Not all at sea: Fleet Air Arm fighters in the Battle of Britain

[Heather Kay]

Not much to report. 
 

 

 

 

I brush-painted some Hu29 acrylic to reveal areas in need of attention. The fuselage join wasn’t all that bad, and a little sanding has levelled things out nicely. The front end round the cowling ring is not too bad, but needed a little more filler that I’d have liked. Still, for a so-called limited run kit, nothing untoward.

 

Those ridges you can see are an attempt by the mould maker to replicate the opening panel hinges. Since taking the pics, I’ve decided to sand them off.

 

Happily, the undercarriage is nice and firm. I’m still not sure how I’ll mask it safely, but the main well can probably take some foam sponge stuff. If I ignore the bits sticking out, I can repaint those with a hairy stick later.

 

You will spot I remembered to apply masking to the belly windows. The set Ed provided is for the Hasegawa kit, so I expect a little adjustment may be required to fit this kit's canopy.

 

Back to work. 

[Greg Law]

Heather,  I think you are after Steve's crown as the fastest good builder on the block.

Good progress. 

[Heather Kay]

I didn’t think I was all that quick. We are, what, two months into the GB, and I’m only on my fourth build. 

[Heather Kay]

In between bouts of paying work and visits from my arch nemesis Muttley (my depression), I pecked always at a couple of odd jobs here and there.
 

The canopy got fitted, and masked. As expected, some tiny adjustment was needed for the pre-cut masks intended for a different kit, but nothing that a careful pass with a sharp blade couldn’t deal with. Before fitting the canopy, I painted the cockpit area interior green, and once the transparency was in place I did the same over the frame lines.

 

 

So, the state of play this fine September Saturday morning saw this collection of bits. The prop needs an extension to the rear so it fits neatly in the gearbox and doesn’t rest on the cowling. I suspect the engine firewall is a gnat's crotchet too far back. I cleaned out the machine gun ports with a fine drill bit, and marked up and drilled out the position for the pitot on the port wing. As I like to do where I can, the radio mast and pitot will be made from straight brass rod - 0.7mm diameter always seems about right. The list of actual parts still to be fitted is very short: wings, horizontal stabilisers, tail wheel, undercarriage doors and main wheels. The latter may well be left off until painting is finished, which won’t be long in coming as I had a nice delivery from Sovereign Hobbies the other day.

 

The kit transfers are nice, but sadly the yellow rings are just subtly printed off centre. Not badly, but enough to catch the eye. While I’m at it, the colours are very bright - probably correct for stuff painted with "near enough" colours while still in the USA. However, both the underwing roundels have yellow rings. Now, the example I’m building doesn’t have the port under wing painted IFF black, and the starboard wing roundel wouldn’t have had a yellow ring anyway. Even allowing for the off-centre yellow, I’d need to replace them with plain Type A roundels. My stocks of spare transfers only coughed up the more subdued markings, so they’ll have to do. Only a Fleet Air Arm aficionado would spot it, I think.

 

 

A while later, pitot and mast made and fitted, tail wheel attached, and wings stuck on. I thought I’d risk the butt joint by using Revell Contacta. If it didn’t work, I could always try again with wire pins. The plane sits on wheels attached to the fuselage, there’s no extra weight on the wings themselves, so the butt joints should hold. Lego got deployed to make a sort-of-jig, which revealed the starboard wing tip was higher than the port one. It could be the undercarriage being a tad off, but a square up against the fin didn’t reveal anything major there. I twisted each wing to get them as near level according to the jig as I could, and there they sit for the cement to set. A smear of PPP will be needed along the roots later.

 

Time for lunch, then to fit the stabs.

[Heather Kay]

 

i think this is where I stop for now. The cement holding the wings and stabs needs to set nice and hard before I tackle filling and sanding. I remembered the fin aerial pole, which is a bit of 0.5mm brass wire which just needs trimming to length once the glue has set.

