Hawker Hunter GA.11 Restoration and conversion (Academy 1:48)

[AdrianMF]

This is a comprehensive ground-up reconstruction - loving it!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Flying Badger]

4 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

This is a comprehensive ground-up reconstruction - loving it!

Thanks Adrian, it's an interesting challenge. I initially thought I could just rebuild it and repaint as a fast fun build.... but then after reading about the Academy kit and its inaccuracies I decided it would be more fun to try to address / correct as many of them as possible. Aside from the dimensional inaccuracies, the general quality of the kit seems good... good quality panel lines and other surface details so it has potential. 

 

[Pajarito]

Hi Flying Badger,

Wow, this is a true job of love. Never did I learn that Academy had injected their Hunter kits in blue styrene.

I've got both their F.6 and FGA.9 kits in light gray plastic.

Also, how does the shape of the nose on the Academy and Airfix compare between both kits?

I haven't got the Airfix kit, but certainly, the shape of the nose in the Academy kit looks nothing like the real thing. It does look a lot better on the Airfix kit.

Will be following your progress.

Cheers.

[Flying Badger]

4 hours ago, Pajarito said:

Wow, this is a true job of love. Never did I learn that Academy had injected their Hunter kits in blue styrene.

I've got both their F.6 and FGA.9 kits in light gray plastic..

 

Hi, Pajarito, Strange isn't it.

It's definitely the Academy moulds and the decals it had on match those from the original #2164 Academy kit but the blue plastic doesn't match the later production examples I can see online. I assume it was an early pull from that mould?

I had wondered initially if it was an Italeri version (using Academy's moulds) as I've had those in weird colour plastic, but the decals don't match and by the 2000s when Italeri released their boxing of this kit they'd settled on their standard slightly green tinted (at least to my eyes) grey plastic 🤷‍♂️

I even looked up the 1950s/60s Lindberg kit in case it was a really old model (Lindberg seem to have used a variety of colours of plastic).... but the part designs are totally different which ruled those out.

 

 

Quote

 

Also, how does the shape of the nose on the Academy and Airfix compare between both kits?

I haven't got the Airfix kit, but certainly, the shape of the nose in the Academy kit looks nothing like the real thing. It does look a lot better on the Airfix kit

 

So far I haven't got around to looking at the noses on both kits. I'm converting it to a Fleet Air Arm PR.11 or GA.11 which had either a camera or the Harley light in the nose. The airfix F4 kit does have both the standard nose and the Harley light nose options I believe (I was going to scratch mine just for fun), so I'll get the sprue out and take some side by side comparison shots if I can and post them here.

 

[Paul Thompson]

Italeri re-released the kit sometime in the last 2 or 3 years IIRC, with better decal sheets. No time to check at the moment, sorry.

 

Paul.

 

P.S. I had that Lindberg kit when I was much shorter, and mine was moulded in white. I know because I still have a bit of it somewhere.

[Flying Badger]

41 minutes ago, Paul Thompson said:

Italeri re-released the kit sometime in the last 2 or 3 years IIRC, with better decal sheets. No time to check at the moment, sorry.

Yes the most recent re-release was Italeri in 2017. although not with XE597 as an option on the decals. 

[Biggles87]

I’ve managed to miss this ‘til now, you’re doing a splendid job.

 

John. 🇺🇦

[Pajarito]

23 hours ago, Flying Badger said:

So far I haven't got around to looking at the noses on both kits. I'm converting it to a Fleet Air Arm PR.11 or GA.11 which had either a camera or the Harley light in the nose. The airfix F4 kit does have both the standard nose and the Harley light nose options I believe (I was going to scratch mine just for fun), so I'll get the sprue out and take some side by side comparison shots if I can and post them here.

 

Hi again Flying Badger,

I somehow managed to get a couple of the Heritage Aviation Models T.7 conversion sets back in 2013, so both my Academy kits are awaiting conversion to the two-seat version. I was hoping to get the new Airfix F.6 kit to build another T.7 using Ali McLean's conversion set, and then use the whole forward fuselage on the Airfix kit to graft it onto the Academy kit to build a single seater. Oh, well, but no such luck as to trying to get that kit in this country, even after four years since the Airfix kit was released now? 

As beautiful those Airfix kits are, dunno why hobby shop owners won't bring the Airfix Hunter kits down here. Some day, let's hope so.

Cheers. 

