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Hasegawa 1/72nd Mosquito FB.VI AND PR.40,..... RAAF **FINISHED**


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Hiya Folks,

               I`ll start off with an Aussie Mossie,........ using the Hasegawa 1/72nd kit,.....and DK Decals but I cannot decide between a camouflaged FB.IV or a PRU Blue PR.40! 

 

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Cheers

          Tony

Edited by tonyot
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Camo' one definately!  I have a B. Mk.IV boxing of this kit so will look in how you get on.

I haven't built a 'Mossie' since the 70's and I am thoroughly enjoying putting together an Airfix Nf.II over on the 'Interceptor' GB at the moment, in parallel doing a Tamiya B.Mk.XVI conversion and that is just clicking together!

 

Davey.

 

 

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Hiya Folks,..... cheers for your kind comments,...... I`ve decided upon the FB.Mk.VI,..... but,..... if I can find a second kit I`ll build the PR.40 alongside it! 

 

Here is the aircraft I`ll be building,.... A52-505, NA-Q of 1 Sqn RAAF with standard RAF Medium Sea Grey and Dark Green camouflage, with the RAF serial roughly overpainted and the RAAF serial applied. I`m not sure whether the spinners are MSG as they should be or Sky as worn by some aircraft? 

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Just for interest,..... here is PR.40, A52-4 of 1 PRU, later 87 Sqn RAAF and interestingly it has a roundel under the wing,.... unlike DK Decals depiction of A52-5;

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So now on with construction;

 

The wings, engine nacelles, wheels and cockpit have been assembled;

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The interior is pretty basic,.... like many Hasegawa kits,.... so I may add some additional detail later,... especially on the fuselage walls;

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The bomb bay is better, with decent replication of the main fuel tanks and the bomb shackles;

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The fuselage has now been joined,.... with the separate nose section pieces pre attached to its own half,.... and the wings could be slotted onto the wing spars. Filler was applied to the spine just to help tidy the seam rather than to sort out any poor fit,..... however the fit of the engine nacelles to the wing parts was a bad joint and took quite a bit of work to tidy with filler and  lot of sanding;

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When attached,.... the wings were held in place while the glue dried using tape;

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I added a spacer made from scrap sprue inside the cockpit to help keep the fuselage sides apart here and stop squashing in; 

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Cheers for now,

                      Tony

 

 

 

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A bit more progress,.... but not too much!

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As the British built Mosquito FB.VI`s flown by the RAAF were fitted with tropical filters and the kit does not supply  these,... I was lucky to still have a set of resin ones from my mate Lee (Cheers Mukka!) who made one up from a cut down Heller Hurricane Vokes filter,.... and then ran a batch off in resin! The RAAF Mossies were also seen most often with drop tanks fitted but as these are not in the kit either I had to look in the spares box and found some from an old and long scrapped Airfix kit.. 

 

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The interior of the cockpit has also had some additions from the spares box,.... I still need to add some left over etched brass radio front panels and I`ll be making a pilots seat arm rest from plastic strut, plus adding seat straps from painted masking tape. How much will be visible,... who knows?

 

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So the next job is to cut off the engine air intakes and graft on those tropical filters instead,

Cheers for now

                       Tony

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  • tonyot changed the title to Hasegawa 1/72nd Mosquito FB.VI AND PR.40,..... RAAF

Well,..... slam the anchors on and come to a screeching halt,..... this Mossie will not be a FB.VI after all,...... it is going to be a PR.40! 

 

To this end the tropical filters will not be fitted,...... and I have filled in the nose gun openings with plastic rod ready to sand flush later, filled in the cannon blast tubes, lined the inside of the cannon bay doors with plastic card and filled in the cartridge ejector chutes as well as adding an extra strengthening strake to the left hand side of the fuselage. I am looking into the camera fit and will be doing that next,..... there was a a forward looking camera in a bulge under the nose, an oblique camera port with what appears to be a sliding cover on the left side of the fuselage under the strake and just forward of the roundel and maybe a larger camera looking vertically through the cannon bay doors which look to be sealed closed?

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And the reason for this change,..... I`ve dug out a Tmiya 1/72nd Mosquito FB.VI to build as the Aussie 1 Sqn RAAF fighter bomber!

 

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And I cracked on and started it last night;

 

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And I used the seat straps provided with the kit on the decal sheet;

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The wings were also built up,.... with the hole drilled out for the wing tanks which re provided in the kit;

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The fuselage was then joined up with the inclusion of the side of the nose,.... I did this for the camera to show how the cockpit looked,.... ideally the cockpit sides should really be attached to each fuselage half and then closed around the cockpit;

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An then the wings were attached along with the tailplane;

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Cheers for now,

                        Tony

Edited by tonyot
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Well my mate Peter came up trumps and sent me a fantastic package of info and photos on the Mossies that I am building,..... just the reference that I needed to get on with the project! 

