Airfix 24th Typhoon Zipp X

[The Spadgent]

Awesome!!!!!! The canopy looks the bomb. 🐺

 

john.

[bobsyouruncle]

Chin radiator added today. 

I really love the Radu Brinzan parts with the amazing mesh detail. I know not everyone would justify getting these but I love looking at wartime photos where you can see into the big chin intake and these look just like it.

When I read that Hendon's MN235 had the radiator of a 'cut-down' Bedford lorry' and someone had gone to all the trouble of doing these, I wanted some.

 

I was concerned about trying to get a good fit with this, as I'd read other people's issues at the end with the radiator housing, etc.. 

It all seems to have gone it ok after a lot of test fitting and it works with test fits of the lower wing and cowlings so far.

I've really enjoyed fiddling with all the pipes and fittings that Airfix have provided here.

 

I did notice that they've even included parts D28 and D29 on the sprue, which are there on the real thing (in a shot with the wing off) but aren't seen or used if you use the F17 and F18 undercarriage bay sides (could be used in a cutaway version).

Still pipes/leads to add to the firewall, but not sure how far to go with the top of the engine as most things are only going to be slightly in view with the top cowling on (loose test fit here to see).

Cheers Bob.

 

John, I see what you mean about D03. Fit fine on test fits but harder to place under the engine once D15 was on.

 

 

 

[Grey Beema]

Magnificent work - really stunning.  I have one of these in the stash and to be honest it frightens me and it certain will not be to this standard..

 

I love the shape of the Typhoon, and I like the detail.  I see in the instructions you need to choose panels on or off for the engine and was wondering whether it can be configured panels stripped on one side and panels in place on the other.  I guess that is what you are doing?  Will the radiator panes still fit if one side of the cowling is open?

 

Cheers

 

 

[The Spadgent]

Wonderful detail. Simply wonderful.👌

 

John.

[phildagreek]

Looks delicious!

[bobsyouruncle]

14 hours ago, Grey Beema said:

I love the shape of the Typhoon, and I like the detail.  I see in the instructions you need to choose panels on or off for the engine and was wondering whether it can be configured panels stripped on one side and panels in place on the other.  I guess that is what you are doing?  Will the radiator panes still fit if one side of the cowling is open?

I was feeling a tad intimidated too at the start, but am taking the advice to just do it a bit at a time and to make sure I test fit. I've been trying to think ahead a little to work out what extra bits I can fit in that hopefully don't interfere with the proper kit parts and when to try to squeeze them in. So far it's been very enjoyable.

Yes my plan was to have the top engine cowling on (so it'll look intact when viewed from the starboard side). I'm only taking off panels that I've seen removed in period photos in books, such as most of the port side of the engine and the panel below the cockpit port side.

I figured that I could maybe cope with having a go at adding detail in just those areas. I also didn't have lots of photos of the starboard side internals and wanted to include the 'Zipp X' markings.

I was going to add a fair amount of radiator cowlings as I like that feature on the aircraft. I figured that 'if it's bigger on the outside than the inside', then with a file and plenty of test fitting, hopefully it will work. We'll see...

 

Thanks for the kind comments gents.

 

Cheers Bob.

 

[bobsyouruncle]

Spent my few days off this week on the engine again, looking in books and picking bits up out of the carpet. More or less finished now (engine, that is) apart from the exhaust shrouds and a few small bits (it helps not having to do the top and the other side of course, with the top cowling hiding a lot of potential additional detail there).

Had a bit of a near miss with the rear wing spar and decided I need to start putting the lower wing surface on to give the whole thing some extra protection (so I've been filling in the holes and painting the inside of that).

It's easier to explain what I've done in the engine hole with the picture, so I've done it that way.

Anyway, the wing goes on next and I'll come back to the engine later.

 

Top cowling just sitting on, showing restricted detail views.

 

Looking forward to some working on some different areas for a bit.

Cheers Bob.

 

Edited June 20, 2018 by bobsyouruncle
missed out text

[Azgaron]

Excellent work!

 

That radiator mesh was very nice!

 

Håkan

 

[Christer A]

That's some IMPRESSIVE plumbing. Even more so that you got D03 in place, something that I never managed.

[Mark]

I've just found this thread and am in total awe at your work Bob! Absolutely amazing level of detail and now you've got me scouring the various sites to maybe pick up one too!

[bigbadbadge]

My word Bob.  Detail you have added is stunning.  Fantastic work.   I would love to have one of these in my stash one day hopefully.

Keep up the good work. 

