1:72 Hudson 206 Squadron

[Andy G]

Evening,  Thought I'd post some progress with my current build.  Having just unexpectedly managed to complete an A Model Hawker Hector in time for the Dunkirk anniversary at the end of this month I thought I'd attempt another aircraft applicable to the operations at that time - the MPM/Revell Hudson Mk.I, this is the Revell boxing.  

I'll be doing the 206 Squadron option and there are plenty of photos of it on the IWM website, such as this

I think I'm going to do the underside in Aluminium, seems to be the correct colour for the time period, end of May and very beginning of June. Also some of the shots on the IWM site appear to show a glint that I wouldn't expect from Sky - yes, guessing colour from a B&W photo. I'm not 100% convinced but it could be right and it will make a change.

I've read a few threads on the building of this kit,especially @CedB's treatise on it

Clearly there is some fun ahead!

Most of the last week has been spent on the internals and anything interior green.

The green is Mr Hobby H58 Interior Green, though I've just bought a new bottle and it is a very different colour to the above.  The green has just received a wash of burnt umber and Payne's grey oil colours.  

I've painted the interior and exterior of the nacelles as I build wheels up and am hoping to get the undercarriage sorted and then masking off.  Having got a nice finish with the Alclad Aluminium and Mr Hobby gloss I've subsequently found out that the exhaust is in the wrong place and doesn't look like the real thing anyway.

The cowlings have received very careful attention from a dentist's burr so the engines now fit without losing any detail.  The engines themselves have been painted in various blacks and silver washes with the gearbox in grey.

On this pair of cowls one of the locating pins has been removed as it causes a step in the join.

The kit includes quite a nice interior

I'm not sure how much of this will be visible as the glazing is marred by flow marks.  The grey 'stool' in the middle is the base for the wireless operator's chair.  I can't fit it yet as I haven't sourced the operator chap.  I think I'm going to be ordering some silicone rubber and resin later and trying to cast some replicas of various figures raided from the stash.  It was disappointing to go through the Airfix Wellington, Whitley and Lancaster in the stash and find that the only crew member was a single pilot in the Lancaster.  I've also opened the door on this bulkhead and replaced it with one made from plasticard.

The office is quite nice if not accurate and is awaiting a driver.

 

Up next is getting the crew sorted before they end up stopping the build, working out the correct orientation of the engines and assembling them into the cowls, correcting the exhausts and getting the gear 'up'.  I've put a piece of 40 thou plasticard in front of the cockpit as suggested by the instructions but there will also be a piece of 10 or 20 thou going in front of the turret housing to try and improve it's fit.  I think a spreader is going to be needed to the rear of the housing to push the fuselage out to match the housing.

Plenty of fun ahead

Andy

Edited May 17, 2020 by Andy G
Removed nonworking html code

[Andy G]

This build is plodding on, it certainly isn't easy and there has been plenty of trial fitting going on to try and work out what packing is going to be needed and where, a lot of this is also known as procrastination.

 

I've done quite a bit of work on the nacelles, engines and undercarriage, though I've realised that I've not got any photos of the engines in the cowls, so they'll have to be shown later.

 

First was to relocate the exhaust and improve it.  I used a short length of brass tube filed at an angle fitted into a hole drilled and reamed at an angle in a more appropriate location.

 

The exhaust has been fixed in place with Araldite.

On to the undercarriage - this was more straightforward than I thought it was going to be.  The kit includes the top of the wheel well, but it's located too low, flush with the lower wing surface.  I could have moved it upwards but that would have required building new walls all the way around.  A more pragmatic approach was to chop a chunk off the wheel using a razor saw

That sheathing was a right pain trying to work out where and how it fitted.  As supplied it only had the curved and square cut outs on one side so the extras were cut and filed.  The wheel hub has been sprayed aluminium, not sure if this is correct or not.  The legs were given a coat of aluminium as well, but then had a light overspray of steel.  The sheathing got aluminium.

The opening on the port nacelle took a reasonable amount of filing to get the wheel to sit in it at a reasonable angle.  The starboard side took no more that a quick dressing.

The front part of the nacelles have some louvres that the kit supplies as a separate part to be glued proud on the surface.  The part supplied is thin, but still very proud whereas in reality the louvres are part of the nacelle surface. So I set about sanding the part as thin as it would go, for some reason it had a curved front edge whereas the position indicated by the instructions wasn't curved in that direction.

