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


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Thanks for the very generous comments guys and apologies to @Lawzer for adding another one to his expanding wants list. :D Not wanting to risk the striped decals breaking up I decided to go with painting them on. and so for the past couple of nights I have been masking off and brush painting those on the upper surfaces. There are a few areas that require a bit of touching up, but apart from that they should look OK.

 

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by John L, on Flickr 

 

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by John L, on Flickr

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Nice build John those stripes look fantastic, when I did this kit I think I only had a desert yellow colour tin. That's what colour mine was.

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On ‎25‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 00:12, AdrianMF said:

Stripes look good! I suspect much better than the decals would ever be.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

I have to agree Adrian. Because of their age and the fact that I chose not to remove the rivet detail, I would definitely have had problems getting the decals to settle over them. 

 

On ‎25‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 09:55, GREG DESTEC said:

Painted on stripes are looking better than ok John.

 

The Firefly is looking really good from where I'm sitting.

 

Cheers Greg 👍

 

Thanks Greg, I tend to be a bit over critical when striving for that perfect look, forgetting that they were probably not that perfect when applied anyway. 

 

5 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Great work on the stripes, I recently tried to do Vichy stripes on a Curtiss Hawk.....

 

Looked like a chainsaw massacre when I lifted the masking tape ! :rage:

 

cheers Pat

 

 

 

Your comment made me smile Pat.  :D Mine generally need a tidy up too, especially where I haven't rubbed the tape down over the raised detail enough.

 

1 hour ago, Ozzy said:

Nice build John those stripes look fantastic, when I did this kit I think I only had a desert yellow colour tin. That's what colour mine was.

 

Thanks Ozzy. My models would have been painted in whatever colour I had too, if they were painted at all.

 

Having finished the painting the black stripes, I have just removed the masking from the lower surfaces and again you can see there is some touch up required.

 

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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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Since the last update I have completed the touch up to the stripes then gloss coated everything and as you can see below it is now up on its pins (complete with the temporary cocktail stick tailwheel). A bit more painting followed by the decals and all being well I should have this one finished by the weekend.

 

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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

 

And finally I couldn't resist a test fit of the prop

 

42538425770_2ded39c5b0_c.jpg

by John L, on Flickr.

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Just placed a ‘watch this item’ on a certain website for one of these - now I wonder what inspired me to do tha?? 

 

This is looking really nice John and you’ve somehow convinced us that those rivets will not detract the overall beauty of the finished product. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

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Thanks once again for all the comments gents.

 

@Rabbit Leader 

 

I hope that you are successful in acquiring one of these Dave, as you can see it's worth the effort and the rivet detail is finer than the boiler plate examples of other kits. I wish that I had done something about the canopies because of the interior work that I did, but they are adequate if you plan to go with the kit parts. During my searches I have also come across some nice photos of Australian aircraft with different coloured spinners which would make interesting alternatives to the example in my kit. The sole kit example is of an ex Royal Navy aircraft serving with the RAN aboard HMS Sydney as part of the UN forces in Korea.

 

I completed the canopy painting tonight, I have also made a start on the decals, adding the roundels on upper surfaces and to one of the fuselage sides. The decals are surprisingly thin and look as though they have settled down well, I'll know more after they have been left overnight, but I have found Xtradecal alternatives for the Royal Navy titles and numbers in my decals box.

 

I'll take a couple of photos of progress tomorrow before I continue with the build.

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Good morning folks, here are a few photos of yesterdays progress as promised. You can see that the fuselage decal looks OK, but the wing decals have lifted at the edges causing some silvering, most likely aided by the rivet detail. I don't have any suitable sized replacements, so I'll see what I can do to get them settled down a bit more with some hot water, cotton buds and thinned PVA later.

 

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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

 

I have found these in my decals box, so they will be replacing the kit title, code and serial decals.

 

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by John L, on Flickr

 

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by John L, on Flickr

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John, I'm not sure what you glossed with prior to decalling but maybe trying something like this could have cured your decal woes. If you have access to Klear or similar, try running some in under the decal edges & it should eliminate the silvering. Other than that, a cracking Firefly.

Steve.

Edited by stevehnz
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59 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

John, I'm not sure what you glossed with prior to decalling but maybe trying something like this could have cured your decal woes. If you have access to Klear or similar, try running some in under the decal edges & it should eliminate the silvering. Other than that, a cracking Firefly.

Steve.

Thanks for the link to your tip Steve. I brushed a couple of coats of Klear on the model before applying the decals. They came away from the backing paper very well considering their age, and I used Micro Set/Sol to settle them down. I haven't tried using Klear to apply decals before so I will definitely give that a go with the remaining roundels, and I'll also try your suggestion of running some around the edge of the wing decals.

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Having worked my way through Mrs N's jobs list I was able to complete the decaling phase this afternoon. I used the tip passed on by @stevehnz and fixed the remaining roundels in position with Klear, I also used some around the edges of the upper surface decals to help with the silvering issue too. They have gone down really well so I will be using that method again.

 

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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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by John L, on Flickr

 

Some last bits of painting, followed by a clear coat, and the addition of the final dangly bits like undercarriage doors etc, should see this one finished.

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1 hour ago, nimrod54 said:

Having worked my way through Mrs N's jobs list I was able to complete the decaling phase this afternoon. I used the tip passed on by @stevehnz and fixed the remaining roundels in position with Klear, I also used some around the edges of the upper surface decals to help with the silvering issue too. They have gone down really well so I will be using that method again.

I love a good tip John and that was a great one from Steve - glad you got your 'chores' done too ;)  I'm on Birthday card delivery duties tomorrow - oh and the bins need to go out :lol:

 

Looking good :goodjob:

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21 hours ago, Beard said:

That is one smart Firefly. I'm particularly in awe of the exhausts.

Thanks Beard, I am pleased with how the exhausts worked out, I didn't fancy trying to drill out the kit stubs.

 

20 hours ago, BIG X said:

I love a good tip John and that was a great one from Steve - glad you got your 'chores' done too ;)  I'm on Birthday card delivery duties tomorrow - oh and the bins need to go out :lol:

 

Looking good :goodjob:


It was a really useful tip Steve. I hope to wrap the Firefly up today, but I also have to start some Damson Vodka :drunk:so that depends on how much by-product is left. :winkgrin: Hope that you get your cards delivered quickly .

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53 minutes ago, nimrod54 said:

 :winkgrin: Hope that you get your cards delivered quickly .

An early start and all cards delivered - now the Italian Grand Prix is attracting my attention :doh:

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