 

It probably makes sense to now turn my attention to the Fulmar. 

[Heather Kay]

 

The Fulmar kit is relatively basic. For its age, though, there’s some good interior detail, things like a moulded IP, compass binnacle and rudder pedals. It’s a bit rudimentary, so I’ve done some research and uncovered some information that might let me add a little more detail. It all depends on how far I want to go with stuff that might never really be visible. 
 

 

[Heather Kay]

There’s a maxim we modellers tend to follow, and that boils down to "never throw anything away".

 

 

I keep lots of spare styrene parts from kits, and I also tend to keep PE. A quick rifle through the various old part sheets in the Bits Box turned up some useful looking bits and pieces to populate the Fulmar crew areas.

 

I also did my usual fossick round the interwebs, and turned up a few useful shots of the preserved MkII in the Fleet Air Arm Museum. Reference to a couple of kit builds, mainly in 1/48th also helped to fill in some spaces - the real plane is lacking some interior parts in the observer's station from what I can tell.

 

 

 

 

 

Some microrod, offcuts of strip, and spare PE bits gave me this. It doesn’t look much in this state, but should come to life with some paint.

 

 

The important thing is what does all that mess look like under the canopy? Note the frosted areas in the transparency will be painted - pre-cut mask on order, because I couldn’t face masking it the hard way as the frames aren’t quite defined enough to guide a blade. I reckon that will be sufficient to pass muster.

 

Time for some hairy stick action, then.

 

 

 

[Heather Kay]

 

Fairly happy with that. The fuselage seam will need some attention before the canopy goes on, but it looks sufficiently busy in there.

 

Now, to head off and do some domestic chores.

[Heather Kay]

Not stalled, just sidetracked.

 

 

Painting this thing. Well, primer, at least. Probably the most stressful part of a build, and if I say it’s not going quite as well as I’d hoped you’ll understand what I mean. For locos and rolling stock I like to prime with a red oxide colour, as that’s pretty much what they did on the real thing. If the livery colour should ever get chipped, the hope is the red oxide will show through rather than shiny brass.

 

Anyway, having something of a love-hate affair with acrylic rattle can primers of late, I thought I might try an enamel base coat on the Martlet.

 

 

Humbrol sells tinlets of a pale grey substance they refer to as "primer". It’s just bog standard enamel as far as I can tell, like the acrylic version is just acrylic. Anyway, I thinned it using Humbrol's thinners and whizzed it through the airbrush while the extraction cabinet doodah was deployed. We will see if it turns out more tenacious than plain acrylic, and remaining stuck to the plastic during masking sessions, later.

 

Now to take a hard look at something and decide whether I really want to deal with it. Adulting is hard work.

[Stew Dapple]

Looking good Heather - both of them. You should find the enamel more durable than acrylic primer too, I use ordinary enamel paint as a primer, or at least as a base coat, as it doesn't really need a primer coat.

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Heather Kay]

8 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

as it doesn't really need a primer coat

That was my hope. The planes will be painted with ColourCoats enamels, so that’s all good. I like to consider the enamel base coat choice an experiment to see if it adheres to the bare plastic better. I’ve had all kinds of troubles with acrylic primer lifting off the plastic.

 

We shall see. 

[Stew Dapple]

13 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

I’ve had all kinds of troubles with acrylic primer lifting off the plastic.

 

You are not alone

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Heather Kay]

Well, an unscientific test of the enamel primer by randomly dabbing at it with some Tamiya tape showed no indication it wanted to lift from the surface. A guarded "seems okay" from me.

 

 

So, a dose of the undersurface colour has been duly applied. We shall see how that reacts to masking in due course.

[Heather Kay]

 

This thing is finally getting livery colours on. The black parts will be brush painted, because I simply don’t have the patience to mask all those fiddly bits. 
 

 

While the booth was deployed, I masked the underside of the Martlet. Now it has the Grumman's interpretation of Extra Dark Sea Grey on. I’ll dig around to see which pattern was used for the camo, then mask that tomorrow for the "slate grey".

