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Sea Vixen FAW.1x2


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13 hours ago, TheBaron said:

a load of Chimichangas

As well as good taste in aeroplanes, you also seem to have good taste in comestibles! Chimichangas are a popular item here aboard the Orbit Jet. Martians don't seem to like 'em much, however. Their stomachs are too sensitive.

Edited by Space Ranger
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Sunday lunchtime, shortly after discovering Filthy Lil (one of our older cats) determinedly dragging the Sunday roast across the kitchen worktop with a view to absconding out the cat flap with it for Déjeuner sur l'herbe...

 

19 hours ago, giemme said:

That's some progress indeed, Tony :clap: The canopy looks spot on, and so do the stickers - this reminded me that I have a still untouched set of clear decal sheets for laser printer I need to experiment with.... :hmmm:

Grazie G.

Out of curiosity, what brand of decal film do you use?

18 hours ago, Spookytooth said:

Nice and steady there Tony, decals look fine.

Ta Simon. Getting them printed to the correct dimensions for the scale is always the time consuming part but quite satisfying when it finally works.

16 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Donations are always gratefully received

Expect a freight pod descending some time in 2022 Pete.

Saw this earlier and thought of your trench!

 

14 hours ago, CJP said:

Top job getting the no step panel lines to fit those compound curves - light years ahead of when the fabulous old Modeldecal sheet just gave red stripes for this.

Ye Gods CJ - nervous breakdown time!

13 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Cracking job on the decals and ghe cutting of the canopy too, looks good  I went back over your last post too as should have mentioned tge guides for you pencil panel lines is genuis.  Great work 

 

Ta Chris - I channeled my inner @bigbadbadge last evening and brush-painted the repairs to that canopy framing instead of airbrushing. Most satisfying!

13 hours ago, hendie said:

Nice work on the decals Tony. Not a task I'd relish but your work appears top notch. I'm sure they'll settle in just fine when they get their home.

Merci Alan. At least I only have to deal with those engine panel markings just once - later on with XN708 there'll be no panels at all! 😁

8 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

As well as good taste in aeroplanes, you also seem to have good taste in comestibles! Chimichangas are a popular item here aboard the Orbit Jet. Martians don't seem to like 'em much, however. Their stomachs are too sensitive.

Said cuisine is a confirmed staple in this household Michael: even more so since discovering a family from there near where I work who import and sell all the main raw ingredients directly from Mexico. Hot bliss!

 

Riled up then by a belly full of chiles last evening I made the required repairs to the canopy framing (when polished up with the Dremel it's impossible to see which was the original airbrush work and which was later restored with brush painting) before bed, with a view to getting up early this morning and getting the cockpit fittings an canopy installed.

 

First job was to remove the various LAB boxes from their printing supports (having learned from painful experience to leave all the little fiddly bits mounted on their printing structures until needed in order that they are large enough not to lose over time) and stick them into place around the rear cockpit and bulkhead behind the pilot using Gator's Grip. After the glue was dried, some tempera drybrushing to make the black on black features pop out a little, especially as they'll later be semi-hidden under the canopy:

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Also added was the horizontal strut of the canopy release mechanism that penetrates that angled rear bulkhead.

 

Then some similar modest tempera work to the PAS prior to mounting, again, just enough to draw attention to such features under the canopy without overdoing the visual contrasts:

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After sticking that into place at the front and letting it dry, I then added Destiny Angel in his Martin baker:

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Again, Gator's Grip doing the honours admirably in the matter of adhesion and lack of mess:

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It doesn't show up very well from the side but in the shot below you can see that the last piece added before the canopy goes over the top of all that is the angled reflector glass of the PAS, which shows up a little better here with the light shining through it from the front:

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Say 'goodnight' to the boys and girls Destiny, yer lid's going on next:

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Which, as it turned out, it did so in very short order:

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I had in fact bought a pair of Berna clamps specifically for the job of holding the canopy in place whilst the GG set but hadn't counted on the asymmetric character of the canopy/fuselage cross section proving too irregular for them to stay locked in place without slipping. In the end it was simplest just to hold the glasswork in place with my fingers whilst looking out the window and meditating for 10 minutes or so as the glue dried. Anyone passing the house would have seen a lone figure apparently in the midst of some kind of transcendent state whilst clutching a votive icon to their breast...

