Italeri/Occidental 1/48 Harvard Belgian Air Force

[modelling minion]

With my Build for the Skyhawk GB completed (still hosting though) it is time for me to make a start on my Harvard for this one. I have a few Harvard/Texan kits in the stash (4 at the last count) but decided to go with the Italeri release of the Occidental 1/48 kit for this build. 

 

Very nice box art and I would like to build an RAF one at some point. 

The kit was completely unmolested until I fetched it out of the stash and started taking pictures.

 

One of the big pluses of this kit for me is the extensive decal sheet with markings for no less than 6 different aircraft from different countries.

 

I can see me working my way through the options on this sheet over the coming years, as well as all the other Harvard/Texan decals I have!

 

I also have some extras in the form of an Eduard brass set and some canopy masks.

 

Yesterday being the usual British Bank Holiday weather that it was I made a start on the cockpit by giving everything a coat of the British grey/green cockpit colour, my thinking being that as this aircraft was built for the RAF then it might have the RAF interior colour, no doubt I am completely wrong but thats the colour it is and will be staying. And once the green was dry I painted the built in details and gave everything some light weathering and a bit of a wash and this is what the sidewalls and cockpit floor ended up like;

 

 

The instrument panels are the ones supplied by Eduard which consist of a film with the dials on and an etched piece for the face of the panel, so I stuck the film to the back of the etch and then added a piece of white paper behind the film so that the dials would show up better.

 

The bottom one has since been readjusted to actually be lined up!

With the interior pieces pretty much done it was time to loosely assemble them.

 

And with that all loosely assembled, no glue so that adjustment will be possible when it comes to fitting the cockpit into the fuselage. Speaking of which I have fitted it into one of the cockpit halves;

 

Next job will be to get the fuselage halves together, hopefully this evening.

 

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

 

[RidgeRunner]

Very nice work, Craig. I’m looking forward to seeing her come together

 

Martin 

[Pappy]

Nice work Craig but it looks like you chickened out and didn't use the rudder pedals!

 

Keep it up

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[modelling minion]

2 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Very nice work, Craig. I’m looking forward to seeing her come together

 

Martin 

Cheers Martin. I am hoping to get all the main bits assembled by the weekend, as long as I am left alone to do important modelling work.

1 hour ago, Pappy said:

Nice work Craig but it looks like you chickened out and didn't use the rudder pedals!

 

Keep it up

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Cheers Pappy, yes you can probably hear the clucking from where you are, not a huge fan of etched brass.🐓

[stevehnz]

Good choice on this Craig, hope you have more joy with this than I had with my Heller one in that GB, it is a great scheme.

Steve.

[modelling minion]

2 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Good choice on this Craig, hope you have more joy with this than I had with my Heller one in that GB, it is a great scheme.

Steve.

Thanks Steve, it is a great scheme isn't it. I thought it would make a change from the more war like schemes that I usually do.

[85sqn]

Looking good😉 good call on the colour too. 

[modelling minion]

1 hour ago, 85sqn said:

Looking good😉 good call on the colour too. 

Thanks, got the fuselage closed up and a fair amount of filler on too!

[CliffB]

It's all looking very effective Craig  

[modelling minion]

1 hour ago, CliffB said:

It's all looking very effective Craig  

Cheers Cliff, plenty of opportunity for me to mess things up yet.😁

[Wez]

Nice one Craig, I like the Belgian Harvard/Texan, very attractive colour schemes, I found an old IPMS magazine article , are you interested in it?

[modelling minion]

3 hours ago, Wez said:

Nice one Craig, I like the Belgian Harvard/Texan, very attractive colour schemes, I found an old IPMS magazine article , are you interested in it?

Thanks Wez, yes I would be interested in seeing the IPMS article mate.

[modelling minion]

I have been plodding away with this over the weekend and have definitely got something very Harvard shaped now, this is how she looked before I added the front and rear canopy (more on that later);

 

With all the flying surfaces fixed there was a fair amount of filling to do,especially around the tailplanes which were a terrible fit but witha lot of filler and an equal amount of sanding I ended up with this;

 

Not too bad.

The main wings actually fitted quite well and didn't need any filler, just a light sanding at the joints;

 

With this all done it was time to turn my attention to the canopy. After dipping it in Klear (and allowing it to dry) I started fitting the pre-cut masks that I have and found that both Eduard and Montex had obviously measured something other than an Italeri/Occidental canopy as some of the pieces bear no resemblance to the actual canopy at all, in particular the pieces for the upper sections and the rear fixed section so I ended up doing what I normally do and used Tamiya tape cut to size. Then it was time to fit the front and rear sections. The front section is a pretty good fit with only a small amount of filler needed in the area ringed in red below;

 

The rear canopy however is not a good fit, with gaps on both sides as again marked in red in the picture below;

 

Some careful filling with PPP required here.

This is by no means the worst clear fitting piece though, the covers for the landing lights are absolutely shocking being both too small and the wrong shape! I don't think they could be more wrong. I am in the process of trying to make some out of plastic sheet. One thing that also could do with a bit of improvement is the landing lights themselves, there aren't any. I decided to make my own using some clear sprue which was quite easy and worked quite well;

 

Not sure how long the covers will take me to make, or if I will be successful at all.

 

Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Looking good Craig. 

[modelling minion]

18 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Looking good Craig. 

Cheers Dennis, need to get these landing light covers sorted though before I can relax a bit.

[John Masters]

I am just now catching up on this Craig. I'm not the most attentive Moderator!  😀

 

This is looking very fine indeed!

[modelling minion]

Thanks John, and don't worry mate I know how busy you are.

[Wez]

On 08/05/2021 at 17:10, modelling minion said:

Thanks Wez, yes I would be interested in seeing the IPMS article mate.

 

All scanned in, PM me your e-mail address.

 

I must say you're making good progress Craig.

[modelling minion]

3 minutes ago, Wez said:

 

All scanned in, PM me your e-mail address.

 

I must say you're making good progress Craig.

Thanks Wez, much appreciated. Although the landing light covers are slowing things down considerably.

[John Masters]

Looks superb Craig.  It reminds me there is detail work I need to see to in another GB...

[modelling minion]

Thanks John, I have got the canopy pieces on (absolutely terrible fit) and given everything a coat of black primer, it looks like a Harvard nightfighter! I shall get some metallic paint on her over the next couple of days and then post some pictures.

[John Masters]

4 hours ago, modelling minion said:

I shall get some metallic paint on her over the next couple of days and then post some pictures.

Looking forward to it! 😃