Hawker Tempest Mk. V

[Bill Bunting]

Please let me know what you think and any suggestions/advice/techniques are welcome!  Thanks!

 

After a long absence from these pages ( I have been lurking once in awhile) I present a WIP of the new Revell 1/32 Tempest Mk.V.  This of course a re-issue of the Special Hobby kit.  I will be using the Barracuda Studios nose correction set and wheels/tires.  I bought Roy's seat too but I think the kit parts are superior in this rare case. I believe the Barracuda seat was designed for Revell's older Typhoon???

In regards to the kit I can say the following:

- Moulding quality looks excellent. Fine engraving, rivets and raised detail. A really nice kit!

- Heavy sprue gates.  These are sometimes very heavy and can make cleaning up some of the tiny parts very tricky,

- Fit is pretty good.  Dry fitting is a must.  I had to drill out a few locating holes to be a little larger.  I cut off the locating pins on the drop tanks, stabilisers, elevators and rudder to get better algnment.

- Decals seem good so far. Thin, in register and settle down very well with Microsol and Set.  I haven't tried Gunze, Tamiya or Daco solvents yet.

- Instructions are so-so. Clear illustrations with colour indicating newly installed parts but they do not show where cockpit components fit clearly.  Just an arrow to the general area.  Luckily I have an Eduard Tempest kit, a couple of photos and the internet to help.

 

Anyway here we go...

 

All interior parts were first sprayed with Tamiya X18 semi-gloss black.  Green areas are XF-71 Cockpit Green lightly airbrushed, allowing lighter and darker areas. All parts were drybrushed with an off-white mix, clear coated with future, black oil paint/lighter fluid wash then finished with a mix of Future and Tamiya flat clear. Extra dry-brushing and picking out details as needed with Vallejo acrylics.

 

 

The stencils are included in the Revell kit.

 

The kit's decals were used for the instrument panel except for the lower right one.  This was replaced with a Mike Grant decal as the kit one was rather ugly.  The placards are from the Mike Grant set. The decals settled very well using Microsol and Microset.  The panel was given a seni-gloss finish and the dials were then filled with Tamiya X22 Clear. The depressed area at the top should be an opening in the panel and a copper tank is visible.  I used a piece of round scrap, painted copper to represent the tank.  It looks crap in this close up but OK once in the fuselage (and viewed from 4' away). The red handle on the lower right side is not mentioned in the instructions.  It is the canopy jettison handle. There is a spare handle on the sprue (maybe from the Mk. II?), I drilled a hole and dropped it in.

 

I used Kamizukuri paper seat belts. I LOVE these but they seem hard to find nowadays.  I modified them by splitting the top of the shoulder belts to fit over the attachment bars.  From the references I found, which are limited I THINK the Sutton harness secondary harness fits through the hole in the seatback. Why else would the hole be there? Note I have not added the locking clip (included in the Kamizukuri set) and the locking pin (scratchbuilt from copper wire) in this picture.

 

Bringing together these componenets is a little fiddly but it does work.  Dry-fitting showed that some of the locating holes needed to be drilled a little larger.  

 

I LOVE those Kamizukuri paper seatblets!  The straps are just drybrushed lightly with brown.  The rivets were picked out with copper and the buckles were sprayed dull stainless steel.  The buckles come on their own sheet.  The die cutting is extremely fine and the paper material is quite tough and stands up to threading the straps through them. Here you can see the locking pin and clip hanging on copper wire.

 

 

MIght be a while till the next installment - it's that time of year.

 

Any comments or hints are welcome!

 

Cheers for now

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Bill Bunting

[neil5208]

no pictures visible

[bigbadbadge]

I can't see any images either unfortunately. 

Chris

[alt-92]

Google Photos as host? 
Tends to not work more often than it does.. 

 

For functional alternatives, see here:

 

[Bill Bunting]

Thanks for the picture help.  Yes Google Photos.  I tried "Embed Google Photos" - hopefully OK now.

 

[Bill Bunting]

Please let me know if you can see the pictures.  Thx.

[Harry Callahan]

Dont worry, i can see your pics large and clear.

[spitfire]

Yes I can see them too, looks a nice build so far, I have one the same to build later myself but for the moment I'm fighting with a 1/32 PCM Tempest which is not quite up to SH standards.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Stew Dapple]

Got the pictures now, lovely work Bill  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Bill Bunting]

The cockpit fit into the fuselage - almost.  A little trimming on the sides and an adjustment front to back and it was OK.  The fuselage seams were good and with a little sanding, a small amount of superglue filler they are very good.

