Supermarine Walrus - Aifix 1/48

[bryanm]

New Year Resolution complied with - my Walrus finished at last, not quite before the Hunter arrived but not long after.  I got stuck last year on a couple of issues.  The first was the finish - I started to get debris in the paint.  I finally tracked that down to poor brush hygiene with Xtracolor paint.  There was a quantity of paint still in the brush which remobilised every time I used it, giving 'hairs' of paint.   I've since given it a really good clean and it's much better now although still not perfect.  The other was the rigging.  In 55+ years of modelling I've never rigged a biplane before and I finally decided on 8 gauge guitar wire following a tip on this forum.  It's not perfect but shouldn't go slack with time.  Ditto the finish - it is what it is and doesn't look too bad under a coat or three of matt varnish.

 

It's from the box apart from Eduard harnesses, the rudder mast (curiously omitted by Airfix), and the window spray deflectors, fashioned from the trailing edges of the unused flap parts, The paints are brushed Xtracolor and the decals from Xtradecal.  I wanted a scheme with a clean demarcation between the upper and lower hull colours and as an FAA scheme, AA5R was the obvious choice.  Thanks to ex-FAAWAFU for his hugely helpful WIP thread.  The photo of AA5R shows light bomb carriers so I used the kit practice bombs and also fitted the other bomb racks.  The photo also shows the bracing wires clearly but no antenna from the rudder to the top wing aerials so I left that off.  It's a brilliant kit and the struts are more-or-less self aligning - congrats to the new Airfix.  Thanks for looking!

 

 

Edited January 18, 2019 by bryanm

[Farmerboy]

Good job on both the model and the rigging, scary job, it’s the main reason I shy away from such subjects so well done for taking the plunge!

[fubar57]

Well done. I have one bi-plane in the stash and for this and aircraft antennae, I just purchased some Ushci Van der Rosten rigging thread

[Kev The Modeller]

Very well done 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Lovely; that airframe appears in my Dad’s logbook, and if/when I finally get round to finishing mine, it will be as that cab.  Great job!

[Greg Law]

Very nice build. Have you tried panel liner on the engine. It really helps the look of engines. Your black looks very black. These days I like to use tire black because it seems to have a more scale look. Just a couple of thoughts.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Greg Law

[Frank083]

Very Nice Walrus 

 

Frank

[bryanm]

Thanks for all the comments and 'Likes', and for the tip re black.  Yes, mine is very black - Humbrol's best!

 

If anyone else is doing AA5R apart from Crisp (and pleased to make a very minor tribute to your Dad!), going back to the photo, it looks like the fitting (the thermometer bulb?) on the port bow wasn't fitted to these examples.  Perhaps on AA4T there's a scab where it was?  With a wet decal in hand the pragmatic solution was to overlap the port 'AA5R' marking over the spray deflector, but to do it properly, leave off the fitting and put the decal further forward.

 

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by bryanm