A pair of Airfix Hawks in 1/72. Finished.

[Fritag]

1 hour ago, giemme said:

Out of curiosity,  why fitting them before weathering? 

 

A few reasons really G.

 

Firstly, when retracted the flaps are (obvs.) an integral part of the wing and form part of the upper and lower surface of the wing, as such any weathering I do on the wings ought really to continue seamlessly onto the flaps.

 

Secondly, fitting the flaps involved a lot of handling of the aircraft; and it seemed better to do that with the gloss coat on and prior to weathering.

 

And thirdly - and maybe most significantly - it was a PITA job that I just wanted to get out of the way! 

 

Anyway, both Hawks now have both flaps (in pretty short order; O, ye of little faith Terry ).  And that's a pretty big step towards completion taken.

 

(I quite like this view of Valley Hawk).

 

 

The pair.

 

 

I said it was fiddly.

 

I glued a couple of location guides to each side.  Knocked together out of some 0.25 x 0.5mm plastic strip.  They didn't have to be super neat as they wouldn't really be visible after fitting the flaps.  But to be fair, I should have worked out some sort of attachment mechanism for the flaps ages ago.  I just didn't really want to think about it  

 

 

Those guides then gave me something definite to position the leading edge of the flaplets against; following which it was a question of fiddling the flap into the best position and holding it in place with some Tamiya tape for fixing.

 

 

For fixing I used printing resin applied with a cyano applicator

 

 

Wicked along abutting surfaces on the underside and then cured with a UV torch.  Just a small section first, to tack the flaps in place, so I could double check the positioning, and then more resin wicked along all touching surfaces and cured.

 

 

Seems to have resulted in a good sound fix.  I'll still have to be careful not to knock the flaps, but it's a stronger join than I'd feared.

 

Undercarriage and undercarriage doors will go on after weathering as will the various blade aerials (which I'll go back into Fusion and draw and print).

 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Fritag
Typo

[giemme]

8 minutes ago, Fritag said:

A few reasons really G.

 

Firstly, when retracted the flaps are (obvs.) an integral part of the wing and form part of the upper and lower surface of the wing, as such any weathering I do on the wings ought really to continue seamlessly onto the flaps.

 

Secondly, fitting the flaps involved a lot of handling of the aircraft; and it seemed better to do that with the gloss coat on and prior to weathering.

 

And thirdly - and maybe most significantly - it was a PITA job that I just wanted to get out of the way! 

Fair enough   

 

Both looking splendid, BTW     

Ciao

[81-er]

They're looking great with the flaps on, Steve

 

James

[Terry1954]

53 minutes ago, Fritag said:

Anyway, both Hawks now have both flaps (in pretty short order; O, ye of little faith Terry )

 

Wow, pretty short order indeed .......... faith restored ................ although it was never really in doubt apart from my initial glance at the second shot of 263 when I thought "he's reversed the pictures to pretend port and starboard sides are done".

But then, being a very sharp eyed individual, with such an eye for give away details, after studying both in depth for some considerable time, I began very slowly to spot just one or two tiny tell tale signs in the pictures, that convinced me they were in fact different pictures after all .............🙃

 

Seriously nice job all round, and fixing with the printing resin and curing lamp makes me think it might be a far less stressful technique than superglue. 

 

T.

[Serkan Sen]

Both look great Steve!

Serkan

[Brandy]

22 hours ago, 81-er said:

he's actually got a shrink-ray, and just shrinks himself 

How big do you think he is to start with?

 

Ian

[perdu]

These do look very, er, proper job Steve I love 'em even more.

 

Terry anything upto and including red hot rivets are a better method than superglue, why do you think I usually refer to the vile substance as stuporgoo?

[Galligraphics]

Blimey - looking lovely (not that we had any doubt that they would). Does this mean that they might be completed by Christmas???!

[The Spadgent]

Nice flappage dear boy. 👏👏👏

 

Jont. 

