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Airfix Douglas Invader


BAC

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Here's the latest to be finished. It's a nice kit, on par with the P61 Black Widow and nearly as good as the Marauder, but not quite as detailed. The fit was generally good but a little work was needed at the rear of the engine cowls and the top fuselage behind the cockpit.

All in all it's a decent kit and worthy of a re-release by Hornby.

This was all brush painted using two coats Humbrol Metalcote 'Polished Aluminium' with a layer of Klear between each coat. The control sufaces are H11 silver as I believe they are doped fabric -but I could be wrong. The green bits are H155 Olive Drab, the interior is H80 with H86 bombs.

The decals were an absolute dream! In register, no silvering and with a magnifying glass you can actually read the crew names on the noseart blackboard.

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Cheers.

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You know, these older kits from Airfix get slated for no good reason. All they need is some TLC and a and a decent modeller to produce some fine results. It's hard to believe that the silver is actually brush painted. You did a great job.

Nige.

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You know, these older kits from Airfix get slated for no good reason. All they need is some TLC and a and a decent modeller to produce some fine results. It's hard to believe that the silver is actually brush painted. You did a great job.

Nige.

Hear Hear.

A really good looking model. Remember its not the kit but the modeller that makes the difference.

Julien

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Thanks for your comments guys.

I find Humbrol Polished Aluminium quite a good paint for doing bare metal finishes -as long as it's a quite a new pot. Over time I've found it goes a bit 'sticky'. Through practise I find that you only have a small amount of time to get the paint on before it starts to lift -especially if you keep going over it. I follow the rivit and panel lines. For example when doing the wings I started at the leading edge and worked backwards to the front spar line and did the whole width of the wing, then I did a line from the inner part of the wing to the tip. Next was another front to back direction doing each rivit panel at a time until I got to the rear spar, then another line widthways and finally the flaps were done chordwise. (Does this make sense?) Once done it picks up the panels slightly differently depending on the angle it's viewed and the lighting conditions -quite realistic. Any access doors or fuel doors were brushed the 'other way' to give effect.

As far as the interior is concerned the instructions say use H151 but that's discontinued and looking at various sources on the net H80 seemed close, -but what do I know? I'm actually colour blind! Also the green colour in the pictures might not look true as I took some with a flash and then ran them through 'Picassa' to crop and lighten them slightly.

I know that using Alclad or bare metal foil would have been even better but it's expensive and time consuming. Also I've never used them and I've only got a cheap Revell £11 airgun that I've only used once. And another thing -I hate masking!!

Cheers.

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Here's mine from 1994, SFTB save for sanding down the rivet detail and scribing a few lines. Finish was out of a Halfords can IIRC. Its a bit of a transition kit in that the surface detail has its lineage in the 1960s but the interior hinted at stuff like the B-26 to come.

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Nice jobs - both of you. I have the Airfix kit for the 1/72 Liberator which was issued - according to the box label when Airfix were in SW19 - a long time ago. I have to agree with Nige - the general quality is pretty good - nothing that a little modelling will not cure. Yes of course there are raised panel lines - which many aircraft had - remember too that the whole panel was "raised" not just the "line" around the edge! I achieve this incidentally by masking around The panel in question and spraying another couple of coates of paint in the enclosed area. However I digress - my point simply is that the Airfix kits generally are and have always been pretty fair - and good value as a result.

My intention is employing this model as an exercise in BMF using kitchen foil!

David.

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