FZ6 Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Now that I have got my Defiant completed I'm trying to tackle a few models I've had on the go for a while and this Hawker Hunter has been crying for attention for a while now so I decided to crack on with it. Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr I purchased it one Christmas from Modelzone for about £10 in the sale and is one of the best bargains I ever had and is definitely one of Revell's best kits in my opinion. I ended up getting the True Details cockpit for this one. In all honesty I don't think the cockpit tub and instrument panel offer much difference over the kit parts. Especially as everything is black inside the cockpit. Where this set adds value to the model is in the ejection seat. It is a stunning piece of resin and to date is probably the best after market resin ejection seat I've ever used. The sidewall detail is also very nice. The photos below show the improvements I made to the sidewall detail. Although resin sidewall detail looks nice as a stand alone part if it is fairly thick and is stuck onto the inside of the fuselage it can make the fuselage even thicker and look like a detailed part that was stuck on as opposed to part of the fuselage. I decided to sand the part down and get it as thin as I could and in the end I was just left with the detail part of the sidewall and managed to sand away all the backing completely. A couple of smaller boxes and wires were lost but these were easily replaced or reattached to the side of the fuselage. I wished I had taken a pic before I sanded them down to show the difference. Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr Here is the unpainted cockpit tub with the kit rudder pedals. Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr Here is the painted cockpit. First off I sprayed the Interior Alclad black primer. I then made a couple of mixes of HU33 Black and HU67 Grey to add some shading. I then painted all the switches in gloss black to make them stand out. The Instruments were also painted gloss black and had the dial detail dry brushed in white. Paint chipping was added using a silver pencil. The floor near the rudder pedals also had some zinc chromate primer painted round the silver but needs further black painting over and around it to blend it in. Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr The ejection seat was almost perfect from the box. The only detail required was the ejection handles and an arming pin made out of a plastic disk and a piece of wire. Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter by Marks CVS, on Flickr The cockpit needs a few touch ups before I can close up the fuselage but overall I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Thanks for looking. 16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Greggs Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Very nice, the seats look amazing!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mick Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 great work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomjw Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 A great start. To echo Noah's comment, the seat looks fantastic. I will follow this with interest. Cheers, Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philp Posted February 21, 2015 Share Posted February 21, 2015 Nice, I have an uncle who used to do the leading edge extensions on these in his younger days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 Thanks for the comments guys, It's been a while since I posted on here. Not had much time for modelling lately but I have made some great progress on the Hunter and find myself at a stage where the airframe is now together. As you can see even in 1:32 very little can be seen inside the cockpit once the fuselage halves are closed up due to everything being black so I'm glad I didn't spend too much time painting it. I would almost say the resin cockpit is wasted on this model however at least the seat stands out and that is where the True Details set really shines. I found the seams on the air intake (not pictured difficult to clean up and had to repaint it once due to dust sticking to the plastic. I painted the fan Alclad steel and the intake aluminium. Assembling the airframe was a bit tricky I initially glued each front half of the fuselage to the respective rear half before joining the two halves together but doing this makes the air intake almost impossible to fit so I had to cut the two halves apart again. The rear halves were glued together first. I also glued a piece of sprue to the inside of the spine to give it a bit more strength. The cockpit was glued in place with two part epoxy and the front fuselage halves were closed up. The resin parts are a perfect fit and no problems were encountered joining up the two halves. The front and rear halves were then joined with the air intake left loose for now. The spine was then glued in place and the fit over the rear cockpit bulkhead was excellent. To assemble the wings i found this a little trick with the separate parts for the dog tooth leading edge and the wingtips. If I did this kit again I would reinforce the joins with plastic strip on the inside. The wing to fuselage join was good but I needed to trim the wing slightly to get a good fit. I then liberally applied Humbrol poly cement to the outside of the intakes and the inside of the wing to get a good join and glued the wing in position with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. I repeated this for the other wing and then poked a piece of plastic tubing through the rear opening to make sure the intake assembly was pushed as far forward as it could go to reduce the size of the gap with the wing leading edge as much as I could. Assembling the kit this way has resulted in only minimal filler being required to clean up the airframe. The rear jet pipe is only dry fitted at the moment as it needs painting before final assembly. The recommended nose weight is 40 grams but with the resin cockpit fitted I think I might get away with the 20 grams currently fitted as it seems to balance at this point. If I can get any more weight in I might add some just to be on the safe side. I've left the nose wheel insert out at the moment as it looks like you have to fit the nose leg in the bay before fitting it and I don't want to damage it so I will fit just before painting. Ooops I just realised I forgot to remove the flap cut out on one of the wings before assembly. Thanks for looking. Next step is to add a bit of detail to the wheel wells if I can. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XF442 Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Interesting. Is this going to become one of those red-white-grey Hunters of 4FTS? (I'm after that Xtradecal set for years ... ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted June 23, 2015 Author Share Posted June 23, 2015 Interesting. Is this going to become one of those red-white-grey Hunters of 4FTS? (I'm after that Xtradecal set for years ... ) Yes it's going to be one of those. There are so many nice Hunter Schemes to choose from on that decal sheet. I may need more hunters..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logical Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 £13.50 at Antics and Wonderland models at the moment But they are the FGA.9 variants Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 That cockpit looks great, the seat in particular. Looking forwards to seeing the paint on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomW Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 (edited) Great looking Hunter,and your seat looks superb. Watch out with the undernose insert as it is one of the few areas on the kit that doesn't fit perfectly,a little bit of fill and sand may be required. Regards Tom Edited June 24, 2015 by TomW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kagemusha Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Fantastic cockpit and seat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 £13.50 at Antics and Wonderland models at the moment But they are the FGA.9 variants I've been down to my local Antics but they didn't have any however they are ordering a couple for me as it's a fantastic Kit for that price. I'm even contemplating getting a Fisher Models two seater conversion. Thanks for all the comments so far. Hope to have another update soon Regards, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 This looks great. The resin cockpit and painted up seat look fantastic. Regards, Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 That True Details seat is really good,as you say. I hope you don't mind me pointing it out but I think you may have transposed the colours on the shoulder harness, the straps attatched to the top of the seat back should be blue with the buff coloured parachute straps underneath. Looking forward to more. Regards John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
