1:24 Airfix Hawker Typhoon Car Door Version Start-to-Finish Build

The weather cooperated so I was able to rattle can spray the Tamiya Gray Surface Primer. I have to spray solvent-based paints outdoors. It was over 70 degrees F and breezy, but I was able to manage the breeze by spraying closer and moving faster. Didn't get any runs... amazingly.

After the base dried I sprayed the leading edges flat aluminum so I could use liquid mask for future paint peeling. I also sprayed the propellor blades on the sprue the same color for the same reason.

I had assembled the two-part gear door with some masking tape and taped them on top of the solid gear doors that are masking the wheel wells. I did this so they could be bottom painted at the same time and marked for the invasion strips to be aligned with the strips on the wings proper.

I added the Microscale liquid mask to strategically place the paint wear. When dry, I airbrushed the bottom color: A-K Air RAF Medium Oceean Gray from the RAF set I bought just for this model. I sprayed it unthinned, although, even though it's labeled AIR, it could have been a tad thinner. I have their special thinner.

I applied the Microscale liquid mask as best as I could imagine the paint wear. I've never used the hairspray or salt chipping technique and probably should have done it here, but it's a big expensive model and I didn't want to experiment on it.

After the mask dried I airbrushed the RAF bottom color. Paint was still wet when I took this picture.

I assembled the propellor. It consisted of two parts for each of the three blades and a two part hydrodynamic hub. The hub was in two halves that captured the blades. I clamped it to make sure it was tighly glued.

I'm not painting the hub since it will be buried under the spinner and will never be seen. I applied liquid mask to the blades' leading edges and airbrushed the assembled unit Tamiya semi-gloss black.

When dry I masked the blades for the yellow tips. I airbrushed the tips white first since it provides the best base under yellow. 

After de-masking and letting it dry a bit, I rubbed off the liquid mask exposing the bare aluminum underneath. I think I may have overdone this a bit. I was thinking about doing the same on the spinner and gave it a base coat of flat aluminum. After looking at a bunch of pictures of WW2 Typhoons, I couldn't see any apparent damage to the spinners and won't remove any top coat on them. I didn't see a lot of damage to leading edges either for that matter.

The rocket rails are in two parts and they too are bottom-color. I assembled them and mounted them in my lazy susan painting holder that was a raffle prize for the Military Modelers Club of Louisville, 3D printed by Ed Tackett. It worked perfectly for this application. I painted these off the plane and will add them near the end when all the camo is done and decals in place.

This paint seems to dry at the same rate as Vallejo, meaning it's dry to the touch in about an hour, but not really dry for at least 24 hours. It has a stickyness now and that's not a good surface for marking camo lines or additional masking. I'm also working on some 3D printing for an elaborate 1:48 Victorian house for my model railroad, so I have something else to do while waiting for the paint to dry.

While sitting under "house arrest" with my wife and I not going out during this crisis, I'm very happy that as a model builder, my life actually hasn't changed a bit. Working alone in my shop all day long gives me lots of social distancing without even thinking about it. My wife is my main concern, since not being a hobbyist, she's not getting much psychic stimulation. We're going to have to work on that.

Finished masking the bird. Since the pictures, I added some more masking around the cockpit to close even more gaps. I'm unable to prime it since I need to do that outside and the weather is not cooperating this week. I'm using the closed LG doors as a mask for the wheel wells. I used high quality modeling clay to hold the doors in place and put an additional amount around the gear mounting stub so paint won't leak in there too. When I set up the masks for the Invasion Stripes, I also mask the real gear doors since they get that paint also. Took a bit of work to mask all that engine stuff.

For the tail wheel well I just stuffed in wet paper towels. I chose to NOT do this for the cockpit since there were details there that would not take any pressure. I chose to build a cardboard cover instead.

To kill some time, I built the tail wheel and the main gear. The main gear have to plastic studs that fit into the wheels. You can't mix up which wheel goes where since the half-round pins face in opposite directions and I you put the wheel on the wrong side, the flattened-tire area is on the wrong side of the wheel. This pin needed major surgery to get into the wheels. The mold clearly had a defect and there was a plastic hood over the pin that needed to be removed for it to fit.

I added the Bare Metal Foil oleo sleeve and then added the separate scissors links. It was nice that this piece was separate becuase it made it much easier to apply the foil. 

Tail wheel was simple and will rotate and swivel. I thought about replacing the styrene stem with brass, but it's bigger than 1/16" by about 6 thousandths and I thought it might be too sloppy a fit.

The model is at a standstill until I can get some primer on it. As soon as I get a mild day, with low wind and no rain, I'll do that. All the color coats I can door in the basement since they're all acrylic. I'm going to use Tamiya Gray Primer.

Short session... Touched up wheel paint, prepared a mask for the cockpit, completely broke off the top of the seat back, weathered the engine, and repaired the right leading edge wing joint.

The cowl fit was improved when the joint with the filler re-opened and I was then able to glue it with CA in a better position. There's still some misalignment on the upper left side, and I'm thinking about filling and sanding that. During all this handling, I finally completely broke off the top of the head rest frame. It had partially severed it a half dozen times since it sticks up when beyond the fuselage and is quite delicate. It's going to remain off until I can properly and safely reconnect it. I'm going to drill the frame pieces and use 0.010 piano wire (Guitar E string) to reinforce it. It will be protected by the rear canopy and armor glass that goes in when near completion.

