NZ Beaufort mk1 from Airfix - Finished

[jackroadkill]

Well, I'm late(ish) to the party, I guess, but the Airfix 1/72 Beaufort mk1 that I ordered from Airfix aeons ago arrived yesterday and so I dived straight in.  I'm still building my 1/48 Defiant and 1/48 Tempest at the same time, so progress may be sporadic.

 

It took me ages to find a NZ mk1 to build, and even longer to find appropriate decals for it, but eventually I found some from, funnily enough, New Zealand.  Reference pictures are extremely rare, at least of this particular aircraft, and due to various issues it wasn't flown by NZ aircrew for long.  I'll save the story for later on, but it's quite interesting.

 

 

Whilst airfix sometimes come under fire for their kits, there's no denying that they're at the very top of the box-art game.  This one shows F/O Campbell and his crew in action against the Gneisenau which resulted in the deaths of all crew members after a literally suicidal attack on the battleship.  Campbell was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery.  I won't be building his aircraft for the GB, obviously, but I think I may well return to it in a future build.

 

I've got the cockpit together (see prior whinges about ejector pins in the Beaufort thread in the Rumourmonger section) without issue, and although it's made of many parts it look great and builds well; the only thing I did to it was to thin the back of the bomb aimer's seat as it was about 3mm thick and stuck out as being a bit awkward compared to the rest of the kit.

 

 

I've also done some plastic-hackery and sprayed some cockpit green around the interior of the fuselage halves, opting for the port-side gunnery door to be shut.  I don't know why I chose this option really, I just felt like it when I came to it:

 

 

Anyway, I'm really glad to have finally been able to join the GB - thanks for having me.

 

Cheers,

 

JRK

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

We’ll excuse the tardiness as you’ve brought a Beaufort to the game. 👍🏻 Definitely looking forward to mine when it shows up. 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[jackroadkill]

A progress report; the fuselage is together and the internals painted.  The wings and tailplane are on, as is the rudder.  The aircraft I am modelling (a 489 Squadron Blenheim in October 1941) is resource-scarce, but I'm reasonably confident that as the aircraft was involved in training, at this point it would have had the straight-edged flaps, rather than the ones with the rounded profile.  I haven't yet sorted out seam lines etc, and there's a small amount of squeeze-out in a spot or two, but I'll get to those as soon as I can.

 

 

 

I haven't gone crazy with the detailing on the interior as I'm reliably informed (thanks @Rabbit Leader!) that there's not much to be seen when the cookie is crumbled.  You can see that here; if it looks as if I've skimped too much I'll add some more before the canopy goes on.

 

 

As I said, not a huge measure of progress, but she's sharing build time with my Defiant.  I'm conscious that there's not a huge amount of time left though, so I'll crack on.

 

Cheers,

 

Jack

[dogsbody]

Looking good!

 

 

 

Chris

[Rabbit Leader]

Well done Jack. Nice to see another Beaufort being built and you're doing a great job of this excellent kit. 

Cheers and following on... Dave 

[stevehnz]

Looking good. I so want to get my hands on one of these, after seeing how this one is going together as well as those of @Rabbit Leader & @tonyot, I'm impressed to pieces with the kit & your assembly of it.

Steve.

[jackroadkill]

Thanks @Rabbit Leader and @stevehnz.  I'm really enjoying the kit and can see one /two/several more in my no-too-distant future.  Of course there'll be a Malta version, and maybe one of FO Campbell's aircraft, as it seems a bit odd not to be building it this time around, for some reason.

[jackroadkill]

When I got home this evening a nice set of Brassin wheels were waiting; they look very smart.

[jackroadkill]

Tonight, Matthew, I have mostly been painting things green.  I think I've got all of the bits, but obviously I'll need to flip a couple of bits over for the rear sides for another pass with the airbrush.  It's jobs like this that really make me appreciate the airbrush, even though I have to dig out my custom spray-booth (okay, plastic drum), spray, clear up and then put it all away.  Still, the results are good:

 

 

Next job is to get rid of a seam-line or two.

[Rabbit Leader]

Looking great Jack. Some of those parts are designed for modelling this kit with undercarriage retracted, so you probably didn’t have to paint those. I decided to build up my u/c assembly prior to painting and have now masked and sprayed the whole area green. It’s good to see modellers taking different approaches on here, no particular method is right nor wrong as we all end up with the same result. It’s all looking good and I can happily report that the initial undercarriage structure goes together just as good as every other piece has so far. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[jackroadkill]

4 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

It’s good to see modellers taking different approaches

 

If I'm completely honest I didn't even think about doing it as you describe!  I can see that it may very well have been a lot easier if I had....! 

[jackroadkill]

Not a great deal of progress to report, frustratingly.  I had hoped that this weekend would see some bigger steps being take, but there we are.  I also made only limited progress with the Defiant and none at all with the Tempest.  Three out of ten for effort, if I'm lucky.

 

All I've managed is:

 

Airbrushed the engine bay and landing light areas in the wings

Repeatedly filled and sanded two seam lines at the top and bottom of the fuselage

Painted the cylinder blocks and props

Done various small bits of paintwork on the engines.