 

 

Once thinned as far as it would go it was glued against the rear edge of the nacelle extension using a generous application of Mekpak and squeezing hard to get as flush a joint as possible.  It was pretty good and I put to one side to dry before blending it in with filler.  It was then that I started looking at photos of the real thing and realised that the louvres shouldn't be to the rear of the extension piece but lined up with the panel line that runs down the middle of it.  By this point the louvres had been drying for just over an hour but careful application of more Mekpak and prising with a knife eventually separated them from the nacelle without too much damage to either part.  Examination of photos also revealed that the intake moulded onto the nacelle part didn't actually exist, so once everything had set hard enough for cleaning up that was lopped off as well.  The louvres were then relocated in the correct location and blended in with Mr Dissolved Putty and plenty of sanding, prime, fill, sand.

Sorry the photo is a bit blurred

On the starboard side the unmodified louvres were offered up to the correct location and the reason for the curved front was obvious.  The part fitted a lot better and needed much less sanding to get an acceptable starting point for the blending with Mr Dissolved Putty

Now I thought I was making a Hudson but it has been displaying Comet like tendencies

That crack was right through the side and presumably caused by the window being too tight a fit also causing the splintering of the window.  The crack has had Mekpak applied and subsequently been sanded back smooth, time will tell if I've done a good enough job.

 

Cheers

Andy

[Murdo]

Nice work and nice recovery on quite a few parts!

[AdrianMF]

Nice work on what looks like a difficult kit! 
 

Thanks for doing this - it’s making me feel much better about trudging through the Airfix one!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Andy G]

Thanks Murdo and Adrian.  It's certainly a challenging build and there's plenty more fun to come.  Your build is very inspirational Adrian but this Billy is being good (lazy)!  I'd looked at opening the slots on the wings but on one side the top and bottom don't line up by a millimetre or two so it would be a major faff having to fudge the surrounding panel lines.

 

A photo missing from last time was the engines in the cowlings

The seams weren't too bad but were patched up with Mr Dissolved Putty.  After testing with MRP primer I ended up using Alclad Micro Filler primer to get rid of the last trace of the seam.  Quite pleased with the result at this stage.

 

Before the wings were glued together I opened up the landing lights with drills and reamers.  The position of the lights is marked so it was a simple operation.  A scrap of plasticard has been glued in as backing and I'll it silver along with the underside of the wing and then fill with Krystal Klear.

 

Then it was onto front part of the nacelles.  The lower edges of the port nacelle fitted well after a little bit of filing away excess plastic.

 

However, the starboard took quite a bit of filling and sanding

As the underside is going to be silver I've found there is a lot of work feathering out the edges of the paint so they don't show up at the end.  The wheel well has been stuffed with paper tissue.

 

The top surfaces took quite a bit of filling (surprise, surprise).  Port side was level but there was glaciated valley between the front parts and the wing.

Starboard side wasn't as good and took a lot of putty trying to get more level.  Still not brilliant but it'll do

Alclad filler primer has been used again and then polished up.

 

Up next is the crew so I can get the fuselage buttoned up, resin casting here we come....

[bigbadbadge]

Great work so far, this can be a challenging kit. Keep up the good work.

All the best

Chris

[Andy G]

Been a bit longer than I'd hoped getting around to writing this up - my apologies.  I like to build my aircraft 'wheels up' and as I don't build drones that requires pilots and crew.  The number of kits coming with crew seems to be dwindling, even Airfix can't be relied upon.  I pulled the current releases of the Lancaster, Whitley and Wellington from the stash and found the grand total of one pilot and no other crew.  I know Revell did a box of RAF pilots at some point but they seem to be cast in unobtainium as I've never seen a box in the five years I've been back modelling aircraft.

So the only way forward seemed to be to cast my own from the figures I could find in the stash.  I know PJ Productions make various crew but the RAF figures were out of stock when I started this process and purchasing crew for all of the stash would be prohibitively expensive.

I've done some resin casting in the past but that was using a mould that somebody else had produced.  I'd also decided that the figures would need to be cast in two part moulds in order to stand some chance of getting resin to all of the parts without requiring the use of a pressure pot which I don't have.  So, lots of new adventures.

I bought some condensation cured silicon rubber, polyurethane casting resin and filleting wax from Easy Composites.

First job was to produce the 'master'.  Airfix have done the hard work as I lifted these two candidates from the Dakota (I think).  Plasticard was used to produce what I thought was going to be the resin reservoir where I would pour the resin in and it would make it's way down into the figures and then out the bottom and up the exhaust (scrap sprue).  Note the positioning of the sprue on the pilots' feet, there may be trouble ahead..

