279 T-28 Fennec

[Rabbit Leader]

9 hours ago, TonyOD said:

Interesting that your decal sheet looks OK, think I might have got one from a duff batch in my new yellow boxing.

Looks like the ‘Duff batch’ was large Tony as I’ve got a sheet just as bad as yours. It would be a real shame if the new owners of Heller have changed decal suppliers as this was a real selling point of the previous (i.e. non yellow boxed) Heller kits.

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[TonyOD]

46 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Looks like the ‘Duff batch’ was large Tony as I’ve got a sheet just as bad as yours. It would be a real shame if the new owners of Heller have changed decal suppliers as this was a real selling point of the previous (i.e. non yellow boxed) Heller kits.

 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

Still says "Ailes Françaises" on the sheets and as I've mentioned elsewhere the same name appears on the excellent Musée series decals, but in these days of "subbing out" who knows where they're actually printed? 

[Wez]

23 hours ago, Johnson said:

Very nice work Wez. When I got to the bottom of the thread I couldn’t remember if I was looking at a 1/72 or 1/48 kit. Pretty amazing detail and work for 1/72!

 

Thanks for the complement.  I'm an aircraft engineer in real life which becomes a bit of a curse in modelling, when you know how things should be and look, you just feel the need to include these things.  It's a form of AMS for somebody who's an average modeller.

 

21 hours ago, TonyOD said:

That engine looks the business. Eye-wateringly fiddly at that scale?

 

Interesting that your decal sheet looks OK, think I might have got one from a duff batch in my new yellow boxing. 

 

The fiddliest aspect was the pushrods, I made 25 and fitted 18, the rest, well they're somewhere on the bench/floor.  Otherwise it's about being methodical and figuring out what needs to be done in what order.

 

The decals in my kit look very good, I sent the US portion to @theplasticsurgeon for his Trojan build, hopefully he can vouch for how well they went on.

 

11 hours ago, TonyOD said:

 

Still says "Ailes Françaises" on the sheets and as I've mentioned elsewhere the same name appears on the excellent Musée series decals, but in these days of "subbing out" who knows where they're actually printed? 

 

Possibly the case, Ailes Françaises would be responsible for the design of the sheet which is a good thing, but they wouldn't have printed them, if they've subbed this out to somebody who's producing sub-grade sheets, I would say that's a retrograde step and a case of spoiling the ship for an ha'peth of tar sadly.

[RidgeRunner]

That is great work on that engine, Wez.

 

Martin

[Wez]

Time to report a bit more work on the Fennec.

 

The wheel wells are a bit on the bare side, so I added some detail, the trouble is with this sort of thing is there's an awful lot of effort and faff that goes into one photo

 

 

I picked up on the nosewheel anti-chafe bumpers on a walkaround photo I found.  They appear to be black rubber blocks, I guess they're the sacrificial goat, as the nosewheel doesn't have a brake on it, it would still be spinning as the the nose gear retracted and could potentially cause a bit of damage, the rubber blocks took the hit instead of the metal structure - simple, yet effective!  The observant will notice that I've also drilled depressions for the landing lamps outboard of the outer wing pylons.

 

And here's some progress on the Pavla resin cockpit...

 

 

Today there's been some more progress on getting the the cockpit bits painted and figuring out how it all goes together, hopefully I can post some photos of it all coming together over the weekend.

[Wez]

Oops!  Just over a day to go, guess I'd better post some progress!

 

First off the Prop, I had to replace the housings for the bolts which keep the hub together thanks to a bit of mould misalignment making them uneven.  Notice the prop is silver (and weathered), even though the Heller and Berna Decal instructions tell you to paint it black, every photo I've seen of a Fennec shows a silver prop blade, so silver it is!

 

 

Next the Pavla cockpit, throttle handles etc made from scratch, Wee Friends M-1 Carbine added to rear cockpit, M-3 Grease gun modified to look like a Phimat SMG in the fwd cockpit.  If I were in the crew of a downed Fennec I would have been glad of the carbine to keep the bad guys at a respectable distance but the Phimat would have been handy when they got close, nice to have a choice eh?

 

 

 

Next the wheels, in the end, I went for some ResKit ones as they had separate hubs which makes painting sooo much easier.  Compare them to the kit wheels in the following photo.

 

First of the ResKit wheels...

 

 

and the kit's

 

 

I've also made some nav/formation lights to replace the blobs in the kit...

 

 

I've joined the fuselage and added the wings and tailplane, it looks like an aeroplane now, I've been painting it today but have had to step away from the bench to give the back a rest, more pictures and hopefully completion in the next instalment!

 

 

 

[Wez]

Double post, nothing to be seen here!  Step away please ladies and gentlemen!

 

 

 

[Wez]

Well, as you've probably gathered, today I have participated in the traditional rush to get something finished before the deadline, I have to confess, I'm not 100% there as there are some bits still to be glued on and a final bit of painting to be done but I'm going to submit it to the gallery anyway, I'll finish it up slow time.

 

This morning was a complete and utter waste of modelling time, I ended up going backwards, I trashed two vacform canopies (so flimsy), so I had to resort to raiding the spares box, fortunately, I had a nice clear canopy left over from a failed build many years ago.

 

With the painting 95% complete I put the decals on, I ended up using a mixture of Berna, kit and Modeldecals.  Modeldecal sheet 62 provided the roundels, the kit roundels don't have the yellow surround whilst the Berna decals do but they have separate centres which I detest (I buy aftermarket to avoid this nonsense), I'm pleased to say the 40+ year old decals behaved flawlessly.  The kit decals provided the walkways, they worked well.  Sadly, the Berna decals proved to be a bit of a bette noire, I had to change my marking options because a couple of the major decals shattered, fortunately, this happened early in the decalling.

 

Anyway, enough of the excuses, here's where I am as of now...

 

 

 

 

 

 

So true confession time, I haven't come anywhere near as close as this to completing a model in decades, studying, serious loss of mojo, working away from home, all conspired to stop me coming anywhere close, this GB has broken that run, I class myself as a returning modeller, I've re-learnt some skills but I've got plenty to learn, it seems like this is a good place to do that.

 

Thanks for looking and thanks for your encouragement.

[JOCKNEY]

Well done Wez, completing this build and hosting such an outstanding GB, simply outstanding. 

 

Cheers Pat 

[RidgeRunner]

Very nice, Wez @Wez  :). A neat and attractive return to the hobby

 

Martin

 

 

[TEMPESTMK5]

Good afternoon Wez

Thank you very much for hosting this Gb ...

Very good job ...

It seems to me that you made the same mistake as me by placing the yellow strip on the wing too close to the leading edge, I was lucky to be able to correct my mistake here is the link to my build

Best Regards

Patrice

 

[fightersweep]

Fantastic Wez! The Trojan looks great and the canopy was a win too. If that's a kit part, then it looks nice and clear, so a vac form jobbie probably wouldn't have made that much difference anyway.

 

Nice to hear from another modeller that's rediscovered their mojo through the GB. I hadn't finished anything in years, and often sat at my bench and seriously considered selling everything. Then the Heller GB came along and changed all that. So thank you for initiating this fantastic GB. 

 

Steve