 

The fit between canopy on the stbd side isn't exact at front and back - you can see a pale grey line in both regions where I had to use some resin as an instant glue/filler, at which task it worked very nicely and in fact rather serendipitously gives me a little extra height for the canopy framing along those points that will let me match the visuals of the actual aircraft a little more closely. Sometimes you lose, and sometimes you catch a break....

 

I'll leave that alone for he day now as that was quite intense getting all that stuff in place and lined up and I feel a too tired now after the week to do anything further requiring manual sensitivity. Before shutting down proceedings for the day I remembered that I had the designs done for the nose glass and platen (I'm calling it a 'platen' but no idea if that really is the name of the annular disk on the front of the AI.18 dish) done up in Illustrator some time back, so shunted these across into the Silhouette software and cut them to PETG:

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The one on the right is the finished output, the two on the left where I was trying out the difference between 'score' and 'cut' on the Portrait cutter - my old one of these died several weeks back so I recently replaced it with a Portrait 3. On the subject of equipment,  the screen on my Mars 2 resin printer broke back in August ( a large bubble formed under the protective film of the screen making it u/s for printing) and  the kind folk at Elegoo sent me a replacement free of charge:

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Now I only need to get up the nerve at some point to strip out the old one and install this in its place. I see their Kickstarter for the 6K Jupiter is almost there as well... :facepalm:

 

Bless you all.

:bye:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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48 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

the kind folk at Elegoo

 

I've had to contact them on a couple of occasions, once for a software update and once to find out a screw fastener size, and I have to say they responded very quickly. They had a software patch to me within 48 hours (maybe 24), and even offered to send the screws - but Amazon was a quicker path.

 

That Vixen is looking staggeringly impressive with the lid on. You must be feeling an immense sense of accomplishment knowing that it's all done by your own fair hands from start to finish.

 

 

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5 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Expect a freight pod descending some time in 2022 Pete.

Saw this earlier and thought of your trench!

I cleared the garden of obstructions this morning so launch when ready. House number 51.

And erm, f'nar! Nice lego.

Destiny Angel hasn't aged well but, nice canopy & associated gubbins.

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6 hours ago, hendie said:

ve had to contact them on a couple of occasions, once for a software update and once to find out a screw fastener size, and I have to say they responded very quickly.

They did get some stick on social media recently about trying to tie their firmware directly in to you only being able to use Chitubox and no other software with their printers, but that seems to have fallen quiet and hopefully indicates that they're rethinking such a restrictive business model. I don't want them to take a false step of that nature as I really like them as a manufacturer who have provided me with a great set of new directions to explore.

6 hours ago, hendie said:

You must be feeling an immense sense of accomplishment knowing that it's all done by your own fair hands from start to finish.

There is that Alan, but also reflecting on matters, a frank disbelief that I ever took on a project that would require so many radical changes in the way of new skills and workflows! 😁 3D printing will never replace the manual pleasure that working with brass gives me for example, but I doubt I'll ever buy another kit now beyond those already in the stash (of which there are sufficient to see out this mortal coil at my tectonic build rate anyway).

 

As to the Vixen itself, being a bird of its era and one of such consumate and enduring character, I was never going to be satisfied with a cut and shunt on the various manufacturer's Frankensteinian wares at 1/72 (as indeed the build started out as), so it essentially forced my hand into researching and printing one myself.

 

Your influence and enthusiasm also played no minor role in such decisions dear fellow. 🫂

 

If nothing else, I hope that this long (and doubtless at times laborious to read) thread has provided enough evidence for others to find the required information and self-belief by which to take on original work of this kind - should they be of similarly unsound mind.

2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I cleared the garden of obstructions this morning so launch when ready. House number 51.

Area 51. Gotcha. :thumbsup2:

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On 03/10/2021 at 14:19, TheBaron said:

Out of curiosity, what brand of decal film do you use?

Apologies for the late answer, Tony - it's Mr. Decal Paper, a UK company. I bought it based on reviews, but haven't tested it yet.

 

BTW, glorious update (as usual)  :clap: :worthy::

 

Ciao 

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Good evening all.

 

Got mentally swamped at work last week so took a day out today to recuperate, letting the mind settle and appreciate the beautiful misty sunlight:

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The vital skill of modern life seems to be remembering periodically to switch off the noise and pay attention to the signals.

