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Hubert Wilkins Vega 1, 1/72


thommo

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Got a book at Xmas about this famous Australian explorer who I'd never heard of, and on the cover was a pic of his plane.  Will make a diorama.  Ordered the Special Hobby kit & some WW2 winter troops to turn into Hubert & his mate.

 

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8 hours ago, thommo said:

Got a book at Xmas about this famous Australian explorer who I'd never heard of

Gidday Thommo, me too. He seems to have been quite a bloke. Have you started reading it yet? I'm up to his first Arctic trip. Regards, Jeff.

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An excellent project. The FitzSimons book is on my reading list but there are others. Wilkins is probably more well known in the US than in Australia.

For those unfamiliar with him the Wikipedia article has the bare bones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Wilkins

If your diorama is a success, you could make one with Ann Cherie.

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234935142-anare-c-47-dakota-conversion-for-italeri-kit-172-red-roo-models/

 

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13 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Thommo, me too. He seems to have been quite a bloke. Have you started reading it yet? I'm up to his first Arctic trip. Regards, Jeff.

 

Yes, have read a little, also up to where he is about to head off on his first arctic trip by boat. 

 

Amazed this bloke even made it into his 30's!  The near firing-squad execution in Turkey was bloody extreme.

 

What a man eh.  Just lived life at Mach 3 it seems, never wasted a moment.  I love reading about people like that, try to emulate it myself a bit esp. as the years are running down.  

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I may be a bigger kid than our kids ever were 😋

 

The 1/72 figures are amazing quality, didn't think they'd be that good.  Shame I have to butcher them to turn soldiers into crazy explorers.

 

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2 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Thommo, how far have you got with the book? Regards, Jeff.

 

I'm up to the bit where he is now a war photographer on the Western Front at Ypres in WW1 - which is where my wife's grandfather fought & has his eye shot and removed with no anaesthetic!

 

Her uncle had the bullet that took out his eye on a chain at home (because the grandfather dug the bullet out of a wooden post as a strange souvenir). Sadly, the uncles house was broken into and it was stolen.

 

My wife has visited the Western Front war areas/museums etc.  She brought me back a model WW1 tank at one of the museums.

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 Gidday, I'm about the same place. He saw and experienced some terrible things there. But also in some ways a strange code of honour. Those Germans in the trenches recognizing him for what he was, a photographer only and unarmed and hence (sometimes) not shooting at him out in No-man's Land.

     Your wife's grandfather must have been a tough one. I'm sorry to hear that the bullet was stolen. something that has no monetary value to anyone but great sentimental value to your family. My paternal grandfather had two brothers serve in the Middle East (Lebanon) in WW2, fighting the Vichy French. They were both unarmed stretcher-bearers. One was killed by shrapnel from British artillery I believe. The Australians got behind the enemy lines and the British didn't know it. Such is the tragedy of war. The surviving great uncle brought home a souvenir, a French naval almanac dated 1938 he took from the Vichy French headquarters in Beirut in August 1941. I still have it.

     I'm looking forward to seeing your model. Regards, Jeff.

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11 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

 Gidday, I'm about the same place. He saw and experienced some terrible things there. But also in some ways a strange code of honour. Those Germans in the trenches recognizing him for what he was, a photographer only and unarmed and hence (sometimes) not shooting at him out in No-man's Land.

     Your wife's grandfather must have been a tough one. I'm sorry to hear that the bullet was stolen. something that has no monetary value to anyone but great sentimental value to your family. My paternal grandfather had two brothers serve in the Middle East (Lebanon) in WW2, fighting the Vichy French. They were both unarmed stretcher-bearers. One was killed by shrapnel from British artillery I believe. The Australians got behind the enemy lines and the British didn't know it. Such is the tragedy of war. The surviving great uncle brought home a souvenir, a French naval almanac dated 1938 he took from the Vichy French headquarters in Beirut in August 1941. I still have it.

     I'm looking forward to seeing your model. Regards, Jeff.

 

Small world eh.  My father fought in WW2 (he was 40 when I was born) with the 2/5th artillery regiment in the Middle East, and also fought the Vichy French.  He was also used as an interpreter (as he'd taught himself French) interogating captured Vichy's.  He then was seconded to the Navy and ended up doing the gun plotting aboard the Shropshire in Solomons and PNG, as well as a stint with his 25lb field guns on PNG.

 

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My wife's father was also in WW2 in the Navy aboard the Warramunga.

 

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From my Dad's war diaries, we figured out their ships were moored alongside each other in the Solomons, they did not know each other, but decades later their son & daughter got married!

