Yugoslav Hawker Fury - Update 21/09: Decals, wheels and propeller!

[Mitch K]

This arrived today from Hannants. There'll be a bit of work here to turn this Mark I into the Mark II in Jugoslav service, but I think it's fair to say there's a bit of work here, period.

I vaguely remember this kit from when I was a kit, under the Matchbox marque. Revell's grey plastic is a nice change from Matchbox's horrible, garish castings, but the moulds seem to have aged pretty well. There's essentially no flash, no sign of shrinkage and everything is in quite good order. The ribbing on the wings/tail is a little heavy but should respond to a coat of primer and a sand up, as should the rivetting on the cowling. The latter isn't quite to old Airfix standards but is a bit more industrial that you would see today.

Here's a quick sprue shot.

There are a few ejector towers that aren't hidden, but they shouldn't be too much trouble. The next thing I did was start drilling holes for the rigging wires.

Inside the fuselage there's a bit where someone has obviously defaced the mould (I guess so it no longer says"Matchbox") which is very unhelpful, so got ground out with the dremel.

The interior is fairly limited: a floor (which the actual aircraft didn't have...) and a seat that looks like a deckchair. There's a decal for the instrument panel, but no panel to put it on! I build a new seat from plastic card, with a bit more structure than the original. The photo could be better .Hopefully this would show up better when it's painted.

I've started adding structure to the inside of the cockpit: it's a start!

Edited September 21, 2014 by Mitch K

[Vanja #66]

Oh, nice, another one... Ikarus Blenheim next?

[Mitch K]

Probably an RHAF Gladiator next, then maybe the IK2/3, after that, we'll see!

[Mitch K]

Quick update on this: I've done the cockpit. There's a lot of effort here in a very small area. The seat is scratchbuilt (it shows up better in this shot!), along with the control support bar, stick and pedals. I'll cut the support bar to length later, at the moment I fit it. The rear bulkhead is 20 thou card, shaped and cut, then painted as timber. I added the slot for the straps rather than representing it with paint. The fuselage structure is all stretched sprue and plastic card, and is based on a set of walkaround photos I found. The colours are slightly speculative - red dope and painted steel tube, then aluminium paint for everything else.

The intrument panel is the kit decal,cut to (near) the shape of the panel with the butts of the machine-guns (and their cocking handles) added from plastic card and sprue. The belts are tape and sprue buckles. The whole lot will get a coat of matt varnish to tie it all together before I button up the fuselage.

Here's a piccie which is probably worth more than the description:

The shoulder straps are inplace in the bulkhead - I'll fix them down onto the seat when I fit it, but I think it was easier to install them before!

I've put the original cockpit parts (the seat and floor) in the shot for comparison.

After this comes building the new radiator - this bit was probably easier!

[Mitch K]

Here's the next step. I've buttoned up the fuselage, added the tail and elevators and fitted the lower wing.

T

The cockpit detail is somewhat visible - it's salutory that even though there is no canopy, the hole is so small it's difficult to see stuff.

Here's a side shot. The wing to fuselage joint it a bit of a shocker - I feel a large styrene fillet coming on! The tail is a bit better - there's a step not a gap, and the underside isn't bad at all. The small, nondescript piece of brown plastic is a bit of sprue turned, sanded, drilled and carved to represent the carburettor intake. The wooden lump is the master for smash moulding the low-drag radiator. Both of these closely resemble the ones on the Hurricane, albeit slightly (significantly!) smaller. An example of Camm's iterative design approach, perhaps?

I've left the cowling off for now. The cabane struts are installed at this stage, and I have my doubts about them surviving what I expect to be some fairly heavy work on the wing seams and the radiator fit.

Well, I'm off to Ireland for a week tomorrow, so one thing I can be sure of is that there won't be any progress in that time!

[HOUSTON]

Ooh Very Impressive start..

NICE

have a good bank holiday. Hope the weather is sunny for you.

[Mitch K]

Ooh Very Impressive start..

NICE

have a good bank holiday. Hope the weather is sunny for you.

Houston, it rained buckets every single day.

And it was still a lovely time!

[Mitch K]

Well, back from Ireland, I finally managed to crack on, following two nights without power and various plumbing emergencies for me to deal with.

