1972 - A friendly Fokker! Airfix F-27 Friendship

[moaning dolphin]

Greetings all!,

I wanted to compete in this group build but was struggling to find a suitable kit in my stash (because we don’t want to be going out and buying more kits now do we? Eh?) Finally I dug out this old kit, the Airfix 1:72 Fokker Friendship F-27…..

 

 

This is a 1973 release, which means its not eligible on that note but the Braathens S.A.F.E. was operating in 1972  in this scheme so then it does now fit in for this group build! So having had clearance it was time to crack on!

Here is a look in the box after I have given it a good scrub down to remove 46 year old deposits, and it does look like a big pile of bits and pieces. When I bought the kit last year the contents were still bagged and the decals looked decent so I am hoping I wont have any problems there.

So here is the pile of plastic:

 

 

 

So first up was to assemble the basic cockpit and splash some paint around. Now I could find much in the way of research of cockpit colours so used my imagination. In the 1970s orangy brown was a big thing so went for that on the cockpit floor and seats for an authentic timeline colour. We also have absolutely no detail provided for the cabin whatsoever so that will be jet black to try and hide that. So before I stick it all together I need to work out a few things, wheels up/down? Crew? Yay or nay? Kit windows or no? Etc. I was pleased to see in the box that it came with one of those classic Airfix stands and as the landing gear looks very simplistic I will opt for a flying machine, so that means I will need aircrew. This kit comes with 2 (badly molded!) pilots and also a (using proper 1970s terminology) Air Hostess, I think she is meant to be used as part of a ground display as the kit comes with a boarding ladder as well, but I thought id squeeze her into the flight deck where she can make it look busier and also obscure the view into the cabin. Now I don’t know what type of uniforms the aircrew would wear so I just went for a typical blue suit and white shirt type set up. So before I show my flight deck set up, my disclaimer! Im not going for major detail on this build, especially inside, so its just to give the kit a wee bit of atmosphere, if you know what I mean! So here we have the flight deck and crew, with our Air Hostess leaning through taking lunch orders, Chicken or Fish?!

 

 

 

The next thought before joining up the fuselage is to fit the cabin windows, and I must say they are absolutely awful! Well worse than awful, so I am now contemplating on the course of action. Fill and paint or just go with them? Still pondering that for now, but I am also looking at the fuselage…..

 

 

I fitted the doors and they kind of fit where they touch, but bonus is they almost have the right contour of the airframe! It’s obvious that these doors were designed to be left open, so it is out with the filler!

 

 

Now something tells me this won’t be that last I see of the white stuff! The kit is littered with sink marks and I reckon there will be gaps aplenty! The fuselage is also covered in LOTS of raised panel lines. I’ve decided I am just going to take everything off! I will go with the streamlined look which will make it much easier during the assembly process. I'm sure there will be a lot of glue, fill, rub down, paint, repeat process, but hey that’s what this hobby is all about isn’t it? So with a very busy next few days coming up I will come back with an update later in the week.

 

Laters!

Bob

 

[PeterB]

Hi Bob,

 

I had this when it first came out - in Aer Lingus colours I believe. Can't remember what happened to it but guess it got thrown. Other than the DC3 (which I originally painted in the "Silver City" option) it was I suppose about the only 1/72 airliner Airfix made so it did not really fit in with my "military" collection. Now if they had done it in 1/144 that would have been another matter! I seem to remember that they may have released it later in military markings - Phillipines or something like that?

 

Good luck with the build.

 

Pete

Edited September 23, 2019 by PeterB

[stringbag]

6 hours ago, PeterB said:

 I seem to remember that they may have released it later in military markings - Phillipines or something like that?

 

Good luck with the build.

 

Pete

I well remember that boxing too Pete.  F-27 Troopship with Dutch markings.

 

Chris.

[zebra]

Good choice Bob. I have one of the more recent releases of this kit in the stash, and just snapped up another that I saw at a reasonable price on the electronic bay, so will be following.

[Rabbit Leader]

Welcome aboard Moaning Dolphin and a great subject, even though you don’t sound as if you’ve fallen in love with it. These old kits are always trouble, however by the time you’ve racked your brain to come up with workable solutions, you’ll be handsomely rewarded by the end result... well that’s whats supposed to happen anyway. You’ve got a few mates already, so we’ll get you over the line. 

 

Cheers and good luck.. Dave 

[moaning dolphin]

Good day again all, thanks for all the encouragement so far, its nice to see.....and going on I may be needing a lot more lol!

 

First up was to remove the PPP filler which as you can see turned out not too badly. You can see the forward cargo door and how badly it actually fitted, it took several goes with filling and rework to get a nice smooth contour but no original plastic of the door is coming through. The rear door fitted proudly so that just needed plastic whittled away to blend that in, the raised panel lines around the doors have been obliterated...….. oh dear, how sad, never mind! Just have to remind myself...PPP is water soluble, do not wash the plastic now! Found that out from bitter past experience lol.

