The request line is open! 1/72 Airfix Typhoon

[opus999]

Sorry for the click-bait-y title, but this is a build that my dad has been teasing me about starting for a couple of months now.  He really wants to see it made, so I've finally gotten it out of the stash!

 

 

I usually shy away from shark mouth aircraft (except for the Flying Tigers) because they're everywhere, but this one really appealed to me because it is so different.  What really sealed the deal for me was watching @The Spadgent's build of this same kit.  When he finished, I gave in and bought one myself.  I showed it to my dad, who was so taken by it that he found the box art and made that his computer desktop wallpaper!  

 

I've built the Airfiix Typhoon before, doing Basil Stapleton's mount.  The last time, there was a step where the wing met the fuselage, and I elected not to fix it.  This time I am trying to figure out how to fix it.  I did some dry-fitting and have an idea of where to sand to get the step to disappear.

 

 

Today I was able to paint all of the cockpit pieces and get the IP decal on.  The last time I built this kit, I worked really hard to make the cockpit a masterpiece only to find that I can't see it when it's all buttoned up -- even with a flashlight.  I found that the only detail I can really see are the colors.  So, I painted the cockpit pieces and didn't really do any wear or anything like that.  I don't have pictures to post yet because my camera battery is dead.

[opus999]

Decisions, decisions...

 

Airfix's painting instructions for the radiator baffled me.  They show a blue circle in the middle of the radiator, but it is shown as a solid circle, while the center part is hollow and has spokes. Hmm.  Further research revealed that the solid circle is supposed to be "Cuckoo doors", which is a type of air filter.  Conveniently, Airfix provided painting instructions, but not parts. 🙄  Most folks leave it off, some have made their own.   I found a lot of black and white photos of the aircraft and it evidently had these cuckoo doors at one point, but someone has stated that the post-war version of this aircraft (which apparently this is because it has the checkerboard stripe) didn't have the cuckoo doors.  But I don't know what their source is. 

 

So, I don't know what to do about that.

 

Then, there is the issue of the shark mouth.  The black and white photos seem to show a solid color in the mouth and many folks paint that red.  Others leave it camo colors inside.  It seems that many people have examined photos and the results are inconclusive.  While a red mouth would be dramatic, I was really taken by the box art so I think I will paint the inside of the mouth the dark green of the camo.

 

Finally, I really wanted to put bombs on it and even glued the bombs together.  I just wanted something different from my other Typhoon.  However, all the photos I found of MP197 show it with empty rocket rails.  So, I guess I'll put the empty rails on.

 

Does anyone have any evidence or thoughts about these issues?  Especially the "Cuckoo doors"?

[opus999]

Looks like Brengun makes a air filter photo etch set, so I ordered one.  Unfortunately it won't get here until next Tuesday, so I think I'm dead in the water until then.  Rats.  Off to a great start and then "scrreeech!" to a halt.  Oh well... watch this space!

[Whistlekiller]

I’ve recently completed this exact same version of the Airfix 1:72nd kit and I was very pleased with the results (It’s on a RFI somewhere here dated December 2021). Very well manufactured and easy to put together IMHO and nicely captures the brutal appearance of a Typhoon. 😀

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Opus, this will be a cool build--FWIW, here is my build and research on Stapleton's mount.  I too used the Bergun set, if memory serves me correct, I discuss their use in the threads below--I do remember the rocket fins took some time.

 

Great books that might be of help are @Chris Thomas's Typhoon Wings of the 2nd Tactical Air Force and the Valiant Wings book (if you dont have them already).  I am far from a Chris Thomas level expert when it comes to the Typhoon, but I think that the use of the Cuckoo Doors was very much dependent on availability & they were frequently not used in the winter of 44/45--please see Chris's comments in my research blog.  Anyway, I have no doubt you will set another bar for all of us to reach for with your build--I look forward to your Sharkmouth Typhoon build!  Best Erwin

Edited January 10, 2022 by VT Red Sox Fan
link

[mark.au]

I'll enjoy following along on this one.  I really must get around to making a Typhoon of my own.  

