1:48 Battle of Britain Diorama - Hurricane 501 Sqn at RAF Gravesend [Completed!]

[Kallisti]

My first entry into the GB will be a small diorama based around a 1:48 Hasegawa Hurricane Mk 1 in the livery of 501 Sqn who were based at RAF Gravesend at various times between Julyand September 1940. This airfield, now mostly under a housing estate was just behind my Grammar School in Gravesend, so there is a vague personal connection. I plan on including the Aifix Albion refueller in the diorama, but I'm determined not to fall into the trap seen frequently in these sorts of dioramas of having everything being worked on the aircraft at the same time.

 

So the kits to be used:

 

 

The exact aircraft I will be building will be P3059, SD-N which thanks to @Geoffrey Sinclair I have a brief history of:

 

Delivery Logs: P3059, taken on charge 5 June 1940, to 10 MU 11 June 1940, to HB? CFF? 19 June 1940, to 10 MU 20 June 1940, to 501 Squadron 9 July 1940

Battle of Britain Then and Now: 18 August 1940, bounced by BF109s of JG26 over Canterbury 1.30pm, shot down by Oblt. G. Schoepfel, Pilot Officer K.N.T. Lee admitted to hospital with leg wounds, aircraft SD-N a write off.

 

This then places the diorama between mid-July and 18th August 1940. What it is also shows is that this aircraft only lasted 5 weeks in the field so as such I will NOT be weathering it excessively, so no chunkso f paint lost around the wing root like most people love to build!

 

The other parts of the build are these:

 

 

 

plus there will be a few figures and assorted bits from these kits

 

 

 

I'll begin construction in the next couple  of days once I've completed the current Hitachi Road Roller is built.

 

My second build will be more ambitious, a 1:32 Spitfire Mk 1 with open engine covers using a combination of the Revell IIa and the HobbyBoss Mk Vb kits converted to Mk 1. More on that later...

 

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Kallisti

[Ozzy]

Looks like all the ingredients for a fantastic diorama.

[Cookenbacher]

looking forward to this one, your builds always show creativity and skill.

[Kallisti]

The first part of the build is the Albion refueller which has progressed over the weekend. For this one I've been painting as I go along as its lots of small fiddly bits.

 

First off the chassis was built. it went together easily but there were lots of seam lines that needed scraping/sanding

 

 

Then it was onto the cab which again went together quite painlessly 

 

 

The cab was fitted to the challis which too a bit of fiddling. I had to trim the bit of the gearbox that stuck up and should have gone into a hole in the cab floor but the instructions told me to glue the gearstick into that hole first which was a mistake as it blocked the hole up. My advice to anyone else buildinf this is to leave the gearstick off until the cab is on the chassis!

 

 

In the background you can see the tank with my initial colour scheme as recommended by the instruction to paint it all green. This is very simplistic and a bit of research shows a lot of variation and much lighter colours. So I stripped that paint off and repainted in a lighter colour - I used  Tamiya XF-76 Grey Green (IJN), so reason other than I thought it looked good. It looks like a slightly paler version of cockpit green. I found some better photos of the valve controls and used that as a basis for my paint job

 

 

The wheels have also been assembled and painted

 

 

At this poit I came to the conclusion that I've got my colours all wrong - at least the outer olive green colour - its too dark and looks terrible. My mistake was in the paint conversion of the colours given in the instructions.

 

Humbrol 86 Matt Light Olive is not a swap for Tamiya XF-62, Olive Drab. It is in fact supposed to be Khaki G3. Now further research found a recipe from Mike Starmer that involves 8 x XF-62 Olive Drab, 3 x XF-59 Desert Yellow 1 x XF68 Natro Brown. I tested this and its a better colour but I wasn't entirely happy with it, it looks much too green for a Khaki shade. Instead I've mixed up my own colour using XF-48 Khaki and XF-51 Olive Drab which is much more Khaki like and I'm quite pleased with how it looks.

The dark green from the instructions Humbrol 30 Matt Dark Green is supposed to be Green G4 and again Mike Starmer had a mix for this of 3 x XF-61 Dark Green 2 XF-58 Nato Green and I really like that dark green colour so I'm going to use that.