All the best 

Chris 

[bobsyouruncle]

I had my first chance since June to play with this again (had to break off to do two paintings and have another painting to do before I can get back on this properly), so had a look at where I was last (lower wing on and just started on the port cannon bay). Anyway, because I'd only got a very small time window available, I jumped more or less to the end, to hopefully sort out a small thing that had been on my mind, which was the spinner.

Others will see things differently, but to me, comparing with photos, the four bladed spinner looked a little long in side profile (with base plate added) and I fancied a go at trying to modify what I'd got in the box.

Here's the procedure anyway, in case anyone was interested.

 

With some filing, the short 3 bladed spinner looked about right to me, in profile, compared to photos. My problem was then how to turn it from a 3 blader into a four?

I decided to fill the 3 apertures using curved plastic card, (cut using the holes as templates) with any gaps around the edges plugged with filler and a layer of filler/surfacer skimmed on where necessary.

To give the thing some strength and structure, I used the bottom half (cut the top off before inserting) of the other 3 bladed spinner, but rotated through 60 degrees compared to the filled one, so each former prop aperture had a solid backing.

With it all filled and sanded, the next thing was to cut the new holes.

 

         

 

Again looking at photos, I'd made this rough sketch of the prop aperture shape. I also noticed how the base plate had a curved indent to match these and a small lip/raised edge on the edge to meet the spinner aperture.

I wanted to try and make the spinner in one piece as on the real ting (rather than using the raised triangular 'pyramids' on the kit baseplate, which I cut off).

 

The positioning of the holes was going to be critical, of course, so I assembled the four bladed prop and then made a low tech plan showing where the blade outlines met the spinner.

Like so. Who would anyone number the blades anticlockwise? Please tell me if you're a psychologist as I've since woindered about this....probably the same sort of nut that would contemplate doing this spinner mod in the first place?

Anyway, I made a template of the aperture and positioned it to match where the blades exit the spinner, and marked them. Note position of previous 3 bladed apertures with sanded green putty and surfacer remnants on plastic card.

I also positioned these templates so that only one of the new holes would meet an area that had been filled.

 

After committing, I cut out the 4 bladed holes by joining up a lot of small pre-drilled outline holes.

This is what it came out like initially,  without having finished sanding the bladed apertures properly yet. I did also add the small disc on the tip (again to be refined and further sanded) and gave a light coat of primer to look for

areas that might need extra sanding/filling/smoothing.

 

This is it on the inside showing the other 3 bladed spinner inside the outer one (minus its top).

A are the filled 3 blade areas.

B are the apertures in the internal spinner.

Anyhow it feels pretty strong, so it did the job for me.

 

Test fit wit the 4-bladed prop.

I cut a lot of raised parts off the baseplate and added the indented scoops and small edge/lip, as in the sketch earlier.

In the background is a cut-down 4 bladed spinner (same height as this one, but diameter is smaller at baseplate) and the sawn-off top of the 'internal' 3 bladed spinner.

 

 

With nothing actually glued, it's tricky to hold this and take a shot with the phone in the other hand, but it does show the small scoop in the baseplate at the bottom of the blade aperture.

 

Double checking the shape against an online Imperial War Museum collection image (in this case MH6865 - showing Harry hardy's Pulverizer IV at Goch), using an old paintbrush and a blob of blu-tac.

 

Again it's tricky trying to line things up to the eye and hold this in one hand and a phone in the other, but you can just make out the top outline of the spinner in the photo, above my modded one (as I'm olding this a fraction too low - I also left a gap for the baseplate). Anyhow this was good enough for me and it works when tried with other photos too.

 

So that's that one nearly sorted for me, once the sanding's been done properly. This is the spinner with how I'd left the rest of the model from June.

As I said, bottom wing was on, but had only just started on the cannon and undercarriage bays before having to paint. I've got one more painting to do and then hopefully I'll be able to get back on with this model properly.

 

 

Cheers Bob.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

[Sleepwalker]

Your Napier Sabre engine flattened me down... I hope you will expose it as well as the cockpit as much as possible.

[bobsyouruncle]

Another area I'd been thinking about that I wanted to try and iron out before the rest of the 'regular' assembly, was the radiator intake and the RAE/Vokes air filter (for the Normandy dust problem).

Airfix do supply the face and framework of the filter, but as on the rest of the aircraft, I wanted to try and add some more detail if possible.

This is D16 from the kit.

 

After thinking about it, I decided that I'd build the radiator intake as far back as the radiator itself (and cut the rest off to add later). 