I masked portions of the cowl to prevent removal of the rivet detail. When the lower joint on the right side broke I was worried, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise since I was able to re-glue it with CA in a better position. I also prepared a cardboard mask for the cockpit and have that seat top out of the way didn't hurt either. There's more tape under the mask keeping overspray off the panel.

Also shown in this image I painted that filled area at the edges of the firewall. Looks much better. I spent some time aging the engine some more with a few more details painted and using Tamiya Smoke on the lower reaches to dirty it up a bit. I need to get some Mig or AK oil leak materials.

While doing all of this, I noticed that the pesky seam on the right inboard wing leading edge open up. This was the one that was stressed over that internal fuel tank. I first used solvent cement, but it wasn't cutting it. I then used thin CA carefully applied into the joint and help it by hand, using accelerator until the joint was stable. I then schmered a liberal amount of Tamiya filler that I will sand down tomorrow.

Needless to day, I would rate today's session as one step forward and two back. That leading edge will survive regardless. Getting closer to paint.

Thanks! I hope I can build them as good as I write about them. Today I was wondering about that.

In one of the steps, it had you cut away the top deck behind the cockpit and install a new piece. I had noted this on the plans, but for some reason thought that it didn't pertain to the version that I was building. I then find out that a) the canopy wouldn't fit, b) there was no place to attach the upper seat belt anchor, c) I had discarded the part thinking that it was not going to be used, and d) even if I had the part, I was WAY TOO LATE to install since the fuselage was well glued together.

The reason for this mod was that the model's fuselage was actually for the bubble canopy (later) version of the Typhoon. The clue was the canopy tracks sticking up from the fuselage. And I was very careful to not damage them in the build. This was because the video I watched for the build made a point to tell you "Not to sand it off since it's part of the model." Unfortunately for me, he was building the bubble top version which Airfix had issued earlier. The included new sprue Z was for parts that were unique to the car door verison and this part was on that sprue.

It replaced the bulge and included pin holes for the fixed canopy and the upper seat belt. I had to do some minor surgery to create a surface that would accept these unique parts. I first taped the parts I didn't want destroyed.

I used my MicroMark shaving chisel to remove most of the material and then sanded it with the MicroMark power sander and then hand sanding. I re-scribed the panel line and attempted to restore the now-missing rivets. I'm not too good at this riveting thing.

I needed to locate and drill holes for these two parts. I started with a 0.032 and ended enlarging it to accommodate the parts. It was a careful drilling exercise because it was right on the glued seam.

I installed the belt. This will have to wait to be painted AFTER the plane is painted. It looks like the deck behind the cockpit is camo color and not flat black. I couldn't find any reference in the instructions about how to paint this area. Anyone out there know? I didn't want to install the belt after painting the body for fear to screw it up.

I'm recruiting the gun bay covers that I'm not using for the model to cover the bays for spray painting. I used some sticky wax to temporarily hold them in place. It's not sealed perfectly, but shouldn't give too much leakage. I may seal it better. I should experiment spraying some clean water and seeing how much gets in and where it ends up.

I installed the cowl part that covers over most of the instrument panel and, unfortunately, hides a lot of it. This was a bit of a struggle. It didn't fit right. I'm finding the engineering in these latter stages a bit wanting. I'm used to Tamiya and, boy, that really spoils you. I've dealt with Trumpeter's early troubles too. The cowl was being held off the lower part of the fuselage by the panel being too high, and there was a 0.040" gap on the starboard (right) side.

I removed some of the panel material mostly on the left side and then added a piece of styrene filler. I then glued it down and held it there with some tape. There's still a mis-match of height, although not horrible. I may or may not attempt to adjust that. This part of the model is very exposed. The front windscreen sits at the very back of this part. Before gluing it down, I air brushed the interior with NATO black and added a few more parts that also would not be easy to see when all built.

I prepared the main wheels. They had a terrible seam and I sanded the heck out them. They didn't require any filer, just sanding.

Notice the wheels are masked. I make circle masks by measuring the diameter with a digital calipers. I divide this number in half and set the same tool to this new dimension. I then use a specially prepared small Starrett machinist dividers with one point shaped to a chisel edge that's in the direction of rotation. I then cut the circles by taking a few light passes on the masking tape. It leaves a small pinhole in the middle which doesn't matter.

I sprayed them Tamiya Rubber Black. The paint's delicate.

Tomorrow I'll do more subassemblies (landing gear) and start getting ready for paint. The gear doors get a sliver of the invasion stripes. I may attempt to put them on the wing so they'll be masked with the rest of the model.

I always enjoy reading your posts and seeing the results of your work. You do a great job documenting your builds and this is another excellent example.

Rudder, ailerons and flaps went in today. The airplane could now fly if it wasn't made out of a ton of styrene. I also started detailing the wheel wells. Like the elevators, the rudder was fully movable including the trim tab. I did get some glue on one the hinges since it's moving very sluggishly. I'm not going to play with it, so if it can be posed I will pose it and forget it. It's nice that it fits into the concave surface and is hinged like the prototype. The gap looks a little large. Real planes have tighter fits on control surface joints.

I then worked on the wheel wells. This required some pre-planning. Some of the details can go on now, but others that tie directly to the struts will have to wait until painting is complete. I don't want the strut sticking out when I have to seal off the wheels. There was an electrical line that attached to three places (black piping), a hydraulic accumulator, the retract cylinder along with its attached piping, and then another frame piece that blocks in the cylinder which is why it didn't go on when the rest of the wing indterior was installed. I used the chrome pen to highlight the retract piston rods. With a model of this scale, they could have engineered actual retracting gear including the pistons and locking links. I should have scratch-built something... oh well... that plane has left the hangar.

Lastly, I install the flaps (glued in the retracted position) and the ailerons. Ailerons went in slightly differently in that they had a single piece hinge piece that attached in three places to the aileron wing connector piece. Ailerons move nicely. You have to trim the intermediate edge of the outer flap so it sits correctly next to the inboard flap. I'm also annoyed that the 1/16" error again shows up with the lower flap sticking out past the wing trailing edge by that pesky amount.

And a view from above. You can see the flap sticking out. I set the ailerons correctly with one being up while the other is down.

Another day or so of assembly (come more parts around the cockpit) and I'll begin the painting process. The model has some real heft. There's a lot of plastic there!

Short session again, but progress to report. The horizontal tail is one and both the elevators and the trim tabs are movable. Before showing that, I took a picture of the fully mounted fuselage with all of its filler. You can see in this image how far forward the leading edge is. This is the result of the heavy weight of the Saber (2,400 pounds) and the associated cooling system and coolant. The engine is heavier than a similarly powered R-2800 radial.

I got the tail planes glued together. In this scale, even the trim tabs are positionable.

Unlike the dubious Trumpeter PE hinges, these plastic ones are more stable. Being all styrene, it is very easy to get glue into them so I was very careful. To prevent glue from causing any problems I applied some petroleum jelly on the hinge points so they would remain glue-free. It worked.

Yesterday, I finished the belly pan seam, air brushed the exhaust stacks flat aluminum and then dark iron. I did get to glue a couple in before the end of the session.

All I did today was get the remainder of exhaust stacks on the Saber. It's now a "fully functional engine". I touched up the dark iron, added some black weathering powder, painted the outlet flat black, and went back and blended it some with a brush with some IPA. I looked at as many pictures as I could find to see just what color these realy are. Most are B&W so color was hard to determine. The seam down the middle of the stacks is intentional and represents a weld seam. It is NOT a mold line.

On Monday I'll be finishing up flight surfaces and start thinking about painting the beast.

Thanks guys! Glad you following along.

Ran into a minor problem today. After gluing up the right fuze side, filling the upper seam gaps and sanding them, and restoring the now-almost-removed rivet details, I attempted to install the belly pan. I was expecting this to just plop in. It didn't!

Something was drastically wrong. It overlapped the tail joint by a 1/16" and didn't sit down along the joint anywhere. I could not push it further forward. 

The entire fuselage and wing assembly was for some reason sitting 1/16" farther back than it should for the belly pan to actually fit. I do not know how this error was created since everything was located to the main wing spars and lugs on the body frame. There was no way to move it forward upon assembly, even if I wanted to. My only redress was to work the pan until it fit.

In looking at the firewall I could see that the body was sitting farther back than it probably should. 

First thing was to cut the 1/16" off the back end of the belly pan. This got it to at least fit in the space. I then had to relieve various alignment lugs that were supposed to interlock with each other and were now interfering. 

The gap at the tail was rather large so I chose to fill it with Bondic. There were other problems at the belly pan front caused by the same 1/16" rearward misalignment. The wing fillets didn't line up and, again, it was 1/16" too far back. At first I thought I would trim the fillet to force it to fit, but decided against it since it was eliminate the rivet detail. Here's how it looked before any work was done on it.

Not only did it not fit looking from the top, but it also didn't fit below. I chose to reform the entire fillet with Bondic. Here was the Bondic before sanding.

I filled the underneath with a could of strips of styrene which I then shaped to blend the fillet.

After reshaping and opening the rivets, the fix is passable and wil be okay after the flaps are in place and all the painting is done. 

With this mess fixed a bit, I turned my attention back to the remaining joint. I applied tape very close to the joint edge so I could protect the raised rivet detail. It's one thing to re-drill the sunken rivets. It's an entirely another thing to rebuild raised rivets. I can be done, but I don't want to do it. You can you Archer rivet decals or apply tiny dots of resin, but either is a pain in the butt. The filler is drying overnight and will be finished tomorrow. This image really shows how Airfix created a beautiful stressed-skin look to the plane. It was a missing in model plane construction and this scale lets them pull it off.

Since I'm not using any of the nose cowling, I need to close up that unsightly gap in the firewall. A piece of 0.020 X 0.030" sytrene filled it nicely. I'll have to mask and paint it too. I also noticed, that my little aluminum airbrushing I did around the model put some fine overspray on the the painted parts. OH NO! It actually looks like weathering. I'm going to weather the engine a bit more anyway so it will be okay in the end... I hope.

What looks like a gap on the body over the firewall is actually filled.

I'll finish up the belly pan tomorrow. Next up is the tail surfaces. BTW: got some research from some folks that spoke to whether parked Typhoons had their flaps up or sagging a la P-51s. Verdict: Flaps up unless being inspected or repaired. I may have them up especially since that fillet area ain't so hot. 

Today was a good day: I got a new cutting pad. MicroMark had a sale with them at half price. It will enhance my picture taking.

Spent quite a bit of time finishing up the leading edge. First some Tamiya putty and then re-scribing the panel lines and drill out the now-missing rivets. I attempted to keep them in line, but occassionally slipped. It's just for effect and to hide all the sanding work that had to be done to bring the leading edge to form. I used a dividers point to mark the location and lightly drilled them with a #80 drill in a pin vise.

Then I installed the gun shields. You glue in the bottom half first aligning two extensions with an unseen rib inside the wing. After it set up a tad, you glue the top half to the bottom and into the wing leading edge. You can see that the gun barrels are now completely hidden for their whole length and painting them was an exercise in painting practice, but nothing else. I'm glad the covers are on because they're much stronger than the naked barrels.

I masked the fuselage for the Nato Black, but the masking also was superfluous since the demarcation line between bare plastic and black paint will be invisible when the fuselage is glued in place.

It was a quick air brush job. There was a little overspray, but again, not visible.

There's a couple of parts sandwiched in the fuze for the tailwheel: the wheel well and the tailwheel strut. The strut had two plastic pins trapped in a hollow lug on each fuselage side. It fit tight and was keeping the fuze from closing tightly at the back.

I decided the plastic pin had to go. I replaced it with 1/16" brass. I drilled out the lugs to accept the slightly larger brass. I also shortened the pin slightly to make the fit better. I tested it and it worked as designed.

So it was time to start gluing the fuselage onto the front assembly. It glues at the wing fillet, a little bit at the firewall and an arc at the rear cockpit area bulkhead. It seemed like it would be a troublesome fit, but it wasn't. I cleaned the paint off the wall so it would hold glue better. I first used tube cement, but had to go back and add some solvent cement and got a good joint.

The wing root fit was surprisingly good. The tube cement leaked out a bit, but it should be no problem to clean it up.

I ended the session fitting the right fuze side when I ran out of time. I was also continuing my battle with my 3D printer. I got success today, but changed three variables and don't know for sure which one or combination solved the problems I was having. More experimentation is warranted.

Very late start today, but did get the upper wing fully glued and started addressing leading edge finishing.

With a bevy of clamps, I used Testor's tube cement applied with a dental spatula to the flap and aileron spar, and the wing tip. 

After about 1 hour I pulled the clamps and everything was tight. I went back and added some solvent cement on some questionable areas, and the added more to the inter-wing areas like were the gun bays and wheel well ribs intersect with the skin. I added clamps to these places also.

After pulling the masking tape at the leading edge I did see some separation at the wing root. It was holding and strong, but there was a gap. I used Bondic to fill the gap, mainly because I can cure it so fast. I masked the area so the sanding wouldn't destroy too much of the leading edge detail. I used my MicroMark precision sander to quickly knock down the hardened resin and to remove the "over bite" where the lower wing extended out a bit from the upper wing. I had to be careful not to square off the leading edge with all the sanding.

I will go back and add a touch of Tamiya filler and do some restoration of the details. Here's the top wing without clamps or tape. It's quite solid. I've almost broken those guns sticking out about four times. Luckily, the Airfix plastic is pliable and didn't break or deform. I'll feel better when the gun shields are in place. If I had purchased the after-market brass ones, I would have broken them off from the receivers. Best that I did go that route.

While the wing was drying I started working on the fuselage side (that imfamouus Sprue M that was missing). First I cleaned up the sprue marks and then removed the front portions that will expose the radiator cooling system. There is a deep engraved line inside that helps you cut this correctly. I used the micro-saw to make the cuts. The vertical stabilizer is glued on as a separate piece. It has a broad gluing area, but I added a piece of styrene on the top edge to reinforce that especially if I have to fill that joint. There needs to be filling on those reinforcement plates at least. Those plates were added to later production Typhoons because the earlier models had the unfortunate habit of having their tails fall off. Makes it hard to control the airplane. The plates would be solid across their length so the joint isn't right.

There's some painting inside the fuselage; Nato Black in the cockpit area. I will do this tomorrow. Notice I already painted the inside of the tail wheel well using flat aluminum.

I was multi-tasking today, wrestling with my 3d printer and building the Typhoon. I got the gun bays almost finished. Finicky, but fun.

The framing fits in tightly and needed just a little shaving in its length to snap into place. I had inadvertantly installed the ribs that go down the center of the space BEFORE the framing, but luckily, glue wasn't set and I was able to pull them out, get the frames in a re-glue the ribs. I then gave it all a coat of AK Dark Gray wash. Also installed the framing for the flaps that went in easily and is stong.

The guns get hand-drilled out for the muzzle and did so using a 0.035" drill, which equates to the .9mm called out by the instructions. I airbrushed the guns on the sprue along with all the remaining flat aluminum painted pieces that I could identify since I didn't want to keep cleaning the airbrush. All the LG parts are this color except for a hydrualic accumluator tank which is black. When the top wing is on and the gun shrouds are in place, you will barely see any of the barrel. Even the muzzle will be buried behind the shrouding.

I went back and put another coat of the yellow on the ammo feeding drum, and then painted the black areas NATO Black. I went back and forth between black and yellow until I got it almost right. These parts are glued to the guns. According to Don at eModel.com, he said you needed to drill out the gun openings in the interior spar so the guns would fit. He was right. The guns themselves would fit, but there is a part glued on top of the barrel that prevents it from passing through. I drilled it with #25 drill held in a tap handle. I then glued the guns in place.

I painted the ammo in three steps. Brass first for the cartridges, brass mixed with clear red and yellow to make copper for the slugs, and then hand-painted the belting. I then went back and touched up, and finally added some panel line accenting.

I painted all of them, but then got only one ready to install before it was time to close up shop for the day. My wife has a rule. Work stops at five! No work on weekends or evenings! I stick by it and we get along fine.

I hate hand painting yellow. And the little ribs on the drums are not very distinct so it was a challenge to get it right.

Tomorrow the guns will be finished. There are some fuel tanks that go into the wings (although I don't know why since they're buried) and then the upper skin goes on. The model's getting heavy. There's a lot of plastic in it already.

Wing construction continues...

The inner wing has a network of ribs and spars that interlock with each other with cross-lap joints. They really snap into place and shows some good engineering. The first group consists of three bulkheads: wing root, mid wing supporting landing gear lug and mid-wing end. 

When I took this picture I didn't realize that the end ribs were reveresed. I'm not sure how I did that. I was attempting to be very careful with the part numbers and yet it was reversed. It is possible that it was an error in the instructions. Regardless, I caught it in time before all the glue had fully cured and was able to remove them and switch them.

The next parts with included a spar and rib subassembly required some clamping to get it nice and tight.

This piece nestled into the cross-laps of the existing parts. It was these cross-laps that showed my error. When I went to connect it to the outer rib, the cross-lap was on the bottom and unreachable. The part was upside down. To rectify this I had to remove both rib, R & L, and re-glue them in the proper location. No harm no foul. With this correction, the joints were made. I needed to add some clamping to ensure that the entire length was in contact with the lower skin. I also needed to ensure that ALL the ribs were nestled down completely. If not, the top wing skin gluing could be problematic.

The gun bays were covered in leather. It's told that it was to dampen the vibration when firing the 20mm cannons. It may also have reduced the chance for sparking. I don't know. If anyone knows, please comment. I mixed the leather color with Tamiya red brown, yellow and some more red. To apply the color to the bays required some masking.

After this dried I overcoated it with some clear gloss to provide a good base for further weathering. I wanted a surface that would not be damaged by the washes.

The gun bay frames are called out to be light yellow. I first painted them with flat aluminum, then applied some Microsol liquid mask to make some paint wear. After it was dry, I peeled the mask to expose some "bare metal".

All of this stuff will be nice and dry tomorrow. I have to paint the guns too. There are brass barrels available for this model, but with the shrouds you really don't see much of them; at least not enough to warrant the cost in this case. You are instructed to drill out the ends. I do that routinely anyway.

With all this interior framing, the wings will be very strong.

The engine bottoms was completed today with the beginning of winging the beast. First up was the weathering of the baffle. I used Tamiya brown panel accent and then removed the excess with a Q-tip lightly dampened with low odor mineral spirits. Much to my dismay, the solvent removed some of the AK acrylic gray. It's not very noticeable and I'll retouch. I think I needed to seal the surface before applying the panel accent. After installing the baffle, which needed some enhanced gluing with some medium CA, I installed the induction pipe. If you're building this plane, apply glue to the induction pipe injector end before putting it in. It's almost impossible to get solvent cement to it afterwards.

Added to that are two coolant pipes that wend their way through the baffle and tie to the rectangular notch in the main wing spar on both sides. I needed needle nose pliers to twist the pipes after entering the baffle holes so it would orient correctly into the notches. It didn't go easily. I don't know where the back end of the pipes went after leaving the spar. Perpaps a cabin heater?

The radiator was partially glued together before putting it on the model. And then it's glued in place where you have to connect it to five points simultaneously: the two lugs on the front of the engine, the induction pipe, and then those two coolant pipes. It just took some patience to keep working it. I used solvent cement and then some CA to finish the job. The bottom and side panels went on with some light sanding so they fit between the radiator walls. When all was in place I went over all the ducting and radiator with AK Silver Buffing Cream that gave more of a metallic sheen to the surfaces. I then used Tamiya Black Panel Accent to pull out the details. Again, some paint got pulled and I had to touch it up. I did the same thing on the simulated grill surfaces on the radiators and after removing the excess I dry brushed it with the flat aluminum.

The arrow shows one of the most ridiculous pipes to install in the whole deal. These pipes (R & L) are the coolant inlets to the two water pumps put on many steps ago. The outside connection is a breeze being a squared off lug so it only connects in one orientation. The pipes had pins on their inboard ends that are supposed to drop into the holes in the pumps' center. The biggest problem was seeing inside. I had to keep maneuvering the model to get light to play inside so I could see where the pipes were in relation to the pumps. They seemed like they wouldn't fit, and then, like one of those crazy bent wire puzzles, they just dropped into place. That was after about 10 minutes of fussing with them.

Here's another view showing just how difficult it was to see if the pipes were actually entering the pump. I was concerned to get it there not just to be prototypically accurate (you really can't see the darn thing), but to make sure it was glued on both ends for security. It was just as hard to get a picture of it as it was to see it. When you see how inaccessible those innards are, it makes me wonder why I bothered painting it at all.

The last radiator pieces was the surge tank that sits in front of the engine. It too ties to the radiator and to the ends of the remaining two pipes. These tanks are found all all the merlin powered craft too. The radiator set up on the Typhoon is pretty compact and very intuitive and required less pipe runs than those in Mossies, Spitfires and other water-cooled craft.

So here's the entire engine installation. I don't think I'm going to add any smaller wires unless you guys talk me into it. Enough is enough.

The Saber weighed about 2300 pounds and then you add the cooling system and coolant. It explains why the wings are as far forward as they are. Center of Gravity would be far forward.

With the engine in it was time to start on the main wing. This was an exciting milestone. The bottom wing glues to three points under the fuselage (the firewall bottom and two large lugs reward) and then to the entire length of both wing spars. Before you glue it on you have to attach the upper mounting point for the main gear.

I went through the entire instruction sheet before starting to highlight every page having an optional step based on the version (D) that I'm building. My version has these variables: landing gear extended, engine and radiator exposed, late version with full invasion stripes, rockets and external fuel tanks. This choice required drilling specific holes in the wing for the rockets, tanks and i.d. lights specific to this plane.

I glued the fuselage connections first and clamped it so it set up. I used tube cement since I wanted to be sure that it bridged any gaps. You can't really get into there with CA after its together. I then clicked into place the spars. They do align pretty well... good engineering. I used tube cement to hold in the gear base and then solvent cement for the rest. I clamped it so it can dry properly overnight. The rubber band is applying pressure to the top half of the expansion tank. The piping was putting some negative bias on this while it was drying and it needed some help.

The next steps involve a lot of inside wing constructions before the top skin goes in: more ribs boxing in the two gun bays and the wheel wells, plus four Hispano 20mm cannons, ammo boxes and feeds, and fuel tanks. There are access hatches that can be open for the guns, but the fuel tanks will be forever hidden unless I cut over the wings just for fun. Without a doubt, this is the most complex plastic model aircraft I'll ever built. You absolutely have to pre-fit everything, and even then, you'll get a few wrong.

Work begins on the engine's bottom regions. The model wasn't very stable upside down so I cobbled together a holder to support it well when upside down. Some scrap ply and two piece of 1/4" square strip wood did the trick. I used CA to hold it together since I needed it "right now" and didn't want to wait for wood glue to dry.

Here's the airframe on the stand. It works!

It had to be stable because the piping that had to go in was a real bear. There was a four pipe manifold, with two being on one piece and the third added. This got glued to the firewall with two of the pipes and their manifold setting in a rectangular slot and that third pipe going into a round hole below it. The other end with three pipes just float there to be added to the radiator. Then a fourth very curvy pipe tied into the manifold on one end and wound its way underneath one of the intake pipes to settle into the engine way out of sight. After these were in, a two-piece injection system went in to the top of the supercharger intake pipe. YES! This engine did not have a carburetor. It was fuel injected.

This picture attempts to show these parts. They're black and they don't stand out, but trust me, it was quite a challenge to get them all settled into their proper locations.

IMHO it would be criminal to close up all this detail with the skin. As it stands, most of the cockpit will be out of sight. The car door version offers a little more viewing of the interior. The teardrop canopy version basically closes off everything.

I assembles all the radiator and induction parts that I could based on the instructions so I could paint them in their assembled condition. It calls for flat aluminum. The induction pipe has a straight shot right into the injector's throat. It would also have quite a ram-air effect. I'll be adding some more metallic effects and some weathering to these prominent parts.

BTW: Since I got the ultrasonic cleaner for the 3D printing, I'm using it regularly to clean my airbrushes. It works great. I clean it with water, then IPA, and then drop it in the cleaner for about 5 minutes. It comes out sparkling and it gets inside as well. The nozzle comes out quite good. The two-part induction pipe add a minor seam which I filled with Tamiya fine filler. The instructions have a specific illustration showing the cross-braces of the intake bezzle set at 45 degrees. 

The baffle plate got airbrushed RAF medium Sea Gray which I bought with a full 4-color AK set for WW2 British aviation. I tried them on for fit in this image. There are water pipes that extend through those holes in the baffle. 

By tomorrow the engine compartment will be ready for a little weathering.

Work continued on the superb Saber...

Finished all the topside appliances and piping. You have to pay explicit attention to the instructions. They WILL show you exactly where the start and end of the tubing goes, but you may have to massage it a bit to get it to settle in. The two intertwinning ignition harness is an excellent example of this. I had to use Bondic to get the lower junction points completed. I know I've mentioned Bondic before, but it's worth repeating. It great to have something that cures rock hard in 5 seconds and doesn't require additional chemistry like CA and accelerator. I still use CA since Bondic doesn't work on junctions where the UV light can't get to the resin. I changed the 2016 (2) batteries recently and it's brighter and cures faster. I went back and retouched the harness to make the color transitions as crisp as I could make them.

Some of the added details were very annoying. One in particular was an apparent throttle linkage that glues to too holes in the firewall and also glues to the supercharger. It probably took 20 minutes to get this thing in place. The lugs were slightly larger than the holes so I had to fix that. iIt was just an awkawrd location and the part should have been installed before the engine was installed. And as you know, the more you fuss with something, the more you screw up the paint, and risk breaking other stuff while you're manhandling the model.

But persistance paind off and it finally settled in so I could apply liquid solvent cement. So now the entire entire top is decorated with appliances and tubing. 

The other side:

Up next is all the piping and stuff on the bottom. Being a water-cooled engine, all the bottom stuff is about feeding the radiator which sits prominently below the engine. This engine produced 2,400 hp which was one of the strongest during WW2 and required a lot of cooling. Just for comparison, the F-35 produces 45,000 hp from a single F-135 turbo-fan jet engine. One of the biggest challenges faced in designing the STVL F-35B was creating a clutch to engage the lift fan that could repeatedly engage and disengage 45,000 hp without disintegrating and do it for 2,000 hours between major overhauls. It was a daunting challenge for Rolls Royce. They did it! The Harrier didn't have this problem since all they did was rotate the thrusting elements to go vertical like the F-35's tailpipe. But the lift fan was a totally different animal and needed to be fully enclosed so the aircraft could also do Mach 2.

Thanks guys! Correction: it was the intake lines that needed the filling. I like magazine articles too and have been writing them. Magazines have greater distribution than people who read my threads on the various forums on which I contribute. Depending on the models I'm building I post on a bunch of forums: for plastic it's WorldWar2aircraft.com and FSM and for train stuff it's O'Gauge Railroading's forum. I used to also contribute to WorldAffairsboard.com, but their picture posting is even more onerous than it is here. The easiest are OGRR's and WW2's.

The fuselage parts arrived from Airfix yesterday. So the model is now capable of actually becoming an airplane.

Building the engine has been just what I wanted. I also found some good photos of a Saber (albeit cutaway) which is why I'm painting mine green. I got the engine installed and lots (although not all) of the piping. People always say I'm "patient", but I'm really not. I am persistant. I don't give up, but I do make mistakes by rushing. If I do anything wrong (and I do a lot wrong... just ask my wife) is wanting to glue something together before the paint is dry. I do that too many times to mention.

The ignition wiring is sort of an orange tan so I mixed some of that. I needed to make a filler piece between the port side ignition distributor and the tubing for the spark plugs. I made it out of a small piece of 1/16" aluminum. It was caused by the harness not quite fitting tight enough to the block.

I picked out some bolts to use the Molotow pen on. Again, I probably shouldn't have handled it so quickly because it wasn't completely set. I didn't glue the front harness in yet when I took this. It was fitted just for the picture.

The engine has no weathering yet. I'm going to do mild weathering. I want this plane to be almost factory fresh, not a beat up hulk. It's how I do it. I have to do some more very fine back-painting to cleanup the black taping around the cross-engine ignition harness.

The engine truly is a model unto itself with almost 100 parts for it alone.

This is awesome.  It's builds/WIPs like this that make me want to get to my bench more than I already want to.

I just stumbled upon this thread this morning and read all the way through.  Great work on the railroad and with the 3d printer.  Between you and me, this is way better than a magazine article. 

T e d

Builder 2010

I have not had flash problems. The parts are real clean, almost up to Tamiya standard. Ejector pin marks have been minimal (so far).

Thank you for answering my question. I found a decent price, I might just  and give in after all these years and buy one.

It's good to hear your missing sprue issue was dealth with by Airfix directly.

Thank you for showing the fit issue at the exhaust pipe joins and what you did about it. I have way overengineered problems like that, I learned something.

Please keep this thread going, it is very interesting.

Didn't get much done today. Wrestling with my 3D printer. It was a draw.

Got the first coat on the Saber.

Thank you! Feedback like that keeps me going.

I got confirmation from Airfix that Sprue M is in the mail and will arrive next week. That solves that problem. Meanwhile, I started construction of that remarkable Napier Saber power plant. I read a white paper on the difference in performance between sleeve and poppet valved aero engines. I was wondering just how sleeve valves worked in this instance. I thought the Saber was the only engine with this arrangement, but UK's Bristol Radial engines also used them, which describes why they look different with their exhaust stacks coming out of the middle of the cylinder.

The sleeve actually performed dual functions. It served as the working cylinder liner in which the piston traveled and it moved simultaneously side to side and slightly up and down to expose and close passages leading in and out of the cylinder for induction and exhaust. Ported engines in 2-stroke are common since the ports can remain static with the piston itself opening and closing them. But 4-strokes have to close off induction and exhaust at different points in the cycle and this requires more motion.

Sleeve engines claimed to have less moving parts, but in the case of the Bristol Centaurus (used in the Hawker Sea Fury), it took a gear train of 48 spur gears to drive the actuating mechanism to both rotate and raise the sleeve. Because the sleeve formed an additional layer between the cylinder jug and the piston, cooling was a challenge, but like other engines, as it evolved these problems were genearally solved.

The motion was controlled by a small cam-like lever that jutted out below the cylinder jug and contacted a ring at the bottom of the sleeve. As the cam lever rotated 360 degrees it rotated and raised the sleeve into its various positions. Once the gear train was set up, valve adjustments were no longer needed. This compared favorably to the constant management of valve lash in the contemporary pushrod poppet valved aero engines. The sleeve timing didn't change with temperature, but its diameter would and this would affect operating friction.

There is an Airfix operation to put a motor in this large engine block to spin the prop, but I chose to not do this. I did make sure that the prop shaft is lubricated (Vasoline) so the prop will spin freely.

Between the inner framing and the mass of the plastic parts, the engine block is quite solid. Most of the parts fit together perfectly after routine parts cleanup, but the junction between the supecharger induction pipes and their block attachment had a significant gap. I filled this with a combination of Bondic for the larger gaps and Tamiya filler for the lesser.

This is the engine bottom. Even here, you apply two separate pumps. By leaving the entire front skin off, a lot of these details WILL BE visible.

The supercharger is a model in itself with five parts. I used a lot of different sanding devices including a neat powered micro-sander I got from MicroMark. I bought that specifically to clean up resin prints. But another very useful one is the Flexi-sander which is superb for sanding round surfaces such as the induction pipes from the supercharger. By being a soft band it comforms to the curves and gives a great finish.

Here are the gaps in the induction system. Two were very large and two were more manageable.

The big gaps were too large for typical fillers so I turned to Bondic. You put it in a layer, harden it for about 5 seconds, put in another layer, and so on until the gap is closed. It's quite hard, much harder than styrene, so you have to sand accurately. If you concentrate on the filler you will get it right. If you need to, apply some masking tape to the styrene from affecting too much styrene.

Here's filled, but not sanded.

And after finishing:

The next step is to install the engine on the airframe before adding any more piping (and there's a lot), but before that it needs to be painted and detailed a bit. While the plans call for black, I'm going with green. It seems all the pictures of extant engines are a nice British Racing Green. Besides, the engine will be fully exposed and, since it's the most interesting part (to me) of this aircraft, the engine's going to be green.

Another clue that this engine's valves are different is that the induction and exhaused enter the side of the block, not the top.

