My Kettle of Hawks!!

[Brigbeale]

Now the Whitley has taken up residency in the display cabinet along with the other RAF Bombers, I feel it’s time to unveil the next project(s) which I alluded to in the Whitley’s WIP.

 

Its the restoration of two Hawks or to be more precise, A BAE Hawk and a McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk. Didn’t expect that did you?

 

The BAE Hawk came as part of a bundle about 18 months ago.

Wheels up and both pilots ejected taking the canopy with them. It appears to have had weapons pylons/pods fitted but they’re also long gone.

The paint isn’t that bad, applied fairly evenly even though the camouflage pattern is wrong, but it gave somebody pleasure the first time round and now it’s up to me to give the Hawk another chance to shine.

The decals are all well fixed. There’s a mix of types of roundels - Type D on the upper wings, modern low visibility on the fuselage and low visibility on the underside of the wings.

Other than the cockpit canopy, seats and pilots, the airframe itself is in pretty good condition.

I purchased a replacement canopy from Airfix - it’s the later canopy and will need some fettling to get it to fully fit.

 

The Goshawk was purchased from my usual eBay seller for about £5 iirc. 
It too was pretty much complete. I think the only thing missing was one of the nose-wheels - yes, this one has 2 as the undercarriage was modified for carrier deck landings, and missiles (if it had any to start with).

The only thing that detracts from this one is the yellowed white gloss paint.

The starboard main gear wheel and part of the leg has broken off in separate pieces, one weapon pylon is off and a few aerodynamic winglets/strakes are off as well, but they’re still present with the Goshawk.

The kit is almost certainly Italeri. 
Generally it’s ok, but the wing leading edges and wing tips will need work as the real Goshawks have squarer ends to accommodate a moving leading edge slat. This model Goshawk has the same wing design as a BAE Hawk.

 

 

Replacement decals will not be a problem.

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

I’m going to start with the camouflaged Hawk which turns out to be an Airfix kit circa 1975 (according to Scalemates). The aircraft serial numbers tally with the instructions on the colour call-out.

I have another unbuilt kit which is exactly the same part wise- mostly distinguished by the shape of the tail fin halves. The instructions for that kit has no manufacturer name, but all of the images are virtually the Airfix ones with what appear to be Humbrol colour numbers added and the part numbers are the same.

The beauty of this is I can exactly copy the missing parts for 3D printing - which reminds me….. I just won a resin 3D printer off eBay for about £80 including postage, so printing the parts should be a lot easier.

 

The rear stabilisers/elevators were removed - one just came off easily while the other one had the locating tab break off.

The main wing assembly came off with a bit of force but it came away cleanly.

For further strip down, I really need the paint removed, so it’s currently having a Dettol bath overnight.

 

 

[rob Lyttle]

4 hours ago, Brigbeale said:

need the paint removed, so it’s currently having a Dettol bath overnight.

Dettol does that....?? That's good to know. Old enamel too? 

Don't know how far you're going to disassemble but you may get the chance to deploy the flaps with a bit of scratch work or indeed the 3D print process. I managed it once in 1.72 after sorting it out on a big 1.32 kit. Definitely looks more right 

[bigbadbadge]

Nice, interesting projects Brian , looking forward to these, got the Airfix club hawks kits and they do look very nice indeed. 

Good luck with these.

Chris

[Brigbeale]

13 hours ago, rob Lyttle said:

Dettol does that....?? That's good to know. Old enamel too? 

Yes it does, but it has to be the actual Dettol - not the supermarket equivalents.

I got the idea from a YouTube video where somebody resurrects Matchbox die cast cars.

 

My Beaufighter restoration shows the Dettol at work.

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Nice, interesting projects Brian , looking forward to these, got the Airfix club hawks kits and they do look very nice indeed. 

Good luck with these.

Chris

Thanks Chris.

I also have other Hawks in the stash.

The completed Revell Red Arrow (the other one I got for free, I gave to my grandson as he’s mad on the Red Arrows

[Brigbeale]

The Hawk spent pretty much all day in the Dettol to try to remove stubborn spots where excess glue was on the exterior and also in the recesses/corners.