For the filter itself, I got some bits together. The body of an old ballpoint pen, some plastic strip, Part D21 from the kit and size 12mm, 10mm and 8mm plumbing olives from B&Q.

I decided to cut out and use the filter face from part D21 so that I still had D16 in case things went wrong. I forgot to leave the actual face in the shot. These are just the offcuts.

 

For the filter body, I cut lengths of strip and attached around the pen body (cut to length previously). I used a cut down 12mm Olive to make the ring at the rear of the filter.

The smaller ring is cut from the 10mm olive and this is for the face of the filter.

 

The 8mm Olive was a perfect fit to insert into the centre of the radiator and serves as the connection piece for positioning and mounting the filter.

 

This shows the cut down radiator intake after assembly. I wanted to find something strong but maleable to make the framework that holds the filter in the intake.

I mentioned it to my son who appeared with an offcut of mild steel from his college work. I was able to cut this into strips like the one on the right.

 

This is the intake with the steel strip framework in place.

 

This is a push-fit test of the filter inserted into the framework. I'd added some extra bits to the face also.

The strips seem to get battered and bent on the real thing in photos.

 

The back of the filter sits on top of the 8mm inserted olive connection like this dry-fit again.

 

Test fit of radiator housing with framework and filter. I think with some cleaning up and careful painting, it'll look good enough for me anyway.

 

 

Cheers Bob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

[Christer A]

Stunning job och the cuckoo-filter!

[Mikey-1980]

Just outstanding work....simply awesome! Looking forward to seeing the rest of your build

[bobsyouruncle]

Just another very small update. I lost my Dad in Feb and had a few health things to sort out myself, but did manage to enjoy getting back to 'normal assembly' things and had a go at the Cannon Bay in bits of spare time.

I've added a few small bits and pieces (not all obvious here), such as wires and that brown lining, based on photos looking into Hendon's machine.

I've tried to go for the look of the 50/50 Semi Armour Piercing Incendiary (SAPI)/High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) mix in the ammo belts, too.

I might replace just the tips of the muzzle ends of the cannon barrels with metal, depending on how they look (although I guess they had protective covers on if they could whilst sat on the ground).

The top half of the wing's just sitting on there (not glued-in), as I've not put the undercarriage bay 'roofs' in yet, but I fancied a sneak 'preview'.

 

 

 

Cheers Bob.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

[bobsyouruncle]

Another small update and now that the wings are on, top and bottom, I feel that I might actually complete this one day😲.

 

A prediction:-

With it being the 75th anniversary of D-Day this year, Airfix will re-release the bubbletop version of the Tiffie and Master will make some 24th scale cannon fairings for it.

I'm saying that as I only realised when putting mine on, that there wasn't any mid-fairing external detail at all (which I found quite surprising considering the level of detail on rudder pedals, etc. and things not as exposed to view), so I decided to add some sort of detail there myself. I'm now waiting on some Archer raised head rivets that will go on there (in a band to the rear of my lines), with single rivets just ahead.

In the end I replaced the cannon muzzles with brass rod too.

 

Things also done this time were:-

Realised that there's a sort of curved 'box' fairing that needed to be added just behind the rear of the radiator, which sits on the top of the 'roof' of the radiator internal fairing and to which one of the cowling attachment points is mounted to (visible just to left of lower cowling attachment point in front

of leading edge wing root), so added that. 

Added the extra piece of wing that would normally be hidden under the wing/fuselage fillet (but will be exposed or me as I'm leaving that panel off) and removed the curved kit fillet mount and replaced with 'rear wing attachment point'.

Realised there was a space where a 'flap pressure relief valve' should be, so made something like one of those (just to right of rear wing attachment point).

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

[bobsyouruncle]

Managed to finally get back to some modelling again after finishing off the Lightning painting, so I thought it would be good to spend some time sorting out the bomb load, as I'd been wondering how to sort out some 

of the small details with these. 

The second mission of the day on August 11th 1944, for Johnnie Button and Zipp X, was an attack on Beauvais Radio station, for which the aircraft were loaded with the 1000 pounders.

 

Looking at the kit bombs, I thought the tail section that bolts onto the rear of the bomb looked a little short, so I filed and sanded the demarcation ridge back, to make the joint further forward a touch.

This removed some of the mushroom headed rivets by the apertures for the wing nuts that hold the tail on (which were added using wire insulation and plastic strip), so these were replaced by Archer raised rivet heads. Extra rivets were added around the tail vane.

 

Mr surfacer was stippled over the bomb body to simulate the rough cast look.