 

5 hours ago, billn53 said:

 I just bought this on Kindle, and plan to read it while traveling for business next week. 

 

It is a great read, but written in a different style to his other books.

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1 hour ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Thommo, 1/72 would make him about 1" tall? That's quite a neat job. Regards, Jeff.

Yup, pretty much exactly 1 inch. Had to turn the German helmet into a leather flying cap & add the furry coat collar with Tamiya 2 part epoxy putty.

 

I'm going to do it as a combo of these 2 pics with Hubert standing in the cockpit and his mate standing by the plane. 

 

His mate is all epoxyed up and drying as we speak.  It was a matter of carving various pieces of the German Soldier models and sticking them back together in different positions.  And making him a cap and furry coat.

 

Oh, and 1/72 scale ears and eyebrows!

 

Still a few minor details to add to each (buttons, belts).

 

And fitting Hubert in the top cockpit opening will be touch & go.

 

 

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17 hours ago, billn53 said:


The lads are looking very spiffy… all they need now, is an airplane! :pilot:

 

Work on the plane has commenced.  Some mods needed.  Bulges sanded off, 3 of the 5 windows on each side need blanking out & an extra low-level window added on each side.  Also a small hole cut for the main ski strut location.

 

This kit has virtually no locating pins for the main pieces.  Locating the wing seems a bit challenging after a test fit.  The cockpit needs to be in place to get a proper location as the wall which the seat attaches to determines the forward fit of the wing.  But all the mods need to be done first.  Cutting new windows in a nice shiny fuselage is daunting as always.

 

I also cut the top off the canopy, and in the process managed to crack the front windscreen pretty much down the middle, so my solution was to cut it in half, and do the sand & polish thing till the crack disappeared - which other forums said was impossible, but I seem to have achieved it.  Luckily the crack was mostly down the centre frame line.  I may need to build my own centre frame to make it all work.

 

Once primed, it appears the lads need a little putty here & there too and some eyebrow work.

 

13 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Thommo, I didn't know Hubert was into karate - black belt I see. 😁 Seriously, they're very good. Regards, Jeff.

 

There is nothing Hubert couldn't do it seems!

 

Interestingly, in all the pics he seems to have a torn and crinkled old map stuffed down the front of that belt which I've re-created with Tamiya tape.

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Some fuselage modifications.  Huberts plane was a bit different to Amelia's.  The trickiest but still to come - replacing the big fat engine cowling with the pointy shape his plane had.  Will need to scratch build the area between prop and engine cylinders.

 

The kit also had 2 big fuselage bulges on each side which were deleted as Huberts plant lacks these.  One was a sort of cowling over the main landing gear strut where it joined the fuselage.  Huberts just had a slot.  I'm guessing this changed when he put skis/floats on his plane.

 

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Much dry-fitting is needed with the cockpit of this kit.  If you glue the front bulkhead which holds the IP on top of the floor as depicted in the instructions, it will be too high to fit in the fuselage.  It needs to be located on the end of the floor as shown in my pic, so it is about 1mm lower.

 

I used a Mig dark brown wash, which removed much of the grey paint when I tried to reduce it with a cotton bud.  But this gave the cockpit a sort of battered look, so I hit it again lightly with the grey (decanted Tamiya primer) and left it looking a rough and worn.....as I figured Huberts plane would be messy inside!

 

To blank out the windows, I just used the kit transparencies.  One was lost to the carpet monster, so I cut another from styrene.  Then liberal doses of Tamyia putty.  And Tamyia tape over the remaining windows so as to preserve the raised seals around them during sanding.

 

Have not decided yet if I'll do the remaining windows using the kit transparencies & some cut from clear packaging, or try my luck making windows from clear window cement.  The cement is good for small windows, but will these prove too big?  And they'd have to be done last as it can't be masked.

 

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On 2/9/2022 at 5:12 PM, thommo said:

… The trickiest but still to come - replacing the big fat engine cowling with the pointy shape his plane had.  Will need to scratch build the area between prop and engine cylinders.

 

 


That was the first thing I noticed when I saw the photo at the top of this thread. I’ll be very interested to see how you tackle this, as I’d like to duplicate your work with a build of my own 😊

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On 2/12/2022 at 9:40 AM, billn53 said:


That was the first thing I noticed when I saw the photo at the top of this thread. I’ll be very interested to see how you tackle this, as I’d like to duplicate your work with a build of my own 😊

 

Here is some progress on this issue.  I found a 1/48 prop spinner in my spares box which fitted pretty well, then got cutting and sanding.

 

I've also decided that to do it justice, I need to beef up the detail on the engine cylinders, so will add there also.

 

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