Another Restoration- This Time, An Airfix 1/72 A.W Sea Hawk

[Brigbeale]

This first post is to introduce you to an old Sea Hawk, in plain white plastic with its decals applied, which was purchased a fair while ago and took up residence on the to-be-restored shelf. I think it was another 99p purchase.

Ive almost started it a couple of times but decided on another project instead.

It’s now time to put the Sea Hawk under the spotlight and restore it.

 

It was pretty much complete - only having the nose gear and tail hook missing. One main gear was snapped off but the other was present mainly due to the overly thick wheel bay doors supporting it.

 

I bought some original decals for it but I saw an image of XE368 with yellow and black recognition stripes and thought “Ooooh - I like that!”

I found two images of this Sea Hawk- one on display and the other - looking in need of some TLC. I’m not sure which one is the most current image though.

I also spotted it on a YouTube video where a man and his mates buy and fix military vehicles. XE368 appears minus her wings and with the nose/cockpit under a tarpaulin. 

 

[Brigbeale]

The model was put in the freezer to aid disassembly. All that aided in was removing the rudder assembly and parting the top and bottom of the fuselage seams. The fuel tanks and bombs came off as well - almost complete,

The fuselage separated after removing the canopy and rear stabiliser assembly. The pilot and his seat came out as well.
I had to resort to using a saw to cut through the wing to fuselage joints as they were well glued on there!

The wings were then separated from the wing root/intake housing as they’d been set at the wrong angle.

The fuel tank and bomb pylons were removed as I’d prefer this one to have the clean uncluttered look.

 

The outer wings were rescribed and sanded to remove excess glue and raised panel lines. I also found ejector pin marks on the outer surface - Thanks Airfix!!. The raised ones were sanded back and the recessed ones will need filling. 
That led to the wing tip lights being cut out, a suitable piece of clear sprue filed, drilled, the holes painted red and green accordingly and fitted to the wings.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Brigbeale

[ColinChipmunkfan]

Hi Brian, love to see the way you do your magic on the most unlikely candidates.  Following this !!

Colin

[bigbadbadge]

Wicked, good to see one of the prettiest and graceful FAA Jets is going through your restoration process. Looking forward to this one.

Chris

[Brigbeale]

I did more re-scribing this evening - this time on the port fuselage half replacing all of the raised panel lines.

I used the car body tape my son bought me from Halfords and used a straight edge to cut thinner strips to cut down on the wastage. My pin vice was used to scribe the lines as the Tamiya Scriber II would be too heavy. 
I wanted to keep the vents on top behind the cockpit and (I presume) cover the Neme engine. They weren’t that well laid out in raised detail so I carefully re-designed them while scribing them. I’d like to remove the lower edges to denote the vents better which will require thinning down a blade - which should be fun in itself.

Re-scribing that side alone took about an hour and a half.
I’m  looking forward to doing the other side tomorrow - NOT!😆 but it’s got to be done.

 

Now that the wingtip lights had a day to dry, it was time to clip off the excess sprue and file them back to the rough shape. Using a cheap nail sanding block, I gradually sanded them back to blend them in and then shine them using the finer grades. They turned out quite well.

 

I also printed off a set of Airfix’s complex instructions - you know - just in case!!

Edited January 26, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

Tonight it was the other side of the fuselage which had to be re-scribed. 
But first, the decal removal by means of sellotape pressed on and lifted off. The decal came with it. I’ve found this only works when a setting solution has not been used. These were also a lot easier as the Sea Hawk hadn’t been painted.

 

Then on to the re-scribing. I fitted the two fuselage halves together to align the panel lines better and alleviate any misalignment.

Some excess glue was scraped and sanded from under the wing area

The re-scribing again took about an hour and a half - I thought it would have been a bit quicker though.

As before stops of tape were stuck to the fuselage as a guide for the pin vice.

 

Then it was on to the stabilisers for re-scribing - and sand down the ejector pin marks on the surface and sand the edges where the moulds probably weren’t fully aligned.

