1/48 GPM Hangar

[F4TCT]

Hi all,

Welcome to my hangar build. I noticed a build of this on this forum and decided to give one a go myself, given that I have space to accommodate it.

The hangar is from GPM and is available in a few scales.

The kit is laser cut cardboard.

Firstly, here are the parts sheets:

























We then start cutting out the parts, starting with the roof. The general construction of the sheets appears to be a 3 ply system with card in the middle and a thin paper on each side. The laser cutter annoying hasn't quite managed to make it all the way through the card as I had to run the knife over every part in order to remove it in a clean way from the sheet.







I found there was always a bit of clean up required where retaining tabs were left by the laser cutter to allow the parts to be held securely in the sheet.





The two halves of the roof frames where glued together using PVA (the same throughout the build)



After a lot of repetition the roof framing was assembled.





The kit is not perfect, the two interlocking halves where the roof frames meet the perpendicular frames have been miscalculated. So car must be taken to glue the interlocking sections on a flat surface



Decided to add further support to the centre and outer ends of the roof. This has firmed everything up. They we made from offcuts of parts sheet.



With the roof framing largely complete, I decided to spend the drying time cutting out all of the other parts required and cleaning them up.





As I wanted to make a reasonably big diorama, I obviously needed a decent sized base board. I bought a sheet of 15mm thick 1220mm x 610mm MDF. I will probably trim about 200mm off the length.

I then began to work out spacing (still don't have a clue where to put things) and started to glue the hangar floor onto the MDF.

The hangar floor has now been glued in place.



Here is a preview of the roof framing and floor.



As for concrete colour for the floor, I was thinking of XF-54 with a splash of the flory concrete wash.



Attention could now be turned to joining the half sections of the corrugated front and rear of the hangar. Again this was done using PVA.



There was a significant gap on the back of the halves which were glued together using a bit of paper. This has given the join quite a lot of strength.



Couldn't resist roughly assembling some sides of the hangar.



The original plan for this hangar was to convert into a 1/24 small single aircraft hangar to house the 1/24th spitfire that im building also. However the wingspan is a little too big for the hangar, and there's doors to go on aswell.











Now the painting can begin. For the exterior, I am using XF-16 and for the framing, I am using X-14. Will probably do the interior walls white. I did some test spraying on some offcuts of the same material and found that as long as the area wasn't flooded, then there was no effect on the cardboards surface at all and so I decided to paint directly onto the card. I applied Klear to the exterior surfaces after painting as the alloy paint had a tendency to rub off onto my fingers and pollute everything I touch.







Ran out of paint at this point, despite using a 50/50 mix and only really giving it a reasonably light coat. You get the idea anyway.



I managed to find some of the same card material in hobby craft for a not so reasonable £5 a sheet. One sheet should do the rest of the diorama, however I got two just in case. These will be scored to create large concrete slabs to simulate how it would have been laid.

I decided to carry out a complete strip down of the airbrush for cleaning and because im so strong, I managed to snap the thread on the needle pointy thing. So I have today managed to re-mortgage my house in order to pay for a replacement part!



Moving on... Here is a sample of the idea I was playing with in regard to the concrete effect for the hangar floor/apron, leaves a lot to be desired I feel...



Today I have finally laid down the large sheet of card, cut to shape and scored lines in the entire apron area. I am now sure how I want the diorama to look.



Joins were unavoidable, but these hopefully can be blended in when I have some paint on there to see how bad the join is.





I also began the task of cutting the see through plastic sheet that came with the kit, and sticking them to the backs of the window panels. Hard to see on the camera, but I have left these the natural colour of the card as there is little burn marks on the corners which pass as rust very nicely. These are not yet glued to the exterior because the interior sides need painting.



Annoyingly, it seems GPM haven't been generous enough to supply the actual amount of clear plastic I need to complete the operation. I am now left with pretty much the entire rear side of the hangar without glass. I will have to source a similar material next time I am in hobbycraft. L.E.D's have been ordered along with appropriate resistors and as soon as they arrive, the soldering can begin. I may have to purchase a 3mm hole punch in order to get a clean hole in the cardboard roof. There will be 18 lights in total.

With the new airbrush part here, I could now move onto painting the interior sides white. Took 2 pots of paint to do this task.





The previously windowed panels could now be glued onto the exterior sides.





The blue framing was also glued to the interior sides.

Painting has resumed on the roof framing. The scorch marks from the cutting has left some nice rusting effect on the painted frames..



Finally the roof is done and painted! Been really struggling with cramp in my hands recently and this build has just about pushed me over the edge purely down to the size of the thing. Think its a carpel tunnel thing...