As I've got laser cutter but no Lego I cut a small box with two sides removable to contain the mould.  Lego is possibly a better option, but plasticard could also be used.  The 'master' was then placed on a small bed of the filleting wax (the yellow stuff) and this bed then tediously and carefully built up around them to occupy what would later become the second half of the mould.  The three ball bearings are to produce location keys so that the two parts of the mould will locate together correctly when used.

 

The silicon mould rubber was then mixed and slowly poured in before being left for twenty-four hours to set.

 

After the time was up the box was taken apart and the mould removed.  Well, not quite that easily as it turns out that whilst silicon rubber doesn't stick to anything else other than itself very well, it does actually stick quite well to MDF.  It was persuaded to part company by applying the sharp edge of a new scalpel.   Also purchased was a small jar of vaseline to be smeared on the first half of the mould to stop the second half sticking to it.  Well, if it was supposed to be good for preventing the mould sticking together, perhaps it might work on the MDF as well.  So, after cleaning up the box the Vaseline was duly applied and the first part of the mould re-instated.

Vaseline was then applied to the surface of the mould and the master re-inserted.  Sorry, chaps, yes, your backsides do look big.  Care had to be taken not to apply too much Vaseline as I suspect it would affect the mould, and also to ensure that the master fitted well back into the first part of the mould.  The box was then re-assembled and the second part of the mould poured.

 

Another twenty-four hours passed and the mould was then removed, thankfully much more easily this time.  

 

A lid was then cut for the box so that it could be used to keep the mould together during the casting process, with one of the sides left off to enable access to pour the resin in.

 

Thankfully the resin sets much faster than the rubber, about twenty minutes.  A couple of frantic minutes were spent mixing the two parts of the resin before pouring it into the reservoir and let it run through to the exhausts - it seemed to work.  Twenty-minutes were then spent twiddling thumbs  before the first cast was successfully removed to produce the first half of the crew for the Hudson 

 

 

Thought - we mostly use injected plastic kits.  Now I'd been using a syringe to transfer one part of the silicon rubber mix, what if I used that to inject the resin.  I actually injected the resin into the exhausts in the hope that any air would be pushed up through the figures in front of the rising resin.  It was also cleaner as the excess collected in the reservoir.

Success!  Well it certainly looked that way.  The snowflake like flash actually breaks off very easily.  

It's not just in the photograph that the quality of the figures is unclear, they aren't very clear in the flesh either.  Maybe adding a colour additive may make them a bit clearer.  Under a magnifier they seemed to be ok, so some more were cast.  Using the syringe I seem to be getting about a 90% success rate.

After a number had been cast and cleaned up they had holes drilled up their backsides and were impaled on cocktail sticks before being blasted with a coat of primer.

Meet the frostbite squadron.  They're all missing their toes as a result of the positioning of the sprue and the lack of a pressure pot.

 

One victim was selected to become the pilot and subjected to surgery to fit into the cockpit before being painted.

 

Well he's still got both legs!  Not sure they'd be any use though.  He's a bit ropey but hopefully good enough.

I've also painted up the wireless operator.  I picked one of the not so good candidates as really only the back of his head is likely to be visible.

Yes, the bomb aiming thing has fallen off - again!  It can stay off now until I'm ready to put the glazing on the front.

 

Up next, closing up.

 

Andy

[bigbadbadge]

Great work casting your own crew members. 

All the best

Chris

[TheyJammedKenny!]

For crew, have you given consideration to PJ Productions?  I use their figures on a lot of projects.

[kev67]

rather than use vaseline as a release agent there is a release agent spray which is much better

[Andy G]

Chris, Kev, TJK, 

thanks for looking in and the responses.

11 hours ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

For crew, have you given consideration to PJ Productions?  I use their figures on a lot of projects.

Yep, but they were out of stock when I started this.  Plus it would eventually work out quite expensive and I've fancied giving this process a try for a while.

 

11 hours ago, kev67 said:

rather than use vaseline as a release agent there is a release agent spray which is much better

I'm only using Vaseline to keep the second pour of the mould from sticking to the first.  I thought release agent was for the casting stage, have a I misunderstood this?

