Heather's Workbench - Belgium, 1940

[Heather Kay]

The RFI post is here:

 

There will be a short hiatus as I try to get on with paying work. Best Beloved has been nagging me about it for a while, so I guess I should at least try. That AZ Model Hurricane MkI is tempting me, though... 

[Heather Kay]

I’ve been tempted. 
 

A couple of years back, when we were allowed to travel to distant lands, Best Beloved and I visited Norfolk. On the itinerary was Hannants, of course, and the Radar Museum. Apart from excellent cake in the museum's cafe, they had a small selection of models available in the gift shop. I felt it churlish not to buy something!

 

 

I came away with this. Scalemates tells me it was first boxed in this guise around 2008, having been taken over by AZ Model from Sword. It’s a MkI, with the fabric wings. Now, already having the Airfix ragwing in my cabinet, I didn’t really need another. The markings in the box were interesting, but even so the kit was surplus to my requirements. Anyway, it sat on the shelf, biding its time.

 

 

In the box is the typical fare from this kit maker. The mouldings are generally tidy, but showing flash along seam edges. You will note a variety of propellers on the sprue, including a twin-blade job. This is why the kit hasn’t been relegated to be sold on. There’s also a separate ventral spine, should the variant being modelled not have that feature.

 

Several details, like main wheel bay and cockpit details, are finely cast in resin. Rather chunky pour blocks need quite a bit of careful cutting and sanding. Although the kit has a moulded cockpit transparency, I felt it a bit thick and not very clear. I found a Falcon vac-form replacement in the Bits Box, which will hopefully look a bit more like the early canopy and windscreen.. I hope it fits!

 

The instructions are suitably vague about certain details.

 

The kit transfers cover three Battle of Britain period Hurricanes. I had a notion, though, to build a Belgian one. As I began casting around for suitable transfers, a fellow BMer, Chris @dogsbody kindly donated a spare set of Airfix transfers. H22 it is then!

 

I checked the Belgian Wings site for details, which confirmed the Hurricanes in their service have the ventral fin. The radio mast is an early type, so some brass rod will work there. If you look up H22 on the BW site, it’s a splendid frontal shot, which really shows the characteristic shape of the nose cowling on the early Hurricanes. I hope I may be able to replicate this with relative ease.

 

I’ve made a start by separating the resin parts from their mould blocks, and getting some aluminium paint on them. Like my previous Belgian aircraft, I plan to brush paint. I have actually managed to restart my paying work, so this project will be slightly protracted - and I rather think there may be some personal issues looming that might take me away from the bench. We’ll see.

[dogsbody]

You're going to start thinking that I'm some kind of pervy creeper, the way I've been following you around on this forum, but here I am!

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Heather Kay]

I’ve realised this kit was designed to cover several versions of the Hurricane. That would explain why some parts are provided In  resin, like the front of the belly radiator and the carb intake. 
 

 

In usual short run fashion, there are no locating pegs. There is also a complete lack of any location indicators for the interior parts. So, best guess was employed. Inevitably, the port sidewall interfered with the seat floor, and the instrument panel needed surgery to actually fit at all. I also found the control column would be behind the IP, until I tweaked it so it wasn’t. Anyway, once the fuselage halves are glued together you’ll barely see the top of the seat, so I could have left all the rest out.

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

so I could have left all the rest out.

“But you know it’s there” is the mantra. I do like doing cockpits, but I’m not sure whether I spend more time making them or squinting through dodgy canopies on the finished model trying to see what I did!

 

Looking forward to the top of the seat, anyhow...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Heather Kay]

A reasonable "proper work" day was had, so I treated myself to some Hurricane time.

 

 

I managed to hack the wings from the sprue tree. Many feed gates, much sanding required. I trimmed the gates back roughly, and spent a while sanding the mating surfaces of the wing parts to get the best overall fit. I will fill, sand and tidy the joins later on. Before the wings go together, the small matter of installing the exquisite resin main gear bay. I had sanded the pour block back as much as I thought was needed, only to find it needed a whole lot more before the upper wings would fit. The moulding is also slightly smaller than the openings in the lower wing. Best fit, I guess. Hopefully the gaps won't show. I'm still a bit mystified as to how the landing gear is fitted, and you can guarantee the instructions are of little help here.

