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1:48 Fairey Swordfish MkII


Dunny

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Hi All,

 

This build has been on hold for a little while, due to my inability to see the woods for the trees. Whilst I was repairing the damage to the roundel, I caused more damage (masking tape lifted the 'E2' decal). Along with this the flat coat somehow reacted on the upper wings and left some staining. At this point I cracked the sads and took my ball home, and the build has been on pause since. Emboldened by my successful Beaufighter completion, I decided that the damage was salvageable, and cranked it up again yesterday once I'd RFI'd the Beau. Before I paused I had already resprayed and replaced the roundel from the spares box. I removed the damaged 'E2', and resprayed the area white. I then used some spare film from my Beau masks to cut an E and a 2 separately. Here you can see the E being sprayed:

 

20210410-140253.jpg

 

Once both were sprayed I then gloss coated (again), brushed on some Flory wash, removed it, and the whole aircraft got a flat coat. Here you can see the top wing assembled along with the wing bracing struts:

 

20210410-152904.jpg

 

Here's the undercarriage assembled - also you can see how visible all of that cockpit detail is:

 

20210411-091641.jpg

 

Oh - okay, a closer look? :elephant:

 

 

20210411-091654.jpg

 

I feel like this could be a significant save!! Here's a final shot of the engine assembled along with the oil cooler:

 

20210411-091744.jpg

 

Today's job is going to be wing assembly and those pesky PE wing bracing wires. The mojo is currently strong but I shall report back later - I may be some time...

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

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Hi All,

 

A little more progress today! I started off with some nice, low risk jobs to ease into the day. Here's the wing locks painted:

 

20210411-110303.jpg

 

I then turned my attention to the canopy. I decided to free hand it as it was pretty simple. First a coat of interior grey-green:

 

20210411-112352.jpg

 

Then a coat of EDSG:

 

20210411-115152.jpg

 

A bit of a mishap there, but it cleaned up just fine with a rub from a toothpick. I next assembled the wings. For anyone building this kit, note that the outer PE braces have to be assembled at the same time as the main bracing struts. Ask me how I know :banghead:

 

20210411-114549.jpg

 

Finally, I couldn't resist a quick dry-fit of the wings (in the interest of science, of course 🤩). Here's a couple of shots:

 

20210411-120657.jpg

 

 

 

20210411-120728.jpg

 

The gap on the upper wing will close up just fine when it's glued in place. Right - I can't procrastinate any further - I'm off to tackle the main wing cross-braces!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

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Hi All,

 

Another pleasing day of progress at Chateau Dunny! I decided to work on the propeller next. This kit is not so much complicated, there is just so much to do! I had not before noticed that there is a pronounced kink in the blades of the prop:

 

20210411-125313.jpg

 

Anyway, on with the show. As well as the usual yellow tips, the Stringbag's spinner had a diagonal red stripe across the front of the blade. Tamiya offer a single decal for both yellow and red elements, but given my recent misfortunes with Tamiya decals I was in no mood to fail again, so I elected to spray them instead  :banghead:. Here's the yellow and red sprayed:

 

20210411-134108.jpg

 

And masked:

 

20210411-134552.jpg

 

And here's the finished article, complete with Sky spinner:

 

20210411-135838.jpg

 

I'm not displeased with that. I then spent a very zen couple of hours completely avoiding the PE wing braces painting and assembling the ordnance. Here's the finished result:

 

20210411-150627.jpg

 

Here's a final shot showing the machine gun in position:

 

20210411-152804.jpg

 

Ticking along quite nicely! I may not get to those wing braces today though :giggle:

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

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Holy carp - that was fiddlier than a fiddly thing playing a violin. One down though...

 

20210411-162333.jpg

 

Have a great day - I'm in the midst of cooking a Sunday roast,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Crikey I go to sleep for the night and you've nearly finished, my word, what excellent progress and more importantly a great recovery of both model and Mojo. 

Great to see.

You have done very well and the Stringbag looks absolutely gorgeous.   Congratulations on getting the PE bracing in too.  I did the outer and inner strut ones but not the main runs along the wings as I bent one or two and got fed up with its used invisible thread.

Great to see such fantastic progress.

Cracking job

Chris 

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3 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Crikey I go to sleep for the night and you've nearly finished, my word, what excellent progress and more importantly a great recovery of both model and Mojo. 

Great to see.

You have done very well and the Stringbag looks absolutely gorgeous.   Congratulations on getting the PE bracing in too.  I did the outer and inner strut ones but not the main runs along the wings as I bent one or two and got fed up with its used invisible thread.

Great to see such fantastic progress.

Cracking job

Chris 

Thanks Chris - it's good to be back in the saddle! Given that this one was very close to the S.o.D. it's nice to have made a save,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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Looking good! 👍

 

Some folks have complained about the Tamiya etch rigging not staying flat, but I found that if one end is left to float in the slot, i.e., not glued in, then it all stays neat.

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11 minutes ago, B_Bogus said:

Looking good! 👍

 

Some folks have complained about the Tamiya etch rigging not staying flat, but I found that if one end is left to float in the slot, i.e., not glued in, then it all stays neat.

Thanks B_B! My experience is very similar...

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4 minutes ago, Gatesy64 said:

Great ti for the rigging. I’ve built 3 now and each one has bent to some degree. Too stupid to figure leaving one end loose!

There's always next time 😉

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6 minutes ago, Marklo said:

Great build. Bring in the throes of finishing my Airfix string bag I can appreciate how challenging a build it has been.

Thanks Mark! Would you recommend the Airfix kit? Although the Tamiya kit is pricey the engineering is nothing short of superb. The mistakes are all mine...

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

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