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44 Years Work in Progress....


224 Peter

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Two models, both from Revell, started in the early 1970s. 

The Hurricane is being finished as a Mk 1 of 73 squadron, flown by one of the Sgt Pilots with code T. 

I'm waiting for a 1/32 scale Watts propellor from Brian Fawcett. 

The Typhoon is as per the kit. 

 

Typhoon-and-Hurricane-1s.jpg

 

On both kits the roundels and fin flash are hand painted, using a very old drafting pen nib compass and thinned paint. 

Talking of paint, almost all of my 1970s Humbrol paint is perfectly usable, after quite a lot of stirring. Only a couple of casualties, most irritatingly dark green...

So I have bought a new tin and it isn't the same colour...much greener. So I have to re-paint both aircraft. 

 

I'll post again when they are finished. 

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I don't know what colour your old tin of green was but you might want to have a look at Humbrol 116, which is looks closer to what you have than Humbrol 30.

 

Welcome to the forum. Nice to see some old models getting the love!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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53 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

I don't know what colour your old tin of green was but you might want to have a look at Humbrol 116, which is looks closer to what you have than Humbrol 30.

 

Welcome to the forum. Nice to see some old models getting the love!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Adrian, 

 

The original green was HB 1, vintage 1970s. 

The real question is "which is the closer colour to the original".

OK, I believe that Dk Green and Dk Earth showed variation between producers and over time. The Hurricane is a 1939 paint job, the Typhoon i guess 1943, so 4 years later. 

I've also got some acrylic paints from Vallejo, their interpretations of the two colours are different, once again. 

 

What is "right"? :lalala:

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1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Wow!  Lovely brush work, and some excellent revisiting of history!  

 

...and a Harrier to come, judging by left of shot?

The Harrier is a similar vintage project, I'll post separately on that one. 

 

Thanks for the positive feedback on my ancient brushwork. It remains to be seen if I've still "got it!!!"

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Great stuff - this really resonates, I have an Airfix 1/24 Fw 190 I bagged 37 years ago still on the shelf of doom. I would have had even more stuff, but my Mom, bless her, gave all my 'projects' away to somebody down our street when I was at uni.

 

Looking foward to seeing your progress, and I still use the old Humbrol stuff despite having tried all of the more modern paints.

 

cheers

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Talking of big scale kits I have the 1/24th "Stuka" in my stash. 

As i've narrowed my field of interest to RAF it should be dumped, but a bit of research shows that we captured and flew a couple in RAF markings, so that is the plan! 

But the 1/24 Typhoon and Mosquito are also waiting...

Decisions, decisions...

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OK, Progress Report...

 

the Hurricane has had a partial repaint, but still a lot to do with filling and some details. 

I ordered 2 sets of after market parts,  first white metal U/C legs, from Scale Aircraft Conversions, mostly because the original legs had become very fragile over time and the rear leg had "disappeared" and then a Watts propellor from Brian Fawcett, intended for the PCM kit but will work on the Revell one. 

The prop is a delight, beautifully moulded from resin. This photo shows both and the Hurricane in the background.  

 

After-Market-Bits.jpg

 

The difference between the Revell legs and the white metal ones is significant, as this photo shows. 

 

Hurrican-UC-Legs.jpg

 

I'll have to make brake drums to fit the wheels and work out how to secure the legs, but they look much more robust. 

 

More photos as this progresses. 

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Love it, nothing like a blast from the past, Excellent work on the markings, I was trying to figure out what went wrong with your fin flash decal lol! Looking forward to seeing more on this!

 

Bob

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I love these old kits - so much simpler days!

 

Having said that I also love the 1/24th Stuka and Mosquito (haven’t hot round to my Typhoon yet, but it does look nice).

 

Graham

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, progress...slowly! 

 

All the 1970s Humbrol paints have been recovered, I made a separate post about it in the Paints forum...and the painting finished. 

 

The Typhoon is almost ready to have Kleer applied before the few decals: I'm not up to painting squadron codes. Lets hope the 45 year old Revell Decals hold up. 

This is how it is today...

 

IMG_0324.jpg

 

The old Revel Sheet is of highly suspect colours, especially the red in the roundels, which is why i hand painted them... but the squadron codes are supposed to be sky, like the tail band..!

Anyway, once the decals are on and a second coat of Kleer it will be ready for final assembly and some weathering, a new skill I have to learn! 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Progress has been slow, if not steady with the Typhoon, the Hurricane has been parked until I've finished the Typhoon. 

 

Since the last post

  • I've fixed the canopy, stupidly not realising that there is a stay for the armour plate missing. Too late now.  
  • Finished the prop, including the red tip used by R P "Bee" Beaumont whilst with 609 Squadron. 
  • Coated the upper surface paint with the new version of "Kleear" prior to applying transfers. It isn't as glossy as I expected and irritatingly has shown up the difference in colour between the 44 year old Humbrol and modern stuff....
  • Discovered that the kit markings are wrong, his aircraft had neither under wing black and white stripes later style under wing roundels. Fortunately I had bot painted the stripes but I'll have to correct the roundels. Also the part of the R7752 that would be over the tail band is not shown in all the photos, ot seems it was over painted when the band was applied. 
  • Discovered the 45 year old transfers are only just about usable, I applied the Rank Pennant and it broke up, fortunately only into 2 parts. I used Micro-sol and set, but there is still a noticeable carrier film. So I've coated all the transfers with Micros transfer varnish and will trim as much film away as possible.  
  • Found out a lot more about the "Car Door", thanks to some great responses to a question I posted. So now the window will be partly down and the door held open by a stay that fits on the bottom edge. 

