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1:72 Hawker Persian Fury


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My choice is the Hawker Persian Fury.  I will be using the Matchbox 1:72 kit )of course!).  I have the Kora decal sheet for the Iranian Tiger Moth, which will provide the national markings.  I haven't decided yet whether to scratchbuild the Mercury engine, or just nick one from a Lysander kit.

 

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Earlier releases were molded in blue and light grey, but the one I have is very low contrast light grey and silver, which should make priming it when the time comes a much simpler task

 

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Edited by Possibly Apocryphal
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1.  I never knew there were radial engined Furies, Hart/Hind yes, Furies no!

 

2.  I never knew the Persians operated Furies.

 

So for these two reasons I'll be following this build with interest.

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21 hours ago, Wez said:

1.  I never knew there were radial engined Furies, Hart/Hind yes, Furies no!

 

2.  I never knew the Persians operated Furies.

 

So for these two reasons I'll be following this build with interest.

Hi Wez.  The Persians (while they were still Persians, they became Iranians in 1935) received two batches of Furies, each of 12 aircraft.  The first were powered by Pratt & Whitney Hornets, because of an existing relationship the Persian Government had with P&W.  These proved to be unsatisfactory, so the second batch was supplied with Mercuries, which were more successful, so the first batch was then re-engined with Mercuries too.  According to an article I found while Googling, at least 16 Furies were still on strength as of December 1943.

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Well, I got started over the weekend.  First job was to thin the fuselage sided with the Dremel in the region of the cockpit.

wMtjJJq.jpg

 

This creates the maximum space for the cockpit detail to e added.

 

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The first step with the cockpit detail was the structural framework.  These are the sides, made from .5mm and .75mm Evergreen plastic rod.

 

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And here they are, in their approximate positions.

 

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With the cross-pieces, they join together like this (a bit of trial and error was needed to get the width right)

 

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And the whole structure fits into the fuselage like this.

 

471dCXV.jpg

qM0krar.jpg

 

That's it for now.  Next step is to add all the details.

Edited by Possibly Apocryphal
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Good luck on this project! I've always fancied doing one of these radial-engined Furies (it would look good next to my radial-engined Persian Hind).

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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17 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Nice start ! Guess we can now expect a fully detailed cockpit 😎

That's the plan.  I have some good reference articles which includes annotated sketches.  It's useful to know what is what so I know which bits to delete, like the radiator shutter controls, and features associated with the radio.

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The next step was to add all the details on the sides of the cockpit - the priming pumps and fuse rack (I think that's what it is) on the starboard side, map case, tailplane incidence wheel and throttle & mixture controls to port.  The pump handles and throttle/mixture levers needed to be thinner than my thinnest plastic rod (.5mm), so i used stretched sprue for those.

 

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The final step was to make the pilot's seat from plastic card and seat harness from thin lead foil.

 

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And it does actually accommodate the old Matchbox Biggles pretty comfortably!

 

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Hard to believe I've gotten all that done in less than five days.  That's amazingly fast modelling for me!  Next step is to paint it all and put the fuselage together.

 

Cheers,

Adam

 

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Adam,

 

I can only echo everybody else and agree this is great modelling!

 

Looking forward to seeing how you tackle the engine conversion.

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12 hours ago, Wez said:

Adam,

 

I can only echo everybody else and agree this is great modelling!

 

Looking forward to seeing how you tackle the engine conversion.

Cheers, Wez.  Since Dogsbody pointed out that the Matchbox Lysander engine is unsuitable, and I don't actually have a Gladiator to be a Mercury donor, it's going to be a scratcbuild too.  I've made a start on it, but not enough to be worth an update yet.  Give me another day, and you should have a progress report. :)

Edited by Possibly Apocryphal
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9 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

Do you have an old Blenheim kicking around? They used Mercurys, too.

 

 

Chris

No, I don't have anything with a Mercury, and I really want to try my hand at scratchuilding a radial anyway.  I do have a Roden 1:48 Gladiator, which has a pretty nice engine that is helping with dimensions.  Plus, there are plenty of nice clear photos around the internet to help with the details.

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I eventually got to work on the engine.  My first attempt at scratchuilding a radial, so I need a plan B in case it all goes pear-shaped.  (Plan B is to get hold of a Gladiator and rob the engine from that!) Step 1 is to build the crank case, which is a 9-sided polygon, 3mm thick.  9 cylinders means 40 degrees apart, so this is traced onto a block made from two pieces of 60 thou (1.5mm) card laminated together.

uzkWj6S.jpg

 

 And then the excess is trimmed off...

r0fEyWH.jpg

 

The cylinders are made from plastic rod 2mm and 2.3mm diameter, with .2mm copper wire wrapped around them.  That's cheating, I know, but it's impossible to tell that it's a coil and not separate grooves.  Once the pushrods are in place, it will be even more impossible.

OlXpovY.jpg

 

So then, the thinner rod is cut to lengths just under 3mm long and fixed to the crank case.

mqaUtnM.jpg

 

And then the thicker rod is cut to 1mm lengths, and added to that.

z3EsD8C.jpg

 

So that's the main assembly done, the rest is just a matter of adding all the details.  Which should be the subject of the next update.

 

Cheers for now,

Adam

 

Edited by Possibly Apocryphal
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