Restoring A 1/72 Frog Fairey Firefly Mk.1

[Brigbeale]

Welcome to my new project.

I bought this Frog Firefly from EBay requiring some TLC .

It arrived in a box pretty much as listed, with the propeller and main undercarriage detached, but otherwise looking complete.

There was something loose inside, which looking closer in the cockpit canopy seemed to the pilot - who looks like he’s dropped something and has gone looking for it!

 

Anyway, time to start.

The first thing to do was disassemble the Firefly. 
The wings came apart relatively easily - just the outer ends of the wings where the upper and lower sections were glued gave some moderate resistance, but they came round to my way of thinking in the end.

Each of canopy glazing parts were removed complete. I’m not sure if they can be re-used or not though.

The fuselage halves were separated and they also came apart cleanly.

The centre under-wing section was removed but I found a strip of white styrene card had been added - presumably to make the top of the wheel-well. I think I could do better.

The propeller mount boss looked like it had had some improvising going on to make it fit a hole too large for it.

The crew figures are not well moulded - to say the least - I’ll leave them out in the restoration though.

 

The parts are all now having the usual Dettol bath to remove the paint and decals.

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Brian

Sorry I missed your Apache build,  I have had quite limited time recently due to work and life getting in the way.   

One of your restoration jobs will be good to see, glad it's all come apart okay.  

Are they the Frog decals  ?

They should be good, it's the Novo ones that shatter as soon as they are put into water.  Looking forward to this.

 

Chris

[Brigbeale]

Hi Chris.

Good to have you along again.

I figured a Firefly restoration would be a good ‘un to do.

 

The decals do look like Frog ones - even more surprising is that the roundels look concentric. 
I’ll give them a good coat of matt varnish in an attempt to make them useable.

[k5054nz]

I do love a Firefly, I do love a Frog, and I do love a resto job...this is ringing my bells!

Edited December 9, 2022 by k5054nz

[dogsbody]

If you should need spare parts, let me know. I have these two old kits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Brigbeale]

Thanks, that’s very kind of you.

At the moment, with a cursory glance, it appears I’m missing the tail wheel, outer main gear doors and arrestor hook.

 

I’ve just remembered I’ve got these.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Nerazzurri]

Very interesting, Brian. 

 

I've just taken an Airfix AW Seahawk off the shelf of doom. It's an old mould, badly constructed by me, and I didn't like the way the first of the paints went down either. So I stripped the paint and 'coaxed' the wings and rear stabilisers apart to redo the dihedral. It's not going to look great, but I'm much happier with it now.

 

So it'll be informative for me to watch somebody who actually knows what they're doing with a restoration! Following keenly.

[Brigbeale]

2 hours ago, Nerazzurri said:

Very interesting, Brian. 

 

I've just taken an Airfix AW Seahawk off the shelf of doom. It's an old mould, badly constructed by me, and I didn't like the way the first of the paints went down either. So I stripped the paint and 'coaxed' the wings and rear stabilisers apart to redo the dihedral. It's not going to look great, but I'm much happier with it now.

 

So it'll be informative for me to watch somebody who actually knows what they're doing with a restoration! Following keenly.

Happy to have you along.

This is my Sea Hawk restoration.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

The Firefly has had its Dettol bath and it’s paint has been mostly removed. There’s some odd silvery residue around the canopy openings and seams. 
I should be able to remove it with some fine sanding though.

 

[Brigbeale]

With the addition of an unwelcome cold that somebody gave me, I persevered tonight to do some modelling.

 

The first thing to do was re-scribe the raised panel lines on the wings. This was done with my Tamiya Scriber with a single pass to keep the lines as light as possible.

 

While sanding the panel lines, I found that the odd coloured residue around the seam lines appeared to be excess glue. As the sanding progressed, the glue started to disappear.

 

The wing-tip navigation lights were cut out to have clear plastic inserted.

The outer wing upper and lower halves were re-glued with TET as they won’t impede on any work required in the wheel wells.

 

I removed the white styrene card from the middle underwing wheel bay section. It still retains the landing gear strut holes, but the starboard one is broken, so will need attention of some description.

With the card removed, it revealed the wing to fuselage mating surface which is very prominent in the wheel wells. 
I decided to cut the visible section out to improve the look. 
 

[bigbadbadge]

Panel lines look good Brian, looking forward to seeing what you do with the undercarriage bays.

Chris

[Brigbeale]

Just as I thought I was getting over the cold, SWMBO caught it off me - and she hasn’t let me forget it either!

 

I tried a few designs for the wheel bays but I wasn’t happy with them. I even considered a simple box with the T-shape styrene extrusion added for a simpler look.

Then I saw a Trumpeter 1/48 scale resin undercarriage bay. 
Hmmmm. I could use the design and 3D print my own ones for the 1/72 version - I couldn’t find anything anywhere for what I wanted.

 

An image was found and used to create the design - or near enough the design anyway.

I then went to 3D print it. Great - only the printer decided it wasn’t having any of it. 
The original textured build plate wouldn’t grip the print and it just ended up being moved around the bed on the end of the printing nozzle. I cleaned the plate and it still did the same even after resetting the build plate height in relation to the nozzle.

