Pacific Coast Models Hawker Tempest

[spitfire]

Looking at the contents of the box and reading through other people’s build threads I decided not to write a build thread for this one as I was not sure that it would get finished.

 But I did hedge my bets by keeping notes and taking photos just in case it worked out better than I thought.

But for those Tempest lovers and for those with PCM Tempests in their stash I decided to go ahead.

And it did go better than I had expected and here is where I am up to now, apart from the cockpit photos which I must have accidentally deleted I have all the photos that I took up to this point.

After my Japanese kit building period I decided to start building some of the PCM kits that I have in the stash, my theme this time is RAF, and as usual I will attempt to build three in a year.

I settled on the Hawker Tempest, Hawker Hurricane Mk.I (fabric winged) and Spitfire IX, the latter because amazingly I have never build a Mk.IX.

 

I started with the Tempest as it is one of my favourite subjects, I meant to build it years ago but got seduced by an MDC Typhoon.  The intention was to build the Typhoon and then the Tempest but I was appalled by the small number of builds that I had completed that year so did two quick builds of Luftwaffe subjects.

 

For some reason I have two PCM Tempest kits, in my eagerness to get my grubby hands on one I must have ordered from two different shops.

 

You have to remember that at the time PCM was making kits of subjects that had not been kitted before, the Tempest, Hurricane and Spitfire IX being the major ones for me, though later on the fascination for Italian subjects would lead to another PCM spending spree.

 

To encourage manufacturers to build nice subjects I also have a Special Hobby Tempest to build as well.

This seems to work as a Whirlwind is in the offing, just need a Defiant and a Fulmar and a Battle and more, and more, and more.

 

More soon

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

So with no further ado I'll plunge on.

The box art

The box contents

The PE

Clear Parts, these include the clear parts for the wing tanks just like the real thing

Resin details

The sprues, typical short run type

 

More coming soon

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

 

[spitfire]

Carrying on with the contents

Decals which I won't use as I like to paint on markings

Instructions

Painting guide

have lots of reference material, printed and electronic so information is not a problem as long as I can find two that can agree but in the end I like to follow the wise words of Chris Thomas who literally wrote the book on the Typhoon and Tempest.

 

As I prefer to paint markings I have two sets of Montex masks and for the camouflage paint job a set of AML camouflage masks.

I also have some Barracuda detail parts, seat, air intake, and main wheels, though I will be keeping some of these for the SH Tempest.

 

After market

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[bigbadbadge]

Nice, looking good so far Dennis 

Chris

[stevej60]

I'll follow along Dennis nice being part of a Tempest fest right now,that silver scheme's a real eye catcher.

[spitfire]

Welcome aboard Steve, I won't be using any of the decals so if you do fancy any of them let me know and I'll post them off to you.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

17 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Nice, looking good so far Dennis 

Chris

Thank you Chris from a poor beginning it's now looking good.

 

Chers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

This is all recorded so don't think that it is a speed build, I'm a bit glacial in reality.

Some of the reference books that I am using

The cockpit looked very complicated consisting of plastic, resin and tiny PE parts so I took it very slowly.

I also used some scrap plastic to fit some locating tabs on the fuselage halves to aid line up.

As is my normal practice I cut all the parts from the sprues leaving just a tail to hold them in clamps ready for painting.

This is where the cockpit photos are missing, all I have left is the following

This is the part where the LSP Tweak list advised to shorten the top bar, I also fitted a spacer to get the correct gap between the frame and bulkhead (2mm)

And this shows a part completed IP.

There are some contradictory ideas out there about cockpit colours, all green, all black, half black half green with green tubes or silver tubes.

So it was decision time after a search of my pickings from websites I went with silver tube frames with half black (above elbow) and green after reading Chris Thomas’s comments below. Chris literally wrote the book on the Typhoon and Tempest so I trust his opinion.

