Nomore Shelfspace Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Folks, Just started this build... or conversion, as in converting an Olde Ayrfyxe Kytte into something that looks like what it's supposed to be. My intention here is to build the Battle Target Tug no. 6 of an "unknown unit" in Canada in 1940, as on the Xtradecal sheet X72143 "Commonwealth Trainers". Nice sheet. I am following the In Progress article here started by Sprue, being too lazy to try to get my own plans... First job on an olde Ayrfyxe, off with the rivets, in with an interior, and off with the bits that are wrong! Seat is actually from a discarded Hobby Boss T-6 and stick is scratchbuilt. The original one looks more like a DF loop. Kept the fuselage halves loose until all the cutting and bits were added. Not much to see here... The nose job. The kit nose is too short and I think too square, so spacer made of styrene bar and work with file and sanding (wet or dry on a rubber block, or old decorators foam sanding block!) takes care of all that. Humbrol putty is like concrete but works well. Oh yeah, the wings. Reprofiled with sheet... On with the concrete - I mean putty... File and wet sand, more putty thinned with cellulose thinner... Jump cut to the wheels! The kit wheels are weedy so I did what Sprue did and use some old 1/48 wheels (probably off a Hurricane though)... trouble is they are a bit big. So; I jerry rigged a lathe out of my rotary tool and reduced them with file and wet or dry. Finished one in foreground. Undercarriage legs are now wrong shape to I made new ones out of plastic coated steel wire and scrap. I got this stuff from EMA/Plastruct and it's quite useful. More when I can get round to it! 4
Martian Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 This looks like it will be a really interesting build. Despite its' inaccuracies, it is still one of my favourite Airfix kit from my youth. Martin
Nomore Shelfspace Posted September 3, 2015 Author Posted September 3, 2015 OK, state of play as of Sept. 3rd 2015...! It's at that "starting to look like a Fairey Battle" stage. I've rescribed the major structural details using an Olfa knife. My Squadron scriber went blunt rather fast and I never replaced it... I'm starting to use an old Nikon D70 SLR for these photos - my trusty Panasonic compact is good but won't give me the picture size I actually want without having to resize every blinkin' photo or put up with 640 by 480.... Whereas the D70 can be set to its small picture size and this is what you see here. Thought I'd find a use for it... The browny grey on the wings is Humbrol light grey enamel used to seal the "Perfect Putty" used for final surfacing - which is porous and can be wiped off with wet stuff even when dry... has its uses but probably not for hard surface finishing... 2
JWM Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 Nice work! - I am interesting to see result. I did my Battle with shape correction many years ago - but I have feeling that I had to change also leading edge in wing, not only tailing one....But perhaps my memory is playing a game with me.... Here is mine result: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234970039-fairey-battle-airfix-172-reshaped/ I am keeping my fingers crossed for you Cheers Jerzy-Wojtek
Martian Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 You have made quite a difference with that re-shaping! Martin
Sten Ekedahl Posted September 3, 2015 Posted September 3, 2015 (edited) IIRC there were a couple (4?) of square openings in the top decking between the front and rear pits, to give some daylight to the poor sod sitting down there. Could be worth adding these to add some life to that area beneath that large greenhouse canopy. Edited September 3, 2015 by Sten Ekedahl
Vulcanicity Posted September 4, 2015 Posted September 4, 2015 Crikey, you crazy chap. Serious kudos for tackling this old monster. You'll have fun getting all those yellow and black zigzags to match up. I vividly remember doing this with an MPM kit a few years back!
Nomore Shelfspace Posted September 4, 2015 Author Posted September 4, 2015 IIRC there were a couple (4?) of square openings in the top decking between the front and rear pits, to give some daylight to the poor sod sitting down there. Could be worth adding these to add some life to that area beneath that large greenhouse canopy. Yes, I started to make these but after finding better reference realised they were oblong, along the length of the fuselage, so filled them in - so I will probably represent them with gloss black decal - it would be hard to cut openings sharply enough. Crikey, you crazy chap. Serious kudos for tackling this old monster. You'll have fun getting all those yellow and black zigzags to match up. I vividly remember doing this with an MPM kit a few years back! Must admit I am going into the "wasp" finish with blind optimism! Should be fun masking it anyway...
Nomore Shelfspace Posted September 4, 2015 Author Posted September 4, 2015 Nice work! - I am interesting to see result. I did my Battle with shape correction many years ago - but I have feeling that I had to change also leading edge in wing, not only tailing one....But perhaps my memory is playing a game with me.... Here is mine result: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234970039-fairey-battle-airfix-172-reshaped/ I am keeping my fingers crossed for you Cheers Jerzy-Wojtek I haven't seen any mention of alterations to the leading edge, everything I've read says the trailing/aileron profile is the area needing work. That's a pretty good Battle you've done there anyway! 1
Nomore Shelfspace Posted November 6, 2015 Author Posted November 6, 2015 After many months I return with some actual progress! 1. Airbrush Revell (NOT Humbug-Rol) trainer yellow. Some "sandy" texture so sand this down with fine wet or dry. Not sure why the WB went greeny on this one but still... 2. A coat of Klear and figuring out where the stripes go. I though because I could alter my paintwork, but not the decals, I'd use them as a benchmark... The underside is left "blank" because I could find no clear reference for it. I used the Hasegawa scribing template - intended for Gundams I think - as a flexible "rule". 3. I found I could paint the stripes by hand using Tamiya tape as a mask - this took MUCH longer than masking-it-all-out-then-airbrush but the Revell (Not Humbug-Rol) "Email Color" ([email protected]?) brushed very nicely, thank you Mr Humbrol. 4. Painted the canopy framing by hand (helped by the very nice REVELL paint, Mr Humbrol!), then another Klear coat and on with the Xtradecals. The underside numbers didn't line up perfectly but it's not the end of my career... 5. Here it is basically together. I couldn't find a single decal big enough for that huge fin flash, so here you see a coat of matt white (admittedly Humbrol) - I will piece together a fin flash from the Xtradecal sheet with the early-war roundels on it (can't recall the number). The canopy is the kit one and looks it, but I wasn't going to spend more than the cost of the kit to get the Falcon vac-form set then only use one canopy out of it! This project has not been that easy... it's probably more akin to bashing together a very rough short-run. The stripes were a major headache as they have to go in exactly the right places, furthermore some of them were on the real plane different widths/distances apart! But I'm not trying to win contests with it, I just wanted to build a Battle target tug...! 13
woody37 Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 Cracking demonstration of what can be done to this old bird
Rich G Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 Lovely work, when it's done it won't look anything like the original Airfix offering which can only be a good thing, job well done!! Rich
old thumper Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 This looks like an epic project, when I built this kit I thought about altering the shape but realised there was so much wrong that I decided against it. It looks very good indeed, I just hope for you that after all that hard graft Airfix don't announce the release of a new tool at Telford on Saturday.
Brandy Posted November 6, 2015 Posted November 6, 2015 Very nice indeed. Well worth the extra work. Ian
Nomore Shelfspace Posted November 10, 2015 Author Posted November 10, 2015 Calling all Battle blokes and Fairey fans, this aeroplane shaped lump of plastic is now finished and on the Ready for Inspection pages!! Over and out. 1
bigbadbadge Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Wow, great work, some great info there and will be very useful when I build mine, thanks for sharing, great tip for the wheels too. All the bestChris
Martian Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Looking good ow, it will look fantastic when finished. Martin
Sosezi Posted December 14, 2018 Posted December 14, 2018 Lovely "BEE" colored Tug always loved that scheme Cheers!
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