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Airfix: The Golden Years Gallery


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AIRFIX 1/76 K6 Crash Tender - Conversions

 

These Austin K6s were also taken from a couple of RAF emergency sets.  They tend to cause even more controversy over their accuracy, colour and date of use by the RAF than the ambulances in the kits – so…

 

I have gone completely ‘off piste’ this time and converted them to flat backed lorries.  The Airfix parts used are the chassis / cab / wheels.  The K6 did come in a lot of variants and though these are not strictly accurate to a specific model & more or a ‘what if’ I hope they meet with your approval.  The covered lorry used 2 back sections from much smaller PSC CMP 15cwt trucks – literally ‘stuck together’.  The open lorry was scratch built from bits of Evergreen and again the stowage was ‘stolen’ from various other PSC kits.  I have put them into service with The Royal Army Service Corp, working under the banner of the ‘back bull’ of the 11th Armoured Division.

 

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I hope you like them - they were fun to build & if you want to check out the build thread you can find it here…

 

 

Thanks again - Steve

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Fairey Firefly MK V

817 Sqn, Royal Australian Navy

HMAS Sydney

 

The Firefly was released by Airfix in 1966 and this kit is an original boxing from that era. I used an Airwaves etch set to help improve some of the kit parts and added a few of my own, such as the exhausts which are pieces of micro tubing slid down over the shortened stubs of the kit parts. The kit depicts an aircraft from 817 Squadron of the Royal Australian Navy operating from HMAS Sydney during the Korean War. The aircraft retained the 'Royal Navy' markings that they carried on allocation to the Australian Navy.

 

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The range of Airfix kits is remarkable when you think of it. Everything from garden birds to space flight, covering almost everything in between. I found some Dapol reworked versions of old Airfix kits, plus some original Airfix boxings, of British Railways wagons. When these kits arrived, between about 1960 and 1964, their subjects were still new things in the real world. It would have been nice to have managed a full set of these subjects, but I don't have the mineral wagon, cattle wagon, Lowmac and JCB or the Interfrigo refrigerated van. 

 

The build thread is here:

 

 

I had started out with the intention of building up the two Esso tank wagons, but a delay in the detail parts has pushed me to leave those on the shelf for this Group Build. Two of the kits I decided to build straight from the box, or as near as I could, to demonstrate what the basic model looked like when finished. Two other kits, later mouldings from Dapol, I decided to do what most railway modellers have done for years, that is change the wheels, couplings and add extra details to make them suitable for an exhibition layout.

 

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A short Airfix freight train. I didn't build the display specially. It was created many years ago as something to show and photograph my 4mm scale models on. I really need the same thing at O Gauge, too, but that's another story! I will eventually weather the cement wagons, as they didn't stay factory fresh for long.

 

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Blue Circle Cement 20 ton Bulk Cement Hopper, coded Presflo. This is the livery Airfix chose, and I was pleasantly surprised that the Dapol transfers worked well. This model has been detailed with extra pipework, replacement couplings and wheels, to make a slightly more accurate representation of the real thing. 

 

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BR 20 ton Pressurised Air Transfer Hopper, coded Prestwin. The bauxite red livery is correct for a vacuum braked wagon. The real thing entered service in the mid-1960s, and was used to carry all kinds of powdered products. It was about the time when the Victorian loose-coupled goods wagon was not long for this world, so although the Prestwins had a longer automatically-braked wheelbase, they were really the last of their kind. Air braking and block trains were the future. Even so, Prestwins, and Presflos, remained in railway service into the 1980s.

 

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Another anachronism of the early nationalised railway system was the 10-ton ventilated meat van. Intended for the carriage of meat, the idea of building such a van without refrigeration still makes me wonder. In fact, refrigerated versions were built at the same time, so quite what these were meant for remains a mystery. In the end, some saw out their lives in the useful pursuit of carrying beer. The original livery was the same as passenger coaches, another mystery that may never be solved. I built this model straight from the box, opting only to use the facsimile couplings over the toy buckeyes. Sadly, painting the model has gummed up the opening doors. 

 

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Finally, and appropriately bringing up the rear, is the BR Standard 20 ton Brake Van. No self-respecting goods train would be seen without a brake van bringing up the rear, carrying a red tail lamp and the train guard. If the train was seen without a brake van, the signalman would start to be rather worried, and would take some action to prevent an accident. While there were plenty of perfectly usable brake vans in use when the railways were nationalised in 1948, a committee of jobsworths thought they needed another design. In the end, they adapted an existing design, which was only finally phased out of use on the railways in the UK about 20 years ago. You will only see a brake van on a train on a heritage line these days. I built this one straight from the box, apart from swapping the underframe for a Dapol version as the original had broken at some point in the past. A more fastidious railway modeller would replace all the moulded handrails with wire ones, and correct the location of the stove chimney. 

