Revell 1:32 Hawker Hunter F.6 Shelf of Doom recovery - 92 Sqn 'Blue Diamonds'.

[Jonners]

Hi folks,

I may regret this, but I'm going to commit to a WiP thread to try to 'encourage' myself to get round to finishing this great kit that has been sitting, all forlorn and ignored, in a box for around 15 years or so.

 

I bought the Hunter kit for £25 (imagine that!) with the intention of finishing it as one of the 92 Sqn 'Blue Diamonds' Hunters that were based at RAF Leconfield, very close to where I live, in the early 1960s. My intention was, and still is, to build a display case for it, as would befit such a large model in that blue colour scheme, but obviously the kit would have to be finished to a standard that I would consider suitable for such display.

 

 

Unfortunately things started to go awry at the painting stage. I struggled to get a decent finish with my first attempt to airbrush with Revell enamels (I won't do that again), then foolishly failed to smooth the gritty finish with wet 'n dry / Micromesh. I painted the white wingtips, which have since yellowed (it doesn't show in the photo), and the fuselages stripes, but I didn't rub down the raised edges of these stripes which means that the fuselage roundels have a very distinct horizontal ridge across them. I then applied the kit decals (yes, over the 'ibbly' paint finish...) over discs of white decal cut with a compass cutter, only to find that the white fuselage stripes show clearly through the translucent white of the roundels. In short all rather gash!

 

At this point I made the sensible decision to stop, and the kit has been in a box ever since. The main reason for not having restarted it sooner is the absence of available 1:32 RAF Hunter roundel and fin flash decals, as those on the kit will have to be sacrificed in order to do a proper job with the paint finish. If anyone has spares with which you might be willing to part company, please let me know as I'd be very happy to discuss a deal!

 

I'm in the process of refurbishing my airbrush with some shiny new accessories, which should help me to resurrect this build (and bring back the enthusiasm to continue my Citroën 2CV6 project across in the Vehicles section). 

 

There, I'm committed! Now I have to finish it!

 

Jon

Edited April 10, 2022 by Jonners

[bigbadbadge]

Ooooooo this is interesting, where's the rigging going to go??? 

Good luck on the model rescue.

Chris

[Jonners]

4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

where's the rigging going to go??

Ah, yes, err...a large-scale Cold War jet is quite a long way from my usual subject matter, Chris! 'Tis the local connection, especially as I spent 3 happy years based at Leconfield.

 

So, here are the bits of the build with which I'm reasonably happy. First up, the cockpit which is OOB with no added extras:

 

 

Secondly...oh, wait. There isn't a second thing. I did quite a bit of work on the kit seat all those years ago, but I'm not happy with it as parts of it look really rough.  I think I'll need to put some effort in here:

 

 

The roundels will have to go in order to sort out the paint finish. This is going to be a problem as I have no idea where I'll get replacements, but I'll deal with that problem later. I know that Fantasy Printshop used to produce sone 1:32 Hunter sheets but they are out of stock according to the FP website, and searches for spare Revell sheets from various online sources (including the Bay of E) have been negative so far. The edges of the white decal circles that I cut with a compass cutter to form the outer roundel ring are all slightly ragged, so I'll need a tidier solution, and I'll need to reduce the raised 'go-faster' stripe:

 

 

Finally for now, the cobra on the 92 Sqn flash on the nose of the Blue Diamonds jets differed from that on the camouflaged aircraft. I used the Revell kit decals but covered the centre with a white decal circle on which to (somehow) put a representation of the cobra. It would have helped if the white circle was a) circular and b) not translucent (the photo doesn't show this). The gap under the windscreen will also have to be eliminated:

 

 

So as you can see, this project started well but rapidly became an exercise in high muppetry! The first task will have to be the removal of the decals, so that I can rub down the finish ready for another paint job...but a good one this time! Improvement of the seat will a mini project to keep me entertained when Real Life gets in the way of extended modelling time (which is most of the time☹).

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this far!

Jon

[bigbadbadge]

The seat looks good fella, you did put a lot into it.  Hope you can get hold of some suitable decals.

Chris

[Planebuilder62]

Hi Jon

Have you thought about rubbing back the paint job around the white stripe´s and roundels only and then painting the white sections followed bay masking and then the blue? That would solve the `ghost` stripe behind the roundel and will allow standard roundels to be used.

 

Painting white is a pain but several layers and a big dose of patience does the trick.

 

Regards Toby

[Jonners]

12 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said:

Have you thought about rubbing back the paint job around the white stripe´s and roundels only and then painting the white sections followed bay masking and then the blue? That would solve the `ghost` stripe behind the roundel and will allow standard roundels to be used.

Hi Toby,

That's a fair point and yes, I had considered that as an option, albeit one that would take a lot of work and would require some perfect large circle masks with no blue bleed-through. An alternative might be to use some Xtradecal white stripes for the cheatlines instead of paint, which would mean a simpler one-colour airframe repaint - they seem to be less translucent than the A4 white decal sheet from which I cut the roundel discs - and purchase some aftermarket 1/32 white roundel backing discs that I recently spotted online. I'll give it some thought, but I have a few steps to go through beforeI get to that stage.

Jon

[Jonners]

There we go, I'm committed:

 

 

I suppose I'll have to do a proper job with it now!