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RNHF Hawker Sea Fury VX281


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A few of you may dimly recall this thread, about the Royal Navy Historic Flight's Sea Fury T.20. Not quite two years later I have finally finished my attempt at a 1/72 model of the same, made with minor adaptions from the PM T.20 kit:

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It's more an, umm, homage to VX281 than a real scale replica, and not just because of the various inadequacies that I gather are attributed to the PM kit. In particular I couldn't get correct decals for the white lettering on the sides of the fuselage and the tail and the exhaust pipes I added are too few in number and too large, but they're something that has always caught my eye on Sea Furies so I wanted something there.

The PM kit was of a plane with a fixed tail wheel so I scratch built a well for it. I also had a go representing VX281's non-standard wheel hubs and I raised the cockpit floor by 4mm so the seats are slightly visible through the cockpit canopies. I added or modified some of the more obvious panel lines. This kit also saw my first proper attempts to add a bit of weathering. Not much as VX281 is kept in good condition but there are noticeable exhaust stains in several pictures and I also used washes in the wheel wells to try and disguise how shallow they are.

Paints used were mostly Humbrol, with Xtracolor providing the Sky and Alclad the metallics. Decals were a wide mix, some from Xtradecal, some from Ventura, some from ModelDecal (the only ones I could find who did the squared-off underwing serial numbers, and they were on a sheet of interwar serial numbers!) and some from the decal stash of this forum's Miggers - thanks!.

It is unfortunate timing that I've finally finished this kit not long after the real VX281's unfortunate crash landing. :(

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The kit may not be perfect, but it looks a lot like a Sea Fury!!!! And unless one is aware of its shortcomings, or even knowing about them, you still have built a beautiful Sea Fury! So long as you are happy, everybody else can go suck eggs!

Well done.

JR

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That's a real beauty! :wow:I've got the same PM kit and was wanting to do the exact same model. Now that you've done all the research 'homework' it will make my much job easier. Your model is rather splendid and has made me want to get on and do mine after clearing the workbench.

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Thanks again! :-) Good luck with your build, HP42!

I have become a real fan of the EDSG upper, white or sky lower FAA aircraft, the Sea Fury has become probably my favourite piston engined fighter and the Sea Hawk that evolved from it is a beautiful little jet.

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Thanks for the link, that article has quite a bit more information than the ones I'd previously seen.

Good man Chris.

It looks great.

It's good to hear that from you. Thanks for your help on my original thread, and for the decals.

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Thanks for the link, that article has quite a bit more information than the ones I'd previously seen.

It's good to hear that from you. Thanks for your help on my original thread, and for the decals.

You're most welcome mate.

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Looks great. Beautifully applied finish. I think the PM kit is somewhat underrated personally. Pity the real thing got pranged the other day but hopefully she will fly again and, more importantly, the pilot is ok.

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Nice job on this stunner, looks like the PM kit (while being something I wouldn't have considered buying before this build) is decent from what you have built from it here.

...that yellow spinner... That just does something for me. :hypnotised::frantic::boom:

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Nice job on this stunner, looks like the PM kit (while being something I wouldn't have considered buying before this build) is decent from what you have built from it here.

...that yellow spinner... That just does something for me. :hypnotised::frantic::boom:

The yellow spinner is definitely a good look. :)

The PM kit is not complex, nor packed with detail, but it goes together pretty well - the T.20 goes together better than their FB.11 does too, for some reason. Less work was involved in getting this kit to look generally sound than there was in doing the same for the old-school Airfix kits I've built. There are various things about it that don't stand up to basic comparisons to reference photos found on Google (I mention some here: http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/viewtopic.php?p=510254&sid=d6598f789035803afe6e25c2722546f7#p510254, early in the build's long gestation) but overall it looks more like a Sea Fury than anything else and I'm happy with it.

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No doubt after this thread gets a few more views the pm sea fury market will have ebay prices sky rocket. Seems to happen from time to time when a nice model like this gets posted.

Edited by modelglue
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