  

[Flying Badger]

36 minutes ago, Pajarito said:

Oh, well, but no such luck as to trying to get that kit in this country, even after four years since the Airfix kit was released now? 

As beautiful those Airfix kits are, dunno why hobby shop owners won't bring the Airfix Hunter kits down here. Some day, let's hope so.  

¿De donde eres/ donde vives Pajarito?

Tu perfil dice "Capital Federal" pero.... ¿Es lo mismo que Buenos Aires? ¿por qué? no venden Airfix en Argentina? 

Maldición, esto no bien!

[Flying Badger]

Lo Siento, Mi español es mal.

[Pajarito]

1 hour ago, Flying Badger said:

¿De donde eres/ donde vives Pajarito?

Tu perfil dice "Capital Federal" pero.... ¿Es lo mismo que Buenos Aires? 

 

Yes, it is. "Capital Federal", (of both the province of Buenos Aires and the country's capital), is the former federal district of Argentina. The nomenclature was changed to Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires after the Constitutional amendment of 1994, which granted autonomy on this territory.

 

1 hour ago, Flying Badger said:

¿por qué? no venden Airfix en Argentina? 

Maldición, esto no bien!

 

You know there's even a local distributor down here which deals the whole Airfix range of kits, but why they've never brought any of the two Hunter kits still goes over my head. I've asked them so many times that they no longer reply back to my enquiry any more. Eso no está bien; this distributor have brought many Airfix kits which were released after the Hunter F.6 kit - such as the Lynxes, the meatboxes, the Blenheim, etc., but I've yet to see any of the Hunter kits, anywhere.

Cheers.    

[Flying Badger]

Some more work on the fuselage.

Firstly the belly gun pack of the RAF models was never taken up by the Fleet Air Arm for the PR.11 or GA.11 (odd for the Ground Attack variant not to keep the guns) but reference images show that the gun port openings in the fuselage were just filled with a blanking plate so I've filled the kit's gun holes and I'll rescribe the surrounding panel line shortly:

 

Other than that I've turned my attention to both the nose and bottom of this beast. 

 

The academy kit's rear end is well know to be inaccurate. It's about 2 - 3mm too long for a start and the shape is all off. The Airfix F4 kit I have is a reissue of the F6 with some additional sprue including multiple rear ends to cover the various shapes as well as a nose for the camera / Light of the GA and PR versions.... the PR.11 / GA.11 of the Fleet Air Arm were reworked F4s with the new dog tooth wing so I decided it was easier to transplant a spare rear from the airfix kit than it was to scratch build it. On the same sprue is the nose and a replacement tail pipe. I've cut down the airfix rear to avoid loosing some of the extra panel line detailing of the Academy kit and I then picked an arbitary distance from a panel line common to both academy and airfix rears to use as my cut line. The arbitary distance was the thickness of some old Dynamo label tape which I use as a guide for panel line marking and works well to guide a razor saw too. After lots of alignment dry fitting I slowly zipped up each side using small spots of CA glue to hold the parts in alignment whilst the Tamiya extra thin dried. Some slithers of plasticard in the odd gap and then small amounts of perfect pastic putty have provided a join that should disappear easily under a coat of primer.  An added complication was that I didn't want to glue the fuselage halves together yet so this is all done whilst preserving the dry joint between the halves for later!

 

The shape and dimensions are much better now: 

I know the bullet is too long, but that will get chopped down and reshaped when the two fuselage halves are joined.

 

As for the nose. The academy part and the airfix are both split along the same panel line.... but the academy part has it too far aft so the nose piece is bigger than the Airfix one (and also the wrong shape):

To add complexity you cna see that it's not a straight join, but rather has an angle change at the bottom.

 

Fairly simple solution.... a piece of thick plasticard spaces out the nose to the right length and will be sanded down to give a smooth profile shape. Bit of fiddling to get the right thickness spacer piece during dry fitting:

 

Then glued it on and when the glue was dry I cut it down the centreline with a razor saw to separate out the two fuselage halves again.

 

Now working on the gear bays and working out how to get the nose bay to fit along with the resin cockpit (it's a tight squeeze)

[Flying Badger]

Fiddly little bits worked on last night:

 

Firstly I trimmed down the nose spacer piece I added in the last post so it was an extension of the fuselage skin rather than a bulkhead (as a bulkhead there would be in the way of the nose gear well)

Then I spent ages scraping, sanding, test fitting and repeat over and over again until I had thinned the fuselage plastic enough to get a good fit for the nose gear bay and the resin cockpit.

