Special Hobby Seafire 45

[Col.]

Given this GB has been running for over a month now it's high time I contributed something to it. Having a rummage through the stash uncovered several candidates including this one;

Bought at the Glasgow Model Show last year so not been lingering in the stash too long. I opened the box to have a look at the contents and before long had this,

and this,

Undercarriage wells built up and then the seat mounting frame got its lightening holes drilled out, seatbelt slot opened, and armour plate fitted. Not bad for half an hour.

Main reason I picked this kit is for the level of detail in areas such as the wheel wells and the 'pit,

Now I know it'll not be a Tamiya or Hasegawa type shake-the-box-and-a-model-suddenly-comes-out kit but not having to scratch-build every detail is going to help me make some progress here hopefully.

[Biggles87]

That moulded cockpit detail looks good.

Looking forward to this.

John

[gingerbob]

Nifty, and glad to see you working on something appropriate!

bob

[Col.]

That moulded cockpit detail looks good.

Looking forward to this.

John

The detail does indeed look good and only needs some minor additions to be complete.

Nifty, and glad to see you working on something appropriate!

bob

Thanks Bob. I'm blaming you for shaming me into it

[Giorgio N]

May have been a late start but it's a very good one!

I'm also glad to see another less common variant built here

[Col.]

May have been a late start but it's a very good one!

I'm also glad to see another less common variant built here

Thanks Giorgio. It was coming down to a straight choice between the 45 and a 48th scale XV towards the end since neither were getting any attention in the GB when this one suddenly started going together

[Col.]

Had an hour to myself last night so made some minor additions to the 'pit.

The throttle cables took most time but are such a distinctive, if almost invisible in 72nd scale, that I was determined to add them. Fishing line superglued around the moulded detail then fed through a fuse-wire guide to disappear behind the instrument panel. Hopefully more visible after painting and dry-brushing. Same with the undercarriage selector on the right side-wall. I did consider adding a few wires to the right side-wall but ran out of time.

Next issue I've suddenly thought of is the lack of structure or detail behind the pilot's seat frame. While most of it will not be seen a representation should be worth putting into place.

[Col.]

Spent a little time on the kit seat so here's how it looks at the moment;

[Giorgio N]

Some well executed details here, really good considering the scale.. The flare gun cartridges rack is very neat, hard to believe it's only 4 mm long...

[Spud]

This looks like it will be a cracker!

[Col.]

After thinking the seat was done I remembered about the shallow depression in the middle of the seat so set about creating that

A set of hopefully suitable seatbelts was dug out

and glued on to make this

Edited April 30, 2016 by Col.

[snapper_city]

Looking good so far.

[Col.]

Looking good so far.

Thanks. Hopefully the rate of progress will improve over the next couple of days

[Col.]

Minor progress. The interior was painted black using Colourcoats paint from Sovereign Hobbies then progressively dry-brushed various shades of lighter greys to highlight the detail. The seat cushion and spade grip then got a coat of satin black and a dry-brush with dark brown to represent their leather material.

Still a little more to do in there but feels like I'm moving forward.

The fuselage halves are also together now,

A fairly drama-free experience after removing one (dis)locating pin in front of the cockpit area and the tail fin not wanting to close up. The latter may have been due to a mould flaw on the mating surfaces but flooding the area with MEK and squeezing sorted that out.

A test fit of the seat assembly showed it to be a touch wide and trying to push the fuselage halves out a little but a minor trim should solve that issue.

[Cookenbacher]

Nice interior work Col., I'm looking forward to seeing how this kit builds up.

[Giorgio N]

Lovely cockpit ! Pity that with all that black it will not be easy to see much inside when completed... sometimes I wonder how the pilots of the day felt when trapped in very small totally black cockpits, anyone suffering from claustrophobia would have had a very hard time

[Col.]

Nice interior work Col., I'm looking forward to seeing how this kit builds up.

Thanks Cookie. Tempted to add a few Seafires into your Spitfire production line?

Lovely cockpit ! Pity that with all that black it will not be easy to see much inside when completed... sometimes I wonder how the pilots of the day felt when trapped in very small totally black cockpits, anyone suffering from claustrophobia would have had a very hard time

Thanks Giorgio. Heavy dry-brushing has helped highlight much of the detail but it's still a dark place in there; rather like looking into a coal bunker at night.

