1:72 CMR Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S.2

[Navy Bird]

Hi Mates!

 

For my next project, I've decided to do my first all-resin kit. I've used lots of resin accessories on injection moulded kits, but I've never made an all-resin replica. So, after 48 years of modelling, I figured now is the time!

 

My choice is the beautiful 1:72 CMR Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S.2 with FAA markings (kit no. 165). I haven't decide which of the included twelve (12!) schemes to model yet. The first two are in the EDSG over white scheme and are actually Blackburn Buccaneers, while the other ten are in overall EDSG. One decal sheet includes the squadron markings, while the other is a complete set of stencils. CMR's incredible research even goes to the point of telling you which stencils were on which aircraft at specific points in time. Lots of work went into this one!

 

 

 

The resin is cream-coloured, and you have to hold it at a certain angle to see the engraved panel lines. This will change once it's painted of course. Newer kits from CMR use a light green resin that lets you see all the engraved detail as soon as you open the box. The panel line detail is just about right for this scale. The cockpit, being all resin, is very nicely detailed and includes two different types of Martin Baker bang seats (straight-through thigh guards or splayed thigh guards). It is possible to install the seats with the correct amount of offset from the aircraft centerline.

 

 

The fuselage is split into top and bottom halves, and it looks like minimum clean-up is necessary as the casting blocks are quite small. The radome can be modelled opened, and parts are included for the radar (Blue Parrot? I'm afraid I'll have to read up on this to increase my meager knowledge of British avionics). Two sets of tailcones/airbrakes are provided, depending on which aircraft you are modelling (pre-mod or post-mod). The airbrake petals can be posed open, revealing nice detail. The intakes don't have any nasty seems to fill, since they are moulded one-piece, but only have a depth of 12mm or so. Compressor faces are provided, but I don't know if they should be deeper than that.

 

Parts are provided for folding the wings, which is the way that I'll be proceeding.

 

The kit includes an impressive array of underwing stores and weapons, including slipper tanks, Martel missiles and data acquisition pods, rocket pods, bombs (including training versions), and buddy refueling pods. There is even a "Red Beard." Multiple sets of pylons are included and indicated when appropriate. I'm very impressed at the level of detail that CMR has undertaken to ensure that various configurations are correct. They've even provided for you to model the catapult launch hooks in the lowered position - very useful for a launch diorama.

 

You can model the rotating bomb bay open or closed, and CMR has provided two open bays - one for 1,000 lb bombs, and the other for the "Red Beard."

 

 

The main wheel wells are separate pieces, and to be honest, have less detail than I thought they would. Some extra work will be needed here to bring them up to the standard of, say, Aires. Two different tailplanes are included, with or without the RWR bullets fitted.

 

 

Also included is a colour photoetch fret and canopy masks made by Eduard. The windscreen, canopy, and rear blast screen are supplied as vacuform pieces. Thoughtfully, CMR is aware of my vacuform skills and supplies two of each.

 

 

All together, there are 32 pages of instructions, painting guide, decal placement diagrams, and black and white reference photos. Amazingly, there are three pages of detail painting instructions! Each part number is identified in a table with its description, which camo scheme it is applicable to, what colour it should be painted, and the corresponding BS 381C reference (if applicable). Someone please call Herr Revell and let him know this is how it's supposed to be done!

 

This is not a kit for the faint-hearted, and is most certainly not a "shake and bake" kit. Since this is a learning experience for me, I suspect that it will take me a bit longer than usual, but I know I'm really looking forward to it. Especially since there are CMR Scimitar and Sea Venom kits just arrived for my stash...so wish me luck!

 

Cheers,

Bill

[SaintsPhil]

Ill watch this with extreme interest! I'm currently wrestingly with the 1/72 airfix kit so it's interesting to see the other end of the market!!

Phil

[Rizzo]

That looks like a fantastic kit- love all the options they provide. Seems like they went to a lot of trouble to make things as accurate as they can be

I've been looking at both this and the Scimitar they do- if I'd known about those kits before I started i might well have choosen to make 1/72 instead of 1/48

[Jinxman]

Good luck - go for it.

[Duncan B]

Bill

I am really looking forward to this build. I have one in the stash but haven't plucked up the courage to start it, instead I'm cutting my teeth on a couple of less expensive resin kits. Can't wait to see what you can do with this one.