 

Based on observation of EJ693 whilst it was still in its original paintwork, cockpit sides down to the bottom of the door panels , head armour and decking behind the latter (but beneath the closed canopy) were all in Night (black). Below the door panels grey/green. Tubing was painted Aluminium. As Typhoons had been painted in this way since mid-1943 I would think earlier Tempests (and later ones for that matter) also featured this scheme.

Chris Thomas

I have a Barracuda seat but decided to save that for my future SH Tempest build, as the kit seat once covered in seat belts and hidden in the cockpit will suffice.

 

The cockpit tubular framework was painted with Humbrol 56 Aluminium.

Once I had completed the initial paint jobs on the cockpit components I started to do some test fitting, this revealed that in a lot of cases locating holes were missing so these were drilled out.

 

Also missing was a lot of pins to go in these locating holes, this called for some more drilling and gluing in of fuse wire to replace the missing pins.

 

The instrument panel consists of six pre painted PE panels, three parts with the instrument faces painted on and three parts with the instrument bezels and switches.

The instrument panels were glued to the plastic backing, the initial three parts were glued to the backing plastic backing with CA, then the covering parts were glued in place using Krystal Klear. Not quite YAHU but better than I could do.

 

The cockpit also contains a lot of tiny PE parts which looked very challenging.

I set about the right hand side console with it’s three levers and two switches, to help with this I glued some plastic strip under the PE part so that the aforementioned tiny parts would have something to stick to.

This went well, so I started on the port side but gave up as there was no mounting points on the side frame to glue it in place so it was left off.

 

I also lost part D2 which fits on the port side frame and looks like the throttle box, so a hunt through my spares box turned up a similar box from an old build so that was painted up and fitted.

 

The instructions are quite vague on component placement so I did a trial run and found that the right console fouled the Instrument panel so it was removed for later fitment.

 

The kit seat was painted with Grey Green, for this I use Humbrol 120 Matt Light Green which matches the chip in the RAFM book (well to my eye it does), the seat back was painted with Humbrol 84 Matt mid stone.

 

The seat backing bulkhead (B19) was painted with H120 and the head armour H85 satin black the cockpit framing for the bulkhead was painted with Humbrol 56 Aluminium.

 

The fuselage cockpit sides were painted with Humbrol 85 Satin coal black at the top and Humbrol 120 on the bottom, When this was dry lots of Airscale cockpit placard decals (WW2 Allied) were attached to add some detail

 

The control column was painted with H120, the spade grip with H85, the instructions would have you fit the chain pulley on the front of the column (pilot side) but the reference books puts it on the instrument panel side, so that’s where I put it.

 

As the tweak list notes I did not fit the control column on the floor as per the instructions as it will foul the compass, I made up a plate, drilled a hole in it and fitted it onto the “floor” further back.

 

The compass was painted grey with a green bracket and the pre painted PE part fitted.

 

A trial fit of the cockpit into the taped together fuselage sides showed a tight fit which pressed the fuselage sides apart a bit, I wondered what this would do to the fit of the wings to the fuselage so decided to leave the cockpit for a while and assemble the wings.

Sadly as mentioned I have lost or deleted all the cockpit photos, I will attach them if I ever find them again.

Here are some external photos of he cockpit to give an idea of what can be seen.

The two posts visible were meant to hold the gunsight but I removed them and made a new fitting.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

More "speed" modelling,

The separate resin wheel well insert was painted grey green and the resin fronts fitted, there was quite a chunk of resin to cut off the insert

.

 

After the wing parts (all 5) were cleaned up I taped them together to check the fit,

The centre section with the wheel well insert loosely fitted fouled the upper wing panel a little so the wheel well top was shaved down a bit which cured that.

The fit of the outer wing undersides to the centre section left a step, so the attachment “lip” on the centre section was sanded down until the step was gone.

Once I was satisfied with the fit the wheel well insert was glued to the wing centre section and put to once side.

Before the wing can be assembled the underside lights need painting, the light under the centre fuselage was painted orange, which was the nearest to amber that I had.

