Green Hornet - *Finished*

[Pappy]

29 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Oh yeah, I’ve seen those stencils on the pod in photos.  I think in 1/72 I can live without them!  Although the Brassin AIM-132 comes with some decals that include some stencils that are too small to be legible, I may use some of those.

 

AW

 

No worries, don't forget the light pink and dark blue bands on the AIM-132 CATM, I assume it will be a CATM?

 

P

[Andwil]

32 minutes ago, Pappy said:

 

No worries, don't forget the light pink and dark blue bands on the AIM-132 CATM, I assume it will be a CATM?

 

P

Excuse my ignorance, but what is CATM?  I was going to do two blue bands as I saw at Avalon in 2019, I assume these were inert training rounds, but looking at photos of Hornets in Japan for the exercise it looks like the missiles have a blue rear band and a white forward band.  Is the white actually a very pale pink?
 

AW

[Pappy]

CATM -  Captive Air Training Munition  = working seeker, no explosive warhead (so no yellow band), no rocket motor (so a blue band not a brown band), cannot be fired or dropped ('captive')

 

These are designed to be loaded and flown (note 'drill' rounds can be loaded for ground training but are not rated for flight) and have the same mass and Cof G as a live round. The pink band typically faded to a very pale pink which could look white (ish) from a distance. As AIM-132 is a UK designed round, they had a slightly different take on colours (BSC instead of FS) so the body colour was a lighter colour than the ubiquitous FS36375. The pink band is British thig to denote practice rounds and actually has the words PRACTICE in small black writing inside the pink band

 

Pappy

[Andwil]

Go away for a couple of days and I’ve slipped down to page 3!  (Only way you are ever going to see me on page 3😝) 

 

I was masking off the metal area around the cannon port when I saw something, or rather didn’t see something, as a Hasegawa have not moulded the five vortex generators (if that’s what they are) ahead of the cockpit.  I was going to ignore it but they are just too obvious to let go.  So I knocked some up with my smallest evergreen rod glued to pieces of very thin strip, cut to size by eye and attached to the nose.  When the CA had set I gently sanded them down to reduce the height and sprayed them green.  Not 100% accurate and probably over scale but at least now they are there.  Cannon surround has been painted with Vallejo magnesium.

 

 

 

They do look a bit clunky in macro.

 

I have also made up the undercarriage:

 

 

Ready to move on to the decals.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[DaveyGair]

Lovely work, I like the scheme as well. Too much fiddly details for my ageing eyes and hands to cope with though!

 

Davey.

[Andwil]

Started with the decals today:

 

 

 

 

Despite my earlier misgivings, the decals have behaved very well, the only tricky bit was getting the long aircraft silhouette decal on the spine settled over a small antenna.  A splash of Mr Mark Softer did the trick.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Remainder of decals applied:

 

 

 

 

 

Next job is to apply some grime and staining.
 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Based on photos of the aircraft I have put some streaking over the wings using a thin wash of black slopped on behind the leading edge brushed back in the direction of the airflow and one distinctive diagonal streak inboard on each wing.  The wing folds received a sepia wash and the sepia wash was also sprayed under the rear fuselage, which also got some Tamiya smoke.  I went over the  Panel lines with pencil.  When this dry the tail fins and antennae were attached.  

 

 

 

Looking at the photos I see that I still have to add some exhaust staining on the top of the fuselage between the fins, I’ll do that tomorrow.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Andwil]

Matte coat sprayed:

 

 

only final assembly now to do before it’s done.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Thats looking quite good now AW, that color really works well to set the lines and decals off. 

[Pappy]

17 hours ago, Andwil said:

Matte coat sprayed:

 

 

only final assembly now to do before it’s done.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

 

Looking good AW. The green is a glossy finish, even if the box top does not show it. The pics appear to show the green trim as matt?

It would probably look a little toyish if you made it full gloss in 1/72, so perhaps a semi-gloss finish?

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Andwil]

32 minutes ago, Pappy said:

The green is a glossy finish, even if the box top does not show it. The pics appear to show the green trim as matt?

Thanks Pappy, I might go for a satin finish or leave as it is  This doesn’t look too glossy to me, the level of sheen looks about the same as the rest of the airframe:

 

(photo from Aviation Spotters Online)

 

Also, I noticed from the photo that I had got the port LERX finlet too far forward.  Luckily it was only attached with a couple of small drops of CA, so this morning I was able to gently snap it off and reattach it in the correct position without damaging the paintwork.

 

AW

[Pappy]

Okay, if you say so, fair enough

😁

 

 

 

Pappy

[Andwil]

Up on its wheels, jet nozzles fitted and canopy unmasked:

 

 

I found the undercarriage doors to be quite fiddly.  Just the stores now to do.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Dermo245]

That’s a beautiful scheme, brilliantly done 👏👏

[Andwil]

Last few parts attached and it’s done:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

AW

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Good looking Hornet AW, thank you for building/joining in with this. 

[Cookenbacher]

Very cool scheme AW!