical illustrators like that today. Here is the picture that I found of the resin cockpit that shows a cylinder or ram that is behind the rear cockpit bulkhead and is attached to the back of the canopy. This would be very visible through the perspex when the canopy is open: I guess it's the "release strut" as shown in the drawings and is used for canopy jettison during an ejection. Sound right? None of the other resin cockpits available have this feature, so I was wondering whether it was real or not. Looks like it is! Cheers, Bill

Hi John, Wow! Great stuff! If I'm interpreting the drawings correctly, the rear pressure bulkhead is in a fixed position, and is in alignment with the rear of the perspex when the canopy is closed. I'll need to scratch the bulkhead as it's not included with the kit. The actuation is electric, with a manual emergency handle. The rod that is shown in the top drawings is inside the rear part of the canopy, and is used for the canopy jettison sequence. This will not be visible on the model, so I don't think I have to build this. The bottom of the canopy shows what's called a "rack rail." Is this like a normal rack and pinion? So the electric motor is driving a pinion against the rack (one side? both sides?) to move the canopy? I'm thinking that all of this must be inside the cockpit, with the "hood driving unit" positioned somewhere near the aft end of the rack(s) when the canopy is closed. When the canopy is open, the front end of the rack(s) have moved to be located near the driving unit. Is anything visible through the perspex when the canopy is open? This would mean anything on top of the fuselage? Cheers, Bill

Hi mates, I added this question as a reply to my Sea Vixen build, but no responses so I'll ask it here to a wider audience. (Mods, if double posting a question is a no-no, please let me know my punishment! But be gentle, I am building an MPM/Xtrakit Sea Vixen after all. My mind is certainly in disarray.) I have a quick question for all of you Sea Vixen experts out there. I believe there is a hydraulic cylinder/ram that opens and shuts the canopy. I would really appreciate any photos or drawings that show the detail in this area. The MPM/Xtrakit model has no detail at all, but I'm pretty sure this can be seen through the canopy when it's open, so I'll need to scratchbuild the mechanism. I managed to find some images of a resin cockpit set for the Airfix kit (in very nice green resin!) that shows this acuator, but since the rest of the resin cockpit details seem somewhat fictitious, I would rather ask the experts before I use that design as a reference. Thanks for any help you can offer! Cheers, Bill

Hi mates, I have a quick question for all of you Sea Vixen experts out there. I believe there is a hydraulic cylinder/ram that opens and shuts the canopy. I would really appreciate any photos or drawings that show the detail in this area. The kit has no detail at all, but I'm pretty sure this can be seen through the canopy when it's open, so I'll need to scratchbuild the mechanism. Thanks for any help you can offer, and special thanks for the encouragement with this project! Cheers, Bill

I'll get me coat now...

Hi David, Yup, I glued them on prior to painting. I always do that, so I can spray the bottom, then flip it over and do the top at the same time. I'll mask around the gear bays and paint them and the gear after I've finished the main painting. I know most folks don't follow that order, but what the heck. I usually don't follow the instructions either. Now's a good time to tell me if I glued the gear on backwards... Cheers, Bill

Thanks for all great comments, guys! And yes, I have a few REM disks in my collection! And I have a turntable! After the grueling affairs of yesterday, what with the masking and all, I decided that I should check to make sure I got the angle right. Not that there really is anything I could (or would) do about it if it were wrong! In such cases, it always helps when the error is on the bottom. Nonetheless, I imported that last picture into CorelDraw and got out the dimensioning tool, like so: Close enough for government work, eh mates? The mistake I made on the nose has got to be fixed though, as it's been bugging me. The above picture shows that the trailing edge of the black stripe is quite a bit forward of the nose gear. This real life shot shows that it needs to be much closer: I did a quick measurement, and my suspicion was correct, it's off by about the width of the tape I was using. Back to the paint booth, Sancho! Cheers, Bill

Nice job - I posed the flaps down on mine, too, as it adds some extra detail and "life" to the model. The flaps are a distinguishing feature of the aircraft, so it's nice to show them off. I know from experience that they're not easy to get aligned and in the proper orientation to each other. You've done a good job with that! How did you find the Eduard PE bits? I bought the Big Ed set and used all of them except for the flap actuators. I tried to make them work but I didn't think they would support the flaps. They sure looked great, though, I wish I had been able to use them but they were the fiddliest of fiddly! Cheers, Bill