 

What this of course meant was all the paint I've applied so far (except the internal valve compartment) has had to be stripped off and repainted. That was a hugely fun job  I've yet to take photos of the newly repainted version, but hope to show it later.  

 

 

[Kallisti]

I left the build with the question about the colours to be used, here is my tester piece that I painted to check the new colours 

 

 

What you see is on the left is the dark green mix for Green G4, 3xXF-51 and 2xXF-58, on the right is the Mike Starmer mix for Khaki G3 8xXF-62 3xXF-59 1xXF-68 and the one in the middle is my personal mix of XF-49 Khaki and XF-51 Olive Drab which is my preferred colour that I'll be using as the base colour. I liked the dark green so will be using that as well. Here is the result of the repaint

 

 

As you can see I've also done a wood effect on the running boards as well which looks a lot better. The inside of the cab is a more Khaki Drab mix to make it slightly darker

 

 

Close up of the chassis

 

 

Wheels

 

Doors

 

 

Fuel tank

 

 

Controls

 

 

So now we are back to where we were before. The next steps are further constructions and a warning for anyone building the kit! The fuel hose booms need careful cutting from the sprue as I made a bit of a mistake - here is what it looks like on the sprue - note the little bobble on the left and the cut sprues above...

 

 

and this is what I did accidentally cutting off the bulb at the end which is actually the point where the hose itself it attached to the boom

 

 

Now, that said what it did enable me to do was hollow out the horn at the end which should be concave in the middle, so it was a useful mistake to make in the end

 

 

Now back to the chassis and the cab was attached and the engine bonnet assembled and painted, the wheels were also added. You can see here as well I've now added the dark green paint and the minimal amount of decals and masked the windows in preparation for matt varnish.

 

 

 

Inside the cab with the floor weathered and dirtied

 

 

Here is the tank with the paint done and the decal added. I used clear on just the area that the decal had to go

 

 

Doors on the control box

 

 

Finally, here it is after the matt varnish, weathered and assembled. The booms and hoses have been painted - I used my Mr Metal Color brass on the ends of the hoses and on the hose attachments under the booms that pass back into the tank

 

 

I've also drilled holes and the support attached wire to the booms and the boom that will be in use has been elevated by the simple expedient of bending the upper part of the plastic slightly so that its not all that noticeable but the boom is elevated a bit.

 

 

One last job that I've just remembered I need to do on seeing these photos is to add handles to the bottom of the booms where they pass into to control box. Photos I've founf on the net of this box show these handles but I can't repost the photo as it has a very large copyright notice across it but you can see it on this page in the HMVF Forum

 

http://hmvf.co.uk/topic/34742-anyone-know-of-location-of-this-zwicky-pump-or-parts/

 

 

So that is the first component of the diorama completed and I'm very pleased with the result! Next it to start adding the bits that place it in context... first of all the figures...

 

 

So here are the figures I intend to use. The standing one is the figure from the Airfix set that is assisting the pilot into the aircraft on the back cover. However I've replaced one of his arms with one from the Revell set to depict him working the controls. The paint is just an initial layer and needs a lot more work to be a decent representation. The lying figure is a mixture of a figure from the ICM RAF Personel set that I'd forgotten I had plus the right arm with the fuel filler from the Airfix set.

 

This is the general layout that I aim to depict, posed here using a Hurricane I built almost 10 years ago to depict a different BoB diorama

 

 

What this shows is I'll need something else to take up the bog empty space at the front of the diorama - I'll think about that, don't want it to be too cluttered as when refuelling an aircraft there tends not to be too much activity around apart from the refuelling!

 

Finally on this update, while posing that old Hurricane model it reminded me that in order to pose it with the canopy open I had to replace the kit canopy with a vac form. In fact the heat of the loft where this model is now stored has made the var form canopy curl up at the edges  So I had to dig through the stash as I knew I had this box somewhere

 

 

and cut out the Hurricane canopy on the right

 

 

I used the kit canopy to cut out the marking tape for the vac form and with this photo I can see that the front centre mask is wrong and will need redoing. My plan today is to get the base done - it will be a grass base but I want to try to show it worn and stained from oil and fuel spills. so it won't be just a flat plane of lush green grass  Then it will be starting on the Hurricane cockpit...