logical Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 It does look good so far. What ejector seat did they use? It looks very similar to the one in the Hawks. Could I use a Heritage resin Hawk one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mixup_1 Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Looking good! Don't keep us waiting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted June 25, 2015 Author Share Posted June 25, 2015 That True Details seat is really good,as you say. I hope you don't mind me pointing it out but I think you may have transposed the colours on the shoulder harness, the straps attatched to the top of the seat back should be blue with the buff coloured parachute straps underneath. Looking forward to more. Regards John Hi John, Thanks for pointing that out. At least it's not too late to change them round. I used the images here as a useful painting guide. http://www.hawkerhunter.com/2954/ You can see where I went wrong as I thought the inside straps were blue but looking closer at where the straps connect to the seat I do believe you're right. It does look good so far. What ejector seat did they use? It looks very similar to the one in the Hawks. Could I use a Heritage resin Hawk one? The seat comes with the True Details cockpit and is a MK.3 the one in a Hawk is a MK.10 and they are different. The whole cockpit including the seat currently retails for £10.80 on Hannants so is very reasonable but is currently out of stock. I have filled in the troughs for the gun barrels as the 4FTS Hunters were unarmed and glued the wheel well into place. I decided I didn't want the nose wheel leg dangling down and getting damaged during handling so I have cut it off now and fitted the top into the wheel well. The leg wil be drilled and pinned in place with brass rod later in construction which will also strengthen it. I need a bit of help from Hunter knowledgeable fellow Britmodellers with the air brake. I am going to do the air brake in the closed position as I believe this is the case on parked Hunters I have test fitted it in the closed position and it doesn't sit flush with the fuselage as pictured below. This is due to the mounting plate for the actuating arm stopping the air brake sitting flush with the fuselage as illustrated in the picture below with the offending part ringed. My question is should the Air Brake sit tight against the fuselage or is it correctly positioned as pictured on the model in the above image. Thanks in advance, Mark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XF442 Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Yes, it should sit tight against the fuselage but due to hydraulic leaks they tend to drop slightly to noticeably while parked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted June 26, 2015 Share Posted June 26, 2015 That's a really good reference for the seat, I will use it for mine. The reason I know about the Mk 3 seat is that we had one in my ATC squadron and I made a lot of notes, because at the time I had a Lindberg 1/48 Hunter which had a seat which looked like that from an F-100. I like the airbrake, it looks to have just the right amount of 'sag' for a parked Hunter. Regards John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted July 2, 2015 Author Share Posted July 2, 2015 Thanks for the info on the air brake. Incidentally if I had read the instructions it would have told me to remove the noted part of the Air Brake before fitting if I wanted to portray it closed. I've been doing a lot to the model although it doesn't look like it as most of the work has been filling and sanding. Most of the airframe went together really well but below highlights a couple of problems I've had regarding fit however I think that some of the problems I've faced are my own making though Here are the drop tanks, they went together really well. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that the drop tank fins are a bit in the thick side so I plan to thin them down as seen in the pic below. The Undercarriage doors and legs received a coat of alclad. The rest of the undercarriage is being painted as well. I also managed to to get a coat of primer on the model just to see how the filling has gone. Here it is with it's 1:72 cousin! It's looking good now but the sanding just needs tidying up and I will have to do some rescribing where I have lost detail and that is the next job along with adding detail to the wheel wells. Regards, Mark 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 I think it would be virtually impossible to get the leading edge extensions and wing tips to fit perfectly without filler, you've done a great job. Cheers John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FZ6 Posted July 3, 2015 Author Share Posted July 3, 2015 I think it would be virtually impossible to get the leading edge extensions and wing tips to fit perfectly without filler, you've done a great job. Cheers John Thanks for the reassurance I keep thinking how I can do it better for the next one. I managed to pick up a second kit from Antics and have a Fisher Models 2 seat conversion on the way. I've been searching for images of XF526 and in the 4FTS colours and the paint finish is always very clean. http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1375631/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/24101413@N03/13474685725 but I also found some from later which could give interesting weathering potential. https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanwz581/7053853941/ http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7059/6992823315_a540e27778_b.jpg http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1206067/ I've given it some consideration but decided I can't bring myself to do it and I'm going to go for the clean scheme. Is the nose cone on the Hunter painted or is it pre-coloured material? On some of the pictures I've looked at of XF526 the nose cone appears to be fading slightly to a brown colour and I might try and replicate this. Thanks, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 (edited) When we left England, I (iadvertantly) left a box of kits in the attic which amongst other things included a 1/32 Echelon Hunter T7. By the time I discovered that it was missing ( several months later ) and contacted the guy who had bought the house, he told me that he had thrown the box away. I have regretted it ever since, as the T7 is my favourite mark of the Hunter. Looking forward to seeing it with some paint. John PS I think the nose cone was a synthetic rubbery type of material, moulded as a single piece. Edited July 3, 2015 by Biggles87 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikesmodels Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 I had to use filler on mine in the same places you have, so it must be the kit and not the builder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now