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Another Airfix starter kit project


Col.

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Hello gang :bye: A little late to the party but with other projects kicking my head I was hoping a rather straightforward secondary model would help my mojo. Cue a Hurricane from the 72nd scale Airfix starter set bought from Aldi. Why a Hurricane in particular? Well I've always liked the Hurricane and preferred it to the more glamorous Spitfire but a look at my current model collection would make you think otherwise; there are no less than 8 Spitfire/Seafire on display to 0 Hurricane. This wasn't always so. In the more prolific modelling days of my late teens and early 20s I had a good few Hurricanes built but alas none have survived. Now seems as good a time as any to change that.

Armed with this,

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I'd like, with a prop and spinner from the Spitfire I kit along with various spare decals, to make this,

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and have got so far as doing this today,

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After thinning down the wing trailing edges I added the undercarriage bay walls. As seems to be typical with new Airfix kits each part needed some material removed from its edges to promote a better fit but it's all gone together without too much fuss. Just what I need :)

Here unfortunately the progress ground to a halt. You see the starter kit instructions tell you to paint the various internal bits in either Hu30, 33, or 90. Now fair enough that's three of the four colours provided in the set but I'm certain they are, with the exception of the Hu33 black, wrong. Therefore I've spent a bit of time looking at other Hurricane models to see what you've all been doing with them. Seems silver and the ubiquitous Hu78 cockpit green is more in keeping with the real machine. Maybe tomorrow...

Edited by Col.
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nice start - same progress as me and have ground to a halt to do the interior painting "correctly" (based on other posts on here)......

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I've got the gift set boxing and one of the standard boxings and the colour call-outs are different. It should be mostly Cockpit Green in the cockpit with Aluminium metalwork and Aluminium in the wheel wells. There's plenty of correct builds going on on here to get a better colour match from.

Good to see another of these kits underway Col.

Kind regards,

Stix

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Thank you Rob and Stix. Been having a read around several other threads on the GB and also found several photos on-line that have clarified things :D

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Took a moment to get the filler over those extra fabric panels on the upper wing. A good layer of Green Stuff covered the worst but now it's on to the Fill, Sand, Repeat game,

20160305_094253.jpg

Think my next trick will be doing something with the awful seat.

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I am afraid, but you got it wrong. Removing the fabric wing imitation behind the gun opening is correct, but the part next to the fuselage is fabric!

Hurricane17sqdamaged_zps9106b20e.jpg

The fabric imitation in the front of the gun panel has to be removed as well, as it isn't fabric either.

I just bring it up so that others don't follow your example. I hope you don't mind.

Think my next trick will be doing something with the awful seat.

What is awful on this seat? I think it is actually better than their 1/48 version. The only thing it needs is to thin down the sides and open the slot in the backrest with a drill, both quick tasks.

At least you have the slot location represented. in the 1/48 new tool kit it got completely missed.

Cheers, Peter

Edited by Basilisk
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I am afraid, but you got it wrong. Removing the fabric wing imitation behind the gun opening is correct, but the part next to the fuselage is fabric!

Hurricane17sqdamaged_zps9106b20e.jpg

The fabric imitation in the front of the gun panel has to be removed as well, as it isn't fabric either.

I just bring it up so that others don't follow your example. I hope you don't mind.

What is awful on this seat? I think it is actually better than their 1/48 version. The only thing it needs is to thin down the sides and open the slot in the backrest with a drill, both quick tasks.

At least you have the slot location represented. in the 1/48 new tool kit it got completely missed.

Cheers, Peter

I don't mind at all Peter and thank you for posting such a useful photo as evidence. I've since removed the incorrectly placed filler after realising the error while looking through my references on another point :oops:

As for the seat, I didn't think much of the pan area being a solid lump rather than showing the scoop of its bucket shape so cut the bottom off and replaced it with thin plastic sheet curved to shape. I've also added a set of Eduard etched seatbelts since I had them anyway along with a scratch-built instrument panel due to my dislike of the Airfix decal for this. Photos to follow :)

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Glad to hear that you could correct it. It will be interesting to see how your modified seat looks like. But I would think after you added the seat belts to the seat, little of this modification will be visible.