 

 

 

 

[Ozzy]

The Albion looks fantastic, 

[Kallisti]

So the refueller is done and now onto the Hurricane. Well did a really clever thing yesterday, I spent most of Saturday building the cockpit and doing a nicely detailed job of it and then yesterday I closed it up in the fuselage BEFORE taking any photos! Doh!!! Instead here are some photos through the cockpit opening to show the details:

 

 

I used Airscale decals for the instrument dials as I've sent the decal sheet for this kit to someone else since I'm not planning on building any of the planes depicted in the kit. No matter, got plenty of other decals to cover all the details I needed.

 

 

I've not used any photoetch on this as the kit detail is adequate in my mind, although since taking the photos I've realised I forgot to add the seatbelts! Doing well with my um... whats the word... ahh memory!!! sigh...

 

 

 

I've used Tamiya XF-76 Grey Green (IJN) which is a slightly paler green that the usual CF-71 Cockpit Green and I prefer it at the moment. I've used Flory washes to dirty it all up a bit, but I do need to add the seat belts. I've got some in the PE stash somewhere, will dig them out later today. You can see the seams between the fuselage halves on the kit, particularly where the sprue gates were attached. I'm going to cover the cockpit and dust some primer over the seam to check the joint. The sanding has meant its lost the engraved marking for the fuel tank cover which will need rescribing, My main concerns in that spit just behind the cockpit - that will get covered by the canopy but it still need to be smooth anyway.

 

The upper and lower wings have been joined together - in this kit the faring in front of the undercarriage bay is a separate piece which needs careful alignment when attaching

 

 

The leading edges have all had a dab of Mr Surfacer 500 to smooth any gaps and will get sanded later once cured.

 

The other new component of the build is the base, which was originally going to be used in a different desert-based diorama but I messed it up and had to strip it back. This time I've added a good layer of fine claycrete, pre-mulched papoer-mache which has been mixed with some artist acrylic raw and burnt sienna to give the characteristic clay-colour of the soil around Gravesend, then while wet sprinkled with woodland scenics burnt grass scatter and static grass.

 

 

The large dark patch in the middle is where the claycrete was at its wettest and will get lighter as it dries. It will also shrink a bit so the surface has been built up a bit beyond the edge of base.

 

 

More to come...

[Kallisti]

So now I've closed up the fuselage I've rediscovered @Troy Smith notes on my previous build of the same Hurricane for my earlier BoB diorama back in 2011

 

 

which explain that the cockpit frame should be silver, not green  Since I've now stuck the wings on and started priming the outside this means I've got some very tricky painting with a small brush ahead! At least its not too late to make sure the wheel bay and inner doors are silver not grey green and this time I'll have the correct prop!

 

 

[Troy Smith]

35 minutes ago, Kallisti said:

I'll have the correct prop!

also, remove the little vents on the panel under the cockpit, they are for trop planes only

the ones directly under the pilots foot

 

 

Doing this?  In the background of the famous pics of LZ-N 

R4105 AFAIK (Air Britain) 

 

 

 

[Kallisti]

Thats the pic I used as the basis of my earlier dio from 2011 based on the day 501 and 66 Sqn swapped over at RAF Gravesend. You can see the River Thames in the background of the photo and the Grammar school that I attended in the 70s would only be a a mile or so away from where this pic was taken

I was going to build SD-N which is profiled in the On Target Profile 12 Hawker Hurricane in RAF and Commonweath service as I couldn't make out the serial for this aircraft SD-U, but you've just told me the serial, so now I have a choice...

 

Thanks for the tip about the vents, consider them gone

 

Edit: correct me if I'm wrong but that pic doesn't seem to show a rear-view mirror above the canopy

Edited July 21, 2020 by Kallisti

[Kallisti]

Things have moved along, the wings have been attached to the fusealge

 

 

Here you can see the rescribed fuel cover that got lost during the sanding of the central fuselage seam

 

 

Next was the application of paint - the first thing I did was to extract the seat from the cockpit, repaint it with Mr Metalic color Stainless steel and add seatbelts. I still need to go back and reapaint the visible parts of the cockpit framework silver. In the meantime, the undersides have been painted with XF-21 Sky with the wheel wells painted in XF-16 Aluminium

 

 

I made a slightly lighter version of XF-52 for the brown and painted the whole upper surfaces then 2 days later masked the brown and painted the green using XF-81. I then remembered I was supposed to open the hatch to the wing fuel tank, so had to drill it out and make a small cover from 0.25mm thick plastic card.

