Kora 1/72 Hawker Turret Demon

[Patrik]

One of the wise men here on this forum once said he liked turning ugly into nice. I suspect I know who it was, but as I cannot find the thread now, I will not name @Moa, because I would not like to offend the other similarly wise men here, if it was not him. Nevertheless, I too like turning ugly kits into nice (or at least acceptable) models.

 

Kora produces whole series of the Hart family in resin, the radial ones looking especially tempting, most of them lurking in my stash. I have not seen too many of them build, and I think that by now I know why (in fact I have seen none, but I will be happy you prove me wrong, so hands up, who has built one please).

 

In my humble opinion, two basic conditions are required to build one of the Kora kits:

1.       You need the type in your collection badly.

2.       There is no other kit of the same around, at least not on the Planet Earth.

 

Fortunately, both conditions applied for me in case of the subject in title, so here it is, Hawker Demon Mk. I (Turret) K5705 of No. 23 Squadron, Northolt 1937. The build thread is here, it covers all the amusing moments occurring regularly when building bad fitting resin kits:

Most of the parts come from the kit, I used Eduard steel seat belts, MiniWorld guns, and scratch-build various details in both the interior and the exterior. Brush painted with Humbrol, Model Master and Revell enamels. Decals by Kora, and I added a few stencils from the Modeldecal Hawker Hart Variants sheet to enliven the silver a bit. By the way, the Kora decals have been my first laser printed – the kind you have to cut out of the sheet. Worked fine for me, except for quite a violent reaction with the final clear coat. Took them more than a day to straighten the wrinkles. Of course, I made an early test on surplus black underwing serials, no problem with the black decals, however the roundels and especially the red-blue squadron markings scared the hell out of me after the first application of the final coat. Without rigging as usual.

 

On the last photo you can see my modelling past in the form of the Aeroclub Hawker Demon, build some 15+ years ago, meeting my modelling present. It is nice to see that the old guy is still in presentable state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Patrik

[Wulfman]

A lovely pair of Demons, great modelling !

 

Wulfman

[binbrook87]

Stunning pair of 'silver wing' machines. Just love this era of the RAF. Great job on the brush painting too. Wow! 👍

Edited May 30, 2020 by binbrook87

[Aces High]

This is a really lovely model, and does not show any of the fight you had assembling it. I love these Hawker biplanes, they are some fine looking aircraft.

[stevej60]

Beautiful clean builds,quality work.

[Mig88]

Lovely job indeed! It looks great despite your struggles with the kit.

 

Miguel

[Vulcanicity]

That's gorgeous, you've put me off the Kora kit but boy do I want to build a Demon in 1/72 now!

[TEXANTOMCAT]

You made a brilliant job of them well done! I had a bash at the Amodel Hart and AZ Hind I converted the former to a Hart trainer as I couldn’t justify the price of the Kora fuselage. Both are curates eggs the AZ top wing was too thick and neither had the pronounced dihedral on the lowers (I noticed AFTER I’d finished!) 

 

the old Airfix kit is still pretty good To be honest- razor sharp wings and correct dihedral. For me the perfect mix is the AZ Fuselage, AModel top wing and Airfix lower! But then I don’t have your skills cos you’ve made a super job of those!

 

TT

[Graham Boak]

The main problem with the Hart Trainer is not the fuselage but the wing sweepback change, which throws out the wing interplane struts.  I recall a good discussion with John Adams on here about this wing, but I don't recall any final decision on just how this was done.  I feel a pivot around the main spar is likeliest.

[Patrik]

Thanks for the nice comments.

@Vulcanicity I heard that the Hart family kits belong to the - for the lack of more suitable word before 22 PM - more demanding from the Kora stable. At least I hope so, because I still have their Ripon and Baffin in queue.

@TEXANTOMCAT Many times during the build I cursed my decision to build the kit completely out of the resin boxing instead of combining the resin fuselage and turret with the plastic rest from AModel ...

@Graham Boak Kora produces the Trainer boxing too. Bought it on a show some time ago directly from the producers, inquired about the difference in the sweepback, received reply that they knew, but they decided to ignore it, as no one would recognize it anyway, and when I answered I would, got that kind of smile we mostly reserve for very small kids and village idiots as an answer.