 

[opus999]

On 1/9/2022 at 7:05 PM, VT Red Sox Fan said:

Opus, this will be a cool build--FWIW, here is my build and research on Stapleton's mount.  I too used the Bergun set, if memory serves me correct, I discuss their use in the threads below--I do remember the rocket fins took some time.

Thanks for the links Erwin!  I remember your build of Stapleton's aircraft.  The Brengun set I ordered is only the air filter for the radiator and the cuckoo doors.

 

On 1/9/2022 at 7:05 PM, VT Red Sox Fan said:

I think that the use of the Cuckoo Doors was very much dependent on availability & they were frequently not used in the winter of 44/45

I found the same in my research.  I went ahead with the Cuckoo doors because I found 3 different pictures of MP197 with them clearly visible.   Knowing my luck the 3 pictures were taken on the same day, but at least I know it had them at some point!  The difficulty I had was determining if pictures were during the war or post-war.  As I understand it, the checkerboard band behind the squadron codes was a post war marking applied when it was stationed in Germany.  But many of the pictures of the radiator intake were either close up, or at an angle where I couldn't see if it had the checkerboard stripe or not.  So it's a bit of an educated guess...  

 

On 1/10/2022 at 2:31 AM, mark.au said:

I'll enjoy following along on this one.  I really must get around to making a Typhoon of my own.  

 

Thanks Mark!  I'd love to see you do a Typhoon.  They have a sort of burly beauty all their own!

[The Spadgent]

Excellent start. I can’t remember what I did on my build concerning the cuckoo doors. I’ll have a check but I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything special as she was an OOTB build. Lovely little kit mind. 
 

I’ll tag along if that’s ok. 
 

Johnny

[opus999]

18 minutes ago, The Spadgent said:

Excellent start. I can’t remember what I did on my build concerning the cuckoo doors. I’ll have a check but I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything special as she was an OOTB build. Lovely little kit mind. 
 

I’ll tag along if that’s ok. 
 

Johnny

Hey Johnny!  Glad to have you along sir!  I really love what you did with your Typhoon and I remember it was such a great kit when I built it 4 or 5 years ago.

 

While I'm waiting for the Cuckoo doors, I started a new build.  It's the strip-down and rebuild of my P-51B from middle school.  If I recall right, when I built Shangri-La last year and mentioned that the old Shangri-La was going to get stripped you said that seemed a bit sad since it was a build from my childhood still in good shape.  I ultimately decided to rebuild it because, if we're talking nostalgia, I still have the very first glue-together model I made when I was 8 (a Revell 1/72 Stuka tank buster)!  It's hanging in my son's room and still has all the parts.  If you're interested the P-51 is here.

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Looking forward to how you move forward with this project—given the dynamics of the Typhoon’s operational environment, I don’t think you can really go wrong—better yet, I know you will make it right😎 best, Erwin 

[opus999]

As I suspected, once I went back to the office, my time at the bench has dwindled severely, so not a lot of progress has been made until this weekend.  First, I put the "cuckoo door" assembly together, since that needed to be inserted into the air intake before the two halves of the fuselage were glued together. The whole thing was three pieces, the mesh, with the 3 vertical supports on top, and finally the doors.

 

 

The actual cuckoo doors themselves are the blue circle, and yes, they are a little off center in this picture, but I fixed them after this picture.  For all the good it did me. 😕  

 

See... the cuckoo doors are aptly named.  I just about went cuckoo trying to get these things in the intake and glued.  The sides of the filter had little tabs and the really vague instructions showed (well... implied, really) that you were supposed to glue the tab to the side of the inside of the intake and then put the two fuselage halves together.  I could not keep that tin little tab stuck on!  Plus the whole assembly came apart at least twice.  Finally, I stopped and took a hard look at the problem (which I should've done in the first place instead of trying to rely on those instructions).  I realized all I had to do was put some Micro Krystal Klear on the silver circular part of the radiator and glue the mesh directly to that.  Since the Krystal Klear has quite a bit of working time, that would allow me to glue the rest of the fuselage in place and move the mesh part around so that it is centered, etc.  I realized that the mesh is set farther back from the opening than the pictures I found show, but hey, it was either that or my sanity and I'm quite fond of my sanity.

 

 

You'll notice the bare patch where the doors came off.  I'll leave them off until the very end.

