Hasegawa 1/48 Hurricane Mk I in Finnish service

[AaCee26]

Troy mentioned the early windscreen. To complete the saga of Finnish Hurries there were an interesting photo in the later sorely defunct Finnish aviation historical magazine: HC459, RAF camo, metal wing, "9" on rudder and - dadadaa! - early type windscreen!

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee

[Troy Smith]

2 hours ago, AaCee26 said:

the later sorely defunct Finnish aviation historical magazine

Suomen Ilmailuhistoriaiallinen Lehti? 

 

If so do you know which issue, as I have stack  of them.  (they had a load of issues at The Aviation Bookshop which I bought I think they worked out about £1 each as long as I bought the lot)  unfortunately not all of them,  a quick count seems to be 34 issues, 

I just found  a list of articles online though,

 

2 hours ago, AaCee26 said:

To complete the saga of Finnish Hurries there were an interesting photo in the later sorely defunct Finnish aviation historical magazine: HC459, RAF camo, metal wing, "9" on rudder and - dadadaa! - early type windscreen!

N2322 I M III  5MU 3-12-39 sold Glosters for Finland 2-2-40 'HU-459' Hit by own AA crashed in flames Utti 2-7-41.

 

Co-incidentally I was looking at a photo of N2320 I M III10MU 28-9-39 56Sq 27-12-39 242Sq 21-1-40 Manston 16-5-40 'LE-H' Shot down by Bf110 and abandoned nr Le Cateau 18-5-40 P/O MK Brown inj FH118:20.   and noticed the early screen.

 

Are there there clear shots of these?  I'm trying to see if there is a swap point, or, like the fabric wing, a mixture....

 

N2323 I M III 5MU 22-11-39 sold Glosters for Finland 2-2-40 'HU-458' Shot down by AA Kotskoma 16-9-41

 

N2324 I M III 5MU 3-12-39 sold Glosters for Finland 2-2-40 'HU-460' Wfu 20-7-43

 

N2325 I M III 5MU 30-11-39 sold Glosters for Finland 2-2-40 'HU-461' u/c leg collapsed Wick 28-2-40 returned RAF 11EFTS 1-8-40 46MU 3-8-40 59OTU 3-2-41 Forgot to lower u/c Kingstown AC 16-6-41 Sgt JD Stevenson (RCAF) safe 43GDA 16-6-41 ATO 20-6-41 15MU 20-8-41 SOC 2-4-42 recat CB Taylorcraft riw 27-6-42 44MU 1-8-42 59OTU 28-10-42 DeH riw 28-3-43 5MU 25-6-43 HQ TAF CF 12-8-43 22MU 8-3-44 5PAFU 7-4-44 Morrisons SOC 3-1-45

 

N2327 I M III 5MU 3-12-39 sold Glosters for Finland 2-2-40 'HU-457' Stalled on landing and crashed Turku 3-6-40

 

Somewhere I have the Suomen Ilmavoimat Historia of the Hurricane and Gladiator.....  

(but where?  it's annoying me as to it's location in the house is "somewhere" )  or I'd check myself.  

 

Kiitos!

[Nick McV]

I have a pilot's seat... I rebuilt the back using the surplus-to-requirement seat from my Corsair build, and added a couple of tiny slivers of styrene at the sides to represent how the seat "flares" at the top. It isn't quite tall enough in proportion due to how it's mounted on part J13, any taller and it would foul the head armour, but it gives at least a sense of the unique shape of the seats in the Finnish Hurricanes (reminder to self: closed canopy, therefore largely invisible.) The shiny bit next to it (pic 1) represents the leather padding on the seat back, which will be appropriately painted up and glued in place as in pic 2. I had a go at scoring the padding pattern per the photograph further up, we'll see how it looks with some primer on it. This is cunningly fashioned from the foil from the neck of a bottle of very decent Tobermory 12-year-old single malt that I've been looking for an excuse to open since I visited the Isle of Mull in August. Slàinte! 🥃

 

 

 

Touch wood, that's the trickiest part of the build out of the way.

 

Cheers

 

Nick

 

[Nick McV]

I had an up-with-the-lark sesh on the Hurri this morning, and started painting some of the cockpit and undercarriage bits, including the undercarriage doors and wheel oleos in RLM 65. Here's an oddity though: the inside of the port door on HC-452 is painted, whereas the inside of the starboard door is bare metal:

 

 

Well, if I'm going for accuracy... 

