Sea Venom, Sea Hawk, Wyvern and Skyraider

[Martian]

Come on John re-issue the kit; you know you want to!

Martin

[KLP Publishing]

Fantastic work with the Sea Venom mate. And getting your own 3D parts printed is just brilliant! The pricing is unbelievably cheap in my opinion, but Shapeways' shipping to Australia is not, unfortunately. Still, I have a mate who has his own 3D printer for his aftermarket business, so I'll lean on him when the time comes.

Again, great work!

Kev

[NAVY870]

Do you know what else the Sea Venoms seat was used in though?

(Just found out myself and thought it might be one you may not know!)

As noted above the Sea Venom seat is quoted as a MK-4A but is unique to the beast. The correct designation is MK-4A1 for the pilots seat

and MK-4A2 for the observers seat, the different designation for the second seat refers to the "go foward" mountings on the rear face of the seat gun.

This was a pair of spring loaded cylinders that pushed the seat into its firing position when the canopy was punched off. Also good for scaring the crap out of observers if the locking mech was a bit loose.

When I was restoring ex RAN FAW-53 WZ-895 in my Navy days we did some research into installing the MK-4 seats out of a Macchi MB-326H into the Venom as the original seats were life expired. While the seats would fit with some modification it appeared there was a chance they could collide during ejection. We eventually managed to rebuild 895's seats with new components pilfered from Macchi stores. The seat packs, gun cartridges and a lot of fittings were the same between seats.

For those with an interest in such things, there is another Sea Venom in the RANFAA museum, WZ-937, the second one I got running again and now on display in the museum. If one looks closely at the aircraft it can be noted that one of the VHF homing aerials at the rear of the cockpit is missing.

That happened in 1986.While carrying out some maintenance on the aircraft, a 5 year old Danni very proudly handed it to me and said she had picked it specially for me!

[Rizzo]

Yep I do mean the version specific to the Sea Venom.

Here's a clue:

[Viking]

Lovely job, you can't beat DH for a choice of subject I love your attention to detail and those noselegs look fantatstic.

I built one of these ages ago, it must be stored in a box somewhere.

Cheers

John

[Martian]

Yep I do mean the version specific to the Sea Venom.

Here's a clue:

They are handed to allow for clearance in the confines of the Sea Venom Cockit.

Martin

[NAVY870]

They are handed to allow for clearance in the confines of the Sea Venom Cockpit.

Martin

I pulled the seats and gun assemblies I have scrounged for my latest Sea Venom project (the fuselage pod of WZ-897)

The seats appear to be identical in all respects other than being marked "Pilot" & "Nav" only the gun differs.

I did notice the Millenium Falcon had the same seats! same as Starbug in Red Dwarf had MK-3's out of a Vampire.

[Rizzo]

I pulled the seats and gun assemblies I have scrounged for my latest Sea Venom project (the fuselage pod of WZ-897)

The seats appear to be identical in all respects other than being marked "Pilot" & "Nav" only the gun differs.

I did notice the Millenium Falcon had the same seats! same as Starbug in Red Dwarf had MK-3's out of a Vampire.

Yep! The Sea Venom seats are also used in the Millenium Falcon... I was looking for reference photos, and came across some replicas Star Wars fans had made

I don't think there's going to many questions on this aircraft that you guys won't know the answers too, so I think it's only fair to cheat a bit!

[Rizzo]

We just adopted two kittens, so not so much progress here recently...

Started to paint the wheels. You can just about see the 'grain' from the 3d printing process, but I think it's ok on wheels (and will be better when I add in some weathering and matte varnish). It's certainly much less than I was expecting without any sanding done.

And I've added in most of the details to the fuselage. There's a few lumps underneath that I've missed due to lack of good reference there (behind the chutes), but I don't intend to display it upside down so that's ok.

One thing I would have done differently is adding in the oval panels on the inside of the booms before it's all glued together. Now I can't get to them easily so it's another detail to leave out. NOT that I mind less rescribing!

Next I'll glue and blend in the canopy, then it's on to the wings....

[Caerbannog]

phantastic work!

[Rizzo]

I had a bit of a disaster on this one. I'd carefully cut, shaped and glued the vacform canopy into place. Then I sealed the join with some epoxy resin, and then started to blend in the join with milliput. But I used too much water with the milliput, and I hadn't sealed the gaps properly.. the result was a lot of watery milliput got into the cockpit, and all over the inside of the canopy... a big mess

So I put it aside and made a bit of this for a while:

Then I went back to the Sea Venom, cleaned it all up, repainted where needed, and added on the spare canopy (horray for spare vacform canopies!)

I'm in the middle of painting it at the moment:

[Rizzo]

More glacial progress

Just a bit of tidying up and some shading to do, then it can get a coat of varnish.

[Col.]

Paint job looks excellent.