 

After that excitement I was very diligent in gluing the tops of the landing gear bays so that the were firmly connected to the wingroot part of the fuselage.  I'm pretty sure this caused my step on the other Typhoon I made. If there isn't a bond at that seam, the aft parts of the landing gear bays want to naturally hang down a bit, and the gap created would result in a step where the top of the wing meets the fuselage.

 

 

After that I painted the landing gear bays

 

 

Saturday, I worked on putting the wings together.  Again, I was really careful to make sure that all the joins were glued properly and in place.  When I was done I was rewarded with no step on the starboard side, and a barely perceptible step on the port.  There were some decent sized gaps in the wings, so I used putty to fill those and then used Mr. levelling thinner to smooth them out.  Which explains the missing paint by the wing root:

 

 

Today was painting.  I'd hoped to get at least two colors on, but only got one.  I used the same worn paint technique that I've used on my olive drab aircraft.  First I used a base of black Mr. Surfacer 1500.  All my putty work looked good, so I proceeded to paint.  I used my stencils and painted the Hataka RAF dark green.  That was followed by stenciled olive drab, the russian radome green in random spots and then Dark earth for sun faded areas.  All of that resulted in this mess:

 

 

 

 

Then I carefully sprayed on a dilute mixture of the Hataka RAF dark green as an over coat, being careful not to overdo it and wipe out my base coats, but not put enough on and ruin any realism.  I think it turned out nicely, but it may not be evident in the pictures.

 

 

 

 

Next, I will mask the camo and apply the topside gray.  I think the marbling will include intermediate blue, a light gray blue and maybe a light gray, or maybe a tan.  I don't know if I will get any time to work on it before next weekend, though.

[mark.au]

Looks great!  That marbling with the greens looked fantastic in its own right!  I’d have been tempted to leave it at that and call it experimental Swedish camouflage!

[opus999]

On 1/23/2022 at 5:41 PM, mark.au said:

Looks great!  That marbling with the greens looked fantastic in its own right!  I’d have been tempted to leave it at that and call it experimental Swedish camouflage!

Yeah, that definitely would look good on a Viggen!   

[opus999]

Monday night I had a little time to mask, and Tuesday night I put the Ocean gray on.  I still struggle with tone under gray colors.  I think I have greens worked out, but not grays  Here's what I had after marbleing:

 

 

And after the masking was removed 

 

 

 

A bit washed out in the photos, but it's acceptable.  

 

Tonight I was able to get the Medium Sea Gray on.

 

 

Again a little washed out.  I'm anxious to get those decals on, so hopefully I can get enough gloss coats on tomorrow!

[KingTiger435]

That Tiffy is looking fantastic! I have one on my WIP purgatory shelf (no motivation to work on it) but yours might just inspire me to finish it... Looking forward to seeing yours finished.

Edited January 27, 2022 by KingTiger435

[opus999]

14 hours ago, KingTiger435 said:

That Tiffy is looking fantastic! I have one on my WIP purgatory shelf (no motivation to work on it) but yours might just inspire me to finish it... Looking forward to seeing yours finished.

Thanks!  I'm pretty happy with it so far.  Hopefully I can encourage you to dig your Tiffy out --- there can't be too many Typhoons!  

[opus999]

I put 3 coats of Aqua Gloss on the Tiffy today in preparation for decals.  While I'm waiting for that to cure I got to paint the silver and blue bits.  The silver was Tamiya TS-30 silver leaf and was applied to the usual suspects:  Gears, wheels and gear doors.  The Blue was for the spinner and the insides of the gear doors.  Airfix called out a humbrol color, but I instead chose Mr. Color's Azure Blue.  My reasoning is that Mr. Color Azure Blue best matches the checkerboard stripe decal that will go on the fuselage.  The pictures I've found of this aircraft are black and white, but the spinner and the checkerboard seem to look the same.  Plus, I figure the ground crew would use standard paint colors and wouldn't go through the trouble of trying to get a different blue for the spinner!  I don't know if I'm right, but it seems logical.

 

Unfortunately my camera didn't really capture the very slight lavender tinge of the azure blue.  But it is a very, very close match to the decals so I'm happy.