 

I think it's fair to say that if you hanker for a 1/72nd scale Hurricane, don't buy one of these kits. There are much better ones out there.

 

 

Glueing technique with this kit is along the lines of getting the parts aligned as best you can and clamped together, then running liquid cement along the joins. The plastic in this kit is quite hard, but doesn't sand nicely, often leaving ragged bits that need carefully scraping away.

 

 

I can see daylight… This was how much more material had to be sanded from the gear bay moulding to let the wing tops fit. It came perilously close to breaking through. I dolloped CA on the thing to try and reinforce the wafer thin parts.

 

 

Once I'd persuaded the fuselage halves to meet around the interior bits, clamps and liquid cement along the seams did the trick. The joins are aligned quite well, but still need a lot of tidying. The fine engraved detail is at risk in such areas, so I will need some careful rescribing to restore anything that gets lost.

 

 

The exhaust slots are open to the inside of the nose, so I backed them with some thin sheet styrene before closing up.

 

 

The joint underneath looks terrible, but it has actually cleaned up quite well. Don't forget there's a ventral spine and tail wheel to go on, which will hide anything below the tail.

 

 

Now to see if the wing assembly will fit the fuselage. Hmm, well, I can see some work is required.

 

 

Material had to be removed from the inside of the upper and lower wings, the fuselage wing roots, and various other places. Fit, peer at it, file, scrape, sand, trim, fit and repeat until, after about half an hour, a reasonable dry fit was achieved for the front part. I wanted this to be as good as possible so I didn't need too much filler round here that would lose moulded detailing. 

 

 

The rear now fits quite well. There will be filler.

 

 

Up top, it looks like a huge step, but you'll have to trust me when I say that once clamped and glued the fit will be much better. There will be filler.

 

 

The front looks nasty here, but again clamp and glue will do the trick.

 

As I say, if you want a decent Hurricane, I wouldn't recommend starting from here! If you enjoy a modelling challenge, though, then you could do worse.

[Marklo]

Looks like hard work all right. But going well. I already have a Hurricane , although if I were to do another it’ll be 1/48 and probably in IAC colours. ( one of my little rules that if I do an type they’ve flown the first one gets done in IAC trim, so far I have a Gladiator and a Walrus)

[Heather Kay]

 

There has been filler. The worst area was the wing to fuselage joins, but I think it’s getting there. I suspect a swift coat of paint will show any issues up nicely.

 

 

Underneath is better. I’m not entirely happy with the join at the back of the wing, but since it aligns with the rear of the big radiator it shouldn’t cause too much of a problem.

 

Speaking of radiators...

 

I don’t think that’s quite right. The rad front cowling is a nice resin casting, but it doesn’t match the injection moulded main rad shell. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess I’ll need some styrene packing underneath it to bring it up to the right level. 

[alt-92]

Almost looks like the bigger Mk.II radiator....
 

[Heather Kay]

7 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

Almost looks like the bigger Mk.II radiator....
 

You know, you might be right. There’s a lot about this kit that smacks of trying to be all things to everyone. I do, though, have a cunning plan.

[alt-92]

A plan, so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a fox?

[Heather Kay]

1 hour ago, alt-92 said:

A plan, so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a fox?

Reynard it is.

 

 

Raiding the spares box for a 1970s Airfix radiator. It fits, too, but I need to daub some paint inside it before sticking it in place. Meanwhile, I began assembling undercarriage. Spot anything wrong?

[alt-92]

Would it be unfair for me to say some modifications and/or scratchbuilding will be required?

 

[Beard]

2 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

Spot anything wrong?

I sense that plasticard will be a part of your immediate future.

[Heather Kay]

"Make do and mend."