Then glued the wheel well side walls in place ready for some filler and paint. Cockpit side walls will be next I think.

 

 

Test fitting the jet pipe at the rear and the engine rear compressor face piece I realised it needed a bit of spacing out at the bottom to get a good fit. I made a plasticard spacer tab that also doubles as a fuselage half alignment tab. 

Then decided to add some more further forward to get a good secure join when the time comes. The pin and hole alignment locators that the original kit parts used have suffered somewhat when I disassembled it. Some are still present, others are not so the plasticard tabs will be really important to keeping the seams from cracking later. Need to think what I do for the ventral spine on top where there is less room for tabs - might drill out the old locator pins and add new brass ones.

 

Other minor jobs included assembling the 2 halves of the jet pipe and filling the large ugly seam (thats going to be a sod to paint!) and I also did some sanding and further refining the intake tunnel.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Flying Badger

[Pajarito]

Hi Flying Badger,

Very nice to see this build still progressing.

So, not only does the Academy Hunter kit nose need reshaping but also enlarging That figures.

This kit seems to be fighting you all the way through, but you'll end up taming her.

If I remember correctly, I recall the fairing behing the canopy also needs reshaping?

Someone down here used the extra clear parts in the Airfix kit on the Academy one; he chopped off the windshield of the closed canopy option in the former kit to graft it onto the latter one. Will see whether I'm able to find those pictures.

Keep up the awesome work.

Cheers.

[Flying Badger]

18 hours ago, Pajarito said:

So, not only does the Academy Hunter kit nose need reshaping but also enlarging That figures.

This kit seems to be fighting you all the way through, but you'll end up taming her.

Hi, 

Yes and no. The academy nose is longer than the airfix part but the join line between the nose and the fuselage parts on the academy is further aft than the equivalent join on the airfix parts. The two kits result in the right position for the nose tip, but if you mix parts from one kit to the other you have to add / remove material to get the right length etc. 

 

As for fighting me... Absolutely, but then that's half the fun! 😉 

 

18 hours ago, Pajarito said:

If I remember correctly, I recall the fairing behing the canopy also needs reshaping?

Someone down here used the extra clear parts in the Airfix kit on the Academy one; he chopped off the windshield of the closed canopy option in the former kit to graft it onto the latter one. Will see whether I'm able to find those pictures.

Yes the Academy fairing isn't the right shape I think and is slightly too far aft. I'm planning to rectify that as part of the integration of the resin cockpit which provides a better profile for the rear bulkhead to the cockpit.

 

18 hours ago, Pajarito said:

Someone down here used the extra clear parts in the Airfix kit on the Academy one; he chopped off the windshield of the closed canopy option in the former kit to graft it onto the latter one. Will see whether I'm able to find those pictures.

In terms of the canopy.... I know that the academy one includes the rear frame as part of the main canopy, however in real life it's separate and that in part accounts for some of the too far aft border between the canopy and the rear bulkhead of the cockpit / fairing. I'll be making sure it is separate and part of the cockpit rather than part of the canopy.

 

I was planning to make a vac-form canopy for mine, probably by creating a plaster-cast mold from either the airfix or academy parts. But that's only a thought experiment at the moment rather than a firm decision. I need to look into the feasibility (and I'd have to make a small vac-from box (not hard) to do it. 

The vac-form canopy would be useful as my current plan is to show the aircraft on the ground with the canopy open being made ready for flight.

 

[Pajarito]

Hi Flying Badger,

 

On 12/20/2022 at 9:59 AM, Flying Badger said:

In terms of the canopy.... I know that the academy one includes the rear frame as part of the main canopy, however in real life it's separate and that in part accounts for some of the too far aft border between the canopy and the rear bulkhead of the cockpit / fairing. I'll be making sure it is separate and part of the cockpit rather than part of the canopy.

 

I was planning to make a vac-form canopy for mine, probably by creating a plaster-cast mold from either the airfix or academy parts. But that's only a thought experiment at the moment rather than a firm decision. I need to look into the feasibility (and I'd have to make a small vac-from box (not hard) to do it. 

The vac-form canopy would be useful as my current plan is to show the aircraft on the ground with the canopy open being made ready for flight.

 

One feature that I real loved about the many ones in the new Airfix Hunter kit was that it provides you with the correct shape at the base of the windshield, which is so distinctive in the real one-seat aircraft when watched from the front.