 

Cheers

 

Nick

Edited October 3 by Nick McV

[Wings unlevel]

2 hours ago, Nick McV said:

Here's an oddity though: the inside of the port door on HC-452 is painted, whereas the inside of the starboard door is bare metal:

That is odd! Will definitely be a talking point for your model when done. 👍

[Nick McV]

20 minutes ago, Wings unlevel said:

That is odd! Will definitely be a talking point for your model when done. 👍

 

I've emailed the museum to ask if that was how HC-452 arrived with them, or if they've put a replacement on (you never know!)

 

It makes no sense that only one door inner would have been painted when she got her new Finnish scheme, my instinct is that this was a replacement door cover added during service, possible after the "hard landing" of 25/9/42 which grounded her for five months. This is very shortly after she got the new paint-job though. The light blue undersurfaces (May 1942) pre-date the complete repaint of the late summer and were added to the Hurris (or at least some of them - metal wing only?) while they still had RAF camouflage, and presumably bare aluminium wheel bays and door inners. The wheel bays/oleos/door inners (both of them) surely would only later have been repainted light blue, same as the rest of the underside. Therefore my theory is that the starboard door is a replacement added after the hard landing, originally belonging to a Hurricane whose underside had been painted light blue in May 1942 (still RAF-style) upper surfaces, but had been taken out of action before the overall repaint later that summer.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

 

It gets in your head, this stuff, doesn't it?

 

Cheers

 

Nick

Edited October 3 by Nick McV

[Nick McV]

OK, I've been mulling over the question of the bare metal starboard inner wheel fairing, and this is where I'm at.

 

Here's a "then and now" photograph of the same part of the plane, and being black-and-white it's impossible to tell whether it's blue or bare metal but FWIW they look the same:

 

 

However... I have come to the conclusion that this isn't a replacement fairing at all. It appears that a repair has been made (probably following the "hard landing") to the original fairing after it was painted blue, using an unpainted inner panel taken from another aircraft, my money being on it being one of the Hurricanes that didn't survive long enough to get the new Finnish paint job and was still in its "delivered" scheme. This is based on the fact that the outer fairings are the same colour and exhibit similar amounts of wear and tear, and this image:

 

 

Note that the aft part of the fairing appears to be light blue, not metal. 

 

Edit: clearer still in these pics:

 

 

 

So, I'm going to need to partially repaint one of the wheel fairings to represent this.

 

Cheers

 

Nick

 

Edited October 3 by Nick McV

[Nick McV]

Ever tried to paint a 1/48 scale cockpit with a couple of Friday nights beers in you?

 

Trust me, it doesn't work.

 

Cheers

 

Nick

Edited October 3 by Nick McV

[Wings unlevel]

7 hours ago, Nick McV said:

I have come to the conclusion that this isn't a replacement fairing at all. It appears that a repair has been made (probably following the "hard landing") to the original fairing after it was painted blue, using an unpainted inner panel taken from another aircraft, my money being on it being one of the Hurricanes that didn't survive long enough to get the new Finnish paint job and was still in its "delivered" scheme. This is based on the fact that the outer fairings are the same colour and exhibit similar amounts of wear and tear, and this image:

Some great sleuthing here Nick, that definitely sounds plausible!

 

9 hours ago, Nick McV said:

It gets in your head, this stuff, doesn't it?

Yes, yes it does!

[Andwil]

It also looks to me as though the undercarriage leg, while chipped and weathered, may have been painted light blue as well.

 

AW

[Nick McV]

7 minutes ago, Andwil said:

It also looks to me as though the undercarriage leg, while chipped and weathered, may have been painted light blue as well.

 

AW

They are indeed, as well as the wheel wells, though as you say some heavy wear and tear there. I've already painted both light blue, but down the track there will be some weathering to do.

[Nick McV]

Couple of bits of aftermarket have arrived: five spoke wheels, and some exhaust stacks which are a great improvement on the kit originals (IMHO a decent set of exhaust can really lift a model).

I've also ordered some etch seatbelts, through the ones I've ordered are "suitable for Airfix kit". I'm sure they're compatible with any kit really, but I'll probably save them for when I do actually build my Airfix Hurri, I've found a couple of Eduard Spitfire colour PE's in the spares box and I'm sure the harness from one of them will do the job here.

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[Nick McV]

While I'm waiting for cockpit bits to dry there's a bit of fettling on the outside I can be getting on with.

 

On the fuselage, the "lip" on the nose needs to come off, this being a feature of Mk II Hurricanes I believe, but not the Mk I. "Be careful not to remove it too much" say the instructions, helpfully.

 

Also, I don't know what those two little nubbins on both sides of the fuselage below the cockpit are, but they're not present on HC-452.

 

 

On the wings, there are three strengthening plates(?) on each wing that need to come off (again, pointed out in the instructions). And near the wing root on each wing there is a row of five little fishplate things. On the real thing they are present in the port side, but not the starboard. 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[Nick McV]

I've got the prop painted up:

(I knocked up a little spacer around the prop shaft - there's a noticeable gap between spinner and fuselage nose on the real thing.)

 

Another quirk of HC-462 is that the propeller tips are painted yellow only on the front of the blades, while the reverse remain all black:

 

 

While this photo shows HC-452 in storage after the war without a prop (or engine, or glazing!)...

 

 

...I'm pretty sure it's the original (or possibly one from another Finnish Hurricane? See below), from looking at these pics from her time in service:

 

 

It's something I haven't seen before, and I wonder if it's a feature specific to the Finnish Hurricanes. Here's HC460, apparently with the same all-black reverse blades:

 

 

But here's HC-464, yellow tips front and back:

 

So either the restoration team had the original prop, or a similar one from another Hurricane, or they sourced one and showed great attention to detail in painting the tips of the reverse blades black, which seems unlikely somehow.

 

It's also something that appears to be routinely missed in builds of HC-452, so I am feeling a tiny bit pleased with myself.

 

Anyway, 1:1 stuff beckons. Have a great day.

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 4 by Nick McV

[Nick McV]

Well, that was No Fun At All.

 

[Troy Smith]

13 hours ago, Nick McV said:

It's something I haven't seen before, and I wonder if it's a feature specific to the Finnish Hurricanes. Here's HC460, apparently with the same all-black reverse blades:

Look very closely at HU460, it has a yellow.  The pic of HU452 is in shadow.

 

13 hours ago, Nick McV said:

Another quirk of HC-462 is that the propeller tips are painted yellow only on the front of the blades, while the reverse remain all black:

No, they are not black,  look again

 

what you are seeing is bare metal.   Note the blade to the right has black paint for about 2/3. the other blade looks more worn.

It's a detail pointed out ages ago by @Work In Progress  who is a pilot.

Blade wear occurs on the back of the blade, down from the tip.  You get the odd ding on the leading edge,  but the front can be nearly pristine and the back a 1/3 or more bare metal (see Corsair pics in link) 

 

It's one of those  'once you know' details,  

OK very clear in this

 

Beaufighter but clearer in colour

 

and catching the sun

 

see here  for more pics,  the front/back of the same Corsair is very helpful

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235108742-hawker-hurricane-mk-i-tropical-73-squadron-north-africa-1942/#elControls_4375766_menu

 

2 hours ago, Nick McV said:

Well, that was No Fun At All.

it's done.  Note that the internal framework is painted aluminium if you have not already spotted that.

 

HTH

 

 

[Nick McV]

15 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

what you are seeing is bare metal.

This is most enlightening, thank you. How (or indeed if) I will represent this is anyone's guess, I've already painted them black.

 

16 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

Note that the internal framework is painted aluminium if you have not already spotted that.

Yeah, I spotted that. Trust me, I've spent more time than is healthy looking at pictures of this aeroplane 😁. Update tomorrow.

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[Troy Smith]

15 minutes ago, Nick McV said:

How (or indeed if) I will represent this is anyone's guess, I've already painted them black.

Repaint rear blade  about 1/3 with aluminium paint, and dry brush black, 

Or as already painted, hard dry brush aluminium paint, down from tip, reducing the amount of aluminium paint.   

Or, have you got a silver artist pencil, like Prismacolour?  that would work I think.

 

Practice on something else first, the blade wear also depends when you are 

 

The ones I link/show are from desert or Corsair, crushed coral, both are very abrasive,  so less blade wear in Finland.

 

HTH

 

[Work In Progress]

6 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Or, have you got a silver artist pencil, like Prismacolour?  that would work I think.

This works on most black paints that we use providing they are matt or satin. You can smudge it with a finger to create a graduated effect. It's the sort of thing to try on a few old bits of sprue before you do it on a prop blade - though of course you can always strip and re-paint if you get it wrong,

[Nick McV]

7 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Repaint rear blade  about 1/3 with aluminium paint, and dry brush black, 

Or as already painted, hard dry brush aluminium paint, down from tip, reducing the amount of aluminium paint.   

