Falklands war Sea Harrier and Pucara

[tim dix]

Hi Guys

I have dug this one out the stash, its great as I never thought I would ever get round to doing it. The box set has something like 15 paints, a brush and some glue. To make it fair though, I will only be using six different colours per kit, as it goes the instrtuctions only call out for six coulurs each plane, so these will what I will be using (they can be seen with the kits on the box). The harrier was first, I have actually started and finished this one, but couldn't post my build thread due to a burning computer monitor! I took pics of the build as I went through it though.

The paints I used for the SHAR were, 33 (black), 123 (extra dark sea grey), 163 ( dark green), 56 (metalic something), 27 (sea grey) and 64 (light grey).

I painted the cockpit, err, grey and picked out a few dials and stuff in lighter grey, using the cocktail sticks I was using to mix the paint, then realised there were decals for this, Doh!

i cut my fingers, I mean the intake doors and stuck them on and painted a first coat of Extra dark sea grey.

After an hour or so, another coat of grey and the black nose, with a watered down black mix to weather.

This is where the fun stopped! The decals were awful, the carrier film was just one big decal all over. The individual decals would not seperate, and then just went milky on the model. I had to paint over the worst of them, and due the that, not many of the stencils went on.

After the disaster with the decals, on went the fuel tanks and sidewinders as well as the aerials and canopy.

Hope you like this one, I think it looked ok in the end, not the best, but a half decent model of the harrier can be made with it, so Airfix have again produced a decent kit you can build from the box!

Now on to the Pucara!

[AnonymousDFB1]

Very well done

[JMB]

Good work Tim, just a shame the decals wouldn't play ball for you.

I guarantee I would have lost fingers dropping those intake doors with that craft knife though!

Looking forward to the Pucara build too.

John.

[tim dix]

Cheers guys,

I have a quick up-date on the Pucara. I have painted the cockpit in various shades of grey, and stuck the seats together. They are really nice representations of seats, most unlike Airfix, but I guess this is the Special Hobby hobby. On that note there are no locating pins anywhere on this kit, so for this reason I have allowed myself the luxury of using masking tape too. Like I said the seats were great, so I added a little detail with stretched sprue, just a few belts, and pipes. I also added some bits that stick up on the top of them, I guess to break the canopy on ejection. They look ok.

Once together there was a rather large gap down one sideand, since filler was out, I used the remaining stretched sprue to fill this in.

Thats about it so far, will post again when I have got on a bit further.

Cheers

Tim

[jazzythumper]

Is this a starter set?

[tim dix]

Is this a starter set?

Its a gift set, just like the starter sets with the glue, paints and a brush included. That is all i am using the six paints that are quoted in the instructions, numbers, 65 (aircraft blue), 90 (beige green), 121 (palestone),33 (black), 56 (silver metalic)and 64 (light grey). No other colours or brushes have been used, only the stuff in the box. The box actually comes with six kits included, but i dont think I will get all of them done, it was part of the Falklands war set, just like the vulcan.

cheers

Tim

[tim dix]

Just another quick update on the pucara.

The gaps have been 'plugged' with stretched sprue, and sanded with a sanding stick. I added about a ton of nose weight in the front to try and keep it from tail sitting, not sure if this was successful yet, will see when I add the gears.

Painting has commenced, a few coats of the pale stone went on first, each coat being slightly more watered down than the last. Then the green camo pattern hand painted on. Its a weird scheme, the green doesnt go over the spine as such, each side has its own pattern. Anyway, that is where I am at now, will prob do the blue undersude tonight, though this looks too dark to me, may try and lighten it with the pale stone (in the absence of any white paint). Oh yeah, and the metallic colour paint is rubbish! It doesnt go on, had to undercoat with the black first in order to get it to stay on the plastic!

[Paul Brickles]

Is this a starter set?

If you had a rich dad it is

Nice work Tim

[tim dix]

Evening guys

Finished the pucara about 10 mins ago!

Since my last, i built the props, which were a bit of a pain to be honest, as you had too stick each blade on individually.

Next up was the blue underneath. I used the blue provided but lightened it with a bit of the pale stone as it was way to dark.

Then I stuck on the canopy and painted the framing, before running some watered down black paint into the moving surfaces, and a watered down black/grey over the model to generally dirty it up a bit.

The wheels went on next, another pain, they dont really have good locating holes, which I would have liked as they are so long! Nevermind, lastly some stretched sprue for aerials and it was on to the decals (these were RUBBISH). I had the same problem as the harrier, the carrier film wouldnt come away, and they were pretty thick, still it looked ok in the end.

Hope you like it, I love it. This GB has been brilliant, and despite the problems I have had with the decals, I think Airfix have done a great job with all the starter/gift kits I have done. You can pretty much make any shade of the colours you need with the paints provided. The only thing I would say to Airfix is, add the primary colurs to all box kits, or at least white.

Thanks again to the moderators, great idea, great Group Build.

Cheers

Tim

[Plastic Bonsai]

The Pucara has come out rather well Tim.

I've dug my box out of the roof now but I'm going to be a bit pushed for time to build any.

[tim dix]

Thanks mate.

Well, the Pucara is a great kit, and the harriers are ok, its just a shame about those decals. Hope yours are better then mine.

I may do one more but like you said, time is a little tight now...maybe just a little one !

Tim

[Milo Black]

still it looked ok in the end.

Certainly did, Tim - bit of an understatement, that

[sartois66]

Great effort all round Tim, nice.

Kirk

[Royster]

Wow! Excellent work! I have the Falklands Gift Set too so now I know what they look like I might (might....) go for these next.

[Tripehound]

I know what you mean about the decals - I've just ruined the Super Etendard from this set. They were complete gash - the adhesive seemed to be everywhere apart from under the decals. I ended up effectively 'glueing' most of them down with Klear.