As you’ll see in the photo’s, they kit plastic is white

Despite most of the paint being removed, I still had to resort to scraping the remaining spots off with a knife on the easy to reach spaces and a cocktail stick in the control surface recessed lines.

Once the paint was off, I could concentrate on taking the fuselage and wings apart.

The only damage done was to one wing top where the plastic creased and tried to split, but I got it off in one piece. It will receive some extra attention when it goes back together.

The main undercarriage doors would not just pop out, so Tamiya Extra Thin was painted in the inner surface around the joint to soften the glue.After about a minute, I used a tip of a knife to push the doors out of the wings. One popped out in one while the other broke off - which isn’t such a big deal as I can replace the inner section of the part anyway. The nose wheel door came out almost in one piece - just a small corner piece stayed out - again to big problem.

The air brake came out in one piece along with the strange small filler piece in front of it.

The cockpit tub came out easily by flexing the fuselage outwards, but there’s some strange paint/glue glue residue in the fuseslge. It just rubs off though.

The remaining seat half was removed as well as the instrument panel.

Then the fuselage halves were separated - I’m happy to report that they are both fully intact (including the air intakes which I can’t get off, but they’re in the correct position so I’ll leave them be.

Once the two halves were separated, I found the embossed Airfix branding confirming a 1975 kit. This branding is missing on the grey kit - scratches show the branding was removed. The 5 from the kit date can still be seen as well as the start of the copyright ©️ 

I put the white and grey fuselage halves together to check for any other damage needing attention, but parts from a bit of sanding to remove glue on the tail fin, it’s all fine.

The parts are now back in the Dettol for a final clean-up.

 

Thinking about it, it makes sense to build the grey kit while restoring the white one. It’s not like i’m short on decals is it?

Edited March 19, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Johnson]

Love the Hawk and looking forward to more of your restoration magic Brian. But...

 

14 hours ago, Brigbeale said:

spent pretty much all day in the Dettol

 

Does the small linger? Not sure I could stand it! . But obviously works very well and separates the parts as well?

 

Cheers

[Brigbeale]

2 hours ago, Johnson said:

Love the Hawk and looking forward to more of your restoration magic Brian. But...

 

 

Does the small linger? Not sure I could stand it! . But obviously works very well and separates the parts as well?

 

Cheers

Yes Charlie, it does pong a bit, but I have a lid on the Tupperware style container.

Depending on the glue used when the kit was assembled, it may or may not assist.

It also ensures the kit is completely sanitised😷

Edited March 20, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Fritag]

9 hours ago, Johnson said:

Love the Hawk and looking forward to more of your restoration magic Brian.

 

That goes for me too.

 

I’m a fan of dettol as a paint stripper also.  Seems guaranteed not to hurt the plastic.  I agree it pongs a bit,  but the pong stays in the garage in my case 

[Brigbeale]

I’ve bean beavering away with tidying up the parts to get them to fit together a lot better than they did originally.

Some areas were just sanded but some also had to be scraped as well to remove a combination of plastic and glue.

This allowed the tail fin and wings to fit together without leaving stepped joints.

 

The fuselage was taped together to see what (if any) extra work would be required to get a decent finish.

As it turns out, a bit of work is needed.

The replacement canopy still has a gap underneath it, so the plan is to build up the cockpit sides with styrene card and sense it to allow the canopy to fit.

There a are a few gluey finger marks on the surface of some of the parts, but I plan is to re-scribe the panels and then sand the surfaces.

I’m going to use the later kits to get a placement for the panel lines.

The affected areas where the weapons pods were originally fitted were give a smear of filler to give a smooth surface again.

The resin printer arrived today.

Being a used item, I was expecting signs of use, but it’s quite a bit messier than I would have liked.

The FEP sheet may need replacing as a start, but it’s something to play with to get better detailed prints.

[marvinneko]

Love following another restoration.

 

Printer should be fun. My wife has two resin printers at work. Big step up from the crappy filament kit we built years ago to get her started. Hope it works well for you! It is amazing to be able to print new parts.

 

I hope you'll pardon the diversion but what are the oddest or most unexpected things you've found during a restoration? I noted the big fingerprint here. And previously I think you've had stuff used for weights, or replacement parts. I'm curious what personal stuff you've stumbled across, particularly non model stuff like the fingerprint that hints at the people in the past who interacted with it.