This is what it looks like...

 

Typhoon-2_1.jpg

 

The next post will be when I've applied all the markings, including corrected the roundels and finished the underside, after that there is some "wear and tear" to apply, before fitting the U/C and final matt varnish. 

 

I don't think I've had so much fun in years! 

 

Peter

 

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Correcting the roundels was interesting. 

Desk research evidenced that the Typhoon would have had 42" type A as built. 

In May 1942 they should have been overpainted as 32" C type, but on Beaumonts aircraft they were not. 

A photo, dated Nov 42 on page 86 of Camouflage and Markings by Goulding and Jones shows clearly the large A type underwing roundels and also 42" fuselage C1 type roundels, over painted from the original A1 type. Again they should have been 36". 

 

Anyway, the underside is now correct, just needs a second white coat. As before I used a bow spring ink compass with thinned paint. 

 

  Typhoon-3.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Typhoon has suffered a bit of a disaster. All was going well, I'd put a thin coat of Kleer on the paint, then the 44 year old transfers applied with Micro Sol and Set, even so a bit of silvering.  When everything was dry they were sealed in with Kleer.

Then a week later I applied a very thin coat of Airfix acrylic flat varnish. As it dried it was streaked and looked terrible. Trying to get it off the decals lifted, and I thought “OK, back to the paint, start again”.

But no, the paint has been left looking as if it has been out in the sun for months, faded and grey with salt like streaks....  

 

This is the worst of it by the car door....

 

Typhoon-mess-2.jpg

 

And underneath...

 

Typhoon-mess-1jpg.jpg

 

Compare with the photos in the posts above....

 

The under surface I’ll re-paint, but the upper will have to stay weathered.

 

I also had to buy new Transfers, again a limited choice for car door Typhoons, but Techmods have a sheet with another A/C from the same squadron as Beaumont.

The upside is that the Techmods sheet has the main stencilling on it.

 

I still wonder what went wrong with the Airfix matt varnish. Should I have sprayed it? Did it react with the Kleer, or is it just not nice stuff??

Suggestions, help, anything welcome!

Edited by 224 Peter
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  • 1 month later...

This Typhoon build has caused me yet more trouble, only pig-headedness has stopped me throwing in the towel! 

After a full repaint I realised that the model on the new transfer sheet had under wing stripes, so checking references in Camouflage and Marking by James Goulding and Bob Jones I set to and added further paint to the under surface, following the details in the book.

 

Typhoon-mess-3A.jpg

 

This Image may be copyright. 

 

Setting out was quite simple as the dimensions are in inches and in this scale 1” = 1/32” Do that is 4 x 12” black bands and 3 x 18” bands, in total 102 32nds or 3” and 6/32nds

 

So I painted away and this was the result.

 

Typhoon-mess-3.jpg

 

Something wrong here…the innermost black band should be close to the wing root. The measurements were checked and everything is correct.

Back to the research desk and I discover the white bands should be 24”, not 18”: a total of 120” or in scale 3”24/32nds.

Which would put everything in the right place.

 

What to do? Strip off the paint and start again on the left wing, or ignore it?  

 

The moral of this is not to believe references and check every dimension shown!

Edited by 224 Peter
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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 years later...

The Beaufighter is finished, and appeared in its own thread.... I was rather pleased with the result. 

The Hurricane is almost there... Photo to follow this week....

The Harrier... should be done by the end of the year! 

The F14 possibly.. it has its own thread. 

 

And something new? That was the F6F-5 Wildcat... also almost done! 

 

Edited by 224 Peter
Addition....
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Talk about "catch up with a thread"... That 'matt problem' reoccurs every now and then with my Revell version of the paint, and to this day I don't know when or why or how... but I love your choice of Hawker aircraft!

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Update... this 44 year project is coming to a conclusion...

 

This week: 

 

Stencil transfers applied. 

 

I used the "Hot Water" ones available for I think, the PCM kit. They work, but I prefer cold waterslide transfers! Anyway, the airframe has plausible stencils in the right places... perhaps! 

 

Canopy fitted, it is a vac form and I can't remember wherefrom, but it looks SO much better than the Revel one. 

 

Antenna replaced with an early "pole or rod" one, made from a paper clip! 

 

All that remains to be done is to apply flat varnish and weathering. The conditions in France during the Phoney War were dire, so there is a lot of chalk mud and dust to apply. 

 

Photos by the weekend... 

 

 

 

 

 

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I did the Hurricane and Typhoon in the mid 90s when they were already regarded as "obsolete by modern standards" and enjoyed them both. The Typhoon in particular, while the detail parts are rather crude, the skin surface treatment is very pleasing and I consider it a good looking model in overall impressions. I think I will look out for another kit and do it again, inspired by your rather good version here

Edited by Work In Progress
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So, final pictures before we go to "Ready for Inspection"

The Hurricane has not come up as well as the Typhoon did, and it is saddled with my schoolboy error...literally.  We all now know that Hurricanes in france were largely Mk 1s with fabric wings. But back in the mid 70s this wasn't appreciated so I thought that sticking a 2 blade Watts propellor was enough. It isn't! 

The paint is vintage Humbrol and the white has not aged well and touching up the dark green is a challenge.

The roundels are hand painted with a spring bow pen compass, I think they are acceptable. 

 

So, from the front....

 

spacer.png

 

And from the underside...

 

spacer.png

 

Just the landing lights to add, matt varnish the fuselage and add weathering. 

 

Thanks for enduring this never ending story... it started in 1973.... and has run 47 years... 

 

Edited by 224 Peter
Typo...
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