Airfix 1/72 237 OCU

[Harry Lime]

This will be my effort in this GB. Since the great Botophucket debacle of 19Oatcake I have been without a photo host and haven't really contributed much in terms of WiPs or GB participation, but having already started one of these kits and enjoyed it immensely, I have decided this GB is the perfect excuse to change all that.

 

I will be doing an RAF example from 237 OCU, specifically XN977 and finished in matt Dark Green/Dark Sea Grey/Light Aircraft Grey with red/blue roundels and will be using the new Freightdog resin bomb bay insert specifically produced for this kit. Decals will be a combo of kit and generic sheets of roundels and serials etc with a smattering of Xtradecal/Modeldecal/Model Alliance thrown in for good measure.

 

 

The kit, not the first one on here and one I'm sure we're all familiar with by now!

 

 

And a selection of reading material. The images on which I've based this build on are not my copyright, so can't share them here but I've garnered plenty of details from them for this project.

 

It will be a week or two before I get into this properly, so will be a bit quiet until then.

 

Mark.

[Col.]

Nice reference selection Mark  

[Harry Lime]

1 hour ago, Col. said:

Nice reference selection Mark  

A little light reading whilst sitting on the balcony in the afternoon sun!

 

The sprues. Not a lot to talk about really, Airfix have done a good job with this kit. Surface detail is pretty decent and there is a good number of options for displaying your model with airbrake open or wings folded etc.

 

Some of the extras I'll be adding. The Master pitot will be replacing the kit provided plastic one and the Eduard Zoom set will be used in the cockpit. I'm aware Airfix have come in for some criticism re the lack of instrument detail, but the Eduard set isn't perfect either. The Med Sea Grey as printed is a little dark, so I might try a wee trick I've seen some railway modellers using and remove the printed detail on the Eduard set with my fibre glass pencil.

 

 

And finally, a little closer look at the Freightdog bomb bay set. This is a pretty new set specifically for this kit from @Colin @ Freightdog Models and is very nicely cast with almost no clean up required. As you can see, it also includes a pair of WE177's too but I won't be needing them on this particular build.

 

 

I'm away to dig out the last wee bits needed for this, and that's the slipper tanks with the modified fairing that'll be coming from an old C-Scale set.

 

Mark.

 

 

 

[Tim Moff]

On 5/3/2020 at 12:54 AM, Harry Lime said:

A little light reading whilst sitting on the balcony in the afternoon sun!

 

The sprues. Not a lot to talk about really, Airfix have done a good job with this kit. Surface detail is pretty decent and there is a good number of options for displaying your model with airbrake open or wings folded etc.

 

Some of the extras I'll be adding. The Master pitot will be replacing the kit provided plastic one and the Eduard Zoom set will be used in the cockpit. I'm aware Airfix have come in for some criticism re the lack of instrument detail, but the Eduard set isn't perfect either. The Med Sea Grey as printed is a little dark, so I might try a wee trick I've seen some railway modellers using and remove the printed detail on the Eduard set with my fibre glass pencil.

 

 

And finally, a little closer look at the Freightdog bomb bay set. This is a pretty new set specifically for this kit from @Colin @ Freightdog Models and is very nicely cast with almost no clean up required. As you can see, it also includes a pair of WE177's too but I won't be needing them on this particular build.

 

 

I'm away to dig out the last wee bits needed for this, and that's the slipper tanks with the modified fairing that'll be coming from an old C-Scale set.

 

Mark.

 

 

 

Make sure you stash those Nukes safely....

[Harry Lime]

4 hours ago, Tim Moff said:

Make sure you stash those Nukes safely....

Why, what could possibly go wrong?!  ☢️  

[Muzz]

Are going to be doing the kit with the bomb bay open then? I take it the Freightdog set is for the internals?

[Harry Lime]

22 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Are going to be doing the kit with the bomb bay open then? I take it the Freightdog set is for the internals?

