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Airfix 1/72 therapy build thread: Wildcat done!


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@CedB, therapy was interrupted yesterday by needing to concentrate and not overfly Aldermaston, they get seriously tetchy about that...

 

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My li'l honey, the PA28, sweetest plane on the field IMHO

 

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Unlike this little rascal, who no doubt will scare ,me out of my underwear shortly

 

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and a WTF moment after parking up...

 

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The screamin' eagle makes it a winner as far as I'm concerned. Back to the Tomahawk: She's done, dusted awaiting a RFI outing this weekend! Eduard landing light and clear lens (not scrappy finish on sprayed roundel)

 

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On the stand buzzing the cutting mat:

 

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The cute little wing tip light
 

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Well, took a bit longer than I thought but a hoot none the less. The kit has some fit issue but again, its cheap and  cheerful. Made few rods for my own back by making home made albion alloys slide fit guns which were infuriating to paint then insert and didn't look that much better than Airfix's molded on ones. The sprayed codes and roundels is something that needs a lot of practice and I would have been better off just using the kit decals, trimming and hitting them with Daco red. A bit of milestone as this was my tenth documented build of 2018 : Between 2012 and 2017 I managed to build only eight  in total.

 

RFI HERE

So now time to clear the therapy workbench for the next patient...clue:

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Re-started this on Saturday with as the canny @rafalbert speculated, the Red Arrows Gnat. The sprues + some light aftermarket, the F-5E sets have some skinny belts that will do for tarting up the plain seats

 

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First job was to separate the fragile joysticks from the ludicrous sprue gates, my shiny new Platz Hyper Gate Saw earned it keep.

 

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Pit done and dusted: Went for overall gray as most of the pit pictures show this to be the colour along with seats. Seat pads are just tamiya tape painted, much neater than hand painting. Head boxes will get pre-painted Eduard firing handles once all seam filling is taken care of.

 

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Zipped up and stand magnet installed.

 

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A quick dry fit shows some challenging fit issues but easily solved, the intakes may be another story: Its the early Airfix problem of lousy QC and, over engineering and woeful grasp of translating CAD to injected plastic. In many cases the shapes are different as AF failed to understand the behavior of of the material as it cools etc. All easily fixed and again, this kit cost all of £2.99 at Lidl so complaining would be foolish. Plus nowt  has been finished in October so its less whinge and more build I say.

 

Cheers

 

Anil

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3 hours ago, CedB said:

Nice work Anil - that 'pit is looking good already :) 

Cheers Officer Ced, its basic but as most of these are going to be given away when I emigrate next year, I've put just enough in to make it interesting. Note no pilots...y'know I'm going to have a huge bag of Airfix pilots in my spares boxes by the end of the year, I suppose I'll melt them down into styrene filler goo 👿

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7 minutes ago, Mike said:

Where does one get this my son? :)

 

Emigrating? :hmmm: Must have missed this one -_-

 

All the online Japanese shops e.g HLJ etc have them as does Platz japan direct. I got mine from here

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10343354

 

Here's the review that made me buy it

 

https://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/tools/alec/tool_alec_25g.shtml

 

Ah yes, I'm planning my own Brexit next spring, Amsterdam is currently the favoured location, though not necessarily by the citizens of said...😭

 

 

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1 hour ago, azureglo said:

y'know I'm going to have a huge bag of Airfix pilots in my spares boxes by the end of the year, I suppose I'll melt them down into styrene filler goo 👿

Sacrilege, their are always good homes for pilots besides the melting pot ya' knows! 

 

Stuart

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10 minutes ago, azureglo said:

though not necessarily by the citizens of said...😭

My heart goes out to them :crying: You'll still be close enough to come to Telford or dispatch an air strike, which is nice :)

 

10 minutes ago, azureglo said:

All the online Japanese shops e.g HLJ etc have them as does Platz japan direct. I got mine from here

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10343354

It's no cheep! :shocked:

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8 minutes ago, Courageous said:

Sacrilege, their are always good homes for pilots besides the melting pot ya' knows! 

 

Stuart

Y'know Stuart, that depends on how many smartass comments about my pilot less efforts are received at the next RFI using the following equation, 1 smartass drone comment = 1 melted airfix pilot

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2 minutes ago, Bill.B said:

Love the Gnat, watching with interest. Also, that’s a great idea about using painted tape for seat cushions at 1/72 scale, I’ll borrow that idea if you don’t mind. 👍

Feel free Bill, I actually cheated by using my Cricut Air 2 to cut them out accurately! 

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18 hours ago, Courageous said:

Sacrilege, their are always good homes for pilots besides the melting pot ya' knows!

Agreed! If Stuart doesn't have space there's a good home for them here :) 

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This has slowed up while I have good molest of this for a STGB. Action resumed yesterday. First off the intakes, due to the intriguing multi part assembly where the rear of the intake , cockpit side walls and rear cockpit bulkhead location are handled by the same two bits of soft slightly wrong shaped plastic,we got gaps. Some Milliput attended to this but lots of other seam stuff to deal with:

 

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The wing assembly was woeful, huge gap between it and the fuselage , dodgy front shape over the intake and  its bit of the spine was taller than the part on the fuselage. Again easily remedied, I used viscous CA ( Roket Hot) plus zip kicker to instantly weld a the front and then repeat for the back. 

 

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Mr Surfacer 500 smoothed with leveling thinner into the wing gaps and was , as usual, very effective.

 

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It looks quite acceptable but things dont bode well for the canopy! Man this was a lot of filler, CA and sanding for a tiny little plane.

 

 

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A wee update as I struggle with some work issues: Got these a few months back for tarting up ejection seats:

 

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Well I think they look darling, though I failed to accurately fold  them in tow so just snipped one in half and they looks fine to me.  All masked up and ready for a prime.

 

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Progress continues:

Stynylres white primer was a bit more temperamental, regular rinsing of the airbrush in very hot water kept everything flowing as it were. I may move to a 0.6mm nozzle/needle on my H&S evolution primer airbrush.

 

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The Halfords cherry red went on (and dried) super glossy and very evenly, working with real car paints (and Mr Leveling thinner  is a dream and it dries in minutes. No gloss coat for this little gnat.

 

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After knocking back some dust flecks, started on the decalling:

 

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Methinks Mr Fin will take more persuasion than my usual future/distilled water setting agent. The solution is pictured...

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

A slow day helping a fellow Bm'er with some browser issues and failing miserably: Made the final push for finishing this.

 

A new idea for the nose light. First a 1.5mm Eduard etch light. Then floated on Bondic 10 second UV and zapped it. Most pleasing. @Nigel Heath this is the same stuff you got at Telford last week, Its a neat way to do clear nosecones, nav lights on drop tanks etc. It doesn't need masking, dries crystal clear (the Bondic version has slight yellow tint I like). As it relies on surface tension it won't do sharp points but for 15 minutes work looks pretty bonzer.

 

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Decided to save the lovely master pitot for a better build. Remember how I said I would never yutz around with 0.4mm tube and 0.1mm rod? Well I kept my word , I yutzed around with 0.3mm tube and 0.1mm rod....:suicide:

 

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Ta Da! On a borrowed stand from the Tomahawk for a few beauty shots, RFI tomorrow.

 

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Well that makes 10 11 finished for 2018 so I'm a happy camper:  sundowner or two and then I think a new one therapy mate tomorrow.

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Cheers Nigel, , sorry I couldnt fix it remotely but when I need to to re-set so much, I like to to make sure everything is backed up etc so will sort this in a fortnight! . BTW have you tried mottling with with 0.15mm needle yet?

 

Cheers

 

Anil

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37 minutes ago, Tomoshenko said:

Lovely work Anil. It's my favourite red arrow scheme and colour too. PS nice to meet up with you at Telford.

Many thanks Tom, you along with @Nigel Heath are some of the folks* who really inspire and amaze me. Meeting you folks in real life is a genuine pleasure, as is seeing your little jewel of a Fury, more builds, please!!

 

Cheers

 

* and so is a certain Mike Williams aka @Mike, but if he heard I said that he'd probably just make some clever remark...😉

 

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1 hour ago, azureglo said:

and so is a certain Mike Williams aka @Mike, but if he heard I said that he'd probably just make some clever remark...😉

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. :)

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