I moulded the radiator, cut it out and sanded it to size vacform style. I managed to take a fraction too much out on one side, so a quick build up with plasticard had to save the day! I cut out the front and the back, and scribed in the flap at the back. I used fairly thick plastic card, so I had a fair bit of scraping and thinning to do to get a scale appearance.

I added some radiator grilles/elements from plasticard and the kit original, to make sure the thing isn't totally seethrough.

I couldn't avoid the moment any longer, so here it is in place. It's going to need about a sackful of filler to sort it, but I'm happy so far.

Onwards from here. I'll see you when I dig myself out from under the sanding dust!

[Mitch K]

Here she is with all the changes in place: new radiator, new supercharger intake, and finally the undercarriage legs snagged from an Airfix Gladiator. Fitting these was less fraught than I had feared. The scale plans I've got allowed an easy, accurate cut - in fact, I could cut exactly where the fairings to make the legs fit the Gladiator go! Since the butt joint this would give was going to be miserably weak, I drilled the legs and fuselage and added short pieces of steel rod. Reinforced with these, a drop or two of cyano made fitting relatively simple. The wooden oddment is a mini adjustable bevel I made up from MDF to help me set the angles: my normal one is a lot too big for this line of work. I replaced the tail skid with brass strip, as the plastic one brings a new meaning to the word "flimsy".

The joins around the undercarriage legs needed a touch of filler and a rub down, but after a scrub up with a toothbrush and soap, I gave her a quick blow over with some white primer, both as a base for the main paint scheme and as a check for whether all the filling etc was to a decent standard. I'm happy with her.

I've drilled out the exhausts, and I'm ready to have a go at the rigging - the holes to take the wire are all drilled. A colleague of mine dabbles in match fishing, so probably has some 1lb BS line somewhere. This should be about 0.07mm diameter, so scales out to roughly 5mm, which sounds about right. The thinnest I have is a more reasonable (and robust!) 3lb BS which is distinctly overscale

[Vanja #66]

Definitely seeing where a bit of inspiration came from for Ikarus IK-2...

[Stew Dapple]

I'm digging this, Mitch very impressive.

Have you got your paint scheme/markings sorted?

Cheers,

Stew

[Mitch K]

Definitely seeing where a bit of inspiration came from for Ikarus IK-2...

The IK2 resembles the result of a night of passion between a Hawker Fury and a PZL11, I thought...

I'm digging this, Mitch very impressive.

Have you got your paint scheme/markings sorted?

Cheers,

Stew

Stew,

Pretty much. I'm going with a dark green/dark earth over silver dope scheme. I've got enough cross markings left from the Bf109 and Hurricane builds,so it's just a case of scratting up some white code letters. Simples (I hope!)

[Stew Dapple]

Sounds good Mitch, I look forward to seeing more

Cheers,

Stew

[Mitch K]

My colleague came through with a batch of 1lb breaking strain fishing line. It's Bayer Perlon, which is nice, soft stuff, not prone to kinking and slightly stretchy. It's also a nice, silver-grey colour so any that ends up unpainted will look like steel cable. On the whole, it's roughly perfect!

I noticed a bit late in the game that the Yugo Furies didn't carry the telescopic sight found on the RAF versions, so it's out with the filler at the last minute!

All the cables on the tail are in place, including the rudder and elevator controls, and all the rest is there ready for when the upper wing is put in place. What I could do with are some thinner drill bits. The thinnest I've got is 0.3mm, and I could do with something sightly smaller, as the rigging thread fits in these holes like a finger in a bucket!

[Stew Dapple]

Hi Mitch,

Tidy work there, what sort of glue are you fixing the rigging with? I was thinking a gel-type superglue would probably fill any surplus space in the drilled holes, but might be considered overkill...

Cheers,

Stew

[Mitch K]

Hi Mitch,

Tidy work there, what sort of glue are you fixing the rigging with? I was thinking a gel-type superglue would probably fill any surplus space in the drilled holes, but might be considered overkill...

Cheers,

Stew

In one! That's exactly what I'm using. Seems to work OK. I've never tried this before,so first a first go it seems an OK approach.

[Stew Dapple]

In that case I would say your methodology is sound - good luck with the rigging.

I have the A-Model Yugoslav Mk.II Fury in the stash where it was likely to remain, however it does occur to me that the relevant parts and decals could be used as an aftermarket set to the Matchbox/Revel Fury which would probably make a much easier build...

Between this and Vanya66's two IK fighters I have been inspired to make stash space for some RYAF aircraft; some interesting colour schemes although it doesn't seem easy to find consensus on what those colours actually were...

