Ready for battle: Airfix 1/48 Hurricane, refueller, truck and ground crew.

[patmaquette]

On 21/10/2020 at 06:22, Peter Roberts said:

This is all looking great Pat! I like the painting of those figures - they are small and you have done some very fine work there. Some very innovative work on those bases too! Notes being taken!  

Thank you, Peter! 😀

On 21/10/2020 at 05:28, Stew Dapple said:

That's fantastic work Pat, looking forward to the next installment

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

Thank you Stew. With popcorn at the ready, here is the next installment, but there is still further to go.

 

The static grass materials arrived yesterday and were put to immediate use using an applicator lent to me by a club member, who recommended I use 2mm Summer Grass as a base layer (being as we are representing the fine summer of 1940) with a detail layer of 2mm Patchy Grass. I bought the items from WWS (World War Scenics) who have some good instructional videos on their site to give you confidence in applying the stuff.

 

 

 

 

I masked off a 10mm wide border around the bases beforehand. The Basing glue goes on first followed by the base layer. The glue was easy to spread using a broad flat brush. At the edges I brushed inwards from the tape to the base to avoid pushing any glue under the masking tape layer. The electrostatic applicator gave a really dense covering and the shadows I had painted on the base all but disappeared.

The layering spray adhesive was then applied over the base layer. This can be done without having to wait for the basing glue to dry. Idiot as I am, I forgot to switch on the applicator when I put the Patchy Grass layer on top of the Summer Grass on the Spitfire base, so ended up applying another coat of Layering Adhesive and doing it again. Although the depth ended up quite thick, it looked okay until I removed the masking to reveal a line of bright Summer Grass showing around the edges.

My efforts with the Hurricane base were better. I applied the Patchy Grass over the shadow areas predominantly.

 

 

 

Here it is with the Hurricane diorama popped into place....

 

 

And closer up.....

 

 

 

You can see that I have started putting the figures onto the Hurricane. I used the Basing Glue for them as it is easy to apply and seems to give a strong join.

 

 

I'm currently working on installing the refuelling booms and hoses. This fella looks like he is wrestling a snake....

 

 

 

There is a strong chance that it should all be finished tomorrow. I'm looking forward to browsing through the stash for my next subject 😃

Many thanks for looking and any tips you have (such as for using static grass) would be much appreciated,

Cheers,

Pat

[patmaquette]

Well, it has taken much longer to finish this build than I thought, but it is done now.

I tried out a paint chipping technique for the first time. I selected the wheel chocks and a pair of containers for treatment, the chocks being painted a wood colour and the containers aluminium before applying a couple of coats of chipping fluid by airbrush....

 

 

Soon after yellow paint on the chocks and dark green on the containers had dried, a moistened Microbrush was applied to the edges where chipping could be expected. I discovered that it took a few seconds for the water to act. I also found that it better to do a small area at a time, as having the water in place too long would cause large fragments of paint to lift off. Anyway, suffice to say it seems to work okay and I'll certainly be using it more in the future.

 

 

Parts were attached to the base using the Basing Adhesive used for the static grass. Glue was applied to both sides of the join and the parts placed in position. Some weight was applied to press the part into the grass. Here is the Hurricane being fixed into place with weights on the wheels and a pot of paint on the tail. The blue and yellow page markers were guides to aid with positioning the model on the base...

 

 

The pre-bent and painted hoses were now attached to the booms. The wire is a lot stiffer than the boom and it had to be repeatedly tweaked before it fitted correctly to the boom and also cleared the cab roof and tank dome. It was glued with cyanoacrylate.

 

 

Positioning the refueller had to be done in steps following some dry fitting and further tweaking. The figure was glued onto the wing and left to set.....

 

 

And the boom set into position to include wire hose links to the pumping house...

 

 

 

The pre-bent hose from the boom to the figure was trimmed to length and then glued to the end of the boom. A clamp made from crocodile clips, wire and magnets (kindly given to me by a club member) was very helpful in holding the wire in place until the glue had set solid....

 

 

 

The refueller was then positioned so the hose connected to the figure and then glued in position using weights to press it into the grass.

 

 

All the remaining items were glued into place to complete the job.

 

I've posted some photos of the completed model in the gallery. There is a link and some further photos in the next post.

 

Many thanks for looking,

Pat

 

 

 

 

[patmaquette]

I have popped some photos of the completed model into the GB gallery....

Here are a few further photos......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking 😃

Cheers,

Pat

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Phenomenal work here !  

[Stew Dapple]

Cracking job Pat, that turned out brilliantly  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[GREG DESTEC]

Excellent modelling!

 

All the models could be displayed individually they are that good.

 

Well done 👍

[Cookenbacher]

Fantastic dio Pat, so many great details.

[Peter Roberts]

That looks fabulous Pat! Well done mate, great work.

[MikeC]

Very nicely done.

[patmaquette]

Many, many thanks for your kind comments and likes everyone 😊

This has been my first GB and it has been good fun. Thanks to everyone who organised, ran and contributed to the GB - your efforts and enthusiasm are much appreciated! 

Cheers,

Pat