 

Removing the Barracuda Studios nose from the casting blocks took about 15 minutes with an Xacto razor saw and some finer PE saws.  It is a bit of a chore but Barracuda Studios provides clear instructions that can be downloaded from their site.  Another 30 minutes was needed to clean up the engine face, the intake lip and drill the hole for the spinner. This revealed an "oh oh" in the casting.....

Now is it too much material on the (pilot's) left side or short-shot on he right? Well the answer as best as I can say is "Yes".  The first thing to verify is how does the spinner backplate line up.  I prepared that part (5 minutes) and dropped it on. The diameter of the backplate matched the larger radius portion. This means I need to fill the right side to the larger radius. The next check is against photos. I looked at the contours the 'groove' between the spinner and the chin intake. They seemed to point to the narrower radius being more like the real thing.  So was I going to reduce the left side to match the smaller radius?  NO THANKS.  This would mean the spinner would be larger than the front of the engine cowl. I could reduce the spinner backplate and the spinner diameters to match, reintall all rivet detail etc and totally defeat the purpose of this "corrected" nose set.  I trust Roy Sutherland did a lot more research, measuring and development than I ever could so I will fill the right side and try to contour the "groove" as best I can.

Two thin applications of Tamiya white filler in this picture.   Maybe two more thin applications will do it.  Updates soon!

 

[Bill Bunting]

Nose update, well it has taken 6 thin applications to get here.  The spinner backplate is in place to gauge the shape I need.  A sanding, smoothing session will determine if more filler is needed.

[Bill Bunting]

In the meantime...

The wheel well walls (repeat 3 times fast!)  

Six pieces make up each assembly.  This is a little tricky to accomplish as there are no clear locating points and the instructions are of little help.  The illustration for this step does not show the up/down - left/right orientation of the long straight piece at the front of the well. A few steps later there is an illustration showing this but the view is now inverted so be careful.  I am sure I have them right now.  Two of the pieces have a portion that extends below the well opening and sit flush with the lower wing skin.  This means you can't build it on your desk, you need to do it on the lower wing piece.  Here's another issue. The angles of thel ocation surfaces are not quite right and need the be trimmed a mm here and there. And don't glue the walls to the lower wing yet! Once the six pieces are together but not solid, I advise trying the assembly on the appropriate upper wing half to ensure it lines up there too. Nice effort  by Special Hobby here but I hope the look at Tamiya's Corsair and see how to make the parts lock together in the exact right way.  A lot of words here but it took about 45 mins to get these right and the words used then cannot be repeated here.  

 

[bigbadbadge]

Glad you were able to sort out the photos as they were well worth looking at.  It does look nice kit, great work on the cockpit and and I like the look of the belts too, I had never heard of them before.  I was looking at perhaps getting one but will have to wait for quite a while.  Shame about the short moulding of the nose, but good recovery.

Great work

Chris

[Bill Bunting]

A small progress update. I am waiting for some Master Models brass gun barrels to arrive but have been working on this a little.

First here is a photo of the instructions for the wheel well walls. #33  is the front of the assembly and you have no idea of its orientation...

...until 2 pages later you see the second photo. Note this is now the view looking UP into the well and the strengthening ribs on the top wing. Here the same part in the centre of the blue marker, hidden behind the left red arrow shows a small diagonal brace can be seen. It appears on the upper side in this picture but is actually close to the bottom of the wing. Be aware.

 

Next is an error in the painting instructions.  The identification lights under the wing are represented by clear part # K6. The instrctions tell you to paint them from the inside, this is a good idea. They show the order to paint as aluminum (~C) first then green (~I) and red (~E).  This is the wrong order if you do it from the inside.  It should be clear green and clear red then when dry - aluminum over the circular lenses and aluminum or interior green over whole part after that. If you follow the instructions the lenses will be aluminum only when seen from below.

 

Also working on the fuselage seams tailplanes and the drop tanks while watching for the mailman.

Comments always welcome. 

Cheers!

Edited December 12, 2020 by Bill Bunting

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Just catching up—really appreciate how you sorted the nose cowling— will follow with interest—cheers Erwin 

Edited December 13, 2020 by VT Red Sox Fan

[Bill Bunting]

Just a quick update, the fuselage closed up around the cockpit with dry-fitting and a little trimming.  Luckily, the very large opening the cockpit allows you to see the areas that need trimming and final placement.  I used liquid cement to bring the halves together and only a little sanding and filler was needed to smooth out the joints.  panel lines were re-scribed and rivets replaced with a rivet wheel tool.

