Revell (Matchbox) Hawker Fury Mk.I 1/72

[perdu]

Just a reminder Tomo

Club cancelled due to snow today, I'll see you next time so til then have a good un mate

[Tomoshenko]

Yes I heard, cheers Bill.

[The Spadgent]

Wowza!!!! Missing this is a crime. I’m now fully up to date, a rather pleasant 30 minute train journey last night and a quick sit down after dinner tonight and I’m on page five. I must say your work is something rather special, the work on the oil cooler is fantastic. Making me yern for the gentleman’s scale once again.

 

Bravo Tom, a real joy.

 

I’ll tag along from now on if you don’t mind.

 

Johnny.

[Tomoshenko]

Your more than welcome Johnny. Roight up then. Hope you all had a great Christmas. Having taken a brief interlude from the merriment (alas not necessarily a good idea to mix alcohol, sharp knives and toxic chemicals), I’ve got back to the bench. Before sorting out the canopy I had a little task to sort out which is the padded leather lip on the cockpit. As you can see top right in the piccie below courtesy of Wings Over Europe.com, it is quite distinctive. This is redolent of most references I’ve seen. It may not have been the same colour or quite as luxurious originally, but a padded lip around the cockpit rim there most certainly was.

 

 

Matchbox gives you something of sorts, but it doesn’t quit cut the mustard, I think the brown leather trim against the nmf will give it some nice contrast and interest.

 

 

I sanded it back a little then one bit at a time glued in place some plastic rod.

 

 

Trimmed and sanded a little here is the finished product.

 

 

I had to add a small cut to account for the door. I realise there is a little lip showing just above and to the upper left of the cut. I may give this a little more attention, but this is largely masked by the windshield frame.

 

 

With that sorted I could get cracking on the windshield. By far and away the most difficult and frustrating part of this element is its sheer size, well not so sheer size being itsy bitsy, and fiddlesomeness associated with trying to work with anything this small.

 

I cut and shaped a replacement from acetate which was okay enough. But then what to do for framing? I considered masking and painting, but in the end I opted for thin strips of take-away foil and a strip of curved beer can foil. I won’t bore you with the details of their manufacture, needless to say it was fiddly and time consuming to get them neat and thin so as not to look like bits of foil stuck on plastic. I realise they actually are bits of foil stuck on plastic, but I was hoping for well, at least an illusory scale effect so they don’t look too much like bits of foil stuck onto plastic.

 

As ever the most challenging element is trying to safeguard against bits pinging off into oblivion, which invariably always happens to your finest crafted piece, and the same piece you always find when searching for something else that’s pinged off into oblivion, but not before you have everything glued in place!

 

Thus I used my folding tool to hold the acetate while I manoeuvred the other bits in place. They then received the finest of finest little dabs of cyano in discreet places before being trimmed and then the whole windshield being dipped in klear to cement everything in place.

 

 

Here is the finished article next to the kit version (ignore the little bit of filament come fuzz that attached itself to the right hand pane, I’ve since removed it) I don’t want to be too unfair to the kit canopy as afterall, I have trod on it so it does somewhat resemble a nail clipping. That said I’m pleased with how it came out.

 

 

Here it is resting in place.

 

 

 

 

Of course gluing it in place will be a faff, but I will either use a thin smear of canopy glue or epoxy resin, either will easily be strong enough to hold it in place.

 

The next bit of detailing, and one that 1) I had been putting off; and 2) in relation to 1), had been putting off because I didn’t know how to do it. Anyroad after a little experimentation with trusty Albion Alloys I bent a thin strip of foil around a drill for the ring. The reticules where made from 0.1 Albion Alloys nickel rod. They were manoeuvred into position using a tooth pick, and then “glued” using little dabs of klear. The original Fury crosshairs have a centre circle at the intersection of the reticules; sorry folks that will have to wait for another build from a far more adept modeller.

 

Anyroad here it is next to the gunsight as proof it does not look too much overscale.

 

 

Hopefully the crosshairs will stay in place and won’t be blasted away with my airbrush. Back soon.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Tomoshenko

[Cookenbacher]

Time for the jaw drop emoji. It could be for the windshield or the leather liner, but it's probably for the tiny crosshairs.

[Courageous]

Excellent work Tomo.

[The Spadgent]

Bloody hell! . That’s amazing work Tomo. The little cross hairs are something else..

 

Johnny

[Beard]

I think I may have said this before but there's some fantastic modelling going on in this build. One thing I know for sure is that I won't be posting a WiP when I get round to building either of my Furies.

[perdu]

Tomo mate this is superber than a superb thing being lauded about as superb!

 

Utterly fabulous work me dear

 

Can I suggest that you might consider reinforcing the Clear adhesing on the gunsight ring with a lightly touched in skin of cyano? 

