Mark I Models 1/144 Beaufighter Mk. VI - FINISHED

[Ngantek]

I was curious to make some of these MKM 1/144 scale kits. My thinking was that being tiny scale, not only would it stand a chance of fitting in my house, would also take less time to build and frankly be less of a loss when my first attempts at new techniques inevitably went horribly wrong. This thinking, as I'm sure you all already know, has its flaws; half scale does not equate to half the build time! I also have a soft spot for the scale since by childhood bedroom was adorned with a range of academy minicraft kits hanging from the ceiling. 

 

Anyway, so far it's been a nice kit. It has something of the whiff of limited run of course, but mostly has come together nicely. The issues are that I've used it as a test bed for trying out techniques for the first time and the results have been predictably dodgy. It thought this would be a good place to get some advice!

Here's after closing up. Note the trademark acetone spill on the wing. The port oil cooler pinged off into the carpet, so is now some sprue with a rather rough hole drilled in the front. It could do with more shaping, but I'd rather lost interest in tarting it up at that point.

 

The plan was originally to brush paint this when away from the spraybooth (small enough to take with me during weekends getting free child care at the parents' house!), but it's evolved into my first experiment spraying humbrol enamels (which, being a child of the 90s UK, I have something of a soft spot for). I've had a lot of problems getting the mix and pressure right, possibly because the paint is hard to measure and dissolves rather reluctantly into budget white spirit. Anyway the Sky and EDSG went on okay (over Mr surfacer 1500 IIRC). Dark slate grey before EDSG would've been the sensible choice but I was as yet unsure whether or not I wanted the TSS camo.

So far so good (enough)

 

Now was perhaps the point of particular genius on my part. Not content to just try a new paint type, I thought I'd also try with a new technique: freehand camouflage. Setting aside that this is entirely the wrong scale to use such a technique, I ploughed on regardless. I had all kinds of issues with tip dry, un-tip dry, sudden splatters, underthinning, overthinning, having to go back over it with EDSG. The results are here for your comedy viewing pleasure. Please be aware, there are pictures following that some viewers may find distressing.

 

Oh god my eyes. The splodging and necessity of going over it so many times also led to the predictable result of lots of bleeding and seepage around the demarcation masks. So at this point I was deciding whether I could be bottomed to strip it back to plastic and start all over again. I couldn't. Instead I thought I may as well whack some Gunze GX100 on it randomly to see what happened.

This happened. 

 

 

Oddly enough, the colour (though certainly not the surface) evened out somewhat. I had a cursory hack at bringing back a little with some fine sandpaper, and then in a further spasm of 'meh whatever', slapped the decals on it. and battered the thing with GX100 again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clearly we're not getting any awards for this one, but I'm kinda amazed how comparatively un-horrific is has become. Of course now I've got to actually go and clean up all those shonky top/bottom demarcations. Right now I'm sanding back the decal bumps and generally trying not to think about the spindly landing gear that I've mostly already snapped.

 

 

So there you are. It's been a fun learning experience so far for me, getting a little more experience about where the line is between binning it and ploughing on with your hands over your ears going 'lalala I'm not listening'.

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, I'm a ship modeler rather than aircraft but I have a penchant for the big twin-engine fighters of WW2, this being one of them. I did make some planes in my youth (a loooong time ago). I'm from the era of Humbrol enamels slapped on bare plastic, followed by the decals (we called them stickers back then). That was it. No sealing, no nothing. That was if we painted them at all.

     I like what you've done with this, I'd be very happy with it, I think it's come up very well. And if it's been a fun experience then that is what is most important I think.

Please don't bin it, and you'd better not be going "lalala I'm not listening". 😁     And as a final positive, I like this era of Beaufighter - it has the nicely rounded nose, without the warts on it.

     Regards, Jeff.

[Ngantek]

I'm very much the same; a big fan of the heavy fighters and also grew up making kits much the same way (we called them 'transfers').

 

But yeah it's been a fun and educational side build, and I figure will look plenty beaufighter-ish on the shelf. I agree about the era; I think they looked the best at Mark I and the addtion of tail dihedral, the long fin, and then all the autopilot, gun camera and radar gubbins at the front just progressively ruin the lines. Frankly the kit came with both mark 1 style tailplane on the sprue and some resin ones shaped for the later dihedral. Both were a slightly dubious fit, and in the end I selected on better alignment rather than historical accuracy.

 

Got a few ship builds lined up which will be entirely new to me, but looking forward to it!

 

Cheers

[Ngantek]

Well this got finished in the end. Nice little kit, recommended. It's been sitting about 97% complete on my desk for months, just one too many annoying little things needed finishing that I couldn't quite be bothered to get around to.

 

In the end, the canopy mask was so well varnished and set, it was a nightmare to get off. Of course what did I find when it was removed? A big piece of tissue filling the cockpit that I'd left in there for unknown reasons. Cue 15 minutes poking and shaking it out through the observer bubble.

 

Anyway it's a little side thing and rather roughly finished in the end, so not worth an RFI, but here are some photos in case anyone else is interested in making one. It's been a nice lesson for me in quite how much you can bugger things up and still salvage something out of it.

 

 

Cheers,

Andy

[John_W]

Impressive work there.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Andy, I'm a ship modeler myself but I have a penchant for the big twin engine fighters of WW2. I like the Beaufighter (never done one  -  yet) and I like your model of it. Like the Mozzie I like the earlier versions without the warts and stuff on the nose - they look better IMHO. This plane looks very nicely done. Regards, Jeff.

[bigbadbadge]

Always love a Beau especially in TSS .  Crikey the paint put up a fight, but turned out well in the end and looking good . Great work .

Chris

[Ngantek]

On 24/06/2022 at 18:01, John_W said:

Impressive work there.

Thanks! Not so sure about that, this build is very much part of my initial foray back into the hobby, and feels plenty rough to me, but it's been fun at least, and looks suitably beaufighter-esque on the shelf.

 

16 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Andy, I'm a ship modeler myself but I have a penchant for the big twin engine fighters of WW2. I like the Beaufighter (never done one  -  yet) and I like your model of it. Like the Mozzie I like the earlier versions without the warts and stuff on the nose - they look better IMHO. This plane looks very nicely done. Regards, Jeff.

Cheers, Jeff. Yeah it's a lovely aircaft. I have an Airfix '72 one that I'm looking forward to getting around to. It's funny, I always wanted to build one as a kid and turned many a model shop upside down in search of one, but could never find it. I think my next build will be a ship, so I'll be crossing over your way to ask lots of inane questions in the near future!

 

15 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Always love a Beau especially in TSS .  Crikey the paint put up a fight, but turned out well in the end and looking good . Great work .

Chris

Thanks Chris. Yeah it's hard to make something look rubbish in TSS isn't it? The feather is really overscale of course, but I quite like the look of TSS when the demarcations are very gradual and the EDSG/DSG shades are very similar, so that's part of the reason. I'm not really a big follower of scale effect, but in this case, I think having a to-scale demarcation fade would not have the same gradual look that one sees on a full size aircraft.

 

Cheers,

Andy

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

3 hours ago, Ngantek said:

I think my next build will be a ship, so I'll be crossing over your way to ask lots of inane questions in the near future!

Gidday, You'd be welcome. My model ships are a bit crude though, as I don't do PE or AM stuff. But I enjoy it anyway. Regards, Jeff.

[stevehnz]

That has turned out really well, far better than I expected given your adventures along the way. I reckon you've had a win with that. 👍

Steve.