 

A mantra my parents grew up with, and instilled into me to an extent.

 

 

That 1970s Hurricane from Airfix is working well. It came with a wheels up and wheels down option, both with the correctly shaped doors. Sadly, though I did try, they are slightly larger than the AZ openings, otherwise I’d have simply swapped them in. Instead, I have considered chopping the angled arm part from the closed doors.

 

 

Well, waddya know? The AZ kit part for the gear will go in later. The blutack is because I’m not ready to install the wheels yet. Somewhat disappointingly the retraction strut doesn’t meet the fancy pants wheel wells. Oh well. 
 

Now, I really should get on with some proper work.  

[Heather Kay]

Last night I decided it was time to fit the undercarriage. With no positive location or orientation points, I’m afraid, despite my best efforts, this Hurricane May be a little knock-kneed or pigeon-toed.

 

 

You can see here various details have been fitted. Intake, radiator, pitot tube, tail wheel, replacement main undercarriage struts... the lighter colours are Airfix donated parts.

 

I'm really glad I saved that old Airfix Hurricane for all these years. It’s provided me with replacement parts where the AZ kit has rather let me down. I say that purely because extracting tiny parts from the mahoosive feed gates was troubling me. While the AZ struts are more detailed, the feed gates negated much of the finer detail. I bet, like the Airfix ones and original kit main legs, they wouldn’t meet with any mating surfaces either. As it stands (ho ho!), the undercarriage is glued to the aircraft by means of the doors where they meet the wings. The carburettor intake was originally an exquisite but minuscule resin casting. Quite how one was meant to hold it while removing the pouring block will now never be resolved. Happily, Airfix came to my rescue.

 

I think I’m about ready to get some brushed paint on as primer. I’ll do the same trick as the Battle, and use Humbrol Dark Earth. Then I’ll be able to see where remedial work is required. I have tried the kit transparency, but it doesn’t fit. There’s something very suspect about the cockpit area, so the vac-form hood will need to be deployed.

 

Meanwhile, I shall recommence battle with this...

 

 

This is the current "day job" project. One day it will be a 1/43rd scale Great Western Railway Small 
Prairie tank loco. Currently, it’s bits of brass etch that keep annoying me. 

[Heather Kay]

 

Getting there. 

[nsmekanik]

That's absolutely marvelous, I'd say your skills are shinning through with this one.

[Brandy]

Always nice to have a back-up "spares doner" for kits like this, but it does get expensive! Nice work mating the two!

 

Ian

[Heather Kay]

11 minutes ago, limeypilot said:

but it does get expensive!

It can do, but that old Airfix boxing had been in the stash for at least two decades. I had two, and built one for the Classic Airfix GB a couple of years back. Better kits have come along, so this old one sat there, biding its time. There’s enough left to consider building it as a crash diorama!

[Markh-75]

It’s gone expensive for me and prohibitively expensive as I have stopped buying and building. It’s like ‘quit while I’m winning’ before it gets any more expensive as I have kits here I won’t build that I so wanted but now I can’t build them they’re sitting vegetating. I wish I’d found out sooner because I wouldn’t have bought them. They can’t be returned as the boxes have been opened. One was a birthday present but I’ll refund them for it as I didn’t celebrate my birthday this year.
I asked admin to remove the privateer thread as it’s a failed attempt and I’m not proud of it; and it looks like all my WIPs and RFIs have been deleted too. I can’t find them anywhere. I get the hint, It’s time to go.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Markh-75

[Heather Kay]

20 minutes ago, Markh-75 said:

I get the hint, It’s time to go.

Noooo! Don’t go! You have skills you can share, I’m sure. Hang around a bit, at least. 

[Markh-75]

All my stuff is gone, I say it’s telling me something.

[Heather Kay]

3 minutes ago, Markh-75 said:

All my stuff is gone, I say it’s telling me something.

[Markh-75]

I knew it would happen the minute I said about my mental illness, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve been kicked off a few groups and websites after they found out. 
im sorry I failed everyone.