 

 

The shape at the base of the windshield in the single-seat version of the Hawker Hunter conforms to the fuselage, and this is a key feature in the new-tool Airfix kit, that it's completely wrong in the Academy kit, by the way. Completely wrong. I tried filing the curved shape at the base of the windshield in my Academy kit, but of course; by  subtracting plastic at the front base of the clear piece, I was left with sides which were bigger in height.  No way they would fit onto the sides of the forward fuselage.

 

 

This is how the windshield looks in the Academy Hunter kit: awfully flat at the base of the front pane. It doesn't nearly conforms to the round shape of the fuselage. I didn't think there was a way of fixing that in the Academy kit until I learned that the new Airfix kit brings two clear parts for the open canopy option, and an additional clear part for the closed one. Then there's also the vac-form Squadron clear piece (or is it Falcon?).

Cheers.  

[Flying Badger]

1 hour ago, Pajarito said:

One feature that I real loved about the many ones in the new Airfix Hunter kit was that it provides you with the correct shape at the base of the windshield, which is so distinctive in the real one-seat aircraft when watched from the front.

Muchas Gracias mi compadre!  That makes it really clear. I knew the Academy one wasn't all the great but I hadn't had chance to really look at the comparison properly and your images illustrate the issue really well. 

 

I think that is the nail in the coffin for the academy canopy parts.... might make a vac form main canopy but use the Airfix part for the front windshield (as most aircraft of that era had thicker front glass than the overhead canopy and that will provide that effect well - also those front corners would be a real pain to get right in vac form! 😉  I'd buy the Squadron/falcon vac-form only I'm aware this build could rapidly be more aftermarket than actual academy kit! Somehow in my mind scratch building and vac-forming my own parts is more acceptable (totally irrational I know)

[Flying Badger]

Christmas was kind to me!

🤩

 

Printed the usual first test prints and then calibration boards to get a perfect exposure etc. but thats boring so I was very keen to get to the first ever "proper" print of something useful.

 

Lots of messing in blender to design something useful and we have these 1:48 scale little beauties (shown in the Lychee slicer):

 

 

Can you tell what it is yet?

 

Printer has another 1hr 50min to go and then they'll need to go in the wash and cure station. Will post pictures of the result to see how my first attempt* at a print goes!

 

Watch this space!

 

FB.

 

(* Not strictly true as I've used 3D printing at work for years, but that's all FDM or powder printing so the resin SLA approach is new to me, and it's my first personal printer without having to sneak stuff on the work one at night)

[Flying Badger]

Partial success....

 

Some failed prints that didn't peel from the FEP film on the first layer so didn't print.

After a cycle through the wash station, dry and then some time in the curer we have:

 

All the parts are OK ish. The big issue is that they all have a slightly blobbed base where they attached to the build plate. I attached them directly without little pedestals which in retrospect is what I should have done (spoiler: 2nd print underway as I type).

It's best illustrated by the rear part which has a very blobbed bottom.  That extra thickness has caused the holes that run through the whole pod to be skinned over - easy to open up with a drill though.

 

Relatively happy with the surface details as well... might need to make them slightly deeper (they're 0.1mm wide panel lines and the same depth rivets)

 

 

The nose of the rocket pods looked OK when I took them out of the printer, but I think these were in the alcohol wash for too long given how thin the walls are.

 

Not bad for my first shot at this stuff. Looking forward to more experimentation

[Pajarito]

11 hours ago, Flying Badger said:

Christmas was kind to me!

🤩

 

I'd say Christmas has been TERRIBLY kind to you, Flying Badger. What a Happy New Year this ought to be for you so far.

What an awesome gift!

So, where did you get the files for the rocket launchers? It's not just having the machine, but also learning the ropes to master the design software. Add the cost of materials down here, and that is what'd put me off from ever getting one of these 3D-print machines. Then the learning curve, but I do imagine what incredible it would be to design your own detailing parts and conversions. 

And of course you do know that there is a whole 3D-print section on this forum to go ask your questions, right?

Cheers.

Edited January 4, 2023 by Pajarito
Grammar typo

[Flying Badger]

53 minutes ago, Pajarito said:

I'd say Christmas has been TERRIBLY kind to you, Flying Badger. What a Happy New Year this ought to be for you so far.

What an awesome gift!