Then the under wing lights (2) were painted, one a normal light, this was painted silver but the other has two lamps in the wing one green and one red. So I painted two arcs one green and one red on the edge of the clear part, once dry the back was painted grey green to look like the inside of the wing.

More directly

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

So where were we, ahh yes wings and things.

With the centre section put to one side the main wheels (Barracuda) were painted with Humbrol 67 for the tyres and polished aluminium for the hubs, the tail wheel got the same treatment. The main undercarriage legs were also painted, these took some time to clean up.

The fit of the under nose scoop radiator “roof” was very vague and it took a lot of sanding and test fitting to arrive at a good fit to the fuselage.

The radiator internal bulkheads were painted aluminium and the assembly glued together.

Looking back I should have painted the plastic bulkheads black this would have saved me doing a black wash later, will do it that way on the Hurricane.

While I was here I fitted the Barracuda air intake to the radiator grill the instruction were great, you just have to be slow which came easily for me..

The "lights" were then fitted to the lower wing sections.

Then a change of plan, I had intended to assemble the wings first but thinking about it I wanted to sort out the fuselage first, so more sanding and test fitting of the cockpit to fuselage was called for.

In this process a lot of the nice surface detail on the fuselage sides was sacrificed to get the assembled cockpit to fit inside the taped together fuselage sides, this also required some grooving of the fuselage sides.

 

Eventually the cockpit “tub” was made to fit, then with the fuselage taped up with the cockpit installed CA was used to attach it to one side of the fuselage.

 Supports were made up of scrap plastic and glued to the fuselage side and cockpit tubing to ensure that the cockpit “tub” stayed in place while the inevitable handling while sanding seams took place, I didn't want to risk something coming loose.

 

The tail wheel bay was assembled test fitted, sanded and glued to one fuselage side.

 

The position of the radiator was marked on the taped up fuselage halves and it was then glued into position, scrap plastic was used to make supports for it to butt against.

 

The fuselage with attached internals was then successfully glued together and the seams sanded and polished, it was rather a relief to get past this milestone, as it had put me right off continuing the build.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

Nearly up to date.

Then the fuselage centre section was offered up to the fuselage and it required more sanding of the resin wheel bays and the wing cut outs on the fuselage. After lots of sanding, test fitting and re sanding a satisfactory fit was arrived at, this took some time and patience.

 

The wing centre section was then glued in place and the seams sanded and polished, the fit to the fuselage was quite good but only after some fettling, Mr Surfacer 1200 was used to fill small gaps using a toothpick to apply it.

Once this was done I fitted the top wing section, again lots of sanding and test fitting was called for, I have definitely been spoiled by the last three Hasegawa kits that I built. The resin wheel well needed thinning again but that much was needed that I went through it in a couple of places which needed repairing.

With that option ruled out I had to thin the upper wing section as well. But finally it fitted and it was glued in place, the seams were cleaned up and polished.

The top wing sections were next and with some prep work done earlier they were glued in place, the seams sanded and polished.

Then the bottom outer wing sections were glued in position, the seams cleaned up and polished.

This then started to look like an aircraft and also signaled that I would probably finish the build rather that giving it to the bin so this build thread was born.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

 

[spitfire]

Wings continued, there was some small gaps at the wing root and the join between the lower wing sections, these were filled with Mr Surfacer 1200 the excess was removed with a cotton bud soaked in Mr Color Thinner, some parts of the seam clean up were trickier than others.

The rudder and tail plane halves were then joined and the seams cleaned up, with a bit of fettling the tail planes were fitted and the resulting seam filled with Mr Surfacer.

There was nothing to fit the rudder to the tail fin as it was empty so I fitted a tab.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

 

[spitfire]

Then it was time for some masking, I used a cheapo punch set to mask off the undersides lights.

Wheel wells.

Then time for the reverse masking process, first the blue was airbrushed for the roundels for this I used Sovereign Colourcoats WW2 Roundel blue.

Then yellow for the fuselage roundels

As usual I marked the masks for easier placement when airbrushing the different colours.