 

Now hopefully you've spotted my deliberate mistakes of not painting the red around the machine guns and the back anti-slip strips on the wing roots  These have subsequently been painted. I've given this paint a double layer of Klear and currently in the middle of adding decals from a variety of sources. Moving along, the exhausts were painted and weathered

 

 

This was achieved by starting off with a coat of X-34 Metallic Brown then while it was still wet, stippling Rust and Russian earth pastel pigments over the surface to give the rough texture. Once this was all dried, a light brushing of the outer edges to remove any loose pigment. I had also drilled out the blank ends but you can't see this from the photo. The canopy and windscreen have been masked and painted

 

 

Finally for this update, the spinner and propeller have been assembled and painted

 

 

I'm still not entirely happy with this - it looks too glossy and black, I think I need to tone it down a bit - I may strip the paint off and try again. I intend to scuff the paint up but won't be making the standard mistake of using metallic highlights as this prop is mostly wooden with just a metal stripe down the leading edge. I'll scuff it up a bit to show a little wear but not go too mad. 

 

 

 

 

[Col Walter E Kurtz]

Maybe paint the leading edge metal strip.. spray over with black and the tease some of the paint off to expose the metal?

 

Loved the exhaust stubs.. very realistic!

Edited July 26, 2020 by Col Walter E Kurtz

[Greg Law]

Fantastic work on the truck. Looking forward  to seeing the Hurricane. 

[Cookenbacher]

Looking wonderful, I'm especially impressed with the exhausts and wooden running boards, just fantastic.

[Kallisti]

Double post, please ignore!

Edited July 29, 2020 by Kallisti

[Kallisti]

I've just updated the initial post in this thread but to emphasis the most recent information I'm copying it here, with thanks to @Geoffrey Sinclair for the history record of SD-N:

 

Delivery Logs: P3059, taken on charge 5 June 1940, to 10 MU 11 June 1940, to HB? CFF? 19 June 1940, to 10 MU 20 June 1940, to 501 Squadron 9 July 1940

Battle of Britain Then and Now: 18 August 1940, bounced by BF109s of JG26 over Canterbury 1.30pm, shot down by Oblt. G. Schoepfel, Pilot Officer K.N.T. Lee admitted to hospital with leg wounds, aircraft SD-N a write off.

 

This then places the diorama between mid-July and 18th August 1940. What it is also shows is that this aircraft only lasted 5 weeks in the field so as such I will NOT be weathering it excessively, so no chunks of paint lost around the wing root like most people love to build!

[Kallisti]

Decals have now been applied - these came from a variety of sources int he decals spares box and you can now see that the machine gun panels have been painted red.

 

 

I had a great set of Hurricane stecil decals int he spares box which was invaulable and contained stencil that were not in the Hasegawa kit

 

 

The serials and squadron codes were from Xtradecal sheets I've had for a while

 

 

The On Target Profile 12 book from Aviation Workshop claims this aircraft didn't have underwing roundels and cites The Battle for Britain - RAF, May to December 1940 by Paul Lucas and Neil Robinson, Camoflage and Markings No 2, Guideline Publications as the source for that, so just to be different I've gone along with that claim. Everything has been Klear'd again ready for weathering. 

 

In the meantime, I've painted the figures

 

 

There appears to be a scale discrepancy between the driver and the other figures, basically because the Airfix RAF figures are not 1:48, they are overscale. The bloke on the left's face has gone a bit mankey as the flesh paint reacted with the wash and bubbled up a little.

 

Weathering and final construction next...

 

 

[Ozzy]

Fantastic progress.

[Kallisti]

Weathering is done plus undercarriage assembled and painted. For weatherng I've focussed on dirt on the surface of the wings more than anyhting else. Note I do not have streaks of dirt from the machine guns. Any gun residue was very quickly wiped clean with an oily rag as it was caustic and would attack the surface.