[Brigbeale]

On 22/03/2023 at 03:02, marvinneko said:

Love following another restoration.

 

Printer should be fun. My wife has two resin printers at work. Big step up from the crappy filament kit we built years ago to get her started. Hope it works well for you! It is amazing to be able to print new parts.

 

I hope you'll pardon the diversion but what are the oddest or most unexpected things you've found during a restoration? I noted the big fingerprint here. And previously I think you've had stuff used for weights, or replacement parts. I'm curious what personal stuff you've stumbled across, particularly non model stuff like the fingerprint that hints at the people in the past who interacted with it.

Thanks for the support on the printer.

 

Hmm, surprises during restorations……

Theres the Sea Vixen where I found a pilot in amongst a load of still sticky goo underneath the cockpit assembly. 

The Sea Harrier FRS.1 which turned out to be a Frog Harrier GR1 with an aftermarket nose section from the engine intake housing forward. I’d previously thought somebody had kit bashed two Harriers together until it was pointed out that there was actually an aftermarket adaption to make a Sea Harrier -  it then Matchbox mad a Sea Harrier kit and these adaption kits ceased to be produced AFAIA.

 

I have a late Airfix B-17G awaiting attention (which I will hopefully get around to and depict Texas Raiders which was sadly lost along with the people on board due to a mid air collision with and P-36 KingCobra). I bought it off EBay pictured whole but needing some TLC. It arrived in a squashed Rice Crispies box with wings detached but undamaged. The seller maintained that the wings must have come off in the post!. I got a refund though.

I have just found the photos

 

 

The Meteor which had so much paint applied, it covered a cracked wing assembly. It only came to light when I was dismantling it.

 

Oh and one model - I forget which one it was now, had shirt buttons for wheels. A bit odd but a genius idea for replacing the wheels!🤣

 

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

The Italeri Goshawk is being dismantled and having the paint removed.

The small detail parts came off relatively easily. The canopy put up a bit of a fight, but came off in one piece revealing the clear internal part to be missing. I’ll just copy an Airfix one. The exhaust is rattling around inside the fuselage but at least it’s not lost.
It’s now having a Dettol bath.

 

I’m thinking of just going for it and restoring/building all 6 Hawks at the same time - what could possibly go wrong?

 

Anyway, here’s the Goshawk with all the detail parts removed.

 

[Brigbeale]

As the change of title suggests, I’m going to do all 6 of my Hawks at the same time. 
The plan is to get the two restoration Hawks stripped and cleaned back to bare plastic.

The two 1975 era Hawks will then be rescribed as per the later Airfix Hawks and then (hopefully) they’ll all be at the same point for building them (although some 3D printing will need to be done to replace broken/missing parts).

I’ve got a pretty good idea of which Hawk is getting which livery - so I’d better write it down before I forget.
 

The Goshawk went into the Dettol yesterday and was doing well with the paint wrinkling up.
It had a preliminary scrub with a soft toothbrush but there were a few areas, especially on the excess glue, which would need extra work. 
The glue used to fit the canopy went gloopy and smeared over the surrounding area. 
The only solution was to soak it further. 
I had to buy another bottle to top the tub up to cover the tail fin.

The fuselage insisted on floating so some wire mesh was rolled up and placed on top to keep it submerged.

The smaller parts were placed in recycled KFC gravy pot so I didn’t lose any.

 

This morning, I gave the fuselage and smaller parts a scrub with the toothbrush again and it’s more or less clean. 
Just some residual red in the recesses on the fuselage panel/seam lines and two strange lines over the wings where the red and white met. It should and off though.

 

The Goshawk itself has recessed panel lines and they’re not too deep either. 
It’s just a shame the wings are the wrong shape, but I can sort that out.

The plastic is very white and a bit translucent on the thinner parts. 
Tonight, I’m going to attempt to get the fuselage apart to gain full access to the cockpit tub.

 

Now the paint is off, it’s not exhaust outlet rattling around as it’s glued in position. I’m certain now that it’s the nose weight, so we will find out later what has been used!