Then I cut out roundel sized pieces of Tamiya tape and placed them in position where the masks will go.

I them mark out the position using Tamiya tape as guides.

Then I removed the Tamiya tape discs and applied the Montex masks, once this was done I could airbrush the yellow leading edge of the wing, remembering to mask off the wing tip lights at the last minute.

 

 

Nearly there

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

With the fuselage mask in place I could airbrush the Sky for the tail band and mask it off, the band was 18” wide and positioned just in front of the tail planes. A bit of maths gives us 457mm for the full size band, divided by 32 gives us 14.2 mm for a 1/32 scale band. Once dry I masked off the band.

Then airbrushed the Sky for the codes fore and aft of the roundels.

The code masks were then carefully put in place again using Tamiya tape guides.

And finally the undersides were airbrushed with Xtracolor Medium Sea Grey plus all the undercarriage doors and drop tanks.

And we are bang up to date now.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

Slow progress as usual but it is progress, gave the undersides the fading treatment with a 1:1 MSG and white mixture, let it dry for a couple of days and then masked it off ready for the Ocean Grey top colour.

And all done

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[bigbadbadge]

This has progressed well and looks good.

Chris

[Bill Bunting]

Looks very nice, will be following. 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Great catch up. Thanks Dennis, she's looking good.

[Alan P]

Not only a great modelling job but also a really nice reference build. Thanks for sharing it Dennis.

 

Alan

[spitfire]

13 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

This has progressed well and looks good.

Chris

Yes from a very unpromising beginning it's starting to come together and I can see a Tempest now

12 hours ago, Bill Bunting said:

Looks very nice, will be following. 

 

Thank you pull up a comfy chair, it's not fast

12 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Great catch up. Thanks Dennis, she's looking good.

Hopefully I can airbrush the Ocean Grey today, so don't wander off !

11 hours ago, Alan P said:

Not only a great modelling job but also a really nice reference build. Thanks for sharing it Dennis.

 

Alan

Thank you Alan that is one of the main reasons for me to do a build thread, for others with the same kit (or subject) and for myself to look back on how I did things. One of the first things I do when I start a new build is look for other peoples builds, I find them very useful

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

And so on with the paint, but first I need a handle, as I like to airbrush standing up in front of the window so that I can see the paint hitting the model, very strange I know but this is my preferred method.

Don't know what I'll do when I run out of old wire coat hangers.

Ready for the off

I think that this will be a long one so as my compressor has a habit of overheating I do this, and it works.

This took a lot longer and more paint than I had thought, I usually use mix of 1.0 ml of paint and 1.0 ml of thinner but this took twice that.

And then I thinned the paint with white 1:1 and randomly faded the paint, as it's gloss this does not show up well, I have to wait for the matt coat to see it fully.

Meanwhile this lot are waiting on the side lines.

Will have to tone the blades down a bit.

Exhausts done with H113 and graphite.

Wing tanks with see through fairings, very clever.

And the undercarriage and doors

And the canopy waiting for the Dark Green

 

That's all for now so back to the Hurricane

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[spitfire]

Now the serious stuff, I'm being lazy and will be using paint masks for the camouflage, and no I am not getting into the real thing paint mats debate.

I used to spend a couple of modelling sessions cutting out paper paint masks, then applying them to the model with Blu Tac sausages to give that very fine feathered edge look, I really like the effect but not the effort required, hence I will be using these.

And off we go, these are designed for the SH kit so I had to use Tamiya tape in a couple of places though that may have been me being fumble fingered.

Looks the part now, just with the masks on

.

Next paint

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looking very nice Dennis. 

Chris

[spitfire]

1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

Looking very nice Dennis. 

Chris

Thank you Chris, I've just finished airbrushing the dark green and was again surprised by the amount of paint I used, I will do some fading in the morning and remove the masks, I'm looking forward to that bit.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Roland Pulfrew]

Starting to look seriously good now. I’m glad you decided not to consign this to the bin. Got to love a Typhoon/Tempest; it’s one of my favourite aircraft.