Fairey Fulmar 1:48 MPM ............. progress....its not a dirty word!

[tonyot]

Really nice scratch building going on there,......I`m very jealous! Keep up the great work,

Tony

[bigbadbadge]

Wow, amazing work, looks fantastic and the Skua looks lovely too.

Keep up this inspirational work

All the best
Chris

[Navy Bird]

Nice craftsmanship so far! This is giving me some ideas for my 1:72 kit that is languishing in my stash...

Cheers,

Bill

[moaning dolphin]

Well I have been slacking on this project, it slipped down 4 pages! So best I post an update. Not alot was achieved due to a wet weekend away with my sons soccer, although it wasn't all wasted as he was invited to join a Nova Scotian high performance camp for the U13 squad! Just hope he remembers my 1:200 Nelson when he get his first $500,000 a week pay check! Although by then I am hoping a 1:200 Ark Royal is out as well! Anyway I managed to get something done yesterday. Just a little work on the radiator intake. The kit is quite 'square' where it meets the fuselage and in reality it is more rounded. So I mixed up a tiny amount of Milliput, rolled it out and pushed it in, then with a wet coffee stick I moulded it in and tried to round it off. This is comparing the two sides:

When dry i'll give it a rub down and blend it in. I can't understand however that no matter how little an amount of MP I mix up I will always end up with a ball the size of a marble left over!

Also the back of the intake is flat, but looking at the FAA museum example it is very much rounded. That example is a Mk2 but I can't find any evidence of a MK 1 being different inside. I've tried to look for a decent photo but during the war years 'walkarounds' weren't a phots top priority! So I took my half round and blended the back end

Looking at the first picture the effect is not profound but it is a compromise between the two.

Next is was back to the left outer wing (will I ever get that one finished!). After fitting the main lamp, i fitted the cover which wasnt great so that needed a bit of blending and filling which gave me this!

Its a bit of a mess but with a bit of 600 wetndry

and then perservering with Micro mesh up to 8000 I ended up with something more see through

I will give it a gloss coat finish but I don't want it too clear as the covers did get quite a buffering from the airflow and weren't crystal clear. The same method was applied to the nav lights. The forward one had a full recess which I painted clear red and the rear was solid so I drilled a hole and filled that with red to represent a red bulb. Unfortunately the rear one fell off to over rigourous polishing so that had to be reaffixed.

Finally I started chopping out the rear of the right main wing to match the left side:

You will notice that they are a mirror image of each other as it should be. This is attempt no.2! Attempt no 1 was a direct copy and hence needed removing and starting again! Luckily I didn't get too far!

And the two side by side, inverted.

Thats all for now, hopefully I'll find a bit more time tonight

Cheers now

Bob

[Martian]

Super detail work!

Martin

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Excellent. I am pretty sure the Mk1 & Mk2 chin intakes were identical; I certainly haven't been able to find any evidence to the contrary.

[moaning dolphin]

Super detail work!

Martin

Thanks!

Excellent. I am pretty sure the Mk1 & Mk2 chin intakes were identical; I certainly haven't been able to find any evidence to the contrary.

Thats what I suspected!

Work continues at a pace slower than a snail, sat in reverse going backwards! I hoped to get alot done yesterday but the sun was shining so I had a go at a bit of 1:1 diorama building. It went together alright but I am not convinced with the foliage colour, looks far to green

Those pine needles were a right pain to paint, and I think I over did it with the weeds!

But alas back to my little Fairey. Not much to report, I smoothed and filed the chin intake and then added a bit of piping to the rear. I am happy overall but the rear of the intake should be much rounder. I could have built it up more but though that if it doesn't come out symmetrical it would look silly, so compromised and went for a more refined look.

and then had a practice fit on the aircraft, the front will need a little bit of a fill and rub down but looks ok.

I have some nice etch to go in there which should look quite nice when I finish.

The starboard wing is now coming along, I have been building up the fold areas, still a way to go but at least it is moving forward.

Just trying to keep it as close to the port side as possible to ensure it looks right. I also filled in a bit more of the stbd wing root. This still needs chopping down a bit and blending in but hopefully you get the idea

Finally I turned to the canopy. The thing I love about the Fulmar is its canopy. During the design they must have thought about us modellers who wish to do our own masks and kept the cut outs as lovelly squares, Oh the joy! As this was reletively simple, I decided to mask the inside. I did this on my Skua and it work fine. I prefer this as it takes away that gloss look when you just coat the outside. I also lopped of the front windscreen so that I can display this open. I will also look at the rear canopy to see if I can do the same with this one. Any hoo this is the primed stage.