I then turned my attention to the base. I started by roughly painting where the yellow taxi lines would be located.



The yellow was then masked with 6mm tamiya tape and the curves were formed.



Black was then sprayed next to the yellow.



At this stage, I decided to pre-shade the entire base. The 'inside' area in which the hangar would sit on was shaded lighter, infact more of the dirty grey.



2mm jammy dog tape was 'piggy-backed' along the tamiya tape covering the yellow in order to protect the black outline.



The right taxi line will stop roughly 1/3rd the way into the hangar. The line on the left is a parking ramp/apron for the upcoming learjet 35 model.



Next the huge task of painting the base was started. This is basically XF-54 Dark Sea Grey in a 50/50 mix. I didn't make a particularly neat job of spraying it and this has worked to my advantage where the colour seems to be broken up with the pre-shading and areas of white showing through from the board.



And the concrete a little closer.

I then removed the masking tape.



There are a few areas where the tape has lifted the paint but these will be repainted in no time at all. Half decent result I feel. Will probably look at post shading the yellow areas of the slab joins later.

Its now time for the electrics part of the build.

The components arrived almost a week ago now.



The L.E.D is a 3mm white diffused ultra bright along with a 470 ohm resistor to enable the L.E.D to work on a 12v circuit.



Not much equipment needed for the job. just a standard soldering iron would suffice, except I need a higher temperature one for other hobbies of mine which involve joining brass. Decent flux is a must in my opinion.



Ok so we know it works.



The black L.E.D mounts were first installed into the roof support. This picture shows the messy and not to be seen top side.



And a little neater underside. The L.E.D will be mounted in this to give a clean look.



Another component I am using to aid the build is Vero wire. Its quite good stuff when you look at the specs of this stuff, its actually quite useful. Although it looks like bare copper wire, it is actually insulated and so you can bunch multiple strands together of either the same or opposite polarity and it will not short out.

The method I used to join the L.E.D to the wire was to simply wrap the wire round the legs of the L.E.D and solder. The heat burns off the insulating coating, although I must stress that you should have ventilation when you do this as it releases apparently bad fumes.



Finally one side of the hangar is done. It takes so much time that i've lost count of how long.



The wire gets very messy towards the end of the line. The L.E.D's have been wired in such a way that should one fail, it will be the only one which goes out.



I decided to add some extra card which will be painted, to hide the wiring when viewing the hangar from the bottom.



A start has also been made on the main power supply wires and to install the extra card along the central light strip.

I bring some good news and then some bad.

Firstly, I decided to roughly assemble the hangar and test the lighting.









As per usual, one of the L.E.D's stopped working. Can't be bothered to rectify the issue.







Couldn't resist getting the Hawk out...















And all when it was going so well. I took the hangar apart again to paint the white areas on the roof framing and placed the hangar on the floor. I then stood up and went to go into the kitchen and got my foot tangled up in the framing and tripped. This is the result....

The hangar was repaired using superglue and PVA, the repaired area is on the left.



The sides of the hangar were next to be glued into place.

There was some modification required to enable the back of the hangar to be joined to the roof framing.














Finally found myself up late enough to switch off all the lights and take some pics with just the hangar lighting on. Im contemplating installing some sort of taxiway lights in the yellow strip to liven things up.

The strips of card that go around the base of the hangar have now been installed and painted.

The baseboard was then given a good coat of flat varnish.







Decided to get some fake grass on a big roll. This would be very long for 1/72 and thought it would be ideal for the grassy areas of the hangar.

Ever heard the saying "measure twice and cut once"....



Light shot.

So back on with the 30 mile drive to hobby craft....

k with the 60 mile round trip over, It was now time to crack on with the roof.

To no great surprise, I almost cut the board too short again and only realised this mistake just before the cut.



I picked up some German Grey XF63 with the idea of lightly overspraying the already black board in the hope to create a patchy look.



I did in the end, darken the XF63 with some flat back and roughly sprayed the board.



For those wondering how I managed to keep the very edges down while the glue was drying, I simply used some reasonably heavy blocks of steel. Theres probably 1.5 - 2 kg of weight on the edge of the hangar and there is no flex of movement at all.





Don't think we've seen a rear picture yet...





And finally we have a roof!

I did also pop into maplins and bought a switch to control the lights. Not sure where this will be located as yet, I may even try to integrate this into say an electronics hut which could be physically moved, resulting in the switch being turned on. I also want to install a fence at the back of the diorama and also start making some fixtures and fittings for inside the hangar.