 

I also 3D printed another ejection seat as the original is little more than a shaped piece of flat plastic. Why did Airfix lean the seats back in their models? - the old E.E. Lightning is the same. 
The plan is to make a cockpit tub for the seat to - sit in!?

Not sure of how I’m going to do it at the moment, but I’ll mull it over.

 

[Brigbeale]

I kind of figured a rough plan to make the cockpit tub and had a go at it this evening. 
First I had to work out the internal height and width of the fuselage and I found it was slightly wider than it was tall by approx 1 - 1.5mm. 
Designing the front and rear walls was relatively easy which left the initial idea of simply adding a floor between them. As the design progressed, I figured I could use a trick called ‘loft’ where two entities are selected (in this case the sketch for the front and rear walls of the cockpit) and the loft fills the shape (again in this case, a cone with the tip cut off). Then the tub section was cut out using an extrude and remove mix. For some reason, I couldn’t get the two side panels to set at a different height to the floor, so I’ll just make two separate pieces and glue them in. The initial part was 3D printed, but it’s a fraction too wide at the rear and it won’t allow the fuselage halves to close properly, so I adjusted the sizes in the slicer program. I’ll print that tomorrow ready for work in the evening.

 

I fitted the port inner wing/intake housing back together and 3D printed the air intakes. they will be trial fitted tomorrow evening as well to see if any adjustments are needed.

 

I decided now would be as good a time as any to drill the 4 cannon ports. They were marked up and drilled at right angles. The drill was then angled towards the nose to get the taper on the ports - two 1mm drills gave their lives in this little escapade. They’re cheap enough to replace though.

 

There are a number of sink marks/glue shrinkages and other imperfections on the fuselage so they were filled with Mr Surfacer 1000. they will be sanded back tomorrow as well.

 

The last thing I did last night was to dip the canopy in Humbrol Gloss Cote to improve the look of it. It was put I under a cover to prevent any dust getting on it. This morning I moved it to a different place for safe keeping. The only flaw in that plan was somebody went to fiddle with something near it and knocked it down the back of the unit. Nobody knows anything about it though! AnywayI retrieved it and put it in a bag in the tray where the rest of the parts are kept - which in turn is on the bottom of the display cabinet.

The fuselage halves scribed, gun ports drilled and sink marks filled with Mr Surfacer and the prototype cockpit tub

 

The fuselage halves together with the tub fitted.

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Brigbeale

[bigbadbadge]

This has come on well Brian , rescribing the white plastic is fun isn't it 😀 

Great job printing the cockpit tub.

Chris

[Lord Riot]

Great project, very interesting and much better than just throwing old knackered kits in the bin like I used to! 
 

It’s coming along superbly, I have a feeling it’ll look like it was a brand new Tamiya kit by the time you’ve finished! 

[Brigbeale]

The cockpit tub 2 was 3D printed and it fits much better allowing the two halves of the fuselage to close up at the front.

 

I would have done it earlier today, but I was busy with my other stepson’s 2011 Ford Focus replacing both front road-springs as both had snapped. He’s only had the car for a week and judging by the rust on the broken ends, they’ve been like it for longer than that. I have to admit though, it was quite an enjoyable job to do.
 

I had to also reprint a shorter ejection seat as the original was slightly too tall. The good thing about the slicing program (Cura) is that I can change the dimension of the part in one, two or all three directions.

While they were printing, I sanded back the Mr Surfacer which was filling the sink marks.

 

The cockpit parts were dry fitted in (well almost - a blob of white-tac is helping to hold them in position).
The canopy was test fitted on to see if the seat clears and it does. The cockpit needs a slither of styrene card adding at the back, as there’s a gap when the front of the  canopy is positioned where it should be. Otherwise, it fits well.

 

The air intakes were fitted. I opted to just fit them to the front of the opening as the internal shape is almost impossible to copy. I might see if I can alter the design to add some material to bring the frame forward thus recessing the fins. Otherwise, they fit ok just needing a littler filling at the smaller end.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Brigbeale

[bigbadbadge]

Great work, this is coming on really well Brian and looking good.