Just a minitad at a time because it can eat Clear

 

I know this how?

 

Because cyano ate Clear I was using a couple of times as adhesives on canopies I made so just a dot on each junction at different minutes apart to let each set as it forms round each point of contact

 

Done thinly enough you won't notice any thickening of the glued bits

 

 

[Graeme H]

This just keeps getting better n better

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Brilliant windscreen - which in no way resembles bits of foil stuck onto plastic.

[AdrianMF]

Glad to see this is still in play. Fantastic detailing!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Nigel Heath]

More incredible work, great stuff Tom. 

[Patrik]

Excellent work!

Re crosshairs - you would probably think of it as cowardly solution, but have you considered these? There is even the one with the circle in the centre - not visible without magnifying glass though (or macro on your camera).

Patrik

 

[Tomoshenko]

Thank you for your kind and encouraging comments. And a Happy New Year to you all.

 

On ‎12‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 2:20 PM, Patrik said:

Excellent work!

Re crosshairs - you would probably think of it as cowardly solution, but have you considered these? There is even the one with the circle in the centre - not visible without magnifying glass though (or macro on your camera).

Patrik

 

I did consider them as a poster earlier on in the thread provided a link. They look pretty good to be honest, so in future I think I'll purchase a pack given how fiddly it is trying to scratch the things.

 

Well I have been bimbling away a little over the Christmas sojourn. I have a little update for you before I begin the final assembly then paint.

 

First up the prop needed a tad attention. I first scribed a the spinner as the kit is all one piece but in reality they are two pieces.

 

 

I also added a small brass tube which I cut a slat out to represent the dogtooth that was used to engage the Hucks starter. Little details I know which probably won’t be noticed but I couldn’t resist. The prop itself was a little lumpy with a few dimples here and there and needed a good sand – clearly the mould is showing its age.

 

 

Next up was the static pitot. You don’t get one with the kit which to be fair is just as well: the moulded pitots on the Airfix new tool Tiger Moth and Gladiator aint much to write home about so I’d preferred to scratch my own. I had some left over squashed brass tubing from the undercarriage spars, so it was out with the file and recycle these into something resembling a pitot.

 

 

 

Bit by fiddly bit until the finished product dry fitted to the struts and compared to the plans below. You can't tell from the piccie, it is actually two symmetrical pieces, I think the proper word is bifurcated, (as it was cut and filed from a squashed tube) stuck together. I prized the end apart to form a clasp which fits snuggly, and more realistically onto the strut. Okay so not perfect, but it is more to scale thickness and sturdier than if I'd have used plastic.

 

 

As it happened the struts were remarkably clean and only needed a light, but delicate clean up.

 

Next there is this thingy. I’m not sure what it is. It appears to be some form of sensor and must be of some importance as it is on most reference piccies and reproductions. This was fashioned from sanded and drilled out sprue, a thin strip of beer can foil and wire (I will remove the surplus cyano but it’s not as bad as it looks in real life honest).

 

Here it is compared to the plans.

 

 

And then dry fitted in place.

 

 

Roight up. I just need to finish the pilot’s bead sight and that’s the fiddly stuff done…apart from painting and gluing the blinkin’ stuff in place, but that’s a fight for another day.

[dogsbody]

That is a venturi. It provides a vacuum, which is needed to make some of the cockpit instruments work. These were seen on most 20's and 30's aircraft until vacuum pumps were fitted to the engines.

 

http://okigihan.blogspot.ca/p/venturi-tube-systems.html

 

 

Chris

Edited January 8, 2018 by dogsbody

[perdu]

I've mind to suggest that Chris wrote venturi but was countermanded by an autocorrupt system on an Androiddy or Appley device

 

I had to fiddle one up for my Auster, mine is nowhere near as good as yourn mate

 

Lovely intricacies from the Tomotrademark® works again

 

[Brandy]

More lovely details, all adding to the overall. This is promising to be very special when all said and done!

 

I built one of these oob many years ago for an ATC modeling competition. it was the first rigged aircraft I ever built. It got through the first round easily, but was then crushed by careless handling on the part of my fellow Squadron member who had taken it to the comp. 

 

Ian

 

 

 

 

[72modeler]

Blast- I ran out of popcorn about halfway through the part where you made the padded leather surround to the cockpit! Some SERIOUS modeling going on here, and I am enjoying seeing how you are taking this old but very good MB kit to the next level! Just a thought, and I'm sorry I discovered your post just now, but if you take one of those small,  plastic cocktail stirrer straws and slice it along its length to make a slit, and immerse in very warm water to make it easy to bend, you can curve it to match the contour of a cockpit opening, once you have sanded the lip off, and then push it over the lip opening so that the stirrer goes around the lip, it makes a very good representation that you can then paint to look like leather. I did this on an old Monogram F4B-4, and it turned out pretty good. The cross section would look like a C--, with the C being the straw with the slit and the -- the lip or opening of the cockpit. Hope that makes some sense and works for future! Looking forward to the finished product! BTW, in what squadron's markings will it be?