 

 

Moving on, the thing holding up the fuselage going together was the cabin windows, I test fitted the kit windows and these are quite a dome shape but when inserted thy don't protrude from the fuselage so look horrible. I have opted to go for the fill and paint method. First off was to make a template of the windows and where they go. I went for this solution:

 

 

Lay masking tape over the windows and with a sharp knife cut them out "carefully" using the fuselage as a template, do that both sides and et voila!

 

 

 

My window template ready for paint, after that I just slapped the windows in with plenty of glue and without a care in the world, a bit like I would have done 35 years ago!

Next was joining the fuselage, which, relative to the rest of the build was actually not too bad at all, sure I'll need filler and whittling but I was quite happy.

 

 

I know the windows look ok from here but they aren't any good at all, they look weird!

I then looked at the nacelles, these joined ok and then it was fit the undercarriage doors...…. well for this I reverted back to my 12 year old self again and using copious amounts of glue fitted them in as best I could, at least it gives me a base to work from...

 

 

 

 

I need to make sure that the plastic is nice and solid so that I can work them hard. I don't know whether to go by the profile of the nacelle and build the doors up, or work the nacelle to match the door profile. I'm thinking the latter, but there will be plenty of plastic sheet squeezing into those gaps and shimming it all up rather than just using filler because I need it to be nice and strong. Finally I glued everything else together, wings, tail, etc, no major problems so its now onto whittling and shaping each part. That will create a lot of dust and crap and be very time consuming, I'm looking at it as like therapy when my other kits drive me up the wall! This is what I have now, a big box of bits!

 

 

Well that's all for now folks! Until next time Laters!

Bob

 

[Rabbit Leader]

Nice progress Bob. Sometimes you need kits like this to just glue and sand away, I find them very therapeutic at times however struggle building too many of them back to back. I like your window masking exercise, that’s one tip to put away for further use. 

 

Cheers and chat soon.. Dave 

[Jinxman]

I like it - there are times when a direct approach works well with a kit - once everything is dry you have something to work with.

[moaning dolphin]

Well back at it over the weekend, unfortunately I've only got a couple of pics uploaded today, the rest will follow over the next days or so, but in reality it'll be much the same! I splashed a shed load of PPP on the airframe and one of the wing areas and then gave it a mighty good rub down. This is after the first pass:

 

 

There are still a few areas that will require filling but you can see how recessed the windows were as not one has broken the surface of the filler! I have also taken off as much 'detail' as possible, all the raised panel lines have been erased and I have recessed them for the wing. The fuselage wont really get much in the way of rescribing apart from doors and major panels. Not looking forward to rescribing the doors as I find rescribing into any filler tends to rip out small chunks leaving a rough line as opposed to removing a nice regular sliver. But I will work something out. The parts above are now nice and smooth but I had left off the nose undercarriage doors so they were fitted and another large dollop of PPP was applied. Here it is just before I applied the filler covering the nose!

 

 

 

There are still a couple of areas to concentrate on over the next week or so, that is the other wing to finish and thin out the trailing edges, the rudder also needs to be thinned down as well because that trailing edge scales up thicker than your arm! and the air scoops on the fuselage. You can see one above, it a bit rudimentary and apparently there is another on the other side but Airfix don't show that so I will be digging into my spares box for that.

Well that's about it for this week, back to filing and filling for me!

Laters

Bob

[Rabbit Leader]

Well done Bob.. it's proving to be a bit of a sanding nightmare, however (as you know) its all worth it in the end. 

For the fuse door rescribing, I'm wondering if you applied a smear of CA and sanded this smooth, would this alleviate the flaking PPP phenomena afterwoods? Perhaps some black door outline decals would be a safer bet? 

Good luck whichever way you go. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

  

[moaning dolphin]

Thanks for the pointers above, I'm pondering on it but I am leaning more towards decals though, but that is quite a way off for now.

 

Just a wee update today, been busy at work and at home so not much progress going on. I did however look at that air intake duct on the port side of the aircraft cabin. Looking at pictures it looks like a proper air scoop with the intake/forward part clear of the fuselage and joins the body further back, unlike the kit option which is all fixed. As you can just about see on the pic below, it is also the wrong shape.

 

 

So first thing was to remove the whole lot. Now I know with hindsight this would have been a lot easier to do BEFORE I joined the fuselage together but hey ho, why make it easy! I carefully removed it with a fine saw to try and preserve the actual scoop so that I would have the option of remodeling it. As for the hole it would leave behind I lamented on my lack of hindsight but then thought I would just go rudimentary and simple. So with the scoop nicely removed I than gouged out the cutout as below

 

 

Looks horribly messy but there is method in my madness, you can also see the scoop below mounted on some plastic, but more of that later. After making the hole into more of a shallow depression I cut out a blank from plastic card and slapped it in there with copious (and I do mean copious!) amounts of poly and forced the blank into the whole......then just left it!