 

 

Once again, note no chipping of the paintwork around the pilot's entry  but there is a bit of dirt. It annoys me when I see these areas heavily chipped - it was a very rare thing as a) the aircraft didn't last very long b) they had aircrews who looked after them and would touch the paintwork up whenever necessary (my Dad was an Electrician on Spifires and Hurricanes later in the war and he told me he spent as much time with a paintbrush in his hand as a screwdriver!) Sadly there are several photos that show some chipping and then everyone copies what they see other modellers do and then take it a bit further so it ends up with NO paint on the wing roots which is just silly (IMHO). 
 

 

I'm a little concerned that the exhausts are a bit light compared to the rest of the aircraft - I'm nervous about darkening them however in case I ruin the finish I got on them

 

The underside show the classic oil leakage from a Merlin - the old saying goes if a Merlin isn't leaking oil its run out!

 

 

So we are onto the final steps of the diorama, just need to add the propeller and assemble the components on the base... next time

Edited August 1, 2020 by Kallisti

[Troy Smith]

4 hours ago, Kallisti said:

The underside show the classic oil leakage from a Merlin - the old saying goes if a Merlin isn't leaking oil its run out!

Yes, and it makes a specific stain on Hurricane UC doors.  this is why

 

this happens, that diagonal streak over the door.

 

I really wish Xtradecal made some 36 inch codes,  these are at least 36 inch, maybe 40.  The roundel is 35 Inch, the serial is 8 inch high. so can be used to assess size.

seems 501 in this era ran codes like this on the starboard side

 

remember, there was no specified running order,  which is a right PITA as it even changed during the war,  so the only reference are photos of both sides from the same/simlar era. Note the again the larger than roundel codes, these , compared to the pic above, are at least fairly consistent in size and 'font'  (note the little serifs on the D ) which is mostly the case in a squadron. 

 

On 30/07/2020 at 20:46, Kallisti said:

The On Target Profile 12 book from Aviation Workshop claims this aircraft didn't have underwing roundels and cites The Battle for Britain - RAF, May to December 1940 by Paul Lucas and Neil Robinson, Camoflage and Markings No 2, Guideline Publications as the source for that, so just to be different I've gone along with that claim.

the were reintroduced on 11 Aug 1940,  and there was a lag in painting them.

And also explains the variety of of sizes and positions commonly seen on Hurricanes and Spitfires.

 

Fin flash runs all the way down fin to the fairing. They also look a bit slim, note the blue is almost the width of the rudder horn, I'd think these are 9 inch stripes, see below

Finally. 

Upperwing roundels, the centres are 80 inches in from the tip.  which is 1/3 of span in from tip,  which was the 'rule' 

40 ft = 480 inch, /2 = 240 inch, /3 = 80 inch.   Note the position of the red centre in comparison to the panel line through it.

see below. 

 

Probably too late,  but perhaps of use for others.

 

HTH

[Kallisti]

That diagram needs to be pinned somewhere as it seems the kit instructions are wrong as that is what I used to align the wing roundels

 

I did contemplate using 1:32 scale codes to get above the 30" but in the end I thought there will only be 1 or 2 people who will know any different

 

Thanks for the reminder about the oil stains on the u/c doors, thats an easy fix!

[Kallisti]

So here it is the final reveal!

 

 

Note the oil stains on the undercarriage door

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ozzy]

Fantastic build, a very well balanced scene.

[Troy Smith]

3 minutes ago, Kallisti said:

Note the oil stains on the undercarriage door

👍

 

On 02/08/2020 at 10:30, Kallisti said:

That diagram needs to be pinned somewhere as it seems the kit instructions are wrong as that is what I used to align the wing roundels

I see it all the time,  and on a lot of models from different sources.   I suspect that the correct place looks 'wrong'  as there usually the roundel is a has a small gap between front and aileron edges..

and shots like this are rare

85 Squadron 12 by Сергей Кривицкий, on Flickr

On 02/08/2020 at 10:30, Kallisti said:

but in the end I thought there will only be 1 or 2 people who will know any different

Indeed! 

Do we have a padded cell or straitjacket emoji?  this is probably appropriate

 

 

[Stew Dapple]

That turned out a beauty mate  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew