Greetings,
I finished this a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't gotten around to posting anything. I built Tamiya's 1/48 Bristol Beaufighter Mk. VI in the kit's nightfighter scheme. I've always rather liked the Beaufighter, and wanted to add a nightfighter to my collection.
It's yet another Tamiya kit that goes together with very few problems, naturally, though I did end up doing a fair amount of seam sanding, simply because it's a fairly sizable critter. Assembly was simple, straightforward and logical, also as usual for Tamiya. I've got a few kits from other manufacturers in the stash, but I always find myself pulling out the Tamiya stock first, and this was a case where I wanted simple and straightforward.
It's straight out of the box, with the exception of some Eduard belts on the pilot and radar operator seats. The cockpit is nicely detailed as is, but it's not highly visible, even under all that glass.
There's a bit more shading variation than shows up in the pics, but I purposely finished it as a fairly clean bird, again because I was in the mood for simplicity, and didn't feel like spending too much effort on trying to weather up the black finish. I primed as usual with Mr. Surfacer 1200, followed by Tamiya NATO black, sprayed in several sessions mixed with varying amounts of flat white. I glossed it with Future (or whatever they're calling it these days) before decaling.
I took a chance on the kit decals despite previous bad experiences with Tamiya markings. I put them down with a touch of Microset, then went straight to Solvaset, and they ended up being acceptable, if still on the thick side. I did trim the fuselage letters closely and applied them individually to minimize the thick decal film. British birds don't seem to come with much stenciling, and most of it wouldn't show up on the black anyway, so I only used a few of those.
I went with my usual Model Master acrylic flat coat and added the fiddly bits, saving the VERY delicate radar antennae for last.
As mentioned, this wasn't intended as an ambitious build, and it isn't. My goal was to add a nightfighter in a relatively anxiety-free fashion, and Tamiya once again satisfied.