 

I also had the Vixen out on the windowsill drying and checking it in daylight when our postman Robbie wandered up the drive, resulting in a ten minute chat through the window about Vixens and 3d printing when he caught sight of it:

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He's an arch bird Robbie so I don't know was he genuinely interested or simply humouring the afflicted but he does have a brother who used to make models, so I might get a sale out of it yet.....:rofl:

 

We also had an unexpectedly rousing afternoon yesterday when our son's team won the North of the County Under-17s final:

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I haven't been to a stadium in I can't remember when so between the glorious weather and them coming back from nine points behind to win, a top fixture. Incredible to see how the lads just never gave up - they've been playing together since they were eight years old and now these bass-voiced giants who tower over myself and Mrs. B when you're stood next to them. Generations....

 

Betwixt and between the continuing busy-ness there has been substantial progress on the visual front over the last few days in a number of key respects; the painting stage is now complete on XJ481 and it's in to decal and visual detailing.

 

With all the compound curves around the engine bays you'd expect there to have been problems getting all the panel markings correctly oriented and rectified to one another and sure enough, I got through two sets of decals for those panels before finally arriving at a working method. Initially I went the long way round and cut out every panel individually, which was not a fun job at this scale, particularly when it came to juggling them all into position down the length of the airframe and then clumsily wrecking three of them by catching my thumb on them whilst they were wrinkling in Micro Sol. The final try resulted from me remembering that I'd actually designed the rear two rows in Illustrator specifically so that the were correctly positioned to one another, so I simply err.... applied them in rows of four and it worked fine:

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The decalling process took a few hours over the week, partially from having to print and cure a second set and partially from from limiting myself to short periods of work as I was quite tired a lot of the time and didn't want to make foolish mistakes, or at least more foolish than my usual schtick.

 

I also realized at some point by 1970, as well as an EDSG aileron, the aircraft also had also acquired an EDSG observer's door. Not having a mask design to hand I stuck some tape onto a print of the door (necessary to incorporate the curvature of the fuselage, which my original profile drawing in Fusion that I used to cut the door out as a shape wouldn't give), cut round it and scanned the outline in to Illustrator, and then fired the scaled outline across to the Portrait cutter:

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Oramask is such an incredible material that it just makes quick resprays of this nature a doddle:

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You can see that despite its magic properties however I managed to pull a flake of black off the fuselage immediately behind the door there,  but I'm becoming a dab hand at paintwork repairs at this stage....

 

Once that was done and the rest of the decals were one, I took a deep breath and removed the canopy masking as well and was relieved to see that there was only minor damage needing touchups in one or two places around the frames:

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To try as much as poss to get the decal shine and airframe to blend together visually, the whole aircraft has three coats of Alclad Aqua Gloss and the final result was not at all bad - not perfect from extreme lighting angles on the black side of the upperworks in respect of the engine panels - , but something I can live with here:

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Stupidly pleased that the 'Danger High Voltage' sign is actually readable:

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The maintenance markings on the white pylons did work, but the ones on the dark side of the moon aircraft are invisible. I'll decide later how to give expression to that with some brush work. Same deal for the yellow markings around the observer's  th  window and along the port sill of the canopy, the black is just too overpowering for any light hues on clear decal film.

 

Some more general views:

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Pencil detailing on the RAT door and exhaust cones below, as well as the stbd wingfold above:

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Rear prospects:

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The stores had a similar pencil/water/scrubbing treatment for panel markings and I was particularly pleased with how the technique performed here:

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Badged:

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The markings on the Martel simulator I had to interpret from the only clear colour photo (and that's not very sharp) in Balch's 'Testing Colours'. For the the olive strip around the nose I simply put the Martel into the De Walt and spun it slowly against a steady brush:

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Posed here for the camera in a dramatic reconstruction. Based on true events! 😁

 

Still the nose glass to go on that.

 

I can't recall exactly when but sometime over the weekend as well I started building a stand to support the aircraft in midflight:

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I'll be honest that I've no great inspiration in the matter of stands and think that the simpler they are , the better. This should work anyway once I figure out what to mount the upright into:

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Still as I say detailing like fences and so forth to add, lights to build into front U/c door and tail. but nearing the end...

 

Thanks for looking in.