 

 

I have since rubbed it down so that there is no longer any lip, and it has left a depression but I can fill that with ppp and then hopefully no one will ever notice the difference! As for the scoop, as said before I mounted it onto some card but looking at the cross section it is still quite hideous.

 

 

It should be symmetrical but this has been molded with a slight slant, so this needs to go and the hunt for a replacement is required, after much searching though my spares (followed by much disappointment!) I came up with a bomb from a Lancaster kit.

 

 

I have already mounted it onto some card and let it dry. Next is to shape it and build it up into something better. Until then,

Laters!

Bob

 

 

[Rabbit Leader]

All going well there Bob. These models do test us and it’s often a raid though the spares box that yields a good answer. 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Colin W]

Great to see some proper modelling going on here. 

Keep it up. 

Colin 

[moaning dolphin]

Good day! Its been a bit of time since my last update but to be honest not a lot has been going on, or rather not a lot of interest has been going on. Basically just filling, sanding, filling, sanding and so on. So just to prove that it hasn't hit the buffers I'll show some of the progress, first was that air scoop, I wanted to get that done and dusted. Last update was where I had blanked off the gaping hole with plasticard and a shed load of glue. I let that harden and then sanded smooth the blank followed by a touch of filler to give the right contour. Im quite happy with this one! unfortunately I didn't take a pic of this monumental moment..... but as for the scoop... I glued one half of the bomb onto some thin plasticard and then cut it to a good length. After that I added another layer of card for the back end so that it would stand off from the fuselage.

 

 

I also had a go at shaping the rear end which has unfortunately gone too far creating a nice little hole. This has been bunged up with plastic rod and glue and is ready for reshaping. Compared to the original its a great improvement. Below is it installed and faired in with a bit more filler. I also thinned the front edge so that it doesn't look so clunky

 

 

Not a great picture but hopefully gives you an idea.

 

 

Next was the cockpit canopy, this kind of fitted where it touched!

 

 

I preempted the masking on the canopy in the hope that I could fair it in without damaging it but alas having caked it in filler it was quite messed up

 

 

I spent a bit of pussyfooting around but in the end I just went for it big time....

 

 

….and then polished it all out. It looks ok after all that, I can see through it but I think itll need a bit of varnish on it.

 

 

 

All in all a lot of whittling so this is an idea of the overall picture, one main wing nearly done, the other just waiting on its nacelle and then I think I can move on....

 

 

 

and move on I did, re masked the canopy and gave the fuselage a damn good prime, to do this I used the hole for the stand to put it on a stick but unfortunaltely the fuselage joins are wafer thin so there isn't a lot to hold onto so there was cracking abound, but I perservered with the priming just to see how the rest of the fuselage looks, here we are after round 1

 

 

 

Not the end of the world, a lot of the raised detail has been sufficiently removed to give a smooth appearance and most of the filling didn't through up any further problems. I have since given the joins a hefty adhesive application (more than shown above which was to just tack it back together), but overall I am really happy with it, hopefully round 2 will nail it! I will leave it for a good few days to harden, I would really love to finish the priming by end of Oct but we shall see!

Cheers now

Bob

 

 

[Jinxman]

Lots of work gone into that so far - it's looking good.

 

Shame about the cracking and thickness of the plastic - sure you will show it who the boss is!

[stevehnz]

That is a major job you've got on there but taking shape nicely now & I can see good things coming out of this.

Steve.

[Rabbit Leader]

That’s a mammoth effort which you’ve invested a lot of energy and time on. You know it’ll all pay off in the end although have probably thought at times why am I doing all this? As someone who does the same, I don’t have any answers but do have some completed kits in the cabinet that I’m happy with. So keep your eyes on the prize and thanks for the update W-D. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[moaning dolphin]

Well the grinding, filling and smoothing is continuing abound. Ive given the fuselage one last prime and I have reached a point where I am kind of happy with what I have. Its a smooth fuselage and a constant colour as I will soon have to start adding a white coat. 

 

 

 

 

Now that I am happy with that I looked at the wings and in particular the nacelles and these weren't great after the first prime.

 

 

I will need to rework that! Also I didn't like trailing edge of the wing tips as they looked too short.