 

Oh, and started masking the transparencies.  What a job - how you lot that do He-111's and things like that don't go mad when masking I'll never know.

 

Onwards and upwards.

[jackroadkill]

This evening I have eventually and with much drama (and help from @Rabbit Leader's thread) built the engines.  I've also painted the metallic parts of the undercarriage, fitted the engine nacelles and the beginnings of the undercarriage into said nacelles.

 

I've also realised that the aircraft I'm building requires a closed bomb bay and no torpedo, so I've put the bomb doors in place.

 

 

As you can see there's some filler waiting to be flatted around the oddly-shoddy air intakes, so this is one of the next jobs on the list, as are completing the undercarriage painting, fitting the engines and continuing with the transparency masking.

[Rabbit Leader]

Looking great Jack and those two piece intakes are a little odd, however will look OK once you take to them with sanding tools. Reading your canopy masking comments also made me buy a masking set, however it wasn’t cheap and ‘hopefully’ I might be able to stretch it out over two models! 

Cheers and nice progress.. Dave 

[jackroadkill]

She's beginning to take shape properly now; I got the last of the glazing masked off this evening, and lost no time in sticking it on (well, apart from the turret, that is - the guns aren't yet painted).  I've filled the hole for the loop ariel and a tiny gap between the starboard air intake and the wing surface, which will be smoothed down as soon as it's dry.  There will also be some filler needed on the oil cooler fairings, as the two halves don't meet perfectly.  In fact, if I have one criticism of this otherwise fantastic kit it's that I've had to do much more filling than I would have expected.

 

Despite the lack of reference pictures I think that this aircraft (N1095) wouldn't have had the chin blister fitted; I've done as much research as possible and although Airfix call for it in the kit destructions I'm going to leave it off the model.  If subsequently it turns out to be needed I'll stick it on, but all the pictures of similar aircraft I've found suggest that it wouldn't have been fitted.  I'm happy to be corrected by you fine folks should I be wrong.

 

Anyway, here she is:

 

[Rabbit Leader]

You’ve done a mighty fine job of that canopy masking Jack. All the time and effort will be duly rewarded with nice crisp lines. She’s looking great.

Cheers.. Dave 

[jackroadkill]

Frustratingly slow progress; I'm still filling and sanding.  I got rid of the starboard wing gun camera fairing and filled the hole I found behind it, but that's about it.  I'm hoping to get some paint on it tomorrow, though, so we'll see.

 

I rather stupidly sliced my left index finger to the bone this afternoon and that's making progress slower.

[Andwil]

Yerrgh, that sounds nasty!  Hope it heals up soon.

 

AW

[jackroadkill]

13 hours ago, Andwil said:

Yerrgh, that sounds nasty!

 

It's not great; right along the middle of the finger and above the knuckle.  It's going to take a while before it's right, I think.

[Rabbit Leader]

1 hour ago, jackroadkill said:

I rather stupidly sliced my left index finger to the bone this afternoon and that's making progress slower.

 

That's very typical and usually happens to me just before a looming deadline or when I've got plenty of modelling time available (which then becomes wasted!). 

Hope the finger heals up soon and you can progress this build further. 

Cheers.. Dave 

[dogsbody]

2 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

I rather stupidly sliced my left index finger to the bone this afternoon and that's making progress slower.

 

I hope you didn't bleed on the Beaufort! That would be awful!

 

 

 

 

Chris

[jackroadkill]

11 hours ago, dogsbody said:

 

I hope you didn't bleed on the Beaufort! That would be awful!

 

 

No, the Beaufort was quite safe.  My room at work looked like the set of Saw II though.

[jackroadkill]

After a lot of pain in the backside mucking about careful decision-making I decided to go with a sky underside.  One of the pitfalls of not having any reference material is that there's potential for this to be a mistake and that the real thing had, by the time it crashed in mid-1941, received a night underside.  However, one of the advantages of not having any reference material is that there's potential for this to be an inspired decision.....

 

To be fair, this isn't much to write home about and I doubt that anyone will be hugely impressed by this small step, but here's a picture:

 

 

The U/C doors (closed position versions) are just fitted with a dab of PVA glue as they're only there to mask the wheel bays.  The model will be displayed wheels-down.  The same goes for the engines, as I'm trying to make a cunning plan up to allow the props to spin using better spindles that Airfix provided.

 

[Rabbit Leader]

2 minutes ago, jackroadkill said:

I doubt that anyone will be hugely impressed by this small step,

Well I am... and I’ll be using those closed gear doors (and closed bomb bay door) pieces to act as masks when I get to the priming and painting stage as well. I was thinking about attaching my gear doors with blue tak, however a tab of PVA may be a cleaner method. This Beaufort is looking great and that’s a nice layer of Sky paint you’ve just applied there too. 
Cheers.. Dave 

[jackroadkill]

15 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:

This Beaufort is looking great and that’s a nice layer of Sky paint you’ve just applied there too.

 

Thanks Dave - I'm definitely playing second fiddle to you on this one (and happily so!).  The paint is ColourCoats' finest and is a joy to spray.  I'm still learning the ins and outs of using the airbrush but I'm getting there slowly.