Yes I will be. All of the images I have of this particular Buccaneer at the time I'm modelling it show it with the bomb bay open, both in the air and on the ground. The ground ones quite clearly show the forward fairing of the nuclear stores gubbins and the in flight ones very clearly show the whole kit and caboodle as being in place, just without the stores themselves (either training, drill or otherwise) being carried.

 

The Freightdog set is for the internals and also comes with two WE177's. A quick test fit shows an almost perfect drop-in fit to the open bomb bay as moulded by Airfix. Just some minor flash on the forward fairing being the only clean up of the resin required so far.

 

Mark.

[Muzz]

Ah, so it flew with it open to allow the carriage of the larger stores with the fairing at the front. Get it now, dont think I recall being aware of that fit before, interesting.

[Harry Lime]

3 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Ah, so it flew with it open to allow the carriage of the larger stores with the fairing at the front. Get it now, dont think I recall being aware of that fit before, interesting.

It may have been the case, but one of the in flight images shows the bomb bay being rotated so the installation of the kit obviously didn't impede normal use of the bomb bay (at least without the 'special store' actually being carried).

 

Here's a link to one of the images on the ground at RAF Finningley 20th Sept 1975, where you can see the forward fairing. Can't seem to find it now, but @canberra kid posted the relevant details from the AP on here and assisted with the details in the making of the Freightdog set.

 

Mark.

[Harry Lime]

Evening all. Managed to get a little work done on this today and yesterday evening. Having already got one of these kits on the go, I've been making notes on how to improve some of the foul-ups (both self-induced and those provided by Airfix!) I've encountered along the way. The biggest tip I can offer anyone building this is to pay attention to the clean up of parts, it will pay dividends! Have a good look at all mating surfaces, as a good chunk of them have mould lines running along them and without being cleaned up they will affect the fit. The next one is to get the fit of part B12 right, again will pay decent dividends later on.

 

 

I've also given the engine parts a lick of Humbrol Metalcote Gunmetal here.

 

 

Another thing I picked up on was that part B14 can also affect the fit later on, so in order to improve the fit I left the angled sections (indicated by the red arrows) unglued until everything else was in place. Introducing a little play in the parts from stage 17 (as pointed out by the yellow arrows above) will lead to less gaps in the wheelbays as well.

 

 

The compressor fronts have been painted with Metalcote Steel and polished up. The intakes have a slightly false look of being seamless here, they aren't just yet!

 

 

A little mod needed if doing an aircraft on the ground.

 

 

I'd actually stretched some sprue to replace the throttles, but since they came off cleanly I simply replaced them in the correct position.

 

A bit more tidying up of some other parts tonight and should be chucking some paint at the cockpit in the near future.

 

That's all for now,

 

Mark.

[Jabba]

A good start, and some good advice along the way.

[Col.]

Good progress mannie and useful tips for those of us building this kit

[Hewy]

Thanks for the tips 👍 , yours is going well

[Harry Lime]

11 hours ago, Jabba said:

A good start, and some good advice along the way.

 

11 hours ago, Col. said:

Good progress mannie and useful tips for those of us building this kit

 

4 hours ago, Hewy said:

Thanks for the tips 👍 , yours is going well

Cheers gents! The first of these kits I've got underway isn't much ahead of this one in terms of what has been built, just the clean up of some of the joins is taking f o r e v e r due to some of the fit issues I've encountered. Hence some of the experimentation and hopefully some useable solutions to improve things on this build. Speaking of which, I've now got a very Buccaneer shaped chunk of plastic on the workbench after today's endeavours......

 

 

After a bit more tinkering last night, I built up the closed airbrake. As you can see, it needed a little persuasion to get a decent join so was glued, clamped and left to set overnight.

 

 

Here the wing 'spars' are being clamped in place to ensure they remain where I glued them overnight. These parts add a little extra support to the spread wings option and come in two flavours, with and without covers in place over the folding mechanisms. The 'without' ones have a little detailing moulded in place to represent the exposed folding mechanism. Now the instructions for the S.2C don't make it explicit, however you can use parts B7 and B8 (the exposed wing fold bits) in place of parts B9 and B10 (the covered bits) as I have seen images of Fleet Air Arm Buccs without the covers in place. As it is, the images I have of my chosen subject clearly show it without so I've used parts B7 and B8.