I changed the build plate to a piece of glass that I previously used. The trick I found with it was to spray a cheap hair-spray on it to grip the print. 
So the printing started. 

In Cura, there’s an option to print one item at a time using the same program to print two. This means the nozzle isn’t moving to and fro from one to the other with stringing in between the prints. 
The print was due to take about an hour and a half. After 50 minutes, I went to see how the printing was progressing. 
The first print had finished and looked good. The second was underway. 
I took the first print off the bed and noticed the second print had detached and was moving around with the nozzle.

I turned the printer off and figured I’d sort it tomorrow, but I. The meantime, I’ve ordered a Creality Glass build plate. Should be here by the end of the month. I’m going to try the masking tape method on the build plate to see what that does.

 

Anyway, full of excitement about the first print, I offered it up to the central wheel bay section. Horlicks! Too small.

The shape looks good though, so I can play with the sizing in Cura to get it to fit.

I added the part into the wing section to see if I was heading in the right direction fit wise. Happy to say it looks good. 
The upper and lower wing sections go together and the wings fit the fuselage very well with the 3D printed part enclosed. I just hope I still does when I make it the right size.

 

I removed the old propeller boss to reveal a hacked about opening - I can’t really call it a circle. I’m going to file it round and 3D print a new boss to fit.

 

Ive also been looking at rear cockpit configuration pictures. I’ve decided to replace the kit’s basic set up with more 3D printed bits.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Brigbeale

[bigbadbadge]

The undercarriage Bay looks good Brian and when in place will make this look awesome, looking forward to seeing all the 3D printed rear cockpit details.  

Hope you're not in too much trouble for sharing your cold with SWMBO

Great work 

Chris

[AdrianMF]

Looking good! I can never get over how hulking the FROG Firefly looks if your first introduction was to the dainty Airfix one.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Flying Badger]

Great work so far. I do enjoy the challenge of restorations (hence my Hawker Hunter from the Telford show). 

The 3D printed wheel bays look really good. especially given they are printed on an FDM machine rather than the higher resolution resin SLA approaches. It takes some careful thought to get a result without too many layer lines etc. out of FDM at 1/72!

 

Looking forward to seeing the rest of how you get on.

[Brigbeale]

The larger replacements were 3D printed today.

With some fettling here and there and filing to suit the inner curvature of the central underwing panel, the two parts were offered up into their fitted positions. 
A test fit of all the parts showed a slight discrepancy on the actual wheel recess from each side. One rounded part is slightly larger than the other, which exposes the inner side wall of the printed wheel wells. A slither of styrene card and a touch of filler should blend it in.

 

Once I was happy with the position, they were fixed in with sprue-goo and clamped. 
 

While that was setting, I re-scribed the horizontal stabiliser panel lines. The trailing edge was also sharpened with a sanding stick to avoid the original clumsy look of the elevators. 
 

The sprue-goo had set sufficiently, so the fuselage, wheel well assembly and wings were taped into position to ensure everything still fitted together.

 

[Brigbeale]

Just a quick interruption to the Firefly proceedings.

 

I saw these on eBay during the week and put a bid on with a ‘not really fussed if I don’t win them’ attitude- expecting to get outbid on them.

I’d been wanting a Swift for a while but always got outbid on them. Oddly enough though, the built and painted ones seemed to go for silly money.

With these being a painted one and an unpainted one requiring TLC, I was thinking they’d go for around the £20 mark, looking complete from the photos.

 

Low and behold, I received a message saying I’d won them at the starting bid of £5.99.

Maybe everyone’s going for the newer Airfix one now, but I don’t mind they’re dated kits. I’m sure I can improve them somehow.

I paid for them, so now I just need to hope they turn up!

[bigbadbadge]

Cracking job on the new undercarriage bays, they look wonderful.

It's great to get a bargain  too , great purchase there, I am pleased to hear you got them for a song.

Chris

[Flying Badger]

Two for £5.99? Thats a great steal. I've tried looking on ebay occasionally for already built kits of F1 cars to restore... only ever successful once with a partially built one.

A 3d printer certainly helps with broken / missing / poor detailed parts. 

[Brigbeale]

I spent the last couple of days designing, failing and thinking of other ways to make an observer’s office for the rear of the Firefly.

I was nearly through designing the ‘office’ in its entirety when it suddenly occurred to me that the 3D printer would probably want to put supports all over the place, which would need removing and being a pain in the a** to do. 
So I simply designed the top of the ‘office’ to roughly copy the Trumpeter 1/48 scale offering I found on another modelling website (Sorry Moderators!).

 

That printed out ok. The printer’s acting up a little again. It maybe the ageing filament as it’s ok with another colour filament, but I use the grey for modellling as it’s easier to see the detail of the print. I found a set of 1/72 Fairey Firely bits on Thingiverse which included seats, Instrument panels and wheels. I tried to print the seats and IP at the same time. The seats were a complete failure but the IP was just about ok.
 