Thats all for now. I am hoping to be at a stage where everything can be primed next week, but we shall have to see. Weather is pants so that is yard work out the window then

Bob

[Martian]

This is fast becoming the best Fulmar I have seen anywhere, in any scale.

Martin

[Brandy]

Just caught up with this one, very nicely done indeed, it should be a stunner when finished!

Ian

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Great stuff; the chin intake is a big improvement

[moaning dolphin]

Howdy again all, this is just a token catch up to show that work is carrying on albeit slooooooooowly. At the moment most of my energies are going into my Renown build as part of the Non-Injection group build, and as that finishes at the end of the month I dont want that to be another failure. I must be around a 50% success rate so need to bump up my stats abit!

I have just been doing a little on the undercarriage and filling in around fillets. I am hoping to get a good go at the starboard fold area soon so that I can get some primer down. All I've got at the moment is etching on the U/C doors. Just to show progress:

This is the original door which isnt too shabby, and then removed all the moulded detail and the plonked on some etch et violla

I think it is a marked improvement, the other door was done as was the inner doors. Just need to prime them and then we are good to go. You can also see the back of the radiator flap in etch as well. I have set this up with actuating rods so that you can see that as well

I was hoping to get my airbrush up and running very soon after I damaged my new replacement nozzle within 2 days! So I ordered it from Amazon for $12 but it was free delivery if over $25. Bargain I thought I'll spend an extra $13 to save around $2.50 in postage. So I got myself a new Airfix Sabre but that only brought it up to $24.50. I didn't want to get a bigger kit as that would negate the postage saving (I know I have already negated that but I lost that plot ages ago!). So I had a look for something small to take me over that magical $25 mark. Do you know how hard it is to find something for 50 cents on Amazon! I managed to find a screw for a dollar which meant I could now save 3.50 on postage....Hooooorah!

Put the order in, paid for it and then left it. Next day checked order status, expected delivery 5th October !!!!! The airbrush and kit were in stock but I had upto a 3 month wait for my screw! OH FHT!! Why did I bother lol

Any hoo hopefully I will have that a bit earlier than stated but there is still much to do!

Laters

Bob

*FHT - A non sweary curse from the good old days of 80's BBC kids telly

[moaning dolphin]

At last another update! I trawled the depths of this forum and managed to drag this back up!

I got to the point where I was ready for primer and gave everything a good coat, checked for flaws, rubbed them down, primed again and all was perfect so started setting up for a bit of colour. Then I accidentelly took it for a bounce test, right on its nose! It did actually bounce quite well and i thought I got away with it until on closer inspection

With a bit of bent protrusions

They will need to be replaced. I did think they were a bit flat so will use a bit of plasticard and rod to replace them. Also I have a very inoculous rattle in the back cockpit but cant tell what it is as it all masked up! So the suspension is killing me. I think it may be the Observers seat but it will have to wait. So I will have some gentle canopy removal to carry out

So this delayed things with a small repair, and on closer inspection I noticed something else, can you spot it?

And finally corrective action taken!

Hmmmmm, thankfully I have alot of micro mesh to polish them up.

So eventually I ended up with this ready for some colour

But when I started humidity was up to 94% and temperatures in the 30's so initially it went on poorly, so I had to wait another week or so for humidty to drop and this is half way through and I have the DSGish applied

And finally I am at this stage. Masking removed, ready for a couple coats of gloss. The white on the fin is for the flash decal although if I don't like it I will just paint it.

The sky grey is my own mix of sky and light sea grey, the DSG is slightly lightened RLM 70 which I think is a good match for DSG. I was going to lighten some RLM 71 to represent a lightened slate grey but unfortunately I ran out of white! So just went for plain RLM71. I think it looks ok, once weathered and matted should look alright.

Thats all for now, hopefully wont be so long til the next update.

Cheers now

Bob

[hendie]

trials and tribulations huh ?

Good recovery though and it's looking very nice indeed

[Martian]

Its looking fab with some paint on!

Martin

[bigbadbadge]

Wow looks stunning, you are a very patient man too after the setbacks. Keep up the very good work.

All the best

Chris​

[heloman1]

Oooooops, good save with the rear fus, it's coming along very nicely.

Colin

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Brilliant recovery, and she looks the business his. There's something rather sweet about the Fulmar - for the RN's top-scoring fighter if the war, it looks... well, mostly harmless (to quote Douglas Adams).