I do want a 1/48 figure, preferably sat in a deckchair or something aswell for a little idea I have.

I decided to make a start on the fencing, which I was keen on installing to try and give this hangar the look asif it were poked away in the corner of the airport.

I used some frying pan splash guard and cut this into strips 5cm high.





The posts were made from 1.6mm dia brass rod. These were cut into 5.5cm lengths, the extra 0.5 for the holes being drilled in the base and so the fence can stand up without glueing.



The fence was simply superglued together and the ugly glue marks only being visible on the back of the diorama.



The grass sheet was laid and holes made for the fence posts.



Decided on red as the colour for the fence. Also added a gate.



The fence was then installed into the base after the grass had been trimmed flush with the end of the baseboard.













Couldn't resist a few pics with the aircraft I have.

I decided to just crack on with the doors.

Here they are in raw form.





The doors were then overlapped to give the staggered closed effect. They were pre-shaded and given a coat of the same blue used for the framing.



The doors were then glued in place.



Meanwhile I created the runner from some card.



This was then glued into place. Probably should have done some pre-shading underneath the runner.



And finally added a side door.



Few updated pics.







I will look into installing a few flood lights, maybe two on the front and two on the side of the hangar. It shouldn't be too difficult to do, just hiding the wire is the challenge.

Not much more can be done on the diorama itself for the time being as I need to get hold of a few things to complete it. Updates if any will be few and far between so I guess consider it done.

Dan

[Gary West]

Blimey I have never seen so many photos on one topic! Excellent work mind, really enjoyed that.

I wish someone made something similar for a current RAF shelter

[Spookytooth]

That sir looks really good, I like the lights as well.

Makes for an interesting scene.

Well done indeed.

[104 squadron]

Holy mother of god! That's a bit very good!!!!!

Marc

[Vampire Fan]

Very impressive! Don't you just hate it when you trip with a model...!

[SaintsPhil]

Well done for starting this topic, I've been keen to see one of these built up. Nice work with the LEDs too, I assume they don't get too hot in the cardboard?

[Radleigh]

I really badly want one of these, have a base ready for it, I just have no where to store it when done! Looking good

[Beard]

My word, that's amazing.

[colin]

Very nice wip and well done with the save after the mishap

[cheeley]

Lovely stuff. Glad you didn't get disheartened with the couple of mini disasters that happened!

Chris

[F4TCT]

Well done for starting this topic, I've been keen to see one of these built up. Nice work with the LEDs too, I assume they don't get too hot in the cardboard?

No they are fine, Ive had it running for a few hours and no issues.

[F4TCT]

Thanks for the kind words folks!

I need a tractor tug and towing bar for the aircraft if anyone can point me in the right direction?

Dan

[jozio78]

Fantastic work.

It's a shame I don't have a space for it otherwise I would build whole Airport

[F4TCT]

I was thinking of getting the GPM control tower and integrating it into the diorama but then it would be getting a little too big.

Great cheap little kits mind.

Dan

[spiton]

Lights in your hangar makes great job !!

[Jessica]

I don't know how weathered you plan to make it, but a bird's nest or two up in the rafters and (ahem) "evidence" that the birds have been around would make it look more lived-in.

[SPARKER]

That looks superb, well done for the save after the accident

Si

[phildagreek]

Very impressive, nice work, looks to be a size though, my shelves would never accomodate it!

[fallmonk]

Thank god for broadband bugger trying to download that on dial up lol

Fantasic mate , massivly impressed with your work , think you have it to perfection

[Mexico75]

Nice work, just throwing this idea out there but every lattice roof hanger I've ever been in has had netting fixed to the bottom of the lower roof beams to stop pidgins roosting and doing what they do best all over the aircraft below. Maybe some of that mesh you made the fence from would look good up there. Oh and there would be rails along the front of the hanger for the doors to roll along. The shot you posted of it in the dark is great and could easily fool people into thinking its real

Edited September 25, 2013 by Mexico75

[thomastmcc]

Blimey I have never seen so many photos on one topic! Excellent work mind, really enjoyed that.

I wish someone made something similar for a current RAF shelter

its wicked mate ... and epic ...

gary you mean a HAS shelter in 1/72 ?

thomas

[modelglue]

Wow, fantastic! Peter Jackson will be calling for 'Bigatures' production should he ever make an aircraft movie! I agree with the sentiment about the bird proofing and evidence, also, oil stains might go far too.

modelglue

[bar side]

Just found the thread.  Have seen these on eBay and wondered what they build like.  You have really done it justice.  Love the led strips in there too.