Beaufighter Mark II, Fleet Air Arm, 1945

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Well, I suppose I oughta get back to that GB I joined...

Now that I have finally started painting the Bristol 138A after inexplicably losing motivation, I've decided to see if I can't squeak in a second build for my first GB. That brings me to here, the HPM Beaufighter Mark II, the Merlin Beaufighter. Originally I was planning to build a MK.V, but that's still in the post from Singapore, so this will have to do. It should be noted on the topic of the MK.V that the kit has recently received some upgrades, including new turret parts and seats. Chris at HPM is a pleasure to do business with.

 

Right then, the kit. The parts are fairly rough, as is to be expected from a 1990's short run kit. Or at least, they seem to be whilst on the sprues, The reality is that the detailing on most all parts is very nice, save for the wheels and perhaps the props, which are all separate blades. For some reason I bought resin props for a Defiant thinking they would fit on this just because it shares an engine type... (They don't!) Cockpit detail is generally sufficient, but I made some spurious changes, and then I scratched all of the rear seat area and added some framing and a tailwheel bay. I built the wrong type of engines for the Beau I am hoping to build, which will use decals provided by @DaveyGair. I'll have a pic of the scheme up in the next post. and the correct engines should arrive with the MK. V kit in about 2 weeks. Hopefully I can finish up the build in the 2 weeks following, prior to leaving for Uni, where I won't be able to make much progress.

So far, things look like this -

 

 

Note the replacement wheels in the second pic - meant for the Hasegawa kit I believe. They probably aren't the right type, but they're good enough for me.

More soon, as well as Consul and Bristol 138A updates,

Thanks all,

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