 

First I got on with the FB.VI and removed the engine air intakes, ready to fit the tropical filters. I thought that I would try using a couple of cut down Heller Hurricane intakes so that I could use my resin ones on another subject;

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But they were too large and I went with the resin ones,..... seen fitted here;

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And here it is so far;

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Next,.... onto the PR.40. A52-2 had a different camera fit to later PR.40`s,.....  with a pair of oblique cameras in the nose and a vertical camera in the rear fuselage,.....I had to remove the additional strake that I had fitted as this aircraft did not have one!;

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With the camera ports drilled out I had to find some fairings,.... and I opted for some left over exhaust fairings from an AZ Model P-36 Mohawk kit;

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And Here they are,... partly modified and ready for sanding;

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Now I need to find some suitable exhausts,....as the Australian built Mossies had 6 stubs on the outer part of the engine,..... 5 stubs on the inner!

 

Cheers

           Tony

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Time for a bit of paint,......

 

PR.40,.... the first coat of PRU Blue has been brushed on;

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[DSCF9882-NEW.jpg](https://postimg.cc/jLFDP0pW)

 

And the FB.VI has received a final sanding prior to its overall coat of Medium Sea Grey;

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Cheers

          Tony

 

2 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Oooooo lovely a couple of Mossies.   Great work far and two interesting machines.

Chris

Cheers Chris,..... yeah slowly getting there pal! 

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Hiya Folks,.... an update,....

 

Well I`ve got a coat of gloss varnish onto the PR.40,..... ready for the decals.

 

As for the FB.VI,... three of coats of Polly Scale MSG were applied overall and then Dark Green camo added,...... this shows the fist coat applied,..... with the second going onto the far wing,..... hopefully three coats should do it?..

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But Fudge the dog is still not interested at all;

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Cheers

         Tony

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46 minutes ago, Paul J said:

I like the look of the all red civvy one.

 I have that one planned for the forthcoming Airfix kit,..... although the rear end of the bulged bomb bay is much modified and quite box like.  

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A bit more progress,.... decals on;

 

FB.40,..... Now DK Decals provide decals for A52-6, named Old Faithful 2,...... but I could not find any reference to the nose art,...... only A52-2 Old Faithful! So,.... rightly or wrongly,..... I changed the serial to A52-2 and cut the sortie tally down as well as cutting off the number 2 from the name. I also added a `splotch of US Navy Blue Grey to the nose as the real A52-2 had a darker section of paint here.  The style of the name is not the same as `Old Faithful',.... but as I had already converted the model to replicate the camera fit of A52-2,.... I just stuck with it. Having used the number 2 from another item on the sheet for the serial,..... this was spoiled in an accident,.... so the serials on either side look different now! 

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FB.VI; Again I used DK Decals but what size were the upper wing roundels? Well I could not find a photo of the upper wings of a 1 Sqn RAAF Mossie still wearing British camo,..... only 618 Sqn RAF aircraft aircraft which simply had the red of their RAF roundels replaced by white. Early Australian built FB.40`s also had larger style roundels when built wearing camouflage,..... so I decided to use a set of upper wing roundels from an old Airfix kit to replicate full sized roundels with the red replaced by white. If I`m proved wrong at a later date..... no problem,.... I can simply overpaint the roundel and add a smaller one,.... which is eactly what would have been done on the real aircraft;

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EDIT,.... meant to add these pics showing the water colour wash being applied;

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Cheers

         Tony 

Edited by tonyot
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Thanks Fella`s,..... well I`ve got the FB.VI finished,..... although these FB.VI`s were able to carry wing mounted drop tanks, while wearing the early camouflage they don`t appear to have carried them, even during long range ferry trips,...... so I left them off and used a section of an optional wing tip to represent the part attached to the lower wing which fits inside the tank;

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Cheers,

          Tony

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On 3/1/2021 at 10:20 PM, 2996 Victor said:

Just caught up with this, Tony! Two superb Mossies, but I have to say the PR.40 looks the nicer to my eyes :)

Cheers,

Mark

Thanks Mark,.... just struggling finishing off painting the canopy framework and finding a fir of 6 stack exhausts for the outer pair of exhausts on the PR.40,..... the latter being a feature of Aussie built aircraft,.... I`ll get there soon!

 

On 3/1/2021 at 10:53 PM, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Who doesn't love a Mossie, Well done. :thumbsup:

Cheers CC!

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