Jump to content

Percival Mew Gull 1/48 - FINISHED


Recommended Posts

I'm being slightly controversial on the colour scheme. The instructions would have you paint the wingtips black, and the decals provided for the serials are also in black - and indeed, this is how the Alex Henshaw's restored Mew Gull G-AEXF appears now. However, in his book 'The Flight of the Mew Gull', Henshaw describes how, when he took delivery of the aircraft, he asked that the wingtips and serials be painted in 'racing green'. I'm not sure why the restored plane uses black, and maybe there's some reason I'm unaware of. Nonetheless, I though it would be fun to go for the green and white scheme. 'Racing green' appears to be a rather ill-defined colour, and I've used Humbrol 88 Deck Green on the basis that I happen to have some. The wingtips are easy enough, but getting the serials in the same colour has proven a bit challenging; in the past I have used an inkjet printer, and in principle that's probably the easiest way to do it, but my printer is playing up at the moment and not printing colours reliably. So, using the kit decals as a template, I have cut a mask from Frisket film, so I could airbrush the Humbrol paint onto clear decal film. It's working tolerably well - I've had to use Quick Shine floor sealer to overcoat the paint on the decal film, otherwise the paint just comes off when I wet it. I'm part-way through applying the serials, as I've had to make some more decals to replace the first few that didn't work. The crossbar on the 'A' and the 'X' and dash on the fuselage will be added separately - I did it that way to avoid having dangerously narrow portions of Frisket film, which tears very easily at potential weak points.

spacer.pngspacer.png

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, djktrumpet said:

I'm being slightly controversial on the colour scheme. The instructions would have you paint the wingtips black, and the decals provided for the serials are also in black - and indeed, this is how the Alex Henshaw's restored Mew Gull G-AEXF appears now. However, in his book 'The Flight of the Mew Gull', Henshaw describes how, when he took delivery of the aircraft, he asked that the wingtips and serials be painted in 'racing green'. I'm not sure why the restored plane uses black, and maybe there's some reason I'm unaware of. Nonetheless, I though it would be fun to go for the green and white scheme. 'Racing green' appears to be a rather ill-defined colour, and I've used Humbrol 88 Deck Green on the basis that I happen to have some.

That's a good observation, or rather a pair of good observations.  I entirely agree that "racing green" is ill-defined, perhaps because if was never meant to be any single specific shade.  The same of course applies to other national racing colours such as Italian Red or French Blue.  However "British Racing Green", as opposed to any colour seen on any particular racing team at any one time, is fairly closely defined as a dark intense green.  Nowadays at least, if not then.  Actually, looking at your model, the green in the Castrol badge is about as good a guide as any.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As the old post office advert had it; I saw this and thought of you

couldn't see you as a contributor but perhaps you've been following it. Sure you can help clarify or muddy the waters as appropriate 😉

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

spacer.pngspacer.png

I think I'm going to declare this pretty much finished - I'll do some better photos for the gallery later. It's not perfect - what model ever is? - but I'm reasonably happy with the result, given the somewhat challenging nature of the basic resin parts, and it's given me an opportunity to try out some new techniques.

I'm still blown away by how tiny the Mew Gull is - I've taken a quick photo of it parked next to a Spitfire in the same scale.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • djktrumpet changed the title to Percival Mew Gull 1/48 - FINISHED

Seen like that, it is outrageously small- at 6'4" I"m not convinced I'd even be able to get in it, certainly not with my back!

Controversial or not, I really like the Racing Green interpretation and find it very convincing as well as plausible.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently for the air races, Henshaw actually sat directly on the cockpit floor. I believe he had a seat fitted for the long distance flight, and it was so cramped that when he landed back in England he couldn't actually climb out by himself and had to be lifted out of the cockpit.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...