 

Cheers

Andy

[kev67]

The spray on release agent is used for the silicone to create a barrier if you are using a 2 part mould, such as what you are doing, to stop both silicones from sticking together, you will find you get a better mould

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bond-Silicone-Release-Spray-500ml/dp/B00JFQAR12/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=silicone+mould+release+agent&qid=1595258459&sr=8-3

 

Similar stuff found on Amazon

[Francis Macnaughton]

I always make the resin feed to a two part mould go straight down to the bottom then up through the actual moulding (using scrap  bits of 2 - 3 mm square section plastic strip for the runners) as this is much better at eliminating air bubbles in the actual moulding.

[Mr T]

Nice work on what is a not a brilliant kit, I found the fit not of the best and a bit vague in places. Painted Aluminium undersurface would be right for a Coastal Command aircraft at this time and a lot had red whit and blue upper wing roundels as well. I finished a MPM Hudson earlier this year, link is belowr

 

[Andy G]

Blimey, well over a month since I updated this.  This post won't bring things up-to-date but I'll try and add some more posts over the next couple of days.  The project is still on-going and still delivering 'fun' and learning experiences.

 

Having sorted out the pilot and wireless operator it was time to look at joining up the fuselage.  Firstly was a bit of work to accept the in-flight stand.  I use telescopic brass rod for this varying the diameter dependent upon the size of the model.  For this model I used 1/8" tubing.  Unfortunately I didn't get a decent photo of it before closing up.  This is the best that there is

 

You can just make out the tube approximately under the rear beam.  To fit it I taped the two fuselage halves together and then drilled and reamed out the required hole until it is a tight fit for the tubing.  I then cut the tube almost to length and on this occasion epoxied it to the cabin floor whilst this was dry fitted to one of the sides, thus ensuring that the tubing was in the correct location.  In previous models I've glued the tube to the top and bottom of the fuselage, but on the last model (hurricane) I only glued a small bit of tubing to the bottom of the fuselage.  This didn't work as the support rod was able to twist the tube sufficiently to break the joint and the whole lot had to be carefully superglued in place with the aircraft no longer removable from the stand.

 

Dry fitting of the fuselage with the piece for the turret and also the front glazing showed the need to pad out the fuselage joints with plasticard.  To be fair Revell do point out the need to fill a gap at the front.  

 

 

Mr Dissolved Putty was used to fill the gap along the top seam, several applications being made to gradually built it up

 

The bottom was similarly treated. Note the support tube has been filed to length.  The window masks have also been applied, those without masks are specified in the instructions as being overpainted.

 

The turret surround has also been fitted with yet more dissolved putty.  Also a piece of sprue has been used as a spreader to try and align the rear fuselage with the rear of the surround - it was a case of make the best fit and then bodge with filler.

 

 

Whilst that all dried the flap actuators (?) were fitted to the wings

Unsurprisingly some of these have been fitted more than once 😞

 

The horizontal stabilisers have been fitted with a sizeable gap to be filled

 

 

You can just make out from this photo that I've done the main sanding if the previously applied filler.

 

Up next - navigator, wings and the front glazing, yep, more bodging and filling.

 

 

[AdrianMF]

Gosh that kit is fighting every step of the way! But you do seem to be getting the upper hand. Lovely work!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Andy G]

Thanks Adrian.  It's definitely not the best of kits and I'll be glad to see the back of it and move onto something a bit simpler for a while.

 

Cheers

Andy

[John_W]

Nice work. 

Mine sat on the shelf of doom and nearly flew in to the bin a few times.

The nose glazing is a challenge and the wing to fuselage fit is not brilliant, same with the fit of the cowlings to the nacelles. 

Remember to drill out a hole for the astrodome.

[Andy G]

23 hours ago, John_W said:

Nice work. 

Mine sat on the shelf of doom and nearly flew in to the bin a few times.

The nose glazing is a challenge and the wing to fuselage fit is not brilliant, same with the fit of the cowlings to the nacelles. 

Remember to drill out a hole for the astrodome.

Thanks John,

I've had those issues with this one too.  I think if it ever landed on the shelf of doom it would never get off it.  It does seem to have made multiple attempts to get itself into the bin, but so far I've defeated it.

As for the Astrodome, looking at the photos on IWM it can be alternated with the closed option which is what I've gone for.  I'm not entirely sure whether that is correct or not but I'm not attempting to drill the hole now as knowing this model it would split the fuselage!  Thanks for the pointer though.

 

Andy

[Andy G]

Another update, we're slowly getting there.  This is the only photo I took of fitting the wings and this was more for testing the wing jig than recording the build of the model.  

