PR XIX Leuchars

[Angus Tura]

Hi.

 

I started this last night. 

 

 

This is a dentally aware model. I've been trying to get a centurion tank finished in the Anzac GB but it's hard work. I got my teeth drilled out a week ago and had no idea how much pain that was going to give me: I am regretting all of the soor plooms and other boilings of youth. Anyway, I really couldn't concentrate on the centurion last night and have wanted to start this for a bit.

 

I have some Kit-World decals for this somewhere and a photo of a PR.19 at Leuchars and want to have a go at that. The kit is really nice. It does have a few things though: no proper wheel-wells and closed cockpit canopy, which I don't like. I'm going to do it straight kit and try some painting and putty-ing things I've been wanting to try for a bit.

 

The fit seems about perfect and that's what they say on-line.

 

 

I want to wall in the wheel wells but don't want to use plasticard to do it, to try to stay OOTB.

 

 

Here is the edge roughed up with an 11 blade,

 

 

Clingfilm anti-stick and magic-sculp epoxy sausage,

 

 

Squished together,

 

 

and eight hours later:

 

 

No bad. A bit of carving to do.

 

See you later,

 

Alan

[Brad]

Great start, it's a decent little kit, I built one a while back with Turkish decals.

[Angus Tura]

Thanks Brad.

 

The wheel-well filling has worked OK, but only OK.

 

Some of it is gap free,

 

 

but some of it's a bit gappy.

 

 

So, I've repeated and it looks pretty good. I've had a problem of the putty not sticking well to the putty: it sticks well to the plastic as long as you get it on shortly after mixing the putty. There's a few bits to Mr.Surface.

 

 

Next: the canopy

 

Alan

 

[TonyOD]

That's a clever trick with the wheel wells!

 

I like this kit, I built it when it first came out (during my "second age of modelling"), Will follow with interest. Enjoy!

[Brad]

Run a little bit of superglue into those gaps or even liquid paper and that should do the trick.

[Angus Tura]

Thanks Brad.

 

Here's the canopy pre-surgery

 

 

, and post surgery with a tamiya razor saw.

 

 

 

So, the windscreen and the fixed canopy fit but the sliding canopy needs a bit of help.

 

 

After a lot of sanding of the inside of the canopy, and a little sanding of the spine, it's pretty close.

 

 

Here it is with a bit of Samsung-pen work. The canopy needs to drop down a bit more and, looking at online pictures, I think the top of the windscreen and the top front edge of the canopy should be at the same level (the dashed line). I've tried to preserve the frame of the canopy when sawing up the transparency, but that has mean that the windshield is a bit short/low. I'm hoping that building up the windscreen and dropping down the canopy a bit will look OK.

 

Alan

 

[Angus Tura]

Hello again.

 

This was going well until I got a crack in the windscreen.

 

 

Not successfully fixed! This is a double-edged sword in that it means using a second canopy/kit. So, that means I can keep the frame on the windscreen this time and not have to build up the windscreen which was going to be difficult.

 

Here's the new windscreen and all sanded up:

 

 

I had another problem on polishing the canopy clear again. Where I thinned it out to fit the spine I just used a straight file and that has ended up making an edge. So, when this was polished, it acted as a lens and did not look good.

 

 

So I've used a riffler-file to take the edge off,

 

 

and then re-polished.

 

And here it is.

 

 

The canopy has been coated with Gauzy Intermediate because it developed a little crack which I was keen to control. The windscreen and the glazed bit of the spine, the name of which I don't know, are just polished: serial wet and dry 1000 to 5000 followed by coarse, fine and finish Tamiya compounds on a pointy Tamiya cotton bud.

 

Here is the line of the top of the windscreen and I think it's close enough.

 

 

It is a bit of a relief to have this done, frankly.

 

As I have opened a second kit, I'm going to re-do the wheel wells. More anon.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Alan

[Thom216]

The more Spits the merrier! Nice on the canopy. And the good news is, you are on the same land as Airfix, so getting replacement parts should be easy.😜

[JOCKNEY]

Great to see a Mk19 in this GB 

 

I have the Fujimi one, and no before anyone asks with 3 builds in this GB already, I won't be adding one of these.

 

Really looking forward to watching this one, best of luck.

 

Cheers Pat