Natter Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Good evening All, I have decided to join the ranks of Trainers here if you'll have me? I expected a plethora of Hawks, but I was surprised to see only a few. Well I will try and add two. I have no real interest in the Hawk, but I always intended to complete the Airfix 1/27 Spitfire in 19 Sqn colours with the accompanying Hawk in the 2008 anniversary BoB style scheme. Well the Spit is done. I have tried to find a Hawk model I liked, and struggled to find one I liked. I bought a bagged kit, no instructions and no decals as advertised from ebay back in 2011 for £1.20. It has raised panle llines and small strakes rather than the ventral fins adjacent to the air brake - A03086 from the 1975 mould methinks. Then in 2014 came the Revell Red Arrows Hawk from Modelzone in their closing down sale. Nah, soft moulding and indistinct panel lines. This was such a bad kit I couldn't even shift it on ebay at a start price of 99p! Then at the end of 2014 came the Airfix 50 seasons Red Arrows starter set for £6.20, from ebay again. Now we're getting better. The bag has a label of A2005W attached, so this is the 2012 tooling. I have made a small start this week, at this stage so far: The cockpit has been sprayed Alclad Medium Sea Grey. Nope. It's way too 'green' so that will be redone in a more 'grey' grey. So what to do with these random bits of plastic? Well, the Xtradecals Hawk 2008 display Hawks has the BoB anniversary scheme which will adorn the new mould when it is completed. This model will be on its wheels. The older mould will use the 'roundel Hawk' scheme in gloss black with the wheels up, and I plan to use a shaped acrylic rod into the intake to mount it in flight. Being black the raised panel lines won't matter, and all the schemes on the Xtradecals schemes will then be used. The instrument panels of the in-flight Hawk have had a basic representation of the instruments painted on, not great but under the none too clever canopy they should be acceptable. I am modelling for me, not for a competition judge after all. You, dear friends, will be my judges - and you're always kind. The left hand panel is the 'correct' grey for me, the right panel is in the MSG which I feel is too 'green'. A simple fix, but most of the panel as painted will stay as it is; only the rest of the cockpit will be resprayed. Standby for sporadic updates. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 @Natter PM inbound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin W Posted April 3, 2019 Share Posted April 3, 2019 No shortage of Hawks now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col. Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 How are you getting on with these two Dave? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natter Posted April 18, 2019 Author Share Posted April 18, 2019 5 hours ago, Col. said: How are you getting on with these two Dave? Hi Col. - some progress has been made on them both. The next stage is painting the seats and crew for the wheels up option. Fingers crossed I'll get some photos up on the thread this weekend, bearing in mind I am working Friday, Saturday and Monday it may be a small update. While I am here I'd like to say a 'thank you' to Rob G for getting me back on track after an initial stall in proceedings. More soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephLalor Posted April 18, 2019 Share Posted April 18, 2019 On 4/2/2019 at 10:31 PM, Natter said: The cockpit has been sprayed Alclad Medium Sea Grey. Nope. It's way too 'green' so that will be redone in a more 'grey' grey. That right hand panel looks more like Ocean Grey or Dark Admiralty Grey to me. The latter has been used on the cockpits of British military aircraft I believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natter Posted June 2, 2019 Author Share Posted June 2, 2019 Well the modelling mojo has taken a bit of a break, and the hole has been filled by my not so green fingered efforts in the garden. In between though, as JosephLalor said, Ocean Grey for the cockpits; and a few ther bits. The new mould comes with decals for the instrument panels, not too shabby if the canopy will be closed, as mine will be. The old mould is to be in-flight, with a 5mm clear acrylic rod through the tailpipe opening. To make sure it all lines up a bulkhead was made with a hole for the rod to link through, nicely lined up with the tailpipe. You can just see the temporary 5mm tube in the opening. The spreader rod was necessary to reduce the gaps at the wing roots. The new mould will be on its undercarriage. The exhaust in the kit isn't too bad, but I replaced it with a piece of 5mm tube thinned at the end. The old mould lacks the wing fences, so these were made from thin plasticard. The rudder on the Hawk has an obvious gap at the top and at the bottom, so I opened up the gaps on the models with a razor saw. I haven't gone for much in the way of aftermarket for these kits, but I do quite like resin seats, and the ones from Pavla are so much better than anything I coulc do with my limited scratchbuilding skills. The centre two are the Pavla seats and the outside two are the Airfix seats with the headrest/parachute sections rebuilt with more plasticard. The harnesses on the new head units are just painted Tamiya tape. I use tablet blister packs for decantingdrops of paint for fine detail painting, or drops of superglue for precision application with a little loop of wire. The colours on the palette are those used for the seats; quite a few colours. Painted up the Pavla seats look like this. The in-flight model will need a driver and talking-ballast, and although the Airfix crew are, well, OK, the PJ Productions pilots are much nicer and more animated. The HUDs provided have solid screens, so I replaced them with tiny pieces of acetate. The new mould has no HUDs, being a boxing meant to model a Red Arrows plane, so they were scratch built - even I can cope wth something that simple! The new mould has an engraved det cord which is easily filled with acrylic paint, though the canopy is one piece. The older mould has a two piece canopy which doesn't line up particularly well and it also lacks the prominent. So far I am up to here. With only a week to go I am going to have to get my mojo back in the groove, and I think I will have to focus on completing one of the kits. The new mould will get my attention for the GB with the other to finish later. Right then, let's see if I can do this... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natter Posted June 8, 2019 Author Share Posted June 8, 2019 Eek, tempus fugit. I have been really poor at posting updates but... Underside in Citadel Chainmail. Topside in Xtracrylix RAF Dark Earth and RAF Dark Green, camo colours delineated with white tack sausages and Tamiya tape masking and the canopy with Eduard precut masks. I actually thinned the Xtracrylix with Mr Color thinner and a bit of Mr Color Levelling Thinner. Xtracrylix hates any thinner but its own brand and gloops up, but with very careful mixing it worked well enough to spray, and the needle didn't clog once with either colour; amazing for Xtracrylix. Transfers (Xtradecal) are going on now. The canopy masking and painting will follow once that is done and they're sealed with satin varnish. For now we're at this stage: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natter Posted June 9, 2019 Author Share Posted June 9, 2019 I may be running down to the wire on this one. Xtradecals are thin, glossy and reasonable resistant to my hamfisted handling. They will settle with MicroSet and Sol but don't particularly like raised detail. Anyway, a long decalling session saw all but a couple of the tiny stencil decals applied, and a coat of Xtracrylix satin varnish followed. I didn't like the result; though it was a lovely satin it wasn't a shiny as the actual Hawk appears in photos. Once dried i loaded the airbrush with Klear and went over it again. Once that was dry off came the canopy masks, always a bit scary, and no nasty surprises were found. It needs the canopy seals, pitot and landing light, a few touch ups, and it'll be ready for the cabinet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natter Posted June 9, 2019 Author Share Posted June 9, 2019 Well sadly 'Hawk Squared' became just Hawk. This is the 'new' mould Airfix Hawk with the wing pylons and gun pod from the Airfix 'old' mould model. It is modelled as the 2 TWU Hawk painted in the 'Spitfire' colours in 2008 at RAF Valley to celebrate the 70th anniversary of 19 Sqn becoming the first operational Spitfire Squadron in 1938 at Duxford. 19(R) Sqn was the shadow squadron for 2TWU. The 'old' mould I was building in tandem will take its place on the shelf of shame for now... Without further ado - There are a few more pictures in the Gallery. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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