[hendie]

I've been quietly following along when I could whilst on my combined sabbatical/leave of absence (with just a tad of AWOL), and now that I am back I find I haven't got any words to describe the level of sheer mastery going on here.  It's the jet lag. Honest.

The best I can muster right now is bloody marvelous.

 

 

 

 

[woody37]

Looking great seeing them come together Steve, this is the bit where it all gets exciting!

 

Looking forwards to seeing them finished later this evening

 

[bigbadbadge]

Lovely work on those Flaps Steve, they look fantastic. 

Chris 

[TheBaron]

Totally flapped. 

And with the usual poise and precision. 👏

[Fritag]

Time to turn the attention to the TWU Hawk as the Valley Hawk has probably (but never say never) received all the limited weathering it should have; and been given a semi-gloss coat with a flat coat on the black section of the nose and and I’ve unmasked the windscreen (clear section needs a polish). 

 

Further weathering has been limited to some dark wash along the aileron and rudder join lines and the ram air turbine doors and in the home-brew etch grills (they were worth the effort I think) on the top of the fuselage and in the NACA ducts (punched in with a hot brass former - remember?), some light airflow staining on the flaps and from the undercarriage bay and VGs and even lighter such staining from a few selected panels (so light it hasn’t really shown up in the photo’s).

 

I’ve looked hard at photo’s to see if I could make a case for emphasising various panels and/or fading/dirtying the wings and fuselage - but they kept em clean for real and so I’d better do the same.  Somewhat disappointed, but I’ll live.

 

One curious feature of some Valley Hawks - including 176 - was a yellowy discolouration on the panels at the front of the fin (possibly some sort of protective coat?).  It shows up clearly on the photo of 176 on page 1 of this thread and on the excellent Squadron print of 176.   I’ve attempted to recreate it using an ochre oil wash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, she goes back to bed for a bit now and I’ll see if I’m happy with her after a bit of time has elapsed.

 

Then it’ll be adding the various bits and bobs and sub assemblies like the jet pipe, some other smaller exhaust pipes, aerials, undercarriage legs and doors and canopy and nav lights and that’ll be it.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Fritag

[Hamden]

 

Absolutely stunning Hawk looking forward to seeing the TWU Hawk reach the same stage now

 

     Stay safe              Roger

[bigbadbadge]

Phwoar, what a beauty,  looks absolutely stunning. 

Great work

Chris

[CedB]

Wot they said - stunning! 

[hendie]

wonderfully restrained weathering. Just as it should be.   

[81-er]

Superb work there, Steve!

 

James

[perdu]

Blimey

[Terry1954]

She looks pretty damn good from down here in Dorset, if not a little dead in those last two pics 🤭

 

T.

[Brandy]

Looks to be about as good as it gets 

Subtle but definitely there.

 

Ian 

[keefr22]

9 hours ago, Fritag said:

Ok, she goes back to bed for a bit now and I’ll see if I’m happy with her after a bit of time has elapsed.

 

That's another 18 months to go on the thread then....  

 

Absolutely luverly 'awk Steve, beautiful jet!

 

Keith

[Cookenbacher]

On 11/16/2022 at 7:28 AM, Fritag said:

I quite like this view of Valley Hawk

So did you take that pic with a time traveling drone? How did you deal with the wind buffet?

[Fritag]

 

4 hours ago, Brandy said:

Subtle but definitely there.

 

7 hours ago, hendie said:

wonderfully restrained weathering.

 

Tried to be subtle and restrained - it’s always hard to know when to stop i’n’t it? But the jets were kept so bl**dy neat and tidy…

 

21 minutes ago, Cookenbacher said:

So did you take that pic with a time traveling drone?

 

Ha.  But you have me an idea Cookie.  I took two almost identical photo’s.  One before and one after weathering.  

 

Before

 

 

After:

 

 

Spot the difference? Not much; I call that jolly restrained 

 

Can play a tad more on TWU Hawk; albeit not WW2 levels of wear!

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Fritag