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Fairey Firefly Mk.5 - 1/72nd ++FINISHED++


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1 hour ago, BIG X said:

Now that is serious modelling - nice work John.

 

Thanks a lot Steve,. Things got a bit tricky because the tube was such a snug fit, I had to make sure that I removed the burr before carefully sliding it down over the plastic. It still took off a thin shaving of plastic as it was pushed on though and I managed to break one as I had almost got it home, fixed with some thin cement and strengthened with superglue.

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I have finally shoehorned the Airwaves set into the fuselage, choosing to ignore the confusing instructions, then everything was sprayed black and had a dry brush with some Humbrol 67. I realise that the bulkhead to the rear compartment should be vertical, but there won't be much on show once the canopies go on and the only colour visible will come from the seats. 

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

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2 hours ago, Lawzer said:

Sterling work! 👍

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Grandboof said:

First class work there 

Martin H

 

Thanks chaps. The Airwaves instructions left me thoroughly confused, with components like the trim wheel and throttle being fitted to one side panel, and later this completed assembly shown as being installed in the rear compartment. The shape of this side panel would suggest that it was probably made for the rear compartment, but the component fit was definitely for the front office. In the end I decided to fit parts where I felt they should be, but still had to reposition the throttle because in the position given in the instructions it was just behind the instrument panel, that is assuming that I have that in the right position of course. :D

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I got on with the job of adding the seatbelts to the seats last night and then fixed the seats in position, after that I glued the fuselage halves together. I did this in stages, starting at the tail and working my way forwards. I thought that I had made a decent job of lining things up,, despite a test fit showing that there would be a gap on the upper surface, forward of the Instrument panel. I had thinned the sidewalls about as much as I dared to accommodate this but it wasn't enough to allow me to close the join, still it was easily resolved with some plastic inserts.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

It was when I started cleaning up this area that I discovered just how good/bad a job I had made of gluing the fuselage together, so out came the filler and this is drying off as I type. I've also cut a semi-circle of thin plastic sheet, fitted into the engine cooling intake to hide the join in what would be a tricky area to clean up.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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1 hour ago, GREG DESTEC said:

Nice progress John,

 

I see sanding in your future 😮

 

Keep up the good work.

Cheers Greg 

 

Thanks a lot Greg. The sanding didn't take long to do and it doesn't look too bad at first glance, I will see how it is when I go over it with some primer. The last job on this for today was to add the wings and tailplanes, I am going to leave this overnight and then I can tidy things up tomorrow.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

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Apologies for being away from this thread for so long John, however it's so good to see you making such great progress with this Firefly. It's coming along wonderfully well. Keep it up my friend, all the hard work will be most rewarding. 

 

Cheers.. Dave

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Thanks for all the kind comments gentlemen. I think that one of the next jobs to tackle will be the fit of the canopies. Airfix have represented the frames with raised lines, so I have been thinking about the best way to represent this detail, I don't know if masking and then painting them in would be sufficient, or to go over the frames with black decal and then seal the canopies with clear before masking and over spraying the frames with primer and topcoat. Of course, any other suggestions would be most welcome. 

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I fixed the canopies in place last night and having decided to use a very simple technique that I have seen used here on Britmodeller ( @AdrianMF I think) which is to mask each frame line individually, horizontally/vertically, and paint them in, allowing the thickness of the paint to create the frame, there are a few gaps around the canopies to take care of first though. As you can see most of the detail has disappeared under the thick glazing, but at least I know that it is there.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

I have also taped the decals to some card in the hope that I can salvage them and these are now in a sunny window, I am quite keen to do this if possible because they represent an ex-Royal Navy aircraft belonging to 817 Squadron of the Royal Australian Navy from HMAS Sydney during the Korean war, I had an initial experiment at the start of this build and things looked quite hopeful, but they look as though they could be fairly simple to re-create from stocks that I have.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have managed to get some paint on this over the last couple of days, Tamiya Sky on the lower fuselage and undersides Humbrol Extra Dark Sea Grey on the upper surfaces. Stripes are next, after a trip to Games Worksop for some white paint.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

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Now that’s looking a bit nice!! 

As expected John, another Classic kit that in your capable hands is looking like it can hold its own amongst today’s new offerings.

 

Cheers.. Dave 

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