Edited May 5, 2012 by Duncan B

[Moofles]

Im with DucanB on this one, have one in the stash, not man enough to have a go yet. Looking foward to see what you can pull off.

[Graeme H]

Firstly, you have done a very nice display, of the kit and parts, I think I first saw this kit at Southern Expo in 2006, and have always wanted one, it's just the capitol expenditure that stops me.

Do you plan an RN or RAF version?

[Navy Bird]

Graeme H said:

Firstly, you have done a very nice display, of the kit and parts, I think I first saw this kit at Southern Expo in 2006, and have always wanted one, it's just the capitol expenditure that stops me.

Do you plan an RN or RAF version?

 

This will be a Royal Navy version, most likely XV360, 613/LM, 803 NAS, RNAS Lossiemouth, July 1969. It will include the Post-Mod. 931 Arrester Hook Recess, Post-Mod. 1044 Airbrake Petals, Mod. 1059 Noise Reduction Intake Fairings, Pre-Mod. 1514 Tailplane, and MB Mk. 4MSB ejection seats. Load-out will be slipper tanks and rocket pods. Overall Glossy EDSG. Squadron chevron is yellow and black checkers. (Is it just me, or do the slipper tanks look like giant Brazil nuts?)

 

You are right, you do have to shell out some coin for this one. But when you look at what you get with it, there is no need for aftermarket. I buy all my CMR kits from West Coast Hobbys in British Columbia, as I've found their prices to be the best. The Buccaneer kit was $79 Canadian Dollars. I also picked up the CMR Supermarine Scimitar for $89; Squadron in the USA are advertising it "on sale" for $161!!!! Most recent addition to my stash was the CMR Sea Vixen (oops, Sea Venom - wow, what a kit!) and it was only $49. That is virtually the same price as the Cyber-Hobby injection kit which has some issues. Plus, for kits that have a separate folding wing set you get a 25% discount on that if you order it with the model.

 

Cheers,

Bill (who's been inhaling a lot of resin dust today as he sands away like mad on the casting blocks)

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

My first lesson for today, is that you have to dry fit everything! For example, the port side of the fuselage halves was not connected to a casting block. As a result, the mating edges were super smooth - but that doesn't mean you won't have to sand them down a bit. This first shot shows the port intake taped in place along with the fuselge halves. I've lined up the top of the intake, and you'll notice a rather big step at the bottom. Yikes!

 

 

After some rework, I'm a lot closer, although not quite there yet (plus the tape is not drawing the pieces together completely):

 

 

I've spent most of today working on all of the mating areas of the fuselage halves, making sure that the intakes fit well, as well as the nosecone and the tailcone. I took a little too much off of the starboard forward fuselage seam, so I'll need to add some styrene strips to fill a small gap. Resin sands away quicker than styrene, it pays to stop and check where you are quite often!

 

Another area where I had to make a significant alteration to the resin was the inboard section of the lower starboard wing. In the next picture you should be able to see that on the port side, CMR has moulded three "bumps" that maintain the correct separation between the top and bottom wings. I've had to sand them off completely on the starboard side in order to get the same "fit." But it now fits very well, and is quite solid to boot.

 

 

I'm pretty close to having all of the edges cleaned up and fitting together well. I've removed the cockpit tub from its block, and next up will be fitting that (pretty close already, just some minor sanding I think) and then painting.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[AnonymousAA72]

Great Stuff Bill. I had one given to me some years ago and had started to build it but came across the same issues re. the intakes. Assuming that they are correct then the fuselage behind it requires more resin to be removed from the interior to get it to fit - of course that then may have a bit of a knock on effect behind this!!

Looking forward to progress on this Bill - keep up the good work!!

[colin]

Cheers,

Bill (who's been inhaling a lot of resin dust today as he sands away like mad on the casting blocks)

I hope you jest, because I thought breathing in resin dust was not recommended of have I been over cautious when I sand my AM resin parts with a respirator on ?

[Navy Bird]

colin said:

Cheers,

Bill (who's been inhaling a lot of resin dust today as he sands away like mad on the casting blocks)

I hope you jest, because I thought breathing in resin dust was not recommended of have I been over cautious when I sand my AM resin parts with a respirator on ?

 

@Colin, just in jest - I wear a mask too, one of those disposable white paper painter's masks.

 

@Bill, I found the same issue. Once the intakes fit, then the cockpit doesn't. Just a wee bit more sanding methinks!

 

Cheers

Bill

[Dr Evil]

As long as you check the fit as you're going along - as you're doing - then it's a fantastic kit, worth every penny in my opinion.

Only issue I found that really needed addressing (and it might have been a moulding flaw on mine) was that I needed a 1/2mm-ish shim at the bottom of the radome section to raise it up a little. A quick test fit will show you straight away if this was unique to mine.

[Navy Bird]

Dr Evil said:

As long as you check the fit as you're going along - as you're doing - then it's a fantastic kit, worth every penny in my opinion.

Only issue I found that really needed addressing (and it might have been a moulding flaw on mine) was that I needed a 1/2mm-ish shim at the bottom of the radome section to raise it up a little. A quick test fit will show you straight away if this was unique to mine.

 

Thanks for letting me know that, I will have a look. Right now, the radome fits nicely with the fuselage, both vertical and horizontal widths line up. I'll have to check against drawings to see if the tip of the radome is too low. Can anyone point me towards some 1:72 Brick drawings?

 

One thing I noticed right away on the radome is that when you line up the cutouts for the hinge, the fairing on the underside of the radome is not on the centerline of the aircraft (it's a little too far to starboard, maybe 1mm). Not a showstopper for me. Haven't decided to model the radome open or closed.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[crobinsonh]

Great progress on you Buccaneer. If you need any additional details then please let me know as we have 3 live Buccaneers here at Bruntingthorpe. Whilst these are all RAF supplied aircraft they do vary on configuration from mid 70's all the way through to 1994 specification.

I am also guilty of having 6 of these in the stash - I will get to these once I have finished the 3 CMR Scimitars that I am currently working on.

Kind regards

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

Quick question - from looking at walkaround photos, it appears that the landing gear bays are light grey, the landing gear struts are a blue-grey (definitely a different colour than the bay), and the inside of the gear doors are white. Can anyone verify that for me? Also, what are the BS numbers for those colours?

 

Thanks!

Bill

 

PS. @crobinsonh - Wow, your own personal Buccs. Very cool! I'm sure that I will be taking you up on your offer many times!

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

Looks like I'll be taking a short sabbatical from modelling, as I am having my eighth back surgery on Wednesday May 16 (it's been moved up from June 20). Tomorrow I spend having two pre-op appointments (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). I will probably get some modelling in on Monday night, I hope I can finish the cockpit and post a picture or two. Tuesday my big boss man from the UK is at work all day, and I've having dinner with him in the evening. Wednesday is the surgery and I don't know how long it will be before I'm back at my bench. A month probably...

 

I'll keep monitoring the forums on my new Lumia 900 phone! See you all soon, and I'll back inhaling glue as soon as I can!

 

Cheers,

Bill

[crobinsonh]

Hi Bill,

Good luck with your surgery.

I have included a link to our website which shows that the U/C doors on RAF unrestored examples where in fact a very light gray.

http://www.thebuccaneeraviationgroup.com/B...ngthorpe.html#2

Looking forward to your next update!

Regards

[Navy Bird]

Hi mates,

 

I've had my surgery, it still hurts like hell, but that can't stop me from modelling for at least a few hours a day. So, let's catch up on my progress on my first resin kit. Construction is similar to injection moulded kits, you have to clean up some flash, etc. The big difference is that the resin parts aren't attached to sprues, but rather to casting blocks which often require the use of a razor saw to remove. Then, some proper sanding to get the edge you need. All together, you do a lot more sanding of the edges and removing flash and excess material than you would with a modern injection kit. I can't stress enough that you must continually test fit the parts while you're cleaning them up.

 

I figured the first thing I would do is clean up all of the parts needed to assemble the cockpit, bang seats, wheel wells, and fuselage. After that, we are left with this:

 

 

Each fuselage half had a casting block location that was both difficult and delicate to separate, as it was in the interior of the fuselage around the exhaust. I used a Dremel tool to grind it out as best I could, and then a succession of rat-tail files to smooth it out, Finally, some filler and more sanding and I think it will be OK.

 

 

Next up I added what look like gussets to the front instrument panel coaming, and as I look at photos and the instructions from CMR (which are about the best instructions I have ever seen) it seems that additional instruments are mounted on top of these gussets. I chose to leave the extra instruments off until later to make sure that they don't accidentally get knocked off.

 

 

I next glued the main wheel well inserts from the inside, and I also decided to display the launch bridle hooks in the extended position. Whether this will be correct for the final pose of the model, I don't know at this time, but I thought they would look different and add some more interest to the model. Those more knowledgable than I please feel free to tell me what else should be hanging out if these hooks are extended. As you can see from the seond photo here, the main wheel wells look a little sparse to me so I plan to add some more detail.

 

 

 

I decided to model the bomb bay closed, so I glued the rotary bay in the proper closed position. Next it was time to work on the cockpit, as that needed to be pretty much finished prior to closing up the two fuselage halves. CMR includes photoetch parts from Eduard, and these are the pre-painted ones. Unfortunately, Eduard does not use the correct color grey for the instrument panels, etc. I matched a grey paint as best I could, I think it was FS36375. I added the Eduard panels, and then painted and detailed the ejection seats. I used the colours for the seats as specified by CMR in their instructions which just happened to match perfectly with other references I found on the net. The bang seats are not glued into the cockpit in any of these photos, they're just sitting there, as I prefer to leave them out until much later in the assembly. They also don't have the more delicate face curtain handles on yet either.

 

 

In the CMR instructions, it's stated that you can achieve the proper offset of the seats. As all of you know, the front and rear seats are offset slightly from the aircraft centerline, the front seat to port, and the rear seat to starboard. This provides better forward visibility for the guy in the back seat. To achieve this in the model, you need to sand off the detail on the right side of the rear seat, and the left side of the front seat, and then push them right up against the cockpit tub walls. I have yet to decide if I'll do this, the many photos that I've seen don't seem to show this offset very prominently. I'll let you guys talk me into it.

 

I glued the cockpit tub into the top fuselage, and then glued the two fuselage halves together, all with a medium gap-filling super glue. Here are some shots including the seats that are not permanently attached yet.

 

 

 

 

 

So that's where we are as of today! I'm having a lot of fun learning how to build a resin kit, even though I'm probably doing something wrong! I have two more CMR kits in my stash, a Scimitar and a Sea Venom. Both look much nicer than this Buccaneer, especially in the surface detailing (panel lines). I think my FAA collection will be getting bigger very soon!

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Parabat]

Looking really good Bill, nice work.

[tonyot]

I`ve got one of these Buccs but have been scared to start it due to the blocks that need to be removed from the fuselage parts!! Seeing how you have done yours has given me a bit of added confidence and your cockpit is simply gorgeous, I`m looking forward to following your build and then getting on with my own,

Cheers Bill, keep up the great work,

Tony O

[Tailspin Turtle]

"In the CMR instructions, it's stated that you can achieve the proper offset of the seats. As all of you know, the front and rear seats are offset slightly from the aircraft centerline, the front seat to port, and the rear seat to starboard. This provides better forward visibility for the guy in the back seat. To achieve this in the model, you need to sand off the detail on the right side of the rear seat, and the left side of the front seat, and then push them right up against the cockpit tub walls. I have yet to decide if I'll do this, the many photos that I've seen don't seem to show this offset very prominently. I'll let you guys talk me into it."

My first thought, when I saw the picture with the seats in place, was that they weren't offset like they should be. Then I scrolled down to this. Maybe it's just me but I think this is a notable idiosyncrasy of the Buccaneer and should be represented.

Thanks for the detailed progressive build.

[Duncan B]

Thanks for the update Bill.

[F-32]

You're a brave man! I'm looking forward to seeing more I bet it turns out to be a cracker.

In terms of the seats, I think I'd give it a go but I wouldn't let it spoil my enjoyment of the build if its not possible.

[keefr22]

In the CMR instructions, it's stated that you can achieve the proper offset of the seats. As all of you know, the front and rear seats are offset slightly from the aircraft centerline, the front seat to port, and the rear seat to starboard. This provides better forward visibility for the guy in the back seat.

...and a better view of the approaching crash....!!

To achieve this in the model, you need to sand off the detail on the right side of the rear seat, and the left side of the front seat, and then push them right up against the cockpit tub walls. I have yet to decide if I'll do this, the many photos that I've seen don't seem to show this offset very prominently. I'll let you guys talk me into it.

I'd also go for the offset rather than keep the detail - after all, when the seat is hard up to the side of the 'pit, how much of that detail would you be able to see, even with the canopy open?

Lovely looking seats they are, by the way...!!

Keef