:bye:

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The black and white paint and those red markings are all magic, a bit yin and yang with some red!. And at last we see the martel nose, just what I've been waiting for!

 

Brilliant work Tony 

 

Terry

 

 

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I’ve been absent from this thread far too long and been desperately trying to catch up Tony.

 

all I can say is your work is phenomenal as always, but you really have raised the bar here. The vixen looks stunning in the white and black, to the point that now don’t understand why they didn’t just spot there with jets… what more could you want.

 

see you in another 50 pages I imagine

 

Rob 

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Your Vixen is stunningly brilliant raising the bar quite considerably I'm totally in awe of your skills.

Thank you for sharing your journey with this project and I'm looking forward to the next instalment now

 

   Stay safe           Roger

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Incredible work on your vixen Tony !!

I stay in awe...

Now I have 3 1/48 Sea Vixens....

I suppose that I will start it Soon....

Congratulations Dear Baron !!

5 more pages and You get back to Buckingham palace for another award...

Just saying...

Sincerely.

CC

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Anyone else finding that weeks these days consist of a Monday and a Friday and a bit you that can't quite recollect in between?

A bit like living in a J.G.Ballard short story only he hasn't written the ending yet...

 

On 11/10/2021 at 18:50, Pete in Lincs said:

We're (you're) getting there! Smart as paint. Monochrome and colour too!

Ta v. much as always Pete.

On 11/10/2021 at 18:50, Pete in Lincs said:

And very nicely marked dangly stuff (Ooer Missus!).

OOoops! - didn't realize that my Rod Hull & Emu tattoo was showing!!

Apologies everyone.

On 11/10/2021 at 19:28, giemme said:

Amazing! Impressive! Gorgeous! Gobsmacking!

 

I love it! :worthy:  :worthy:

Thanks G: I've really been enjoying the use of tempera of late, so my thanks to you for making me realize it could be used in modelmaking!

On 11/10/2021 at 19:44, bigbadbadge said:

It does look absolutely lovely , congrats on the decals too getting the keep off boxes all lined up in rows of 4 in the right place is surely witchcraft.

Thanks Chris. :thumbsup2:

Can you imagine the look on the face of the first guy reporting for duty in the hangar and being told that he had to put them markings on the actual aircraft!

On 11/10/2021 at 21:21, keefr22 said:

And I do like that technique for painting the stripe on the Martel - clever that Tony and I did enjoy the dramatic reproduction!

I do all my own stunts you know Keith, including  dropping the aircraft whilst painting it earlier and doing a swift boundary catch... :facepalm:

On 11/10/2021 at 22:02, Terry1954 said:

The black and white paint and those red markings are all magic, a bit yin and yang with some red!. And at last we see the martel nose, just what I've been waiting for!

 

Brilliant work Tony

Thank'e gaffer. I'll have that Martel glasswork on directly! 😁

On 11/10/2021 at 22:06, rob85 said:

I’ve been absent from this thread far too long and been desperately trying to catch up Tony.

 

all I can say is your work is phenomenal as always, but you really have raised the bar here. The vixen looks stunning in the white and black, to the point that now don’t understand why they didn’t just spot there with jets… what more could you want.

 

see you in another 50 pages I imagine

Thanks, and lovely to hear from you Rob. Hope all well with yourself in your Malvernian dreaming.

On 11/10/2021 at 23:41, The Spadgent said:

I can’t remember where the canopies came from. Are they printed?

I'm afraid not Johnny - I don't think resin printing is there yet to produce big curved canopies like this, plus the matter of where the supports would go without marring the optics. I think Alan recently did a really nice small windscreen for his Wapiti bit is was iirc a simple planar shape. The canopies here were vacformed from 0.5mm PETG over cold cast bucks.

On 12/10/2021 at 07:17, Hamden said:

 

Your Vixen is stunningly brilliant raising the bar quite considerably I'm totally in awe of your skills.

Thank you for sharing your journey with this project and I'm looking forward to the next instalment now

 

You say the kindest things Roger. Thank you as always. :thumbsup2:

On 12/10/2021 at 15:32, Brandy said:

Absolutely gorgeous Tony!

I'm even more impressed that even the postie was impressed!

 

Looking forward to V2...

Thanks Ian.