 

 

I took a drastic cut off the wing tip and stuck a large chunk of plastic on the end and left it to harden for a good few days. This then allowed me to reshape it to look better. Above is the in progress wingtip and next to it is the tail fin which also needs attention, after a bit of rework you can see the better shape on the fin

 

 

Finally for this update I looked at the exhausts on the nacelles, the original version was a hideous moulding that had no real shape or depth, and they were long gone having been sanded off ages ago. I still had the basic shape visible in the bare plastic which gave me a rough idea of the size required. I decided to use some ally tubing that I had kicking round, I think it was about 6mm. The rough shape gave me an idea of what I needed.

 

 

So I worked out that my exhaust should be about 11mm in diameter so that would give me a good idea of the angle I needed to cut the tube.

 

 

I smoothed the cut and thinned the wall thickness, to close off the exhaust I blocked off the end with plastic card.

 

 

Ill trim the excess and then they are good, next was to cut out the nacelle and shape it to accept the exhaust. This I did quite badly! but that's why we have superglue and filler right!

 

 

Finally the exhaust tube was inserted at an angle and depth that would look right, going by the mk 1 eyeball rather than measuring it!

 

 

And then secured with ALOT of cyano and finished off with filler, far better than the kit and well worth the effort. I also have an airscoop just in front of the exhaust so will have to go through my spares box for that. Nearly through the tedium of filling and filling, hopefully start having paint on soon! Until then, Laters!

 

Bob

 

PS. Typing this update with my new fangled lap top which is far too sensitive for my big fat sausage fingers hence the numerous post and continual editing!

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by moaning dolphin

[Rabbit Leader]

Really enjoying this Fokker build thread. There’s so many corrections going on that it will hardly look like the original Airfix kit once finished - now that a compliment! Good going, she’s turning out splendidly. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Jinxman]

Looking good, and I love that exhaust - it looks fab.

[moaning dolphin]

Thanks for the continued support, I think I am nearly through the prep work! Here is just a little update as its still much the same old, same old. I gave one of the wings a good prime and polished it more until I was happy with it. I then glued it in securely, for these large items I resorted back to humbrol poly to get a good join. I thought this would be better than my go to Tamiya stuff. The wing join was faired in and primed again. A little more filler and we should be nearly there.

 

 

Then it was time to concentrate on the other wing, almost ready to go.....

 

 

 

Nicely balanced and jigged up

 

 

Then the tail planes...

 

 

The other wing and tail planes were faired in and rubbed down then it was back to the paint shop

 

 

 

So here we are all primed up and looking good! Ill let her dry for a couple of days and then look at the final coats. I am going to use auto paints for this as it needs something industrial and the detail isn't fine enough that itll disappear. In the background you can see my paint mule, with a bit of primer on. Ill use this to gauge whether the auto paints will react with the primer or each other without ruining the model

 

 

Finally I have had a go at tidying one of the props, these will need a bit of work as well as the moldings are a bit naff, but should come out all right.

 

 

Well that's all for now, hopefully next time we will have a bit of colour!

Cheers now

Bob

Edited November 13, 2019 by moaning dolphin

[Rabbit Leader]

Nice progress Bob.. a bit sad that you’re using the old HS125 as your paint mule, however thats how things go I suppose. Mine is an old Airfix Hunter and parts from a disused Heller DC-6 (sacrilege I know). Beck to your F-27, I’m sure you cannot wait to get some paint on this thing, it’ll look so different from what you’ve been used too. It’s coming up very well. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

[moaning dolphin]

Was desperately hoping to complete this in time but alas no, I don't think that is now possible, but I have come this far so will carry on. Im hoping to complete it this year 😁

 

I have now actually got some colour going, well I have something different from grey! I got a couple coats of white on the upper part of the fuselage. Im using a general purpose spray from 'Krylon'. Unfortunately here in Canada we don't get good old Halfords stuff and the sprays we do get have horrible nozzles that just seems to lightly atomise. The area was a bit too big to try and cover with white from an air brush. I perservered and in the end got a decent coat.

 

 

I did get a couple of runs but the coating was thick enough that I should be able to just rub it down

 

 

Not very clear but you can just make it out. Next up is a eight year old can of Halfords grey for the wings (I managed to smuggle it out of the UK when I moved!). Im thinking it would have been easier to do the wings first and then mask them off rather than the way I have elected, but hey ho I shall just have to go easier. I'm letting the white dry now for a few days so that its nice and hard for when I apply the grey.

 

So I wont be done by Sunday but I shall continue this thread and post the finished one on RFI.

 

Cheers now

Bob

 

[Jinxman]

Now that there's a bit of colour on it's apparent how much effort has gone into the plastic - a shame it won't done in time, but the KUTA GB is up and running of course!

 

Let us know where the build ends up so we can carry on following?

 

cheers

[CliffB]

Sorry to hear that this one won't quite make the deadline, but it's one that I will definitely watch out for (hopefully in the KUTA GB).

Keep up the excellent work!

 

Cliff