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Follant Gnat T.1, Airfix 1/48, Britains old school


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Since my very first modelling expieriences as I was a young boy, the Airfix Gnat kit will be the first of that brand after many many years. After opening the box I was absolutely impressed, don`t know what I`ve expected. It seems Airfix has meanwhile reached the rank of well known asian brands.

Nevertheless the cockpit is well detailed I couldn`t resist to add some minor improvements.

I`ve started with some knobs and lever out of Evergreen and Plastruct plastic and drilled out the instrument bezels. About the Instruments I`ll explain later more.

 

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The ejection seat are nice moulded with a lot of parts.I`ve tried to sculpting the cussions out of Green Stuff, and replicated the belts with thin tinfoile. The strabs are photoetched parts from Reheat.

 

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Here we can see both seats try fitted into the cockpit.

 

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Edited by Sarcococca
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  • 2 months later...

I`ve found time now to reduce and upload the next pictures of my WIP thread. Sry for the delay.

Moreover, I always have any computer problems if I`m opening photobucket. Don`t know why!

 

Meanwhile the cockpit is painted. The small data placards are from Airscale.

 

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The mainwheels from Airfix are not useable. All surfaces looked as shown on the picture.

As an alternative I`ve used the wonderful resin wheels from SBS models.

The differences in detail are absolutely considerable.

 

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Some of the missed details shown on the pictures of the original plane, like the two small instruments on the left rear fuselage or the sealing rubber of the brake chute, air vents here and there are scratch built. Not shown here are the afterwards engraved screws and hinges nor the rivets. And the small air vent hole on the rear wing root is also not shown at this pic.

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There is also a very fat seem on the vertical rudder, I`ve sanded away the Airfix interpretation and used one made out of an stretched plastic rod.

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The complete undercarriage is panted meanwhile, but not wethered yet.

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To prevent a tailsitter for the next photoshooting in front of my hangar, I used Liquid Gravity weight, glued-in with white glue. The white glue was thinned with water for better dispersion.

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The model is by now most reasonable painted. The red and white paintsheme is a horrible work..masking here and masking there, correcting here and so far....but it looks fairly pretty at the moment and maybe the next Photobucket :blink: session will show new pic`s.

 

Edited by Sarcococca
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1 hour ago, exdraken said:

Great update!

What did you do with the instruments?

 

By the way, photobucket seems to have availability problems lately

 

Sry, I`ve missed to take a pic of the finished instrument board. I will do it after removing the masking tape of the cockpit.

I try to explain what i`ve done. At first I drilled out all instrument spaces on the original plasticpart and thinned down the thickness of the board. The instrument decals are corresponding perfectly with the board.

After applying the decal on white plasticcard, I` ve glued that part behind the instrument board and fitted the outlines of both parts with sanding paper.

One can see a lil`bit at the second pic ( the front board) of my update.

Edited by Sarcococca
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Great detail work, can't wait to see the paint on, I quite fancy doin one in the old red & white scheme.

 

I've stopped using Photobucket, it would crash a super computer! I've now moved to Flickr, far far better

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3 minutes ago, woody37 said:

Great detail work, can't wait to see the paint on, I quite fancy doin one in the old red & white scheme.

 

I've stopped using Photobucket, it would crash a super computer! I've now moved to Flickr, far far better

Thx for your hint. I`ll try Flickr instead of PB.

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15 hours ago, Sarcococca said:

Moreover, I always have any computer problems if I`m opening photobucket. Don`t know why!

 because it should be avoided.

 

Photobucket is a truly awful site, and can introduce problems & viruses to your computer.

Like Woody I use Flickr which I have to be fault free and retains the original image quality far better than PB.

 

Great build on the Gnat, the extra work you have put in to the kit is superb!

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17 minutes ago, 71chally said:

 because it should be avoided.

 

Photobucket is a truly awful site, and can introduce problems & viruses to your computer.

Like Woody I use Flickr which I have to be fault free and retains the original image quality far better than PB.

 

Great build on the Gnat, the extra work you have put in to the kit is superb!

Seems I stay with PB on the dark side of the Imperator`s software republic. Must change to Flickr.

 

 

Edited by Sarcococca
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Thx to all for the nice comments and a special thx for 71chally and Woody37. I`ve registered at Flickr. And hey it works fast and smooth.

 

Next pics shows the model entirely painted and varnished with an acrylic gloss colour from Alclad. It is a perfect topcoat for decals and the weathering steps with oilcolours.

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The wing underside is painted with Light aircraft grey from Aeromaster. Here it looks like white but is indeed grey.

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The wingtanks are completely painted and all necessary decals are applied. It is a bit tricky to apply the matt decals without any silvering. But with an glossy and perfectly smooth surface it is not a real problem.

 

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Edited by Sarcococca
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Those tanks look great, along with the rest of it. The trainer colour schemes went through several changes during the Gnat's service life, not to mention the Yellowjacks and Red Arrows. I think I may need more than one.

 

John

 

I think I will also change to Flickr. I haven't posted anything for a while, mostly due to problems with PB.

Edited by Biggles87
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