 

Although the main wing assembly looks like I can detach it from they fuselage, the upper and lower halves look to be too well glued together. As the joints look clean and well lined up, I’m not even going to bother risking any damage to them, so I’ll leave them as they are.

 

The canopy also had the soft gloopy glue on it after the Dettol bath. I found out it is a two piece canopy when the forward section detached. I cleaned them with IPA and the two parts look better now. A dunk in the floor polish should bring it back to a nice clear finish.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Brigbeale]

It appears my counting Hawks has gone out of the window. I’ve actually got 7 to build!

The two 1975 era Airfix Hawks, the Goshawk, three later production Airfix Hawks and a Fujimi Hawk.
So with the already built Revell Red Arrow, that’ll be 8 one they’re all done!

 

The Goshawk fuselage and wing assemblies were separated more easily than I expected, revealing some discoloured excess glue on the seam underneath.

The fuselage itself then came apart nicely with the aid of a 0.1mm saw cut along the starboard side of the tail fin. It didn’t require a full cut to separate and it’s a fairly clean break. 
 

The separated fuselage revealed the nose weight to be lead shot encased in something looking like white-tac. The rattling culprit was one of the lead balls loose between the cockpit tub and the white-tac.

 

The tub itself came free with the help of a flat square blade. This enabled me to scrape most of the remaining paint off the tub itself. A couple of parts came loose which further enabled me to clean up the assembly.

 

The air intakes were removed with these help of downloaded copies of the instructions both Italeri and Testors. 
I scraped the excess glue from the insides of the fuselage seam and area where the cockpit tub fitted and then sanded the mating surfaces back to clean plastic.

The wing surfaces were sanded. It turns out the red lines on the wings are scratches/scribed lines. Not very deep, but a little too deep to just sand out. I’ll probably have to use a scriber to clean them out and fill them with Mr Surfacer.

 

Tape was used to check the refit of the parts and all seems ok at the moment.

 

The two cleaned fuselages together - Airfix on the left, Italeri/Testors on the right.

Going from the decals that were applied, it seems the Goshawk is the.Testors branded Italeri kit.

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by Brigbeale
Spell checker intervention

[Johnson]

It's all quite forensic, your dissection of the kits. Did the builder of the Goshawk use ordinary poly glue Brian? It has an odd yellow appearance, a reaction with the Dettol? Or maybe that's the paint I can see.

 

And x7? Are there 7 Hawks here?

 

Keep up the great work.

 

Cheers,

[Brigbeale]

2 hours ago, Johnson said:

It's all quite forensic, your dissection of the kits. Did the builder of the Goshawk use ordinary poly glue Brian? It has an odd yellow appearance, a reaction with the Dettol? Or maybe that's the paint I can see.

 

And x7? Are there 7 Hawks here?

 

Keep up the great work.

 

Cheers,

The glue does appear to be the old polystyrene cement. I think it’s gone that colour with age as some of the parts were removed before going into the Dettol and they had the same colour cement on them. I suppose it depends on the brand used. 
Although the Dettol may have added to the hue a bit.

Yes there’s 7.

The white 1975 era Airfix,

The grey 1975 era Arifix

The Testors Goshawk,

The Fujimi Hawk

The RAF Bemevolent Fund Airfix

The NHS Charities Airfix  

and the Red Arrows Airfix.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Zephyr91]

11 hours ago, Brigbeale said:

The tub itself came free with the help of a spade blade.

Love it when the speel chucker fails!   Thought I'd wandered into a gardening forum for a moment there!

 

Loving this thread.  Not really looked at kit recycling before, but shows possibilities.

 

I also like the Hawk having worked on it for a bit.  Wasn't aware the T-45 had a much different wing shape - other than for the le slat of course.

 

Watching with interest

 

Rob

[Galligraphics]

Brian - re the Goshawk differences, there’s a really useful thread here: 

 

HTH 

Nige

[Brigbeale]

Sorry for not keeping you all posted with each nigh’t activities, but there’s not really much that happened over the weekend.

But the main work that was done, was on the Goshawk.

Time was spent clearing off the really stubborn paint which was still sat in the tight crevices, panel lines and the holes/slots in the air brakes and the fuselage.

The odd scratches on the wings where the old red and white paint met were filled with Mr Surfacer 1000 ne left to dry overnight.