So tonight, I simple made a box using the 3D print and styrene card (0.5mm for the sides and 1mm for the base). It was fitted together with TET and I also added a couple of strips of the T-section styrene strip for a bit of detail inside.

Two seats were printed from a previous design of mine (from the Tempest or Typhoon restorations IIRC). A simple strip was added to the back of one for a mounting panel and the seat was painted with an Aluminium/Grey mix. Once dry, masking tape seat belts were added and then the assembled seat was added into the rear ‘office’.

 

The assembly was then placed into the fuselage. It may not be 100% accurate, but it’s certainly a lot better than the original kit offering.

The IP which still requires a little work.

[Brigbeale]

I decided to repaint the seats to a brown colour as seen in images of a cockpit of a Firefly. The rear one was a little tricky being in the rear tub and having the tape seat belts fitted, but I managed it with a fine brush.

The two fuselage halves were re-United with the rear tub sandwiched between them.

 

The sides of the IP were built up with Revell filler and sanded back flush with the face of the panel itself. 

The gunsight mount was left in position on the replacement panel, but it did require a notch in the top of the cockpit opening to accept it. 
Two strips of the T-shape strip were added to the sides of the cockpit to add some simple detail. It wasn’t worth adding much else as it’s not a very big opening and it probably wouldn’t be seen anyway. The IP was fitted into position once it had been painted black and the paint had dried.

The pilot seat was added to a piece of styrene card (recycled from the wheel wells) and it was then added to the front cockpit rear bulkhead.

I did add a floor to the cockpit -  mainly because I wanted to fit a control column and needed something to mount it on. 
The control column was fashioned from a piece of copper wire rounded over at the top and passed through a 0.5mm hole drilled in the floor. It was fixed in position with sprue-goo from underneath and the excess cut off leaving enough of a stub for the goo to grip onto.

The original canopies were dry fitted but it’s obvious that they’re too far gone to re-use, so it’s a good job I’ve got the Falcon vac-formed set of FAA canopies. even if they were still clear, they would have still been too thick to see through as they’ve gos a distorted magnifying effect to them.

 

Mr Surfacer 1000 was applied to the fuselage seam and on some sink marks on the fuselage and wing sections.

The wing tip lamps were made using clear acrylic sheet with holes drilled and painted to simulate the bulbs. They were then fitted into position to dry completely before I sand and polish them back to produce the light units.

 

The hole in the nose for the propeller was rounded out by using a set of drills gradually enlarging it in 0.5mm increments until it was once again round.

The propeller assembly had a 1.5mm styrene shaft fitted to replace the broken off one. 
 

Another check was made by dry fitting the wings and propeller assembly to make sure everything is as it should be as the re-build progresses.
 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2022 by Brigbeale

[ModelingEdmontonian]

These projects amaze me. It's looking good!

[Brigbeale]

Now the Christmas stuff is out of the way, I can get back to the Firefly.

 

The first thing was to sand back the Mr Surfacer on the seams. It all seems smooth now with the exception of the radiator housing underside seam which needs another application.

The panel lines were cleaned out/refreshed and then TET was brushed on to clean up the stubborn bits of swarf in the lines themselves.

 

The wing tip navigation lights were sanded and polished - well one was. The other detached half way through so had to refitted again and left to set. That will be finished off tonight. 
 

The wheel bay required a bit of attention as the landing gear locating hole was broken off. The repair involved a bit of sprue filed off to a square corner and sprue-good into position. The original side piece was reattached to reform the original shape. Once the sprue-goo has set, the hole will be re-drilled for the re-attachment of the landing gear. 
 

I also did some fettling to get the port and starboard wings to fit a bit better. Mainly, it was just excess glue obstructing the fit, but the under panel was sitting slightly proud on one side. A slight trim to the fuselage to remove a tiny amount of plastic cured that. That in turn, allowed the wing a better fit. 
 

Edited December 31, 2022 by Brigbeale

[AdrianMF]

Looking good!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Brigbeale]

The green wing tip navigation lamp was sanded and polished to match the red on on the other side.

The central wheel bay section was fitted to the fuselage and clamped while the TET set. 
Once it was dry enough to handle - I didn’t want it fully set incase I had to move it slightly to get the wings to sit in their proper positions.

Using sprue-goo, the wings were added. The sprue goo acting as the adhesive and filler combined. 
Using a Royal Mail issue rubber band, the wing dihedral was set - which is an improvement already as when I first got the Firefly, the wings were fitted with no dihedral.

They were also clamped to use the tops down so the wing roots lined up.
They will need some finessing to blend them in better, but they’re fitted better than the previous owner had them.

 

The horizontal stabilisers were added as well and set into position. 
 

With the wings added, Mr Surfacer was applied to the stabiliser/fuselage joints and the odd errant seam line/blemish on the fuselage/wings.

 

To finish up tonight, I designed the bearing to hold the propeller in position once the Firefly is all done. It’s designed to fit in the front of the fuselage and have some sideways movement to line the propeller spinner with the fuselage. It’s about 8mm in diameter at the widest point.