 

 

The drop tanks are moulded with very heavy panel lines, heavier than any others in the kit.   Photos I have found show that the tanks are fairly smooth with no visible panel lines showing.  I have filled them using Mr. Surfacer 500.  Two applications should do it.

 

Hopefully the brass barrels will show up tomorrow, then I can get on with assembling the wings.

Comments are always welcome.

Cheers.

[(ex)Sgtrafman]

Hiya

you’re doing a cracking job on this.

Just a small observation (for future ref) the hole in the back of the seat is a hand hold to enable the ground crew to remove the seat during servicing (as found on Spits, Hurricanes etc) the harness (unless I’m mistaken) never fitted through it (it would have been very uncomfortable for the pilot I’d imagine) but instead it passed and was secured behind the seat .

keep up the good work buddy

 

Iain 
 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Nice cockpit and well done for sorting out the wheel wells. 

For the drop tank panel lines I'd have suggested TET and stretched sprue. 

[Bill Bunting]

On 12/13/2020 at 3:48 PM, (ex)Sgtrafman said:

Hiya

you’re doing a cracking job on this.

Just a small observation (for future ref) the hole in the back of the seat is a hand hold to enable the ground crew to remove the seat during servicing (as found on Spits, Hurricanes etc) the harness (unless I’m mistaken) never fitted through it (it would have been very uncomfortable for the pilot I’d imagine) but instead it passed and was secured behind the seat .

keep up the good work buddy

 

Iain 
 

 

Oh dear....

I was going off the Quikboost resin seat and a misinterpreted photo.  I also think that I have used the wrong harness anyway. This is the QK (I believe) harness that has the numerous holes in the straps with a pin and a clip to hold it together.  I now believe that wartime Tempests had the QS type harness with buckles that push into a circular lock/release and only one pair of shoulder straps.  I have tried to remove the existing harness but , for once, I have attached it too well.  So I will have to live with it. I'm not too concerned as I am not a "rivet counter" and if we keep it just between us (and everyone else on Britmodeller) -  what harm?

Thanks for the new knowledge!

Cheers!

[Bill Bunting]

Well the barrels have arrived and they are beautiful.   I was waiting for them to dry fit before I assembled the top and bottom wing halves.  I did not need to since they are pretty much a drop in replacement for the kit parts.

Wing assembly however has been challenging.   The Tempest wing is essentially flat on the inboard portion to the guns and then has dihedral from there outward.  The kit lower wing is one piece and has the dihedral built in.  The upper wings seem to have less than what is needed.  To fix this I scored the inside of the upper wing opposite the panel line on the top and cut through the leading edge.  This allowed the upper wing to take the correct amount of dihedral 'crank' when it was attached to the lower wing. The small cut in the leading edge was filled with a thin strip of styrene.

 

Unfortunately that is not all, the fuselage is a little too wide or the "saddles" on the upper wing parts or the vague fitting wheel well walls are too narrow resulting in a too tight fit when the wing is brought to the fuselage.  The wing could be flexed open to fit over the fuselage wing roots. This gave a nice tight wing root joint BUT it resulted in the inner wings have anhedral (negative dihedral) rather than being flat.  To correct this the lower cockpit frames were thinned as much as possible.  The same for the inner walls of the wheel wells. A dremel, a file and coarse sanding sticks were used.  I actually made a whole in one of the wheel well walls but that was easily fixed with very thin styrene. 

 

This shows the thinned wheel well inner walls.  And also the inner wing root inserts don't line up perfectly and are slightly too wide.  This is easily corrected by a little filler and trimming.

 

This was not enough to make the inner wing flat and I had to sand back the wing roots on the fuselage sides as well.  This was done very carefully, a little at a time with constant dry fitting to ensure the correct curve was maintained to match the wing.  I used a steel ruler on the leading edge (viewed from the front) to check for a horizontal inner wing. Thank goodness the nose section was not attached yet - remember "dryfit 3 times glue once" well this indicated it would be much better to attach the wing to the fuselage before adding the nose.  This gives you much better access to the joints to ensure good cement penetration and alignment.   Finally I had a wing that was going to be horizontal and to ensure good wing joints and that crucial horizontal inner wing, I glued the right side first and allowed it to dry overnight. 

 

In the photo you can see the 'gap' created by the reduced width of the fuselage wing root in the way the bottom of the fuselage doesn't touch the left wing parts (right in the photo).  Don't worry this is going to be fine when the left wing is brought "up" glued and held in place until it sets.  (a piece of tape from the wingtip to the fuselage top does the trick). 

