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A Hurricane by a different Matchbox


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Just finished today.  This is the 1/144 scale Hurricane Mk I by Sweet.  Finished as YB-J of 17 Squadron during the summer of 1940. 

 

The cockpit was dressed up a fair bit and a new canopy was made.  I also whittled down the propeller blades and moved the elevators.

These aircraft by Sweet are great little kits and come two in a box.  If you ever get the chance, I definitely urge you to have a go!

 

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Wow,.... absolutely fabulous little model,......... I`d go as far as to describe it as a masterpiece and I love your photos,..... the addition of the 1940 coin is a nice touch. Having build at few of these I can really appreciate the skill involved in making this model look so good,........ every Sweet Hurricane that I have built was spoiled by the decals not wanting to stick to the model,...... so I am very impressed by how you got yours to behave themselves!

 

I`m in awe of you with this beauty,

 

Cheers

          Tony

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I've never built anything smaller than an airliner in 1/144 but this is exquisite and I am tempted to have a go. I will end up with stinging, tired eyes but this looks really nice.

 

Cheers

 

Malcolm

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Sweet! 

 

Looks very good.

Making up replacement canopy in 1/144 completely changes the look from standard.

With a canopy from a kit you can tell at a glance it's that because of the lens effects.

 

How did you make the canopy, if you don't mind me asking?

 

I was wondering what the Sweet Hurricane was like, now I see and I like.  

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wrong time of year for April fool.  That’s at least 1/48.  Stunning - the hurricane to me is so difficult to capture and to do it in this scale with not an ounce of cartoon like humps or bumps is stunning.  They are so beautiful when done like this.  

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5 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

That really is Sweet, in more than one sense B) Nice work mate

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

You've stolen my line there Stew - Sweet indeed - nice work.

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Wow, thank you everybody for all the encouragement!  I'm pretty happy with the little guy, and it's now sitting happily in a tiny cabinet alongside my other 1/144 projects.  :)

 

20 hours ago, tonyot said:

every Sweet Hurricane that I have built was spoiled by the decals not wanting to stick to the model

I think I got really lucky there.  I'm a bit of a duffer with decals and I normally use Tamiya Mark Fit when placing the decals on.  Just the day before however, I bought the Mr Hobby Mr Mark Softer and put this over each marking before rubbing them down into the surface.  I was amazed how well they bedded down and the carrier film was all but invisible.

 

11 hours ago, SUB-SAM said:

Making up replacement canopy in 1/144 completely changes the look from standard.  With a canopy from a kit you can tell at a glance it's that because of the lens effects.

How did you make the canopy, if you don't mind me asking?

Hi Sam, I made the sliding hood by plug moulding a piece of clear plastic.  I used .5mm acrylic as it can be very easily sanded and polished, unlike petg and acetate etc. I never use the existing canopy as a master at this scale though, as it makes the new one look overscale.  I always carve a new one from a laminated chunk of styrene and take into account the thickness of the acrylic.

 

The windscreen is actually the front part of the original kit canopy.  I cut this off and thinned it down from the inside with the tip of a scalpel and various little improvised scrapers that I made from bits of metal and old broken drill bits.  Once it was thinned down sufficiently, I made tiny little sanding blocks (wet & dry paper superglued to strips of styrene) and smoothed things out.  I polished the interior as thoroughly as I could, then placed a single drop of thinned down Gunze acrylic clear gloss into it.  I was careful not to let the clear varnish run out onto the outside of the canopy however, as that was already pristine out of the box.

 

Once the clear varnish had sat for twenty seconds or so I wicked off the excess and put the windscreen aside for a couple of days to harden up.  I've done this a few times now for different projects where the external canopy is fine but just needs some thinning.  It sounds scary, but with some practice and good magnification it is actually very enjoyable :)

 

10 hours ago, BristolBlue said:

Wrong time of year for April fool.  That’s at least 1/48.  Stunning - the hurricane to me is so difficult to capture and to do it in this scale

I agree!  Sweet did a great job in capturing the shape though.  The panel lines aren't too overscale either compared to other 1/144 scale models on the market, and it makes the airframe look a lot more natural.

Here's a shot taken while I was spraying the exhaust stains.  Note my mighty 3x paw! 

 

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42 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Amazing!  And the cockpit detailed as well

Only the bits that were strictly necessary.  Life's too short to go modelling bits you wont be able to see!

I did spend a lot of time thinning the sides of the cockpit down though.  I got it to the point where a pencil line on the inside was plainly visible from the outside.  The only bummer was that the coaming around the breakaway panel and the lip of the cockpit make the plastic look almost three times thicker than it actually is....

 

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Thank you for the detailed response on the canopy. 

The time and technique applied here means in the photos one could mistake it for even a well built 1/48 scale, very impressive. 

 

Part of the joy of 1/144 scale is finding techniques to overcome limitations at this scale.

 

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