Thanks. I asked family for contributions towards it as I'd been planning to buy one for a while and had some money put to one side for it. So it's a present to myself with bits bought by various lovely people.

Very much looking forward to the things I can do with it. This evening I did the calibration prints (to refine the print settings to get max quality out) for a black flexible rubber like resin I also got. I'm planning to use that to make tyres for my F1 car builds which I already have some models built for.

Unfortunately that one is a lot more smelly (Its a standard resin rather than the water washable I used for the rocket) and my beloved has suggested that's not healthy for our little ones (she's absolutely right of course). Trouble is the garage is currently unheated and resin printers need c.20-25deg C to function well; but she's willing to compromise and we now have a plan to use the printer in the kitchen with the cookerhood extractor on so the fumes are ventilated away. (I'm a lucky man to have a very understanding lass!)

 

53 minutes ago, Pajarito said:

So, where did you get the files for the rocket launchers? It's not just having the machine, but also learning the ropes to master the design software. Add the cost of materials down here, and that is what'd put me off from ever getting one of these 3D-print machines. Then the learning curve, but I do imagine what incredible it would be to design your own detailing parts and conversions. 

 

I made the files myself. I'm a digital heritage (archaeology) specialist and it's what my doctorate was in after spending about 10 years working in 3D digitisation. Before that I used to make digital models of aircraft etc. for use with X-Plane flight simulator so lots of background in 3D design and production, which comes in handy. From looking up some dimensions to getting a print ready file took me about 4 - 5 hours of work I think. Add another 20min to fix the blobby base (I found out it's referred to as an elephants foot by other 3D print people) and set up print version 2. I reckon I need another hour to fix the minor issues with the prints I got in version 2 (they're good but there are things that could work better) and I'll have a version 3 I'd be happy to use and maybe even sell.

 

53 minutes ago, Pajarito said:

And of course you do know that there is a whole 3D-print section on this forum to go ask your questions, right?

Yes I've had a light browse but not really dug into that section deeply enough yet (I will). I expect I'll be a regular in that section this year.

 

Cheers,

FB

Edited January 4, 2023 by Flying Badger

[Flying Badger]

Version 2: I added a base raft and pedestals to make sure they stuck to the build plate and it certainly worked to avoid print failures.

Here they are at the end of printing. 

One thing that's odd is that the resin is thick enough to be held inside the openings of the main body and the rear part. I need to address this as it caused a bizare capillary effect after they were washed.

 

Here they are post washing and before they went in the cure station.

 

Much better than version 1 although there is still a bit of wash erosion around the thin walls of the nose cone openings. I think I need to drop the diameter of those by a tiny bit to make it work at this scale.

Also the mounting bracket loops haven't all survived as they're a bit small. Might skip those - perhaps with a small hole to glue a mount pin into for the ones on the aircraft and a loop of fine wire to portray those mounting loops for any future project/diorama where they need to be un-mounted.

 

Also if you notice the uppermost end of the main body pieces look wet (even after drying the alcohol wash off) that's where the filled holes had the weird capillary action and repeatedly overflowed with the wash alcohol left in them leading to damage to the surface and softening of the panel lines/rivet details. I'll fix this in version 3 by making the support pedestals a 3D mesh rather than a solid column as being solid they block the bottom ends of those holes. That will let the holes drain properly and I can use my airbrush to blow out excess wash alcohol through and out of them. Version 3's pedestals don't need to be as tall as I currently have then either as that's just wasted printer time.

 

I should say the reason these are in this thread is that I plan to have a single Matra 155 SNEB on each of the outer pylons (I'll need to design and print the pylons too!) of the Hawker Hunter. The Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm didn't keep the four under-nose cannon so the SNEBs were an important surface attack option for these navy aircraft and I wanted something more than the standard drop tanks on the inner pylons (the drop tanks were the only supplies still present when I picked this model up and they need some TLC).

 

FB

[AdrianMF]

Amazing stuff this 3D printing lark! And rocket pods are the sort of thing that I would have no idea how to do as a traditional scratch builder. That's maybe why I stick to subjects from the first half of last century!

 

Looking forward to more Hunter high jinks...

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

 

[Biggles87]

If I was 30 years younger I might be tempted by this 3D malarkey but the phrase ‘ you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is very appropriate in my case.

 

John

 

PS I’m looking for some Canadian CRV-7 rocket pods for a Harrier Gr-9

[gingerbob]

Yeah, I'd rather find a young dog and ask him or her to throw something together for me!