I guess the whole notion of 'strapping on' a Spitfire that so many pilots talk about was assisted by the closely confined nature of that cockpit. My father said that upon being invited to sit in a late-mark Seafire he found it cramped and uncomfortable in comparison the Sea Fury he was used to flying whereas the Seafire pilots said they thought the Sea Fury rather like a bomber cockpit due to its more spacious nature. I guess it all depended on what you were used to.

Anyway, last night I got the cockpit sub-assemblies fitted after some slight modification and the lower wing section on,

[Col.]

It's taken me a while to find this thread again, which goes to show how long ago it was last updated , in fact if truth be told I was sure I'd updated at least once if not twice over the last couple of months but no.

So where are we. Well the upper wings went on with a little 'fitting'

Not too bad around the root

Bit messy at the lower wing/fuselage join though

That took a bit of work to blend in together and restore lost detail. Once the heavy work was out of the way I added the gunsight. Okay, when I say added I mean there's a bit more to it than that, you see the gunsight glass is moulded in solid grey plastic so I filed it off to leave the support frame then drilled two shallow depressions for the projector lenses. Painted matt black and dry-brushed with various greys then the lenses were filled with small dots of gloss black to mimic the glass. I then promptly dropped this 3mm square black piece on the floor and spent at least an hour looking for it to no avail. Did I say one the floor? Clearly not. It must have caught in my clothing as upon standing up to consider how I was going to scratch-build a replacement it completed the final part of its journey to the floor and suddenly appeared in the very centre of my search area. Rest assured it was immediately glued into place and by immediately I mean right there on the floor with me lying on my stomach having taken model, glue, and tweezers down to a level where nothing could fall any further.

Kindly ignore that crack running the length of the fixed portion of the canopy. I'm hoping it'll disappear under the sliding portion.

A jump forward to painting time after fitting the tailplanes and canopy, guns, small details etc. Took a slightly different approach with this one.

Normally I'd start with the lightest colour and work to the darkest. This time, however, I've sprayed the Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces first due to it having less surface area and easier to mask that the Sky lower surfaces. We'll see how that plan goes...

Used Colourcoats paint for the first time and have to say I love it. Sprayed easily to give good coverage and a smooth coat that dried enough to handle within four hours. Superb stuff.

Next task will be masking the upper surfaces and giving Colourcoats Sky a try.

[Beard]

Looking good, Col.

[Cookenbacher]

Glad to see this build back in action! It's looking great Col., the OG looks like it acts as an excellent 'primer', nice and smooth

[nimrod54]

You've made a nice job of cleaning the seams up Col and the Colourcoats paint has gone down really well.

[Col.]

You've made a nice job of cleaning the seams up Col and the Colourcoats paint has gone down really well.

Thanks John. I finally found some time to point the airbrush at this one again so got more of the Colourcoats range tried out. Sky for the second part of the camouflage scheme;

A little bit of overspray to be tidied up but I'm delighted with the quality of finish,

Also got the spinner sprayed with Colourcoats white;

This may or may not be the correct colour. Special Hobby would have it in Sky whereas a profile in one of my reference books shows it in white. Indeed one other colour profile shows the spinner as Sky. There is a photo in one of those reference books which had been taken from the rear 3/4 view that shows the spinner to be a light colour and possibly lighter in tone than the fuselage Sky but this may be due to the angle of light reflecting back toward the camera. In the end I chose white based mainly on personal preference; I like how it'll look on the finished model.

[Cookenbacher]

Excellent paint work Col, everything should be painted in EDSG and Sky.

[Col.]

Excellent paint work Col, everything should be painted in EDSG and Sky.

Indeed Cookie! Although I'd allow EDSG & white as well along with overall EDSG on Sea Harriers for that extra mean 'I'm going to tear everything you've got out of the sky' look

I've got the decals on now and they've put in an excellent performance over a wet coat of Future floor polish (who first found out that trick worked and what on earth were they thinking of when they first tried it!?!). No photos available yet but some light weathering is next on the agenda.

[Col.]

Here's the current state of this one;