The fins were measured as the Goshawk has a slightly taller one than the BAE Hawk. Happily, this is portrayed in the kit.

 

So, onto tonight’s activities.

Firstly, to get the wing tips squared off, I needed a plan view of the Goshawk. I found one in what appeared to be some sort of manual for the Goshawk.

I rescaled it to the correct wing span - but that made the fuselage length far too long. 
I re-sized it to the model fuselage length which also corrected the wing chord to the model’s wing size. The wing span, however, was too narrow as a result.

So out with the ruler, protractor and different colour pens.

With some working out, I figured I could cut the wing tips from the main wings where the navigation lights ended. It was fractionally narrower than the drawing (less than 1mm on the overall wingspan), but that’s fine with me. The tip is still slightly rounded on the leading edge tip, but I can sort that with navigation lights sanded square to match the wings.

The rear wings on the diagram were also too narrow. 
With a calculator, I figured the correct size and drew the size on the diagram.

The model’s tail wings are approx the correct size but have rounded tips.

Theres a raised panel line which if figured I could use to cut the tip off and glue a piece of 0.5mm styrene card on for reshaping the tip.🤞

 

The cockpit seats look to be roughly the same as images - which show them to be similar to F-18 seats. a quick look at my Hasegawa F-18A confirmed this).
I was going to use my Elegoo Mars 2 to print the Martin Baker Mk10 seats, but the kit ones look ok.

Also, there’s still a couple of bits and pieces to arrive before I can confidently start printing with it.

Although I did curse it while trying to send the file to the printer where it just kept saying ‘file not known’.

It turned out to be the firmware needed updating - which was a chore in itself as I had to download the correct file, copy it to the root directory on a flash drive an then apply each file in the correct order on the printer itself. 
Then I found I had to use Chitubox 1.8 instead of 1.9.

I hope it prints properly or it’s going for a short flight out of the window!

For the sheer hell of it, I thought I’d print a couple on the FDM printer. I think it objected to the other printer and promptly failed to print the seats.

Patience Brian - patience! 

[stevehnz]

Cerrripes, this is going to take some keeping up with, but I'll do my best, 'cause A/ I like Hawks & have a few in stock including the early Airfix one & 

B/ you're doing a Goshawk & I have two of them & I need to see how you go about it.

Steve.

[Brigbeale]

The elevator/stabiliser wings were reshaped by placing tape along the raised panel line and, using a 0.1mm saw, the tip was cut off.

They were then placed on the diagram with some 0.5mm styrene card which was marked to get the wing length and also marked oversize fro the leading and trailing edges.

The shape was cut (again with the saw) and the edges lightly filed to even them up.

Once they were checked for fit, they were fitted together with sprue-goo, clamped with two small bulldog clips, and left to dry.

 

The cockpit tub still needed more cleaning up if residue paint and old glue. 
The instrument panels were removed by rocking them from side to side and they came away without breaking. Once the rear control column was removed, I had better access to clean more crud from the lower sections of the tub.

Once it was clean enough, I rebuilt the tub. The fuselage was used as a jig to set the rear bulkhead angle.

The fit of the tub in the fuselage was checked. It was originally fitted too far forward but it’ll be fitted into the correct position this time round.

 

While everything was held together with tape, I tried the canopy on.

Hmmmm, it fits - kind of!

The main and forward sections have a step in them if they’re placed in their natural positions.

To position the forward to remove the step leaves a gap underneath.

The main section to the fuselage at the rear also has a slight step, so the either the filler piece behind it needs lifting slightly or the main canopy or coaming need tweaking to get it to sit slightly lower - which means care will be needed to keep the mating angle to the forward section in line.🤔

The bulldog clips were removed from the rear temporarily wings to allow trimming and trial fitting to the fuselage.
They look ok now, but once sanded to shape, they should look the part.

 

The Goshawk with the various bits and pieces dry fitted.

 

Aaaand, I might have put a bid in for another Hawk

Edited March 29, 2023 by Brigbeale

[Johnson]

Excellent work. Going to look great!

[Galligraphics]

2 hours ago, Brigbeale said:

Aaaand, I might have put a bid in for another Hawk

You should probably start bidding for shelves….