 

 

Since my method of adding the top fuselage half and the rear section seems to have worked, I'll share it here. On my first kit, I had a bit of a job getting a decent join between the middle and rear sections of fuselage when I followed the instructions and built them separately before joining them together. The worst part of the join I encountered was the upper fuselage spine to the fin, so figured that getting that right, or at least better, would make things a little easier. Pretty much all is explained in the image above, I tacked the join with tube cement at the upper fuselage join and left all the others loose until I added the now quite large upper and rear fuselage sections to the lower fuselage section. This was done whilst the glue was still wet, so that any slight adjustments could be made as needed.

 

 

Just about to add the upper/rear combo to the lower. I've noted the alternate parts used to portray the exposed wing fold mechanism.

 

 

And everything now together, hurrah! I've definitely got a much better join between the middle and rear sections of fuselage by tweaking the instructions a little.

 

 

 

However, still not perfect with a couple of still sizeable gaps when I dry fit the exhaust section as you can see. Will need a bit of work on that when the time comes, but is still vastly improved upon the previous try at this!

 

Will be cracking out the airbrush this evening and spraying the basic cockpit colour before finishing off the wings later on.

 

Mark.

 

 

 

[Hewy]

I'm Really no big fan of these multi fuselage join methods , it looks good though

[Harry Lime]

With you on that score Hewy! I can see why Airfix did it this way, but doesn't mean I'm hugely enamoured with it. Still, this kit is light years ahead of the other Bucc kits in 1/72 injection moulded plastic.

 

Mark.

[Graeme H]

OK, as I'm still finishing a kit off in another GB before I start in this one, I needed some guidance on this kit which is going to be my entry, so all this is really helpful stuff, especially with the areas that need attention marked out, thank you.

[Harry Lime]

Graeme,

 

More than happy to pass on any tips/pointers as I could've done with some myself during my first effort at this kit. That is still an ongoing job, this one's not far behind it now!

 

Mark.

[Jabba]

Yet again very good work, plus an education on how to build the kit.

[Harry Lime]

Evening All! Despite thinking I was ready to unleash some paint on this last night, I wasn't. First of all I needed to fill a couple of ejector pin marks on the Nav's console (part D33) and then I needed to mask up the canopies. So out with the Eduard mask set, windscreen masked in minutes and then onto the sliding canopy section. Hang on, Eduard's masks are meant for the sealed sections of the canopy? Bollards! I need to mask the bits before that though.....

 

 

Out with the Tamiya tape, sharp blade and a cocktail stick it is then! Luckily the metal canopy framing is pretty straightforward shape wise and it wasn't long before the job was done.

 

 

And job done.

 

Since I wasn't now going to be cracking out the airbrush, I decided to finish off the wings instead. Airfix used XV361 at the Ulster Aviation Society as their source airframe for this kit, which I understand they ran their LIDAR kit over in the process. This particular airframe went straight into retirement with the UAS from active service in 1994ish and as such had been subjected to pretty much every mod, update and repair the RAF Bucc fleet had. This means the kit plastic is covered in a few reinforcing plates, lumps and things that need to be removed if modelling an early airframe. I'll cover a few more later on in this build, but for now I needed to remove the ones on top of the wings as pointed out in the image below.

 

 

It goes without saying that not many images cover the upper surfaces of the wings, but it pays to check as many reference photos as you can find of your chosen subject. Conversely, the older images of the earlier Buccs tend to be a bit poor in quality so that task isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

 

And the wings are on. I managed to get a pretty much perfect join on the port wing, but just fell short of managing the same with the starboard wing. A dab or two of Mr. Surfacer will be needed to make it good. Another tip here is to leave off the inner flaps until the exhaust sections have been attached and any filling and sanding there completed. By leaving off the flaps it gives a bit more elbow room when working in that area.