 

I've enjoyed building these kits. As has been pointed out, my "day job" consists of building railway models, albeit at a larger scale, but I started out with the smaller scale stuff many years ago. I'm reliably informed, even though it is possible to acquire finely detailed OO gauge models that can be played with right away, there is better value for money from these 1960s kits. It is a good thing they can still be found at relatively pocket money prices.

Edited by Heather Kay
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My third Comic book inspired model for the GB is now done. Here's the finished plane...

 

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I really like the concept of these builds. When I first dug the kit out to add it to the GB and started thinking of how to finish it, things started getting out of hand at a rapid rate. Bomber colours, Fighter colours, is this nose right? Does that Mk have guns? Is the shape right, or will it need surgury?  The enjoyment of the build was heading rapidly towards the horizon. All these issues vanished with the appearance of Mosquito Ace, Commando Comic number 269! Just copy the picture on the cover. Easy peasy.

Not quite. I mixed up the green and grey for the top surfaces, painted them on then added sky undersurfaces. So far, so good. The F-DA code came from my spares box and were grey. The same grey almost as the cammo colour. They looked wrong. No problem, I also had sky codes I could use. The same sky as the undersurfaces. How annoying. I ended up painting over the codes in white so the things would show up. It kind of worked, if you don't look to closely.

Then there's the plastic the kit is made of. Oh dear. The model only got finished because I posted the startup here. At any other time I would have binned the thing. I've never built a kit with more brittle plastic in my life! Over the course of the build I re-fixed four prop blades, re-made one undercarriage assembly and an exhaust manifold that shattered when I tried to drill out the ends. All thoughts of thinning out the undercarriage doors were abandoned as I had no expectation of them staying in one bit during the required work. Ditto the front gun barrels, the kit ones would have lasted a day or two at most. I cut up a bit of brass wire and used that instead. It's not like Airfix were new to the kit manufacturing game here, there is no excuse for this poor quality at all.

 

Having got the moaning off my chest I'm still happy to have seen the build through to the end. It was a bit of a struggle though...

 

Tony.

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This is my attempt at the 1978 mould of the Hawker Hurricane.

Brush painted with Colourcoats and Humbrol enamels and, Tamiya acrylics. The transfers are from the Xtradecals Bob 75th Anniversary Pt1 and represent Flight Lieutenant AV Clowes plane, which was included in the original boxing.

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The build thread is here:

 

Thanks to Lawzer and Ventura3300 for hosting.

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Here's my Airfix Mig-21, 1975-ish boxing, first seen in 1967, build thread here.

 

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It fits together surprisingly well, and follows the pattern of many of the Airfix 1960s jets - heavily raised panel lines, no interior to speak of, shallow landing bays, poorly represented flying surfaces of uncertain thickness and crude weapons - I liked it! I deliberately didn't fret about any of the shortcomings and I'm desperately trying not to buy a new Revell one (my stash now includes a Hasegawa B-25...).

 

PS: and, as usual, after I have messed about with taking everything outside into daylight, set the proper camera settings and fiddled about with tripods and long exposures, a snap with an iPhone on top of my printer looks a thousand times better:

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Thanks for looking, 

Adrian

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May I present the 1958 version of the Lancaster.

No rivets were lost and no filler was applied. 

I wanted to build it as a young lad may have done back in the day, simple use of paint and glue.

 

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I hope I have done it justice. many thanks for looking in.

Ian

Edited by Mancunian airman
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Avro Anson Mk 1, 321 Squadron St Eval, 1940. Built OOB. Upper surfaces Xtracrylix and underside Tamiya Aluminium, all brush painted. Not a bad build although fit of transparencies left a little to be desired. 

 

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Edited by 825
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Another 109.

 

Turned out VERY ropey but in my defence I wanted to do something akin to when I was a kid.  So, apart from the pilot seat, built OOB, brush painted (can you tell 🤣) and kit decals (although the latest boxing - 2012 I think) although I probably should have painted the white fuselage band instead of using the decal as it did not see eye to eye with the microsol.....

 

Not my proudest moment (*ahem*) but sure took me back to the days of "lets just touch it with my finger to see if the paint is dry yet".......

 

I think the hurricane I bought is waiting for me at work but I'm not back till Monday so hopefully I will have time to do that for the GB ;)

 

 

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RAF Emergency Set. Straight from the box but painted in war time colours rathaer than a bright red fire engine. More authentic but challenging for me as the son of a fireman and having spent my formative years living in a fire station the only colour fire engines should be is red.  