 

Now, a confession. The profile I’m working to, and the aircraft serial I propose to use, shows it painted with Sky underneath, and probably the correct camo colours above. I am departing from the profile by using the US equivalents. I am fully prepared to accept I am making an error, but I think using these colours throughout on the Martlet will make a nice contrast - in many ways - to the more orthodox camouflage colours of the rest of my FAA fleet.

[Heather Kay]

 

I got an early start today, thanks to poor sleep. After breakfast I decided to complete the basic painting on the Martlet, which may leave the rest of the day for other jobs.

 

I briefly considered blutack sausages, but I have a rather hit and miss relationship using them. Instead, I fell back on Copydex (a latex-based glue) applied using cotton buds. Now I’m getting used to the routine, mixing the ColourCoats probably took longer than airbrushing it onto the model!

 

Partial reveal later, I think.

[Heather Kay]

Pleased with this.

 

 

 

Some careful tidying with a hairy stick here and there, and cleaning off my pencil markings where I worked out the camo pattern, and I pronounce this a Good Thing. 
 

I’ll let it sit for a while before I do anything else.

[Cookenbacher]

Wonderful paint work Heather, on both the Martlet and the loco. As a result, I'm just about out 'likes' now, but worth it.

[PeterB]

Hi Heather,

 

Looks good to me, particularly if it darkens a little after varnish ing.

 

Pete

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Well that looks great Heather, you should be very happy with the results. 

[Heather Kay]

14 hours ago, Cookenbacher said:

Wonderful paint work Heather, on both the Martlet and the loco. As a result, I'm just about out 'likes' now, but worth it.

 

12 hours ago, PeterB said:

Looks good to me, particularly if it darkens a little after varnish ing.

 

8 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Well that looks great Heather, you should be very happy with the results. 

Cheers chaps! I’m definitely converted back to enamels with the ColourCoats stuff. 
 

 

With no squadron markings to worry about, I applied the national markings last night. As they came from my stock file and various sources, they were all a bit variable in application. With the usual solutions they more or less settled down nicely. The fin flashes might just need a paint touch up where they meet at the leading edge. I plan to varnish over these transfers, then apply the serial numbers. 

[PeterB]

Hi Heather,

 

For what it is worth that looks pretty much how I imagined the colours to look - may have to invest in some of Jamies US Equivalents paints myself. And the Prairie is looking good too!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[CedB]

Caught up on these now Heather - looking good!  

 

I like the Copydex masking idea - how did you remove it and did it come off OK?

[Heather Kay]

9 minutes ago, CedB said:

I like the Copydex masking idea - how did you remove it and did it come off OK?

*waves at Ced*

 

I gently rubbed at the edges - steady now! - with my finger. It just rolled off. if I can find a less clumsy way to apply it in the first place that doesn’t wreck otherwise good brushes I shall be happy to use the method again.

[Black Knight]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

I gently rubbed at the edges - steady now! - with my finger. It just rolled off. if I can find a less clumsy way to apply it in the first place that doesn’t wreck otherwise good brushes I shall be happy to use the method again.

Pound-shop, get childrens small size paint brushes. They have stiff nylon bristles. They will put on copydex nicely plus the copydex can be just pulled off the bristles when its dry, As the copydex dries place into it tabs of paper. Then you pull on the tabs to help remove the dried copydex from the surface

[Heather Kay]

 

A couple of coats of satin varnish have gone on. The real planes seem to have been slightly shiny as delivered, toned down as they got repainted into proper colours. As I’m aiming for essentially a brand spanking new plane just delivered from across the Atlantic, I think satin finish suits it. It helps bring the markings together, too. I think it will need a couple more coats sprayed on before the obvious differences between the camo colours disappears.

 

Final parts for this model are the prop,  main wheels and undercarriage doors, plus radio wire, and a spot of paint retouching here and there.