 

 

Some more prep work on the cockpit. During dry fitting the rather prominent ejector pin marks don't appear to interfere with the fit of the cockpit parts, but I removed them anyway just to make sure. On the left still to be removed, on the right job complete.

 

 

With my daughter's help, managed to get a pic of the rear engine faces up the jet pipe. Not all the details are permanently hidden away then! But if I catch anyone picking it up to have a look, I'll cut their bleeding fingers off!

 

 

And finally, cockpit and wheels sprayed this evening. To try and match the colour of Eduard's etch parts, I went with Dark Admiralty Grey instead of Medium Sea Grey as suggested by Airfix. Personally, I think MSG is a bit light when compared to reference images, even for a rather worn, beaten up and well used cockpit but I can see why Airfix suggest it. There's also something at the back of the mind that Dk Ad Grey is the specified colour anyway, certainly recall it being mentioned on the Modeldecal sheets that featured Buccaneers.

 

That's all for now,

 

Mark.

 

 

[Col.]

11 hours ago, Harry Lime said:

...catch anyone picking it up to have a look, I'll cut their bleeding fingers off!

Seems reasonable to me  

[Hewy]

On 13/05/2020 at 12:50, Col. said:

Seems reasonable to me  

Me too , good work mark

[TallBlondJohn]

Can you point out the other reinforcing plates that should be removed?

 

Thanks

[Harry Lime]

On 5/22/2020 at 6:49 PM, TallBlondJohn said:

Can you point out the other reinforcing plates that should be removed?

 

Thanks

Ask and yea shall receive! I was going to include this in a later post with some updates, but since I've not got a lot to update, I'll oblige John's request just now instead.

 

First up, the rear fuselage near the airbrake.

 

 

Composite image above shows both sides of the rear fuselage of 2 different XNxxx serialed aircraft, the earlier image from the mid 70's and the later one from a preserved airframe in the 2000's somewhen. Usual caveats around checking your own references of the particular airframe you intend modelling and the time frame you intend modelling it at, but is a feature that will need removing if doing an early airframe.

 

 

Again, an early vs. late detail. I'm not sure exactly when this feature started appearing, however my current working theory is that it is related to the wing spar issues as this is roughly where the forward spar intersects a rib. Unfortunately a difficult one to spot, as due to the curves of the airframe and it's low relief it is very hard to see unless you have an elevated vantage point or are looking at an image of an inflight aircraft. Images in the Aeroguide which date from 1983 and 1984 do not show this feature, so it might even be as late as the last major mod programme (1986? onwards I think) before the Gulf War.

 

 

Image above is pretty much self explanatory. If doing a Fleet Air Arm aircraft, off they come! If doing a later RAF airframe, check your references.

 

 

The raised areas on the lower surfaces of the rear jet pipes need to come off if doing any airframe prior to late 1983/early 1984 as these were part of the mods for Operation Pulsator. Britain deployed Buccaneers to Akrotiri to provide CAS to the British contingent of the UN force in the Lebanon as the situation on the ground worsened. 12 Buccaneers were modified to have chaff/flare dispensers attached in this location prior to being used in Op Pulsator, including XV361 that Airfix measured up for this kit. Other serials confirmed as having this mod (either by photo proof or written sources) include XV332, XX900, XX901, XV353 and XV352. Other serials I have found mentioned in relation to the Op Pulsator deployment include XV359, XW530, XZ430 and XX885, however, to date I haven't been able to confirm if these received the mod either by photo or in a written source. This also leaves at least two other serials to be confirmed. Helpfully, this area also appears very dark in most photos, so is very difficult to see with much clarity!

 

Hope this has been of some use,

 

Mark.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Harry Lime
Extra details

[TallBlondJohn]

Oh god - I've just declared my Buccaneer fuselage painted and complete, ready for decaling. Oh well...

 

Thanks for the full explanation anyway, even if it has ruined my weekend 😉