Cheers,

Stew

[SleeperService]

What a great build so far! Nice work! I'll be doing one in 48th for the Lesser Built Air Forces GB next yearand hadn't noticed the sight change either, so Thank You again.

[Mitch K]

My poor old Fury is currently doing a creditable impression of the mummy of King Tut!

I blew a coat a couple of coats of silver mixed with a spot of light grey onto the undersides (and cleaned up the ropey seam I'd missed between the two! ) then masked up and put some dark earth on. Everything is Tamiya acrylics thinned with IPA. The silver was a bit like hard work, as if the particle size was a bit larger than normal.

Masking up for the upper surface green took and age! Cutting out the paper frisket for the mottled pattern on the JG27 Bf109 didn't take much longer. I'll blow the green colour in this week and gloss her up for the decals. The observant among you will notice I managed to break (and lose!) a cabane strut, which I'm NOT happy about. Steel rod will replace it, but the absence of the original won't make fitting the upper wing any simpler

Edited September 14, 2014 by Mitch K

[Stew Dapple]

Looking good Mitch, I hope you find the cabane strut, I am sure you can replace it if needs be but as you note things would be simpler if you can re-attach the original piece. I don't suppose it is stuck on any of the masking tape bits?

I wish you good shooting with the dark green too

Cheers,

Stew

[Mitch K]

Looking good Mitch, I hope you find the cabane strut, I am sure you can replace it if needs be but as you note things would be simpler if you can re-attach the original piece. I don't suppose it is stuck on any of the masking tape bits?

I wish you good shooting with the dark green too

Cheers,

Stew

I checked that, Stew. No such luck. A bit of mig welding wire, staightened and annealed, will do the job. I'm fencing tonight, so it'll be Tuesday at least before I blow that green in!

[Mitch K]

Here she is with the paint paintwork completed. I gave her a couple of coats of Kleer immediately after doing the main painting. As well as providing a surface for the decals, I think it gives a degree of protection for the paint and it allows me to do detail painting and wipe off mistakes without dinging the base coats.

I did a little bit of tidying up of the paintwork: an odd hole in the masking and some bits around the tail struts. Tamiya paint seems to work OK on the hairy stick on small areas like this. I painted in some details at the same time: the leather surround to the cockpit, machine guns, exhausts etc. The exhausts don't show up as well as I'd like but a bit of shade and highlight should help.

I got the top wing on! Fitting actually went off better than I thought. The replacement cabane strut can be seen here: a bit of MIG welding wire. With the cabane struts, I found I could align the wing quite easily, and once the cyanoacrylate had gone off I could get the wing struts into place fairly easily. Thick CA helped to mush the joints here.

My plan for the next step is to fit the rigging wires (and fill the inevitable holes!) and paint the remaining struts. The wing struts are shown as silver at the top and camoflage colours on the bottom half, so I'll have at it in the next couple of nights.

[Stew Dapple]

Good save on that strut Mitch, looks indistinguishable from the real thing

All in all it's coming together nicely

Cheers,

Stew

[Mitch K]

Finally after undue amounts of fannying about I've got somewhere! Getting the rigging pulled through, glued into place and trimmed was a relatively easy task, requring half an hour and very little grinding of teeth. I reckon this isn't too bad for a first go.

Getting the rigging holes to look right was quite a different matter! I spent two whole evenings scratching my head over this: I tried cyanoacrylate, PVA and finally artists' gesso to fill the pilot holes in. Nothing seemed to work - the gesso was the best pick of a very poor bunch! I'm still not 100% happy but it's done my crust in so much I really can't face trying to perfect the job. See what you think. The single upperwing roundel went on without incident and seems to have sucked itself down onto the ribs very well. The drybrush to bring out the ribs looks a lot more subtle without the flash, honest!

The view of the underside looks OK, I reckon - not that anyone's likely to see it very much! The underwing roundels worked nicely too.

I couldn't find any fuselage numbers, so I tried printing some myself. I got nowhere because the font I picked was a total bust. I've got something that looks a bit thicker and heavier now, so I'll have another go, and print the few stencils too.

Various oddments like prop, wheels, windscreen etc are progressing so I expect to finish this fairly soon.

[Col.]

Tidy work on a tiny model Mitch. Good to see such an unusual subject getting some love as well.