The wing spar forces the wings to have no dihedral so they had to be filed on their lower edge.  The inner faces of the wings were tidied up and once the spar had been modified the wings sat with a reasonably correct dihedral and not too bad a gap.  There was a little bit of a step so this was arranged to be on the underside where it wouldn't be as noticeable.

 

With the wings on and filled, sanded etc. it was time to fit the front end.  The bomb aimer/navigator has been cast from the Beaufighter crew.  Trying to fit him in was awkward to say the least.  Firstly the bomb aiming gubbins by his feet were fitted, knocked off, fitted repeat a few times.  The seat was modified by removing the front lip so he could actually sit on it properly.  It was found that the only way to get the navigator in and the nose on was to have him sat to one side of the seat and tilted over.  It was a case of apply glue to nav's posterior put him on the seat and shove the nose into as good a place as possible and wait for the glue to go off.

The fit of the front glazing to the fuselage leaves a lot to be desired.  I managed to get a reasonable fit at the top but this left a fair step to one side of the bottom

Interior green was sprayed over the glazing so that this would show on the inside rather than filler

There then followed several rounds of fill, sand, paint until a reasonable finish was achieved all around the nose

Here the very front of the nose has been fitted and masked.  I'd read a magazine article on the build of this model where the author had moved the engines forward with 3/16 inch of plasticard, so I attempted this, but it made no difference and double checking the engines seemed to be in the correct location anyway.

 

Back with some more bodging later - got to take the mutts for a walk.

 

[bigbadbadge]

This is one model that really makes you work.  Not sure why i bought a second one really.  Great work you look as though you are winning. 

Chris 

[Andy G]

8 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

This is one model that really makes you work.  Not sure why i bought a second one really.  Great work you look as though you are winning. 

Chris 

You bought a second one?  Mad!

 

 

I wasn't happy with the bits of plastic supplied as a representation of the front guns so attempted to drill out the troughs to take a pair of Master 303s.  I started with the starboard side but managed a much better job with the port side apart from catching the front with the drill chuck.

Last round of seam work

The vertical stabilisers have been fitted.  One fitted better than the other but neither were positive and both required filling and sanding.

After a bit of fiddling and fettling the cockpit glazing fitted reasonably well

The turret surround has been sanded into submission and then masked off

You can just see to the rear some white chipping at the joint with the tail plane.

 

This was filled with some more Surfacer 500

Once that was dealt with primer was applied.

Having another go with Stynlrez.  Gave up with it before as it always required a full strip of the airbrush afterwards but I seem to have avoided this by flushing through with straight water and lots of it as soon as I'd finished.

 

I'll have to process some more photos before another update, thanks for looking.

 

[bigbadbadge]

Me mad🤪

 

Looks wonderful in primer.  Fantastic work. 

Chris

[Andy G]

Getting there - on to paint, botches and the model fights back.  The brown and green are Mr Paints Dark Earth and Dark Green, silver is Alclad aluminium.

I broke convention and started with the upper surfaces on the expectation that the silver may be a little fragile.

Milk chocolate Hudson - 

Worms (white-tac).  I learnt a new trick to use a small piece of plasticard rather than just fingers to roll out the worms.  They come out much more uniform.

Green on and start making the brown a bit patchy.  I started using Light Earth and then Dark Earth with a touch (too much!) of black added. With hindsight not only should I have used less black but I should also have done the light earth last.

Patched the green - Light Green followed by Dark Green + Black - same mistakes and lessons.

It was all toned down by re-applying the Light Earth and Green

With the top painted it was masked with tape and more worms to get the wavy edge.

Alclad goes over a glossy black surface doesn't?  Right on with the Alclad gloss black primer.  Ooh shiny!

After applying the lovely black coat that I was really happy with I read the side of the Aluminium bottle and it said to apply over a grey primer.  Blow that, on with the paint

Not only did the aileron need attending to but after a few days of looking at it I wasn't happy with the way that the paint was sitting over detail.  It had all gone soft or disappeared.  Obviously too much paint at some point.  So the port underside was stripped back with neat IPA and cotton buds.  Slow process but did the job.

Re-applied primer, this time grey Stynlrez and then more aluminium.

 

Felt that was much better so repeated on the starboard wing.  The de-icing boots were then painted which meant masking off the silver.  Everything was going well until I unmasked the tail section

Not only is some of the detail disappearing but the tape has reacted with the paint.  Wasn't this fixed to the fuselage as well?  Rats

Re-affixed and Mr Surfacer applied over the joint.