It's that bittersweet part of a build at the moment where you can see the finish line in sight but are trying not to rush things and make a last minute hames of it. 😁

On 12/10/2021 at 23:15, 71chally said:

Absolutely incredible work Tony.  Can't be many threads that can reference A&AEE Vixens and Steve Strange!

Frankly James - and strictly between ourselves - I don't think that enough is made of the similarities between the New Romantics and the Fleet Air Arm.

Not many people realize that the original title of that Visage song was in fact:  'Fade to Extra Dark Sea Grey'.

On 13/10/2021 at 12:54, Spookytooth said:

Great work Tony, looks very much the part.

And well done young lad on winning the rugby  too.

Thanks as always Simon. :thumbsup2:

It looked like a rugby pitch but was a Gaelic football ('GAA') match - similar set of posts but a different set of rules altogether!

440px-Scoring_in_Gaelic_games_-_H_shaped_posts.png

On 14/10/2021 at 20:01, bbudde said:

Great work Tony.

Cheers

Cheers Benedikt. :thumbsup2:

 

On 15/10/2021 at 11:05, corsaircorp said:

Incredible work on your vixen Tony !!

I stay in awe...

Now I have 3 1/48 Sea Vixens....

I suppose that I will start it Soon....

Congratulations Dear Baron !!

Cc you old dog, you say the sweetest things. Bless you. 🤗

On 15/10/2021 at 11:05, corsaircorp said:

5 more pages and You get back to Buckingham palace for another award...

I'm not sure The Madge would take to having a republican on the premises.🤣 Probably get the footmen to hide the silver plate....

 

Any free time this week has gone into shading/staining and marking out the main panels on the underside, those time consuming jobs that don't look like a whole lot has been done becuase you spend a lot of the time staring at the aircraft and  going 'too much?'....'too little?' :laugh:

 

Topsides are now done as regards surface markings I think. Any more and things will start to look overdone:

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As it is the camera adds more contrast than the naked eye sees in these 'dark on white' shots, but I'm too lazy I'm afraid to shoot in RAW and adjust to match. I revised that RAT door and surrounding structural lines after realizing that I originally had them all too far back. I also added a hint of Payne's Grey staining with oils along the stbd wingfold fairing and boom where it runs along the wing.

 

I'm still not happy with the shading work along the data relay and tail transceiver for the Martel though: I'd bought some Nulm oil when last in Dublin to experiment with here but really wish I hadn't bothered - it's crude and clumsy stuff compared to the subtleties of oil paint in my biased opinion and needs removing here due to it having far too extreme an effect on these regions. I'll do that tomorrow.

 

Undersides too now need to call a halt on surface markings to avoid exaggeration:

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From the visual evidence I have (interpreting between shots of XJ481 and XJ476 in use, not museum) these trials aircraft looked to be kept in a cleaner condition around the nethers than those of front line carrier squadrons - I guess due to a slower operational tempo and not boinging on and off carrier decks - so the aesthetic I've tried for here is flaps and major panel lines visible, plus some light lubricant/fuel staining in typical locations:

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As they didn't show up as decals against the black, I hand painted the yellow warning markings along the canopy sill in tempera:

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 - and again using a very pale grey for the maintenance markings on the black pylons:

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As text of this size isn't legible at 1/72 anyway I found it easier in the end to just paint such details in than faff with custom decals as I'd originally done.

 

Final tasks of the day earlier were prepping the tail/formation lights on the port fin ( I don't tbh know what if any colours these were but in photos they just look like dark glass with no tinting visible):

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Followed by adding silver inlays to the twin nosewheel lights:

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Both those sets of lights will get blobs of Dekoru glass drops to form the bulbs/lenses next time. I think that the small teardrop light immediately in front of those two nosegear lights above is a red one  - none of the colour photos I have of '481 with that earlier nosegear door are detailed enough or taken from the correct angle to let me be sure, so I've painted it a dark red here so that:

a) it looks like a red light in unilluminated condition

and:

b)if it's not red and someone more knowledgeable corrects me then I can deny it was ever really red at all... 😁

 

Hope your weekends are going well, and be safe all of you.

:bye:

Tony

 

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If I could spell stupendous, believe me Tony I would be spelling it out loud at this beautiful model Sea Vixen.

 

I could never find any pictures of the fin-top lights with coloured lenses either...

 

Marvellous mate, blimming marvellous.

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