 

Painted with Citadel's Death Forest Green

 

Trials and tribulations of the build thread here

Ambulance

 

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Fire engine

 

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Both with medical team and fire crew

 

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My F104 Starfighter is now done.

 

Straight out the box build, first issue transfers (decals were later😉) The port side fin has no flag as the transfer sheet I used only had one on it. Hence starboard side views only with the pictures.

The drop tanks were fitted instead of the sidewinders shown on the box top as according to Wiki, the Canadians never fitted missiles. I like the over the top look of the bright red tanks but sort of wish I had followed the box top. I like my builds to follow the box or header most of the time.

The model looks like a Starfighter until you get a bit closer. The undercarriage looks very undernourished to me, especially the nose wheel. The intakes took a whole load of filling to look half right. The fit of the parts was terrible here. All in all, it's not a bad kit for its time. It was pushing its luck still being in the catalogue twenty years later though!

 

Here it is, all shiny and futuristic looking...

 

 

 

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Edited by TonyW
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1/72 Dassult-Breguet / Dornier Alpha Jet

 

Finished as a Portuguese Air Force Alpha Jet A, of Esquadra 301 'Jaguars'. Decals from Printscale

 

I added the flare/chaff disperser under the rear fuselage, replaced the jet pipes with metal tub and rebuilt the gun pod.

 

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1:76 Bren Gun Carrier & 6lb 7.5cwt gun. Built straight from the box. Painted with Hataka, Tamiya and Akan paints then smothered in Games Workshop ink wash.

 

The crew are all at the NAAFI truck.

 

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The compulsory penny shot

 

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And a metric one for readers who have no idea how big a UK penny is. The entire model measures very slightly over 12cm long.

 

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Thanks for looking. I enjoyed that.

 

Andy

 

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My 1975 Airfix Fouga Magister in 1/72 is now finished, in Belgian colours.

 

I can't find my actual camera, but here are some cell phone shots taken outside. More details on the easy build of this really cool little kit are in the link to the build thread below.

 

What a great GB this was - seeing all the completed builds above is really like looking through the old Airfix catalogues as a boy in the 70s and 80s. 

 

Kudos to all who joined in and thanks to the organizers!

 

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The 25 Pounder Field Gun, Limber and Quad are now as done as they are going to be. I loved the Airfix AFV's as a nipper and thoroughly enjoyed building this one again after a rather long gap. A straight out the box build with nothing added other than a simple base. I'll be building more of the range for sure, maybe even for the GB, although time has a habit of speeding up towards the end of a Group Build!

Here's a few shots...

 

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OO/HO Scammell Scarab

 

From what I can gather from Scalemates, Airfix released this kit in 1962 as part of their railway and line side series of kits. It consisted of one Scammell Scarab 3-wheeler tractor unit and a choice of a British Railways flatbed or Watneys Brewery trailers. Airfix don't appear to have updated or repackaged the kit, and it seemed to disappear altogether until the 1980s, when Dapol bought the old Airfix railway and line side kits.

 

The kit isn't all that bad, but suffers from "play value" with a sort of working automatic coupling setup. This is fine, but it means the trailer ends up unrealistically close to the cab. Dedicated kit bodgers and railway nuts - like me - used the kit as a basis for something better. In fact, the venerable Dapol Scarab kit has only really been superseded in recent years by models from Oxford Diecast.

 

I set out to show what modifications are required to the tractor unit and trailer to bring them up to "accurate" model standards. The tractors were modified by a raised rib on the cab roof, the moulded number plate removed and replaced with a PE version, a driver squeezed in, the bumper bar thinned down to better represent the steel original, headlamp drilled out, a central pillar to the windscreen, and scratch-built representations of the Scammell auto-coupling. PE door mirrors completed the assembly. Having two kits at my disposal, I built one as an uncoupled British Railways tractor, the other as a coupled Watneys tractor. 

 

Personal photos and information found on the interweb provided useful resources to make the couplings.

 

For the full description, the WIP thread is here:

 

 

 

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Yet another completion from me! The Stegosaurus part of my Dinosaur builds is finished.

A very light hearted build, nothing to worry about regarding scale accuracy, colouring, markings or indeed anything at all! Just build and enjoy. Colours were slapped on until it looked like a Stegosaurus to me. Same with the base, scenic materials scattered about until they appeared OK. I quite liked a scenic material called Range Sand. A nice golden look to it. It wasn't until I took a closer look at the bag to find the corner of the label turned over and I had been using Orange Sand all along.

 

Here you go, one Stegosaurus on it's way for a pint at the Pterodactyls Arms...

 

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...and on his way back, via a prehistoric kebab shop.

 

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