Chris

 

[Brigbeale]

On 28/01/2022 at 22:09, bigbadbadge said:

This has come on well Brian , rescribing the white plastic is fun isn't it 😀 

Great job printing the cockpit tub.

Chris

It was either white plastic blindness or snow blindness. as we haven’t had much snow…………….

It was helped a little by the plastic being yellowed a bit, but not by much though.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

I 3D printed the side consoles for the cockpit - just two simple blocks to fit in with sprue goo. The interior was then painted matt black

The ejection seat was cleaned up a little and given a coat of matt black paint on the sides, back and top. The seat back and base were given a coat of olive green to denote the cushioning. I also dry brushed grey on the edges of the seat and the cockpit - the brush wasn’t dry enough and it went on a bit heavy on the top of the seat. A colour change will fix it. 
 

Two redesigned replacement air intakes were also 3D printed. The old ones were stuck in better than I thought and, despite a pre-coat of Mr Cement S to loosen the parts, a small section still broke off the lower wing on both sides. I removed them with a knife and reattached them where they belonged. They were given a liberal coat of Mr Surfacer to help fill the gaps, although more coats will be needed.

 

I’ve also been trying to work out how much nose weight will be required. The later instructions say 5 grams whereas the east liver ones do not mention any nose weight at all. I just cram as much as I can in and add some extra behind the cockpit tub to make sure.

 

[Gondor44]

How are you planning to tackle the see through wing roots?

 

Gondor

[Brigbeale]

27 minutes ago, Gondor44 said:

How are you planning to tackle the see through wing roots?

 

Gondor

The air intakes are blanked off at the back. The exhausts will have some sort of tube fitted and the wheel bays may have styrene card walls fitted

[Gondor44]

1 minute ago, Brigbeale said:

The air intakes are blanked off at the back. The exhausts will have some sort of tube fitted and the wheel bays may have styrene card walls fitted

 

Great 👍

 

Gondor

[Brigbeale]

Tonight, I found a few images of a Sea Hawk cockpit which showed I’d painted the back and base the wrong colour.  The seat itself appears to be painted aluminium and the  with what appears to be a pack which I presume is the parachute. This is a buff colour, so I repainted the seat. The seat belts are blue, so I simply painted a strip of Tamiya tape and using a silver pen, added buckles to the ends. Thinner strips were cut and applied to the seat. 
I remembered that the Lynx only used one control column (joystick) so the spare one was put in the Sea Hawk cockpit (where else would it go???). 
The ejection seat was then sprue goo’d in position.

 

I filled the nose with as much string type curtain weights as I could get in there and fixed them in position with white tac.

The cockpit tub was then sprue-goo’d in position and the other half of the fuselage was offered up to make sure the cockpit was in the right position and also to ensure the nose section closed up - which it did. 
The two fuselage halves were then fitted together using Mr Cement S doing a section as a time using a flat edge to make sure the two halves were equal in height.

 

While that was setting up, the air intakes were sanded back where the Mr Surfacer was painted on. They required another coat, so that was painted on.

 

The centre seam seemed dry enough, so more Mr Surfacer was added all the way around the seam for sanding back tomorrow to, hopefully, eradicate the seam line where the two fuselage halves meet. Any filled in panel lines can easily be re-scribed.

 

At this point, I did a test to ensure there was enough weight to ensure it wouldn’t be a tail sitter. I think I’ve got it right.
Also pictured are the weights I used. they usually come in a woven sleeve, but I removed them. I can either use them in a string as they are or cut them individually.

[Back in the Saddle]

Great work on this old kit - it will look stunning when it’s finished. This is the first restoration thread I’ve ever bothered to read, it won’t be my last…👍

[Brandy]

Impressive work so far!

I've always had a soft spot for this aircraft, and this kit, having built a couple in my youth.

 

Ian

[Hook]

Very nice! The fit of this one really shows it as a child of its time, I have used half a tube of putty on mine. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre 

[bigbadbadge]

Excellent progress Brian. This is coming on very well.  I hope SWMBO doesn't  notice that her sleeve doesn't hang down the same as it did before you nicked the weights!!!