 

Next update should see it just about finished :-).

 

[Andy G]

Apologies, this is likely to be a bit of a mammoth post, but the Hudson is just about finished now.

With the paint on and the tail plane sorted out it was on with the gloss ready for the transfers

Not many transfers for this and they went on very well

After the transfers the top surfaces were given a 50:50 coat of Galeria satin and matt varnishes and the aluminium a coat of the satin.  Both coats were a bit more matt than I really wanted.

Onto the weathering.  Photos of these aircraft on the IWM website show them to be fairly clean so the intention was not to go overboard but just take the edge off the model.  Flory washes were used for the main part.  Dark dirt on the upper surfaces and grey on the lower.  In the past I've applied it with a brush but have always ended up with clumps of dirt where the liquid has clustered and these are quite difficult to remove and not at all realistic.  So this time I used the airbrush.

Hmm, not a complete resolution of the problem.

The matt surface also made the wash quite stubborn to remove.  Here the port wing has been partially cleaned up.

The engines have been affixed.  This was done with extra thick super glue as this had a 40second cure time that would allow adjustment.  Needless to say both engines stuck instantly.  Thankfully they are pretty much where they should be.

The only other weathering was to the engines and mud thrown up the undercarriage.  The exhausts were darkened with matt black and the exhaust staining was sprayed on tyre black initially and then a mix of light grey and a touch of brown.  The tyre black didn't play ball which was unusual, it's getting to the bottom of the pot, so maybe it is time to start a new one.

The dirt from the undercarriage was applied by brushing pigment on.

The vents just behind the engine got a wash of thin black so they looked more like vents than the raised lumps of plastic they are.

Into the final straight and I felt that the sticky out bits such as the aerial and pitot tubes didn't stand much chance of surviving long or the aerial even being able to withstand the wires pulling at it.  As such they were pinned with 0.3mm wire.  Receiving holes were drilled in the fuselage and the parts affixed with superglue.

I looked at the tear drop aerial (?) and thought there was no chance of being able to drill and pin it so tried just super gluing it.  It seemed to work but the following night it flopped over as soon as I looked at it.  Thankfully I was actually able to drill and pin it.

On with the aerial wires.  Start with the short one at the front.  Another 0.3mm hole was drilled just behind the canopy and the EazyLine fixed with superglue, this was going great for once, no multiple applications of superglue and having to re-drill the hole.

Hang on a minute that didn't feel good

Fighting to the end!

I checked the prototype photos and the base of the aerial is correct so I couldn't get away with removing everything and putting a piece of rod in place.  The remaining aerial was chopped off at the top of the base and the latter drilled to take a 0.6mm nickel silver rod.  Drilling was easier said than done due to the size and hardness of the plastic.

I forgot to mention that the base detached itself from the fuselage during the repair work and went back with a gap around it.  This was addressed with PPP before dark green paint (MRP) was very carefully applied.

The rest of the wiring work went without hitch though drilling 0.3mm holes in the leading edge of the fins without leaving scratch marks in the paintwork wasn't easy.

 

In the above photos you can see that the masking has been removed.  I was quite worried about the masking on the bottom windows as the paint seemed quite thick over them but they came out ok.  I'm quite surprised by how much of the cockpit is visible and it would have been worth making more of an effort to detail it.  However, it is just about possible to see the navigator and wireless operator but no more.  I also need to make more effort in future to deal with dust.

 

The rear gunner is another casting of the Beaufighter crew perched upon the seat provided in the kit.  I was quite relieved to find that I'd positioned the seat so that he could sit on it and the turret and guns fit over him without any modification.

The guns are the kit supplied barrels painted black and then dry brushed with Humbrol 53 Metallic acrylic in the fairly recent flip top bottles.  I'd bought this only because I needed a sample for the business but was pleasantly surprised at how well the paint brushes.  Some of the previous Humbrol acrylics have been awful/useless.

So with the props glued on that's nearly it.  It's not quite finished as it's resting on a temporary base whilst I await delivery of a sea-scape from Coastal Kits (https://www.coastalkits.co.uk/newstore/ship-display-base-for-waterline-models.html) which will be cut up and combined with a new stand.  Once that's done I'll take some photos with a proper camera and post up an RFI.

As expected it's been a troublesome kit and taken a lot longer than expected, but it's all but done and I think it looks ok even if there are plenty of areas for improvement.  It'd be a dull hobby if there weren't always things that could be improved.