 

The end result is very satisfactory for alignment and the wing roots only needed a tiny smear of filler (Deluxe Perfect Plastic Putty is the best for this). 

 

Sorry there should be more photos but I was just concentrating too much on fixing rather than recording. I will take some of the completed wing tonight.

 

Cheers for now.

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Bill Bunting

[Bill Bunting]

Wow what a busy week!  Despite a "lockdown" and do not travel / visit request from our health officials, Christmas was stil busy with video meetings, phone calls, meals and walks.  Hope you all made it through OK.

 

 

When we last saw this view only one wing was glued and the other was in frefall.  Now it has been brought up, cemented and the alignment - flat middle section of the wing looks good.  Be sure to get all f this done before attaching the nose.

 

The wing to fuselage joints are pretty good, thanks to careful sanding of the fuselage portion.

 

The back of the lower wing will need a little work.  I have applied Tamiya "Easy Sanding CA".  It is as described being slightly easier to sand than the plastic and accepts scribing and rivet tools very well. Great stuff.

 

The nose repairs are done.  

 

That's it for now.

BB

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Bill Bunting

[Bill Bunting]

A big update today.  Things are going well when I've had time at the bench.

 

The Master brass barrels were installed.  The holes in the wing needed drilling out slightly.

 

I masked for the invasion stripes. They are 9/16" wide in 1/32.  Then the leading edge ID strips were also masked. I beleive these were 6" wide in full scale but I'm not sure so I just masked them by eye. These areas were sprayed white primer (Tamiya lacquer, decanted). The leading edges were sprayed a homemade mix of Tamiya yellow and a drop of orange.  When dry they were masked over and the Invasion stripes painted X-1 white and a mix of X-18 semi-gloss black with about 10% XF-63 German grey. When dry these were masked over. Next, all panel and rivet lines were pre-shaded Tamiya X-18 semi-gloss black. There are lots!!!  The undersides were sprayed Tamiya XF-83 medium sea grey 2 (RAF). This was sprayed in VERY thin layers, slowly building up the coverage slowly.    SORRY not photos of these steps.

 

Next I took the instructions painting guide and enlarged them 256%.  I cut out the 'green' section and placed on the wing using masking tape.  I didn't cut out the 'grey' section up by the cannons as it is 'under' the invasion stripes. 

 

I painted the grey area XF-82 Ocean grey 2 (RAF).  Again very thin layers, a small area at a time.  I didn't worry about 'feathering' the borders of the coming green areas, I just used the paper mask as a guide.  I removed the masks and then painted the green areas XF-83 Dark green 2 (RAF).  The edges were sprayed free- hand.  VERY thin paint, low air pressure of 10 PSI and a good airbrush (Tamiya HG) make this easier.  I worked very slowly in small areas.   I removed the masks on this wing to check the results which were quite satisfactory to me.  After this masking experiment I stopped using the masks and just lightly drew the demarcation lines on the model with a pencil.  I really like spraying free-hand, even if I have to go back and fix it a few times and saving all that time masking.

 

This process was repeated for the other wing, fuselage and tail.  Each area was done in a different painting session.  As I said, small areas with thin paint.  Grey and green on one wing took about an hour.  Slow but very satisfying.  If the feathered edges were not to my liking, a little back and forth with grey and green thined slightly more fixed it.  I will post better pics (these are from my crappy phone) later.

 

 

Next the masked Invasion stripes were addressed.  We all know these were hastily applied on very short notice and were mostly brush painted by the ground crews overnight June 5 in most cases. So masked lines weren't going to cut it for me. The real life results vary from pretty neat to very rough.  I guessed that the crew may have been a little more careful with the Wing Co's (Roland Beamont) aircraft but they likely didn't have time to mask and spray even his Tempest.  So I figured they could be pretty neat with just slightly rough edges.  I tried to replicate this by hand painting over the borders with black and white Vallejo acrylics and a fine brush.  In this picture the black/white borders are 'roughed up'. the outer white/camo are not done yet. Here it is - let me know what you think please.

 

That's it for now.  Comments and advice always welcome.

 

 

[Bill Bunting]

Requesting input on the Invasion Stripes.  Thanks!

[stevehnz]

To my eye, that looks fine, though you might get criticised in some circles for bad painting, I reckon it is more likely to be realistic that perfectly straight masked lines.

Steve.

[Dunny]

1 hour ago, Bill Bunting said:

Requesting input on the Invasion Stripes.  Thanks!

Bill,

 

I think the stripes have the desired effect - looking great!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger