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An Italian in North Africa ***Finished***


Foxbat

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I know I haven't actually touched either of my other two builds yet but I kept looking at this one, moving on and coming back so it was inevitable really. 

 

This is a little unusual in that it is an Italian aircraft that is in current service rather than a WW2 era build. The SF-260 as served in two versions with the Tunisian air force since 1975. This one is the later SF-260W. Tunisia is also a little unusual in being an Arab country in North Africa that since independence from France, hasn't been aligned with the Soviet Bloc and doesn't get involved with wars outside it's own territory. 

 

This is the kit that inspired me. I've never built a Tunisian anything before so this will be fun:

 

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There are four schemes in the box. I'd liketo do three of them. If there's time at the end I'd even like to try the Mauritanian one here as I'ven ver built anything from there before either:

 

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There are two small sprues and even with that small number there are optional parts:

 

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Decals and instructions. Both handy to have. There are decal seat belts but no paint call outs for the interior which is a little less handy:

 

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Right. Enough starting threads. Time to build something :)

 

Andy

Edited by Foxbat
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And BOOM!! just like that a brilliant reference thread appears. Not only does it have a pin sharp cockpit photo, but it also shows that in 2008 they'd lost the orange trim so no mucking around with masking. I are a happy bunny :D

 

Italian Exchange Visit

 

Andy

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What a great choice Andy, and with 4 appropriate decal schemes to choose from too,

Nice fine with the pictures of the exchange visit, very handy.

I think that Special Hobby are releasing kits of this in both 1/72 and 1/48 too, you wait ages for kits of something to turn up then they all turn up at once, like buses!

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  • 4 weeks later...
22 minutes ago, John Masters said:

Yes...how's the build?  I have heard odd things about the kit...

It's still in the queue. I seem to be a wee bit over committed with GB entries just now - I have seven on the go including this one :o 

 

Odd things doesn't bode well though.

 

Andy

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Prompted by John's question above I've made a start on this. Nothing too odd so far, but it is very much a KP kit in that fit is approximate, parts aren't always fully formed, sprue gates are massive and take some carving away and for a new kit there is a lot of flash.

 

On the plus side there is some lovely detail and decals, the plastic is easy to work and it is taking paint well. Looking to have some progress shots up later today.

 

Andy

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I tried a bit of test fitting last night, which ran away from me a tiny bit, so this morning I was at this point:

 

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Every joint is a butt joint with no locating pins, slots or tabs. Nothing really lines up so there is copious filling, sanding and repeating at each stage. See nose section below for a mega close up of what was left after filling the seams, sanding them down and removing all the flash and excess plastic. What's left has some nice but heavy detail in.

 

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The nose was never going to be the same size as the fuselage it had to attach to but it's not too bad. A quick smear of filler got things to an acceptable point.

 

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The decals are really nice. Easy to use, very good register, fit well and stick where they're meant to. This is the glass IP for the W version of the aircraft. They also supply an analogue dial version for the earlier airframes. I added the seat backs and control columns between the last pic and this one too.

 

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Back to plastic bashing. There's a two part drop tank for each wing tip. The moulded in pylons don't have the same chord as the wing, and aren't quite the same size as the outer half. More filling and filing required :)

 

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I'm sure you're getting the picture by now, so I'll skip ahead to where I'm up to now. The airframe is pretty much complete. I'll give everything a couple of hours to cure and then do any last minute cleaning up before I start painting. I have to work out the Vallejo equivalents for the Humbrol colours given on the box but that shouldn't be too hard.

 

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It might sound like I'm giving this kit a real slagging but I'm actually enjoying it. It's not a shake and bake modern Tamigawa, there is a modicum of modelling involved, but just like the KP kits I started on (various MiGs and Avias nobody else did) it has a certain charm that makes the effort worthwhile. Hope I do it justice in the end.

 

Andy

Edited by Foxbat
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49 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Ouch ... Does anything fit at all ? 

 

Simple answer: no :( To add to the fun, there's a slight but noticable misalignment of the mould halves so most parts have a ridge round them too - especially interesting with the tailplanes for example where the ridge ran along the middle of the mating surface so you have to get the same amount of sanding, glue and filler on both sides so they have the same dihedral (remembering that the stub on the fuselage that you're trying to butt against wasn't the same size or shape as the tailplane even before you started carving it up :D )

 

Andy 

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Your average short-run KP/AZ kit then :D 

Noticed it doesn't mention HQT anywhere on the box - those tend to be a bit better. 

I'm in the market for one of the IAC ones, although I might go for 1/48 as it's such a tiny aircraft.

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23 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

Your average short-run KP/AZ kit then :D 

Noticed it doesn't mention HQT anywhere on the box - those tend to be a bit better. 

I'm in the market for one of the IAC ones, although I might go for 1/48 as it's such a tiny aircraft.

It's eaxctly that :D 

 

The IAC scheme caught my eye too, that tricolour roundel looks good on anything. There's another couple of schemes on the 72nd kits I'd like to do - Mauritania and Zambia. That said, they do my Tunisian scheme on the 48th scale kit. Wish I'd spotted that earlier.

 

Andy

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  • 2 weeks later...

Paint. US Tan for the main shade which was easy. The green took a lot of matching though. Settled on a Vallejo Game Colour, Yellow Olive in the end. Both colours look much darker than my reference photos but they have the same contrast so I'm putting it down to the difference in light between a room in NE England in ealry spring and the outdoors in Italy in high summer.

 

First coat is a bit blotchy and has gaps.

 

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Second coat is much better, and includes the smoked panel down the middle of the canopy (again, not mentioned in the instructions or paint guide). 

 

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I carved the prop from the solid lump provided and reamed out the hole in the nose so I could mount it. KP give you a single white stripe on the decal sheet for the front but photos show it has two stripes so I added them. All freehand, no masking at any point so far. I thought it fitting to do things old school given the general nature of the kit.

 

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Next up, decals. They look quite nice, except there are millions of black stencils and my photos show them being white, same as the SIAI logo uder the tailplanes. I'm going to miss them off - most of them don't show in photographs either so I'm not losing much.

 

Andy

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  • 2 weeks later...

Decals are on - at least, the ones I'm using are on. They behaved very well, but close up you can see they're a bit fuzzy and the national markings for Mauritania and Zimbabwe are very pixilated so it looks like I made the right choice with this one. I'll flat coat everything once they've settled then it's on to undercart wrangling.

 

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Andy

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  • Foxbat changed the title to An Italian in North Africa ***Finished***

I'm calling this one done. It's a bit thrown together, but quite frankly I've had enough of it. It may have had a certain charm but there are other, better kits out there calling to me - two of them for this GB :D Despite fulling the nose with BB pellets, it is still a tail sitter, do there's a time honoured length of clear sprue keeping the nosewheel on the deck. There are some more pictures in the gallery.

 

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Andy

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