In spite of your recent problems your thread is seriously inspiring. Keep going man!

Installed the control stick and the throttle. Glued the oxygen tank together as well as the water (lube oil?) tank, and then filled the little seams. Neither of these are visible when the skin goes on, but it's fun to build them either way.

The instrument panel is a gray plastic piece sandwiched with a transparent piece that has the gauge glass. Now... this is dilemma. If you put the decals behind the transparent piece, the distortion will hide most of the decal's beauty. But if you put them on the clear part's faces, then you defeat the purpose of the transparent piece forming a clear gauge crystal. I chose the latter, but then created a new transparent face by adding a coating of Bondic UV curing resin. The decals are stiff, thick, and didn't adhere well. That was even with MicroSet. But the Bondic really worked to seal them in AND give a good look.

The panel fell on the floor and the biggest decal fell off and disappeared. So I hand painted the gauge face back on. I cured the Bondic en masse by putting the panel into my UV curing chamber that I use for my resin 3D printer.

There were other decals that had to go on, small stencils. These too took a bit of fussing.

I then installed the panel into position attached to the compass support and the rear of the tank. I then took some pictures.

One of the comments spoke about the dificulty of getting the interior to sit properly on the bottom wing piece. So I tried it and it did fill well.

Now, this kit had an anomaly. There were two lower wings. At first I thought that they maybe were different (optional fitting), but no... they were the same Sprue E. Okay. I got two of the same sprue. Then I started looking for the rest of the fuselage parts to see how they fit the interior. And guess what? I had NO SPRUE M.

I contacted my hobby shop and they directed me to Airfix USA. I sent an eMail to the Customer Service contact and got a response within the hour. They had a bubble top Typhoon kit that didn't have an instruction book, but it had a Sprue M. They asked that I photograph the instruction page showing the part and they check to see if it would work. It appears that it does and they will send it too me. Whew!

Without the fuselage sides, the model would be a curiosity, but not an airpane.

Me too! I'm sorry you ran into a jam. It's easy to do on this kit. The fit up of parts is critical, but pretty good once you have them in exactly the right spots. I look at the assembled view at least three times before I get any glue in the space. I have not had flash problems. The parts are real clean, almost up to Tamiya standard. Ejector pin marks have been minimal (so far).

I've been working three projects at once, so my progress on the Typhoon has been slower than my normal, but it's steady. Each day I'm adding more stuff to the interior and touchup painting as I go along.

Yesterday, I put in the side panels, left and right, and today added some black boxes that flank the sides. Again, although I painted them on the sprue, I had to go back and fix them up after glued. I am blown away by the native detail in the cockpit. While I understand there are certain AM enhancements that could even make it more intense, I can't justify the cost for this model. For example: some of the molded levers coming out of the side panels represent little triangles instead of a true lever, but I also know that when selectively and carefully painted, the do show up and, furthermore, will be almost invisible when the skin almost encloses the whole affair.

Here's the right panel.

Here's the totally invisible right outside panel. It will be completely out of sight when the skin goes on... and that skin will NOT be removed.

And some added black boxes, right hand first.

Left side black box. I had to paint the aluminum colored tab that the box glues to so it look like a single object. But this too is outside facing and will be hidden by the skin. More AMS (advanced modeler's syndrome).

Last thing I did was assemble the throttle quadrant and paint the control stick. The Typhoon stick controlled the ailerons by hinging the top part of the stick and have some connecting rods carrying this side to side motion down to the lower mechanism. This is similar to the way the control wheels were tied in with the larger bombers during the time. The photos I had showed the colors of this and the throttles pretty well. There's some electrically wiring that goes from the pushbuttons on the stick down to below the floor, but I'm not putting them in (overkill).

There's also a tiny illegible decal over one of the throttle knobs, and it's shiny because I had just applied it and used MicroSol. The decals seem to take forever to wet off the backing. I mean minutes rather than seconds. Very strange. I think on a Tamiya kit that decal would have had real words, not just tiny yellow specks.

Till next time...

snapdragonxxx

That was me!

I'll be darned!

Sorry you had trouble, and know that I was enjoying your thread.

Can you comment on the flash and whatnot? Is it really as bad as I've read about?

That was me!

With the Tiffy you have to ber really careful putting the cockpit together and making sure you know EXACTLY how it fits on to the bottom of the wing or else the fuselage will not fit correctly or join up to the bottom of the wing.

This is why I stopped the build as something went wrong and to correct it meant ripping the thing apart which would have meant damage that could not be made right.

I have now got hold of both Car Door and Bubble Top versions which will end up on my bench probably 2021 as I need to get hold of lots of AM stuff for them. It is my intention to do the Car Dood as a V1 Chaser and the Bubbletop loaded with rockets and maybe, as a "spare" has recently appeared during a spring clean and declutter, a Bombphoon as well!

Right now, I am launching in to a dual build of the 1/24 Hellcat. One will be the dark blue Paper Doll with wings folded and the other will have the wings fixed and in FAA Camo and markings for 800 Sqn.

I will be using as much AM as I can and will be painting all insignia etc using HGW wet transfers and seatbelt sets. Top Notch masks used too!

My advice with the Tiffy is to be really careful building the cockpit AND dry fit the parts to the lower wing/fuselage constantly as you go along.

I do wish Airfix would use a better quality plastic!

I've been interested in this kit for years. I'm really happy to see your WIP thread.

Maybe I'm nuts but it seems like someone had one going here on FSM some years back and it just stopped somewhere along the way.

Is the flash and stuff as bad as the reviews I've read?

Looking good so far!