Cheers, Peter

Edited by Basilisk
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Must admit I was initially reluctant to modify the seat and did suspect it would disappear inside the cockpit, particularly if the hood was shut, then I came upon a simple fix of cutting the middle of the base out to leave only the sides and plate some pre-shaped thin plastic sheet on instead. This proved a simple solution and got me over the 'I know it's wrong even if no-one else in this world can see it' problem. Once the seat was glued to the rear armour plate and cockpit structure I opened out the hole to feed a set of Eduard etched metal Sutton seat belts through.

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That and a new scratch-built instrument panel to get over my 'I hate decal instrument panels 'cause they look too flat and basic on the decal sheet regardless of how effective they are buried in a tiny dark cockpit for no-one else to see' problem proved sufficient messing around in there.

I've since glued the fuselage together and added the wings and tail parts. The wing needed some persuasion to close up various gaps and the underfuselage part required a little trimming to prompt a good fit.

At this point I'd like to show you pictures of this work but since Photobucket is sulking that will have to wait :badmood:

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Seat looking good Col and agree with your view on decal instrument panels. And yeh photobucket is utter pants!

Thank you Tom. Here's that instrument panel now that Photobucket is in the mood to let me show my own photos.

20160307_173610.jpg

Needless to say I can't show last night's further progress but the wings and tail parts have been added to the fuselage and all blended in with a little bit of filler in places. Once Photobucket climbs down from its latest tantrum I'll show you :)

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The seat and cockpit are looking very good Col. :goodjob:

I'm not going to worry too much about detail in the one I'm having in flight but I'm going to improve the cockpit in the other so I just might 'borrow' your seat idea. Ta. :thumbsup:

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The seat and cockpit are looking very good Col. :goodjob:

I'm not going to worry too much about detail in the one I'm having in flight but I'm going to improve the cockpit in the other so I just might 'borrow' your seat idea. Ta. :thumbsup:

Thanks Stix and borrow away my friend. Glad I can be of some small service to your project :)

So the big bits got stuck together,

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...then some little bits got made, rudder control rods first,

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...followed by various braces and actuating rods for the radiator bath since I'd stretched the sprue and got a suitable sized drill bit out,

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So here endeth today's update other than to say next on the scratch-building list is a gunsight - since Airfix couldn't be bothered with in either this kit or their Spitfire Mk I/IIa which I looked in thinking I'd be clever and steal out of since it's going to be a PR version some day - and a set of wingtip lights.

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Thanks lads :)

Got a few more bits done last night. Wingtip lights first; the grey plastic section as moulded was cut away and replaced with a section of the kits clear sprue, had a 'bulb' drilled into it and painted green for one side and red for the other, then filed and sanded and polished with Micromesh.

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With those done a gunsight was next. Made from discs of plastic sheet and some clear plastic that was kicking around the workbench

20160315_080604.jpg

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Was up at stupid o'clock this morning so dry-brushed the gunsight I'd painted last night then painted the interior framing of the windscreen. The latter is silver by the way; there's a thread on BM with photos of a Gloster built Hurricane which shows this well :)

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The de Havilland prop and spinner has since been liberated from an Airfix Spitfire I/IIa for this one but will require some modifications to fit so that's next task on the list.

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Then brown :yawn: and green, Hu29 and 116 respectively,

20160322_102927.jpg

Once they were dry I dry-brushed Hu26 over the brown fabric areas in an attempt to represent the fading that can be seen in some photos

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Not sure what I'll use to fade the green fabric areas yet.

In hindsight I should have used a different method; after the Hu29 I should have masked off the metal sections and sprayed the lighter Hu26 brown thinly, then removed the masks to mask for and spray the Hu116 then re-apply the masks for the metal areas to spray the lighter green. At the moment I feel not only have I painted myself into a corner and will have difficulty dry-brushing the second green cleanly without contaminating the brown but the overall effect will be too subtle. Time will tell.

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nice... I am looking at how to shade mine when it is done - I do have True Earth fading filters so may try them - should do both the green & the brown ....

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Hi Col. Looking very good. One way that I have seen done elsewhere is to varnish the fabric areas with matt varnish and the metallic areas with satin or gloss varnish. It seemed to give a good impression of the different materials involved.

Kind regards,

Stix

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