Special Hobby 1/72 CAC Boomerang

[Whofan]

A while ago, after discovering that Romania had an aircraft industry up to WW2 - and produced a respectable fighter, the IAR - 80, to my surprise I discovered the Aussies had had an aircraft industry before WW2 as well, producing two respectable, if not earth shattering planes - the Wirraway and Boomerang.

 

The Boomerang itself looks vaguely like a Brewster Buffalo and though respectable enough, was not in the same league as the  Zeroes it came up against.

 

Odd really as it was well armed, with 2 20mm cannon and 4 .303 machine guns, but other factors prevailed to make it less than equal to the opposition.

 

Though nominally a fighter, it ended up as a light ground attack type, coming into service in 1942,  retired in 1945.

 

Special Hobby do both Wirraway and Boomerang in 1/72, and I picked up one of the 1/72 Boomerangs a while ago, and after seeing a build of a Wirraway here after  Christmas I decided to start  my Boomerang once I had finished the two Austrian Air Force F-5e planes I was making.

 

I should point out this is the second Special Hobby kit I have made where I spent excessive time filling, sanding, priming and muttering strong imprecations at it. The reason? Serious shortcomings in the fit department. Wings and fuselage and cockpit and canopy, mainly.

 

Yes, almost all of the kit didn't fit properly. As I said, copious sanding, filling, cutting and general cursing accompanied more cursing, sanding and filling until I had what looked like an aeroplane model in the hand. 

 

And the sprue gates were very, very thick and attached often in awkward places, so some steady cutting and hoping was done. (Which by and large worked).

 

Painting was interesting, Foliage green, the colour recommended for the main camouflage colour seemed difficult to match up. Then in the February 2022 issue of SAM I found a build article of this very kit!

 

Which confirmed the fit issues, and the need for copious filling, sanding, priming, filling, sanding and I expect the author wanted to say cursing too, but thought he might not get it published if he did.

 

But he didn't say what he used for foliage green, so I used tamiya NATO Green (XF-67 which weirdly, doesn't look that far away from the paint used by the magazine contributor. I don't think it's right, but - well,  it doesn't look that bad to me.

 

The build was mostly OOB, with peewit canopy masks, some British sutton seatbelts from the spares box, a yahu instrument panel and a bit of albion alloys tube for the radio aerial, and modelling tools' little lenses for the underwing identification lights and the wingtip navigation lights..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After glossing with extracrylix gloss varnish, the decals weren't too bad, but after trying to put some of the stencils on the green sections, decided not to bother with any more; you can't see them, so it was just a few on the white tail.

 

An unexpected  problem I came up with was I dipped the canopy in Gauzy glass coat agent, which did impart a decent shine to the canopy; however, when trying to adjust the mask segments into position, the mask took the gauzy layer off. I have since  decided to leave the canopy as is. I finished the kit in Extracrylix flat varnish.

 

I am now a little wary of Special hobby kits; previous builds of Tamiya, Revell, Italeri, Brengun, Eduard and Kinetic have  had none of the fit issues the two Special hobby kits I've now made have.

 

So it's on to a Tamiya model next, I have one in mind but can't quite make my mind up for certain yet.

 

Music listened to during this build included Welcome to the Planet by Big Big Train, The Zealot Code by Jethro Tull, The Art of Losing by the Anchoress, Powr up by AC/DC and the Wisdom of Crowds by Bruse Soord.

[WhiskySierraKilo]

Very nice mate.  I built the Airfix kit and used a suitably dark green.

Always had a soft spot for the CAC Boomerang.

I have the Special Hobby kit too, but it's still languishing in the cupboard.

I like the white tail.

Cheers, w.

[Whofan]

14 minutes ago, WhiskySierraKilo said:

Very nice mate.  I built the Airfix kit and used a suitably dark green.

Always had a soft spot for the CAC Boomerang.

I have the Special Hobby kit too, but it's still languishing in the cupboard.

I like the white tail.

Cheers, w.

Cheers, I almost went for the other white tail option in the box, but decided to go with this one as it was in SAM.

[Wulfman]

Your hard work has been rewarded, very nice looking Boomerang . How about the Tamiya Focke-Wulf 190 to the delicate strains of Howling Wolf ?

 

Wulfman

[Dunny]

Lovely build and finish! I have built the 1:48 SH version and can confirm it has similar issues, but you've certainly overcome them!

[stevehnz]

A nice job on that. I have one but not built it yet. Tales like this indicate leaving it till after my Airfix & Tasman ones, it should seem easier by then. I'll have my copy of that mag well before then too, keen to see the build in there. 

Steve 

[bigbadbadge]

Great job on this , it does look lovely .  Special Hobby kits are limited run kits and have come on a long way and produce some cracking kits now  look at their 32nd scale Whirlwind for example.  I like building them because they are not shake and bake like Tamigawa kits and offer unusual subjects. 

Great work on the Boomerang.

Chris

 

[Whofan]

6 hours ago, Wulfman said:

Your hard work has been rewarded, very nice looking Boomerang . How about the Tamiya Focke-Wulf 190 to the delicate strains of Howling Wolf ?

 

Wulfman

Much obliged, sir.

 

perhaps Killing floor introduced by Wildman Jack??😃

[Whofan]

On 27/02/2022 at 04:23, Dunny said:

Lovely build and finish! I have built the 1:48 SH version and can confirm it has similar issues, but you've certainly overcome them!

It seems odd that kits in both scales have similar (fit) issues, but hopefully future models won't have so many problems.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Whofan

[Whofan]

3 hours ago, stevehnz said:

A nice job on that. I have one but not built it yet. Tales like this indicate leaving it till after my Airfix & Tasman ones, it should seem easier by then. I'll have my copy of that mag well before then too, keen to see the build in there. 

Steve 

Cheers.

 

Forewarned is forewarned as they say, but even with the comments in the magazine article in mind I was surprised by what didn't fit without furious sanding, filing, cutting and cursing!!

[Whofan]

1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

Great job on this , it does look lovely .  Special Hobby kits are limited run kits and have come on a long way and produce some cracking kits now  look at their 32nd scale Whirlwind for example.  I like building them because they are not shake and bake like Tamigawa kits and offer unusual subjects. 

Great work on the Boomerang.

Chris

 

thanks for the kind words.

 

I've seen lots of reviews of recent SH kits which say the same, but with the couple I have in the stash at the moment I'll make sure I've a good stock of filler, sanding materials and sharp blades just in case!I

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Well done finishing this kit!