[kev67]

Great bit of modelling, very interested in the 3d software side, as we have 3D Max but only messed around with it, looks complicated for a noffice

[Simon Cornes]

That is really nice! Just shows what great results can be produced using a good starting point and a combination of old fashioned scratch building and bang up to date technology! Bet JohnA is pleased to see such good progress with one of his!!

[Steven Corvi]

I am watching this one since I have an Aeroclub Sea Venom ready for building so this will help. I plan to get your wheels Thanks Rizzo.

Here was one of my last works:

I was wondering have you ever built the Aeroclub Hunters?

Steve

(Anglo-phile British Historian from America)

[Rizzo]

Thanks for the comments guys

Steve that model looks fantastic- I hope you post some more of it!

I've not built any of the Aeroclub hunters. The only other vacform I've made so far is a Dynavector Gannet (which was another great kit). Maybe one day because I like vacform kits a lot, but I have a Swift and a Scimitar to do first.

I do have the Italleri Hunter lined up to start on at some point though, to which I will be adding the Flightpath gun pack... I hope to make it into the same sort of diorama you've achieved with that F105. A bit like this:http://crimso.msk.ru/Images6/AI/AI55-9/7-1.jpg

[Steven Corvi]

Good idea like to see your Hunter dio. I have some more photos I can post some of my F-105 project here. I did both the Hobbyboss kit and the older Monogram kit. Both have their respective strengths and weaknesses but for a diorama scene the Hobbyboss kit is the way to go b. Some of the detail parts on the Hobbyboss kit are soft and require some replacing with the older Monogram kit. Century series aircraft are my thing! I did a series of article in SAMI back in 1999-2002 when Richard Franks was the editor.

I am looking forward to the Kittyhawk F-101A/C my favorite airframe of all time I hope they do a good job!?!?!

Here are some photos of my F-105 build:

Wheels:

Tail assembly & trolley build:

Steve

[Rizzo]

Some very nice scratch building has gone into that, great detailing

Can I ask where you got the lights from? I needed to make a light for the underside of the SeaVenom port wing out of some clear sprue, and wasn't too happy with the result (looks too dark because I gave it too much depth into the wing)

[sticky847]

have seen a picture of that F105 carrying out air to air refueling, you realise why that nose art is where it is.

[Rizzo]

Guess how well the gloss varnish worked out...

That mess because I tried to use a bit of micro mesh on the gloss. Even after over a week to dry it just pealed off like cling film... not great but not a disaster (yet). But as soon as the paint underneath got wet, it started bubbling up and turning to jelly. This stuff seems to have no adhesive properties at all So it'll all have to come off. At least that bit will be easy!

While I wait for an order of Gunze paint to arrive from MDC I'll be working on this instead (the sea Hawk is on hold too, not risking any Vallejo paint on that one)

[JasonC]

Guess how well the gloss varnish worked out...

That mess because I tried to use a bit of micro mesh on the gloss. Even after over a week to dry it just pealed off like cling film... not great but not a disaster (yet). But as soon as the paint underneath got wet, it started bubbling up and turning to jelly. This stuff seems to have no adhesive properties at all So it'll all have to come off. At least that bit will be easy!

While I wait for an order of Gunze paint to arrive from MDC I'll be working on this instead (the sea Hawk is on hold too, not risking any Vallejo paint on that one)

Ouch, that must have stung a bit. For future reference, what sort of varnish did you use?

I'm sure that Gunze will give better results.

cheers,

Jason

[Col.]

That's quite a mess. Bad news but not impossible to fix. In the meantime we'll have to tune into the Skyraider - Tamiya kit converted to an RN AEW job using ESCI parts?

[Rizzo]

Ouch, that must have stung a bit. For future reference, what sort of varnish did you use?

I'm sure that Gunze will give better results.

cheers,

Jason

It did a bit yeh! I know Vallejo paints can be fragile so I waited several days before masking over them, cleaned it all carefully etc. And over a week to dry before I attempted to sand it, using 6000 grade micromesh. Using water to sand with seems to have been the biggest problem, it just soaks it up and then disintergrates.

I used Vallejo gloss varnish, 50/50 with their own thinner. I've had better luck with the rattle can from Vallejo, but that really puts down a thick layer of paint.

On the plus side, I hope using Gunze won't be so damn slow to work with, and will also be without so much worry of damaging the paint. I'll keep my Vallejo paints for when I use a brush though, can't fault it there.

[Rizzo]

That's quite a mess. Bad news but not impossible to fix. In the meantime we'll have to tune into the Skyraider - Tamiya kit converted to an RN AEW job using ESCI parts?

Yeh, doesn't look pretty... If the canopy is ok, it should be fine. Definately an annoying delay, but hopfully a useful learning exerience in the end (to get tougher paints!)

And yep, that Skyraider will be a kitbash using the ESCI bits over a Tamiya base. I'm also using the Aiwaves wingfold set. I've only one photo of a Skyraider on HMS Eagle during the Suez Crisis, so the markings will have to be a bit of guess work.