[harrison90]

This is super work. Love following this build.

Cheers,

Harrison

[Nigel Heath]

I have been know to give some of my models a drop test, generally not recommended - good recovery though.

[moaning dolphin]

Thanks for the encouragement, I seem to be getting through this build quite nicely now. I have now decaled and the next pic is the panel wash process. I normally use my own mix from pastels but thought I would try the 'Promodeller' wash (Now Flory's I think). I wanted a lighter more refined panel line as opposed to a bold solid black line. I'm not too sure on this stuff, I have tried to make it work and it goes on ok and looks just right when wet but dries quite light. I persevered and this is the in progress!

So then after a good clean off it was out with the matt varnish and then the big reveal!. I assembled all the parts loosely and this is what I have

I was a bit disappointed with the inside of the observers cabin glazing. I did hope that it was seal enough against dust and other crap but alas close up it looks a bit pants

And also I have to investigate that 'rattle'! I can see a small bit of plasticard from when I was experimenting with the wing folds but there is more rattling around. I will pop off the middle canopy to investigate and then that will give me a chance to clean up the insides of the windows. Just hope I didn't secure them that well!

That's all for now, next will be undercarriage and props, then it will be the job of assembling the wings complete with all the braces!

Edit: not forgetting to sort the control rods for the flap assemblies as well!

Later!

Bob

[hendie]

looks excellent!

[Martian]

Its looking fab!

Martin

[AdrianMF]

Looks superb. That canopy framing looks so sharp even under magnification. When Fairey did wing folds they certainly didn't mess around with half measures! Not so much folding as "crumpling up"...

Regards,

Adrian

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Excellent; I think the understated panel line wash has worked well.

I am also starting to see where the Barracuda wing fold - the mother of all crumpling-up - had its ancestry!

[moaning dolphin]

Good day all and welcome to the next installment. Not a big one this time but at least there is continual progress.

First up was that incessant rattle from the previous drop test. I carefully opended up the rear fuselage to investigate. No major visible damage (phew!), so gave it a little shake and out poped a bit of plasticard from my main wing attachment tab Mk1 failure. Cool! gave it another shake an lo and behold she still rattles, the floor is a bit loose as well but that will have to just sit there, but what was rattling, lets play spot the difference!

Before

After

Now I am not sure what the flight implications of having 2 oxygen bottles rattling around the airframe are but they are not coming out! and I don't intend to do to much shaking to get them out so as this is folded, it is therefore stowed in the hangar undergoing an oxygen bottle change as the originals are lifex and the maintainers are on standeasy having tidied their tools away!

Back to progress (of a sort), I painted and fixed up the prop which looked nice and then loosly fitted it in place. But then the spinner came off so reattached it but a little glue seeped out the side so I just wiped it out the way

Doh indeed. I had painted the spinner in enamel but smeared over acrylic. I hoped that as it had a couple of layers of matt and gloss that I could use a tiny bit of humbrol thinners and wipe it away, and then I ended up with this

Who'd have thunk it, It wiped away nice and easily and didn't show any undue effect to the paint finish below, that Model master acrylic must be made of sterner stuff, or else Humbrol enamel is weak as pee!

Next I concentrated on the landing gear as I want this fitted before I even think about lining up those wings, although I don't know if it would be easier without. I guess there is only one way to find out! The parts have been sprayed in sky. The doors same shade as the airframe but as I had ran out of that mix I used just normal sky on the rest. It should blend in all right as it has a dirty wash and any hoo the undercarriage is normally a differing look to the rest of the airframe (in my opinion!)

The undercarriage bay will have a little tidy up to get rid of the bubble effects but will essentially be a bit grimy. Also not sure if I have the wheel hubs correct. I have opted for sky but the FAA museum has an ally colour, if anyone has some cast iron evidence it would be appreciated before I glue the wheels on!

And here she is with her legs fitted, looking a little like a beefcake on chicken legs at the moment but that will change when I build them up more

And one last shot of where she will eventually sit once finished, next to her just as asthetically pleasing sister. I know in another post I called the Barra pig ugly but even some pigs are cute!

So that is progress so far, slow but sure. I am trying not to get too bogged down in this build so invariably I have started several other builds ( It did start as one other but that has grown!) but progress will continue, once wheels are on, it will be the wings and then finally the locking mechanisms, just need to remember to do the aluminium of the wing folds BEFORE I build it all up!

Thanks for looking

Bob