Or, have you got a silver artist pencil, like Prismacolour?  that would work I think.

 

57 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

This works on most black paints that we use providing they are matt or satin. You can smudge it with a finger to create a graduated effect. It's the sort of thing to try on a few old bits of sprue before you do it on a prop blade - though of course you can always strip and re-paint if you get it wrong,

 

I do indeed have one of those silver pencils, which I use for chipping, especially on the leading edges of propeller blades. I have plenty props in the spares box, I'll spray one of them up and experiment with both methods before letting rip on HC-452's prop (which is spray painted matt black).

[Nick McV]

While just taking a second to reflect on the utter absurdity of the amount of time and effort I've put into this interior given that a) it will be largely invisible once the canopy is on, and b) apart from on these pages, nobody will ever look at it anyway, here are some cockpit bits. I've done my best to stay true to what we see in the actual cockpit, within the limits of the kit, my manual dexterity and my failing eyesight, with only a very tiny amount of artistic licence.

 

The rebuilt pilot's seat just needs some seatbelts before mounting on the modified bulkhead with the custom Finnish head armour. The Whisky foil padding turned out okay I think.

 

 

Here's the floor with control column and pedals, and the cockpit framework, which (unusually) is bare metal in this Hurri, albeit with a kind of "shelf" at the top in interior grey/green, as the sidewalls. The panel on the port one (aft of the trim wheel) has a little more going on than the real thing, but I just painted it up.

 

 

I decided to dry-brush the instrument panel rather than use the decal, which would probably have looked a bit garish. This is more subtle I feel.

 

 

Port sidewall. The framework isn't glued in, it's just sitting there for effect.

 

 

Starboard sidewall. I went to town a bit on this, trying to capture the essence of the real thing:

 

 

The two pouches and the map holder were made and added by the restoration team. The kit moulding has one of the pouches, the one on the right, the one on the left (which sits on the front of the map case) I knocked up out of Tamiya tape. The new map case appears in bare metal, I had a look at a few period pictures of Hurricane cockpits and saw some in grey/green, others in black. I went with black just for a bit of contrast. The upper framed diagram thing I represented with a tiny silver of white decal; I considered doing something to show the lower one, but decided against it - that would just be a faff too far.

 

 

I'm going to have day off today, but will add those seatbelts and stick it all together in the next couple of days, we'll see how it looks, then hide it all away forever...

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

Nick

 

[Andwil]

1 hour ago, Nick McV said:

While just taking a second to reflect on the utter absurdity of the amount of time and effort I've put into this interior given that a) it will be largely invisible once the canopy is on, and b) apart from on these pages, nobody will ever look at it anyway,

Well you know it’s there and you have had the enjoyment and satisfaction of having done it, which is, after all the essence of any hobby.  And anyway, it looks fantastic.

 

AW

[Wings unlevel]

Some great work in the cockpit Nick. Love the pouch and pockets.

 

On 04/10/2025 at 16:22, Nick McV said:

of the fuselage below the cockpit are

I know, I know! These are vents for Trop versions.

[Troy Smith]

3 hours ago, Nick McV said:

and the cockpit framework, which (unusually) is bare metal in this Hurri

Not bare metal.  Painted aluminium dope.  Standard for most Hurricanes.   Note the inside of the metal panels below the cockpit is also painted aluminium.

Just visible behind trim wheel , you can also see the aluminium paint chipped off the seat

 

 

 

 

note the black bits in the framework are Mk.II bomb switches

 

HTH 

 

[Nick McV]

2 hours ago, Wings unlevel said:

These are vents for Trop versions.

That's interesting. I was casting my eye over my Airfix Trop kit earlier for comparison's sake and they are absent from that one!

 

41 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

note the black bits in the framework are Mk.II bomb switches

 

That is to say, they shouldn't be there. Gaaah. 
 

In fairness to Hasegawa:

 

 No bombs = no switches I guess.

 

It's funny how having the actual aircraft as source material throws up as many questions as it answers, compounded by photos of the plane at various stages of its career. And casting around for photos my Corsair build for the Tamiya GB has already generated all kinds of ifs, buts and maybes. I'm thinking of proposing an "ignorance is bliss" GB. You can build anything you want, as long as you refer only to the instructions that come in the box, any other source material or research strictly forbidden. Just enjoy the build and looking at whatever comes out of the other end. Perhaps not one for you, Troy. 😉