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A Restored Early Airfix Sea Hawk


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I purchased this one along with a Sea Vixen and another couple of models which needed some ‘TLC’.

The grand total for this model - 99p with the postage!

 

It came in the bare white plastic with the decals fitted. It had the fuel tanks and bombs fitted, but the nose gear and tail hook were missing. One main gear was attached and the other broken off. apart from that, it was in good condition considering it’s probable age.
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The WIP is here

 

 

It was taken apart in my both by usual fashion and with a new saw I bought for this purpose- only, I had no problem removing the paint as there wasn’t any!!

A cockpit tub was 3d printed as well as a replacement ejection seat to replace the original ‘bent plastic’ offering. The pilot was also relieved of his duties and he’s now enjoying his retirement somewhere in my spares box with some other pilots from other sources.

All of the raised panel lines were removed and replacements were scribed to make them recessed panel lines.

The Sea Hawk was gradually rebuilt with air intakes 3D printed (not the best I’ve done as they’re a bit small). 
 

I decided the paint scheme would have the yellow and black recognition stripes on the fuselage and wings (much to ‘SWMBO’s disgust as she hates yellow). I found an image of XE368 on display next to a Scimitar. I also saw it in a more recent YouTube video looking in bit of a sorry for itself, but at least it still exists.

 

Once the airframe was rebuilt , I painted the bottom Tamiya Sky (which some white to lighten it up a bit) and the upper surfaces Tamiya IJN Grey (EDSG is too dark in this scale).

Then the fun of painting the stripes commenced and it turned out better than expected. 
I made all of the decals myself by pinching images from the inter web and finding a similar font for the numbering in the aircraft in the photo (it was later pointed out in the WIP that the font was wrong for FAA, but it was too late and anyway, I liked them. 


The landing gear was all 3D printed after a bit of trial and error to get the stance right.

 

Its now finished and I’m happy with how it turned out, especially after the initial condition it was in.

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And finally, a couple of photos with the other FAA models I’ve built so far.

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