 

 

 

Looks like I can do decals tomorrow and maybe assemble the landing gears.

[mark.au]

I like your logic in the choice of blue, that’s exactly the thought process I’d have engaged, as well as the result.

[The Spadgent]

Dang!!! She’s looking great. Sorry for the lack of reply on my half. I ( once again ) somehow didn’t press the “follow” button. 😮 now it’s pressed. The mottles worked out really well for you. Looking forward to decals. Bravo. 🤛

 

Johnny

[opus999]

I was able to get about half the decals on so far today.  There are quite a few more stencils than I remember, so I have a ways to go.  Still, I got the shark mouth and the checkerboard band squared away, and that's what I was most anxious about.  The shark mouth was actually very easy and a couple careful applications of Mr. Mark Softer and it conformed beautifully.  The checkerboard band tested me sorely.  It is 4 pieces and the serial number goes between the top and bottom sets of two.  I studied the drawing carefully and decided to start with the serial number.  Well, the way Airfix shows the serial number, the bands over lapped on the top.  So I had to get all the decals wet and loose again and re-adjust everything.  It all worked out for the best, but it was a little vexing.

 

Here's where I'm at.  The Squadron codes look cattywampus, but that is how they are supposed to be.  They are lined up with the bottom most panel line.  

 

 

 

And cue Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" here:

 

 

"I'm comin' to get ya!" 🤣

 

I was pondering the weathering and wear and it occurred to me that since this is a post war (although only shortly post war) aircraft... how dirty would it really be?  The pictures I've found aren't clear or close enough to be much help.  Since it was August 1945 in Germany, and they weren't in combat operations, did the ground crew clean these birds up a bit and patch some of the chips, etc.?

 

I don't know if anyone knows for sure, but I'd welcome some conversation about it.  

[AdrianMF]

I would have imagined that spit and polish set in pretty quickly after VE Day. I asked a similar question when I did the Airfix Spit F24 a while back and got told “no grime”. 

 

Your Typhoon is looking immaculate - good result with the shark mouth decal!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[mark.au]

I agree with Adrian on the cleanliness, post war little to no weathering.  There are plenty of anecdotes on pilots’ boredom in occupation duty, not much flying and reimposition of busy-work.

 

The model looks splendid!  I also enjoyed the use of the word vexing, a much underrated word in modelling parlance!

[Andwil]

7 hours ago, mark.au said:

The model looks splendid!  I also enjoyed the use of the word vexing, a much underrated word in modelling parlance!

Almost as good as “cattywampus”😄

[The Spadgent]

Looking good. You have done a great job on those decals. But where has the front cockpit glazing  gone? 😲 Johnny.

[opus999]

19 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

I would have imagined that spit and polish set in pretty quickly after VE Day. I asked a similar question when I did the Airfix Spit F24 a while back and got told “no grime”. 

 

Your Typhoon is looking immaculate - good result with the shark mouth decal!

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

18 hours ago, mark.au said:

I agree with Adrian on the cleanliness, post war little to no weathering.  There are plenty of anecdotes on pilots’ boredom in occupation duty, not much flying and reimposition of busy-work.

I agree with you guys.  I was already tending toward a clean finish, and the extra input really helps.  I think the worn paint effect I've already employed is still appropriate, as I doubt they would've bothered to repaint all of their aircraft as long as they looked decent.  Besides there's not much I can do about it now!   That's my story... and I'm sticking to it!

 

19 hours ago, mark.au said:

The model looks splendid!  I also enjoyed the use of the word vexing, a much underrated word in modelling parlance!

 

11 hours ago, Andwil said:

Almost as good as “cattywampus”😄

I was going to reply to Mark that "cattywampus" was another underrated word, but you beat me to it!  Cattywampus is one of my favorite words I got from my boss at my first job out of college.  He was full of weird words and sayings, many of which made no sense, but they were hilarious and I found I still use a lot of them today.  

 

9 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Looking good. You have done a great job on those decals. But where has the front cockpit glazing  gone? 😲 Johnny.

Ah... good eye, Johnny! Fear not, the canopy pieces are safe and sound -- I only set them on the aircraft for the pictures and then tucked them away for later.  I still have to dull coat the area right behind the headrest first, then they'll get attached for good.