Mike

[dogsbody]

On ‎06‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 11:40 AM, perdu said:

I've mind to suggest that Chris wrote venturi but was countermanded by an autocorrupt system on an Androiddy or Appley device

 

I had to fiddle one up for my Auster, mine is nowhere near as good as yourn mate

 

Lovely intricacies from the Tomotrademark® works again

 

Just corrected my poor spelling/typing. I've really got to start proofreading my comments before I post things.

 

Getting old sucks!

 

 

Chris

[Tomoshenko]

Thanks for the comments folks.

 

On ‎1‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 5:49 PM, dogsbody said:

That is a venturi. It provides a vacuum, which is needed to make some of the cockpit instruments work. These were seen on most 20's and 30's aircraft until vacuum pumps were fitted to the engines.

 

http://okigihan.blogspot.ca/p/venturi-tube-systems.html

 

 

Chris

 

On ‎1‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 6:40 PM, perdu said:

I've mind to suggest that Chris wrote venturi but was countermanded by an autocorrupt system on an Androiddy or Appley device

 

I had to fiddle one up for my Auster, mine is nowhere near as good as yourn mate

 

Lovely intricacies from the Tomotrademark® works again

 

Thanks gents. You do learn something everyday. One thing I am learning about the Fury, and it has been remarked upon by numerous people in various references on tinertnet, which is the Fury was quite a complex machine in its day (one article compares it to the Euro Typhoon, a good pub debating topic I suspect), and that it was quite expensive to construct. How true this was I'm not sure (another debate over a beer at Telford 2018!), but it does strike me as an advance piece of kit in its day.

 

On ‎1‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 4:35 PM, 72modeler said:

Blast- I ran out of popcorn about halfway through the part where you made the padded leather surround to the cockpit! Some SERIOUS modeling going on here, and I am enjoying seeing how you are taking this old but very good MB kit to the next level! Just a thought, and I'm sorry I discovered your post just now, but if you take one of those small,  plastic cocktail stirrer straws and slice it along its length to make a slit, and immerse in very warm water to make it easy to bend, you can curve it to match the contour of a cockpit opening, once you have sanded the lip off, and then push it over the lip opening so that the stirrer goes around the lip, it makes a very good representation that you can then paint to look like leather. I did this on an old Monogram F4B-4, and it turned out pretty good. The cross section would look like a C--, with the C being the straw with the slit and the -- the lip or opening of the cockpit. Hope that makes some sense and works for future! Looking forward to the finished product! BTW, in what squadron's markings will it be?

Mike

Thanks for the tip. 

I will be using the box scheme which is No. 43 Squadron based at RAF Tangmere 1932. There are a plethora of lovely Fury schemes out there and plenty of choice in respect of aftermarket decal options. The classic black check markings are tempting, although I do like the kit offering, I think the yellow contrasting with the NMF and silver should look quite nice.

 

Anyroad, a small but sweet update as I finished the pilot bead. It was fabricated from bitsof Albion Alloys nickel tube, foil, and glued in place with a dab of cyano:

 

 

I don’t think it looks too out of scale as the real item is quite prominent. I got the cabane struts and hood glued together so here is everything, including the windshield, dry-fitted (that’s why they may look a little wonky…honest ).

 

 

 

If anything the crosshairs may sit a little high but there aint much I can do about that now, plus I am losing the will to live with these fiddly bits, so that’s that. Compared to piccies of the real thing they aint far out. Anyroad I’m chuffed with em, so apologise for the repetitive piccies.

 

 

The gunsight and crosshairs will be painted black, but I’ll leave the pilot bead as it is as quite a few seem to be NMF, probably stainless steel.

 

Roight then, just the wing struts to glue in place, then is masking and painting…hooray!

[perdu]

I wondered if you were planning to do this one Tom

 

I think the one I picked up at Telford a couple of years ago has these marks too, my one pound bargain

 

If you decided you'd like these I could scan them onto the decent piece of white sheet, in duplicate and in reverse to obtain the missing side marks for you

The missing white portions provided white decal sheet to paint over in days gone by

[Courageous]

Fantastic work Tomo, that Fury is looking good.

 

Stuart

[Massimo]

She's really a treat!!!

Wonderful job!!!

[Stew Dapple]

Lovely stuff Tom. You're not a microsurgeon in your day job, by any chance?

 

Cheers,

 

Stew