Great work 

Chris

[Brigbeale]

Although I did do some more work on the Sea Hawk last night, it was just sanding theMr Surfacer on the seams and as such, wasn’t really worth writing about.

 

This morning, though, I decided to fit the inner wing assemblies using sprue goo to grip and fill the parts together (That’s a good idea for a name for an adhesive - I might patent that!😆😆😆).

 

This evening, the first thing to do was mask around the wing seams to contain the spread of the Revell Plasto filler. The tape was removed immediately afterwards and the filler was left to set.

While that was setting, I added a piece of nylon thread to the ejection seat top box to represent the emergency pull handle by drilling two 0.6mm angled holes and supergluing it in position. It was then painted red. The top box was given a coat of paint to cover the drilled holes and the superglue. The nylon is quite fine and may not show up that well once the canopy is on but at least I tried….. The cockpit surround was also painted with Revell Anthracite as I felt full on black would be too stark.

 

I then set about masking up the cockpit canopy itself. The frame lines are just visible and I had to use a light behind the canopy to line the thin strips of Tamiya tape up with them. Once the outlines were done, small squares were used to fill in the clear sections to leave just the frames visible.

 

The filler appeared to be set so it was sanded back with a piece of sandpaper stuck to a lolly stick as it was a hard flat surface. The front of the wings near the intakes need a little more attention but they’re getting there.

 

The exhausts were poorly shaped but a small round file was just the right size to sort that out. As the intakes now block the hollow wings, they don’t really need the application of a small tube in them. Once they’re painted, they’ll be fine.

 

Tha cockpit canopy was fitted into position with Humbrol Clearfix after some minor fettling to help with the fitment. 

 

A small section of the top seam appears to refuse to fill properly with Mr Surfacer so another application was called for in that area. A sink mark appeared on the starboard side of the cockpit where the sprue goo held the cockpit tub was glued into position. A liberal coat of Mr Surfacer was applied  in that area as well.

 

 

[Brigbeale]

Oh - on another note completely, i’ve just won another patient en eBay. It started off at £1, so I put a £3 bid in and thought ‘What the heck!’

I had a message tonight saying I’d won’t for £1 + p&p. So the total is £5 in all.

It’s mostly there, but a main gear wheel and one propeller are missing and the other propeller has one blade broken off. There’s a few loose parts as well. 
 

[Brigbeale]

Tonight’s escapade saw me more or less returning the Sea hawk to where it started - if the previous posts hadn’t been read it would be mistaken as nothing much had been done!

 

That troublesome seam between the vents above the engine housing was finally filled and sanded to get rid of that line that kept coming back.

The starboard cockpit side where the Mr Surfacer was added was also sanded back to a uniform surface.

 

I tried the port outer wing up to the inner wing and thought it was just a good a time as any to fit it. Out with the sprue goo again (I must make som more as it’s getting a bit thick), and smear the mating surface. It fitted quite well and after 10 minutes or so, it was able to support it’s own weight. 
The starboard one was a little more problematic as it didn’t bond as well and kept sagging after a few seconds - maybe too much sprue goo on this side.

I sat it on the stand and pushed the support to the rear meaning the front ‘finger’ raised up and held the wing while the sprue goo set. after 20 minutes, it was firm enough to hold the weight of the outer wing without any sagging.

 

The stabilisers and rudder were also fitted - again with sprue goo. after 10 minutes they had set enough as well. 
 

While the sprue goo was setting at the various stages, i busied myself making thinner wheel bay doors from 0.5mm styrene card. The originals are approaching 2mm thick - way too much in this scale. 
 

I need to 3D print all of the replacement landing gear as the nose wheel was missing and the other two are now broken off.

 

Mr Surfacer was painted over the newly glued seams to fill some unwanted gaps.

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Brigbeale

[opus999]

Finally got caught up on this.  It's always fun to watch these take shape, and this is no exception.  it was probably nice to not have to remove paint (although you seem to have that to a science).