 

[Graham Boak]

Does their Demon kit have the lower rear fuselage top?  Something else that cropped up in discussion with John Adams.  Apparently Hartbeest too, not sure offhand about the Hind, but suspect that it did.

 

Thanks for the tip about Kora's Trainer - I didn't get it but have been tempted, and if I did know that I'd forgotten it.

 

The lower wing dihedral is a good tip too.  I like to think that I'd have noticed it before building the kits but suspect not... But the key problem with the Airfix kit is the horribly overdone fabric effect they added for the Demon retooling.  One kind person did pass an old Hart on to me some years back, and it is so much nicer.  I dread to think what the collectors charge for one.

[Patrik]

Re: lower rear fuselage top. Hard to say with the large cutout for the turret of the Demon, so I took out and compared some other boxings, namely the Australian Demon vs. Estonian Hart and the comparison was unfortunately rather inconclusive. So I would rather not stake my money on it

[TEXANTOMCAT]

I completely forgot about the lower dihedral and whilst it’s mentioned in the AZ /Amodel instructions the wings are a butt fit and the struts won’t fit properly... whereas the Airfix Demon has a single piece lower wing with the angles sorted for you.

 

forgive the link as this isn’t my thread... here you’ll see my efforts. The Upper wings on both are like surfboards but at least the AModel is in three pieces and nicely defined wing handholds etc. I think the AZ fuse has better detail and doesn’t have the annoying section to fair in (it doesn’t well). Note lack of dihedral on both but better on the Hind, the cabanas on both OOB are wrong.

 

 

But I think I made a passable Hart Trainer (no wing sweep though) simply by making a soup of plastic and liquid poly and building it up to make the second pit. The Aeroclub Scarff rings, Lewis and props are essential. The rams horn exhausts are cut down Audax Aeroclub ones.

 

Sincere apols for the thread hi jack I lived and breathed them last summer

 

Your Demons are vastly superior to mine and I don’t rig in 72 either but it’s cos I’m not mental and/or I’m too lazy/ life’s too short/ it doesnt look scale*

 

TT

 

*please select my excuse! 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by TEXANTOMCAT

[Patrik]

No apology needed TT, your diorama is wonderful indeed.

[Graham Boak]

40 minutes ago, Patrik said:

Re: lower rear fuselage top. Hard to say with the large cutout for the turret of the Demon, so I took out and compared some other boxings, namely the Australian Demon vs. Estonian Hart and the comparison was unfortunately rather inconclusive. So I would rather not stake my money on it

Basically, if you fill in the cockpit holes then the top of the fuselage is a smooth curve for the Hart but has a step in it for the Demon.  It reduces effort if you have a convenient French curve to hand...

 

I did change the sweep many years (50?) when the Demon came out, but I no longer remember exactly what I did.  Probably kept the trailing edge and removed a wedge to the front, because that is the easiest and I don't recall anything else.  Which probably isn't right but I can hear the chorus now "No-one will ever notice".

[Seahawk]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

But the key problem with the Airfix kit is the horribly overdone fabric effect they added for the Demon retooling.  One kind person did pass an old Hart on to me some years back, and it is so much nicer.  I dread to think what the collectors charge for one.

£30 plus P&P apparently, which doesn't seem too outrageous if you can contemplate Kora prices without blanching.

 

https://www.kingkit.co.uk/shop.php?search=kitfinder&search_term=Hart&brand=25&cat=&scale=1^72

[wellsprop]

I love this, great model, nice to see something slightly different!

[MarkI]

Hi Patrik,

I was very pleased to see your turreted Demon as my father was a 23 Squadron pilot at Northolt in 1937!  He trained extensively in Demons.  I was curious to see if he'd ever flown K-5705 so I checked his log book.  He never flew K-5705 but flew K-5706 repeatedly! 

He went on to fly Blenheims (briefly) in 64 Sqn and then Spitfires in 234 Sqn.  That was life back then!

Your model looks great and I appreciate all the effort you put into it.  Thanks again for your post.

[Patrik]

This would be really nice story here, if your father flew the K5705!

According to K File K5705 hit hedge in snowstorm in early January 1938 and was SOC soon afterwards, therefore the service of K5705 in 23 Squadron was rather brief, just around 8 months. K5706 (Turret Demon as well) served until 1940, however by that time the Demons were long replaced by Blenheims in the squadron service.