 

Airfix don't provide a tail vane (small propeller) for the bomb and I didn't know what to use for those.

I wanted something that would hold it's shape when the blades were bent into shape, which I could also cut, but not be too fragile. 

My solution was to use the ring-pull lid from a tin of soup (tomato in my case).

 

I used an 8mm olive and a hammer to make a circular imprint, which I was then able to cut out using scissors and then filed.

 

I drilled a small hole in centre, wide enough to push a lace pin through. The blades were then marked off and very gingerly cut out using the scissors (had to be very careful not to get too close to the centre hole).

The blades were then twisted to make the prop shape and the whole thing threaded onto the lace pin. They 

 

I also wanted to add the twin mounting points on the underside of the bomb (which I believe are how the Americans hung them? - please

correct me if you know more).

These were made using bent fuse wire into drilled holes through a plastic card base.

 

 

For painting, I went for Humbrol 30 on the bomb body, with some sand and white added or the tail sections (they look lighter to me in some photos).

The nose rings, particularly the red ones, from what I could see in photos, looked to be quite roughly painted on and so I decided to paint these on myself rather than the perfect edge of decals (which are included).

 

From the photos I'd found, the stencilling looked different to that provided in the kit, so I was looking for a solution to this.

I got two Archer dry transfer sets (letters and numbers), which very closely matched the size and font I was after.

It must be the way I was doing it (I tried to follow the video instructions on how to use them), and my hamfistedness, but I couldn't get them to stick where

I'd put them and then I was accidentally scraping off ones I had managed to get on. 

 

In some places, I used a brush to replace bits of the stencils that had come off and that's when the missus said 'I don't know why you don't just paint the whole lot on' (she'd heard my 'frustrations').

So that's what I did, scraping off the letters and replacing them with paint instead.

This also gave me some comfort in thinking that painted letters would be more suited to the weathering that'd follow and painting was much easier than trying to position on the curved, tapered part of the bomb.

They're a little raggedy, but I quite like them.

 

 

I wanted to try out some weathering powder for the Normandy dust but hadn't got any and haven't used them before. 

I found some at Transport models in Preston and got a small set.

I really quite enjoyed this part, using a mix of sand and white and added some chips around the tail section.

I might add more but this is the weathered version so far against the unweathered one (I left the two dust-free 'rings' around the bomb body to replicate

where they're held in transit cradles).

 

 

The wires for the safety pin on the arming vane that goes into the wing, will be added when the bombs are hung on the aircraft.

Back to the front end of the aircraft now.

Cheers Bob.

 

 

 

 

 

[bobsyouruncle]

Another small update from this week and she's actually starting to resemble an aircraft now, I think.

I've used some filler and plenty of sanding to get the body to sit how I'd like it to and will be replacing some of the detail before starting on the paint.

I wanted to make sure everything was aligned around the radiator fairing and have altered the braces that fit over the wing spar, so that the fuselage rear section moved up forwards, so as not to leave the gap behind the firewall

that I'd noticed in some pics. The wing/fuselage filet had to be filed down to a thin edge to try and get a convincing look too.

Some extra filing and riveting to be done around the transport joint for the tail section. I didn't like the seam that ran down the centre of the plates over the joint, so have added a layer on these and will file down and re-rivet.

Also nearly forgot, but remembered to add something or the rudder tabs to actuate.

 

Anyway, now looking forward to getting some paint on her and have been looking at the threads on Ocean Grey, etc., and have been trying out some combination experiments of my own on plastic card to see what 'looks right' to my

eyes (being green colour-blind doesn't help either) and comparing with colour photos (although they look different from one photo to the next).

The colours will lighten up with some 'Normandy dust' added, but Humbrol 106 still looked too dark to my eyes, for the Grey.

Cheers Bob.

 

 

 

[Anthony in NZ]

Hi there Bob, I am totally loving your work here.  1/24 is an impressive scale, and has quite the visual impact. I think the 'trick' with these big kits is to not let them get looking 'Toy-like' and the detail you are adding has taken this to the next level!  Well done sir!

 

I am plugging away on their Mosquito over on LSP and the Typhoon is a huge leap forward in tooling over the Mosquito.

 

Keep up the great work, you are inspiring me!

 

Cheers Anthony

[bigbadbadge]

Crikey Bob what amazing work, the lettering on the bombs is amazing. I am in awe of your painting skills fella.  The radiator is amazing too. Absolutely fantastic and inspiring (as Anthony said) work.

Seasons greetings

All the best

Chris