Hi mates, More progress! I'd really like to get this finished before December 21, as it would be a pity if the world ended without at least one MPM/Xtrakit Sea Vixen being finished. So next up is a yellow belly! The instructions say to use BS381C:356 Identification Yellow. After visiting numerous websites all purporting to have the definitive cross reference to the paints I actually have in my workshop, I decided instead to pick a yellow that kinda sorta looks like the photos. My initial choice was Testors Deep Yellow, but it has a bit too much orange in it. I then decided to use Testors RLM04. The masking was pretty straightforward here, except around the intake ramps. The real fun will happen when we mask the stripes. Before we do that, it will probably help to know how wide the black stripes were, and how wide the spaces in-between were. Luckily, the Canberra kid posted this information several days ago in a different thread. The black stripes were 2-3 feet wide (such precision!) and the center lines of each stripe were separated by nine feet. If we choose the width of the black stripe to be 3 feet, then the space between works out to be 6 feet. I decided on this, rather than a stripe width of 2 feet, since the numbers work out easier! After letting the yellow dry for a couple of days, I used a thin piece of Kabuki tape to mark the datum line, being careful to align it at 30 degrees to the aircraft centerline. Dumb luck arrived again, and the datum line nicely splits the airbrake, so no nasty masking will be necessary around the stiffeners. I then proceeded to lay out the other edges for the stripes, making sure that width of the stripe was around 13mm (3 feet in 72nd scale). This was not so easy around the belly of the aircraft, but we got it pretty close: The only head scratching moment came with the most forward stripe at the tip of the nose cone. If I kept to my measurements, then I was going to end up with something that looked very much like the illustration in the decal booklet, which as we've clearly seen does not match the actual aircraft. I decided therefore to mask the model so it matched the real thing. We'll see if that was the right decision or not. The black stripes did not go underneath the roundels or serial numbers, so some tape was cut at the correct width and applied to keep these areas yellow. I also cut out a circle of masking tape so I could add a "bite mark" in the black stripe on the port side of the forward fuselage, also to match photos. The underside of the elevator also got some masking, this time like the decal booklet says, because I have no reference photos. OK, let's spray some black, it's an easy colour to shoot, and covers quickly! I let the black paint dry for a few hours, because I couldn't wait to get all this crazy masking tape off and see how badly I screwed it up! The tape came off in about 1/100 the time that it took to put it on. Needless to say, there are some spots where we'll need some touch-up, mostly where some paint got underneath the tape (this happens most often where the tape is going over a bump, or where there was some inadvertent overspray, even though we used all that tape! The biggest goof was my miscalculation of where the stripe at the front of the nose cone should be. What I have isn't quite right as the yellow space in-between is too wide along the sides of the front fuselage. I think I know what I did, too. I think I aligned the tape to the outside of my guide mark, instead of to the inside. This makes the black stripe too far forward by the width of the masking tape, or 6mm. So there is some light at the end of the tunnel, and it's "probably" not an oncoming train! Cheers for now, Bill

Love those Bearcats! My uncle flew a Hellcat during WWII, and then a Bearcat for a short while after the war ended. He always spoke well of the Bearcat - "What a hot rod!" he would say. Good recovery from the salt problem. I've only used it once, and I got lucky. When it works, it looks quite nice I think, so don't give up on the technique. Cheers, Bill

Hi mates, Just a quick couple of pictures with the masking tape off - I fixed the small issues that I noted above. We'll let this dry for a while, and then we'll tackle the yellow and black on the bottom. Cheers, Bill

If it helps at all, the Monogram Guide to USN/USMC Aircraft 1911-1939 states the colour, their Munsell values, and the approximate FS595A match as follows: Orange Yellow, Munsell 9.6YR 7.7/13.3, FS13538 Lemon Yellow, Munsell 2.8Y 8.2/12.8, FS13655 Of course, as I learned from several of the more knowledgeable folks on this site, the FS match is not exact - FS595 did not exist back then, and not all of the colours transferred forward in their exact form. The Orange Yellow colour is often named "Chrome Yellow" - I know that Testors does this. Gunze makes this colour in their Aqueous range, H329. By the way, FS13538 is the yellow used by the USN Blue Angels. Cheers, Bill

Ah, Hannants warehouse...plastic nirvana. A few nights there and you have to go through styrene withdrawal. Cheers, Bill PS. I pulled the masking tape off - it came out pretty good. As I expected, a little tiny bit of overspray in a couple of spots but nothing that's not easy to fix. I also pulled off a wee tiny (that's tinier than tiny) bit of putty off the bottom of one of the booms. Easy fix, and it's in a spot that will be yellow. The modelling gods are smiling so far!

Ummm, beer, haggis, and women? Cheers, Bill

OK, as Duncan says, back to the main attraction! After letting the gloss white cure for 2-3 days, it's time for some colour. I figure the paint is dry when it doesn't smell like paint anymore. I read somewhere that while the paint is drying it out-gasses. It continues to smell like paint as long as the out-gassing continues. I have no idea if this is true, but it makes these posts sound more interesting. So first, masking! I've decided to do the red next, and then tackle the yellow/black underbelly. You know, leave the easy stuff for last. The red wraps around the leading edge of the wing, and the leading edge of the elevator. And of course, the wing fences are right in the middle of this wrap-around. Just to make your masking life less dull. I sprayed regular old Testors Red, as the pictures I have that show XS587 in a "cleaner" and possibly newer paint job show the red as very vibrant, with a little orange tint. In later pictures, where the paint is quite faded, the red takes on a very different hue. But I like the factory fresh look, and that's what I'm going for here. The Model Alliance decal booklet says the colour is BS381C:538 Post Office Red. I suspect this may not be right, as the Hunter that I recently did in an RAF Valley training scheme used Signal Red BS381C:537, as does the Raspberry Ripple scheme, right? For the Hunter, I used Gunze H23 Shine Red, which has just a touch more of orange in it. Here is the Vixen after spraying the red: I'll let this dry for a day, then I'll remove the masking tape and let it dry for another day. It's all really low-tack tape so it shouldn't cause a problem. That's it for now! Cheers! Bill