Hey Owl can you put me in for a 1/48 P-47 revelogram next?thanx

It must be hurricane season.  If I might, I'd like to add a couple of Hurricanes to the GB.  The first will be from Revell Germany's Battle of Britain set.  The set comes with the aircraft shown.  They are all in 1/72.

I finished the Spitfire during the summer, using DP Casper's Dunkirk-era decal sheet.  It was a very challening kit, pretty crudely designed and moulded, with rather ill-fitting parts.  The Hurricane was better--but not by much.  I also used the Dunkirk decal sheet for the Hurricane.

First off, I attached the horizontal stabilizers to the fuselage from the inside, then set the proper angle with a protracter.

Once the fuselage was glued together, they looked OK.

There was a huge gap behind the pilot's seat.  Maybe Revell figured it was OK, because there was no pilot seat included--well, just a pilot figure (wearing a modern jet-type helmet!) moulded into the seat.  More about that later.

Anyway, I glued some styrene over the gap, then sanded it smooth and to shape.

I'll take a break here, since sometimes Photobucket gets ornery if I try to put too many pictures in a thread.  It's been ornery enough since they reformatted.

Thanks for looking.

True to form, everything jammed up when I tried to put too many pictures into one post; but--to resume.

The kit is very simple, with very few parts.  One unsophisticated aspect was the huge see-through hole in the radiator (or whatever it is) under the fuselage/wings.  So I used tissue of the Kleenex variety, blocked the hole, soaked it with superglue and eventually painted it black.

Then I masked around the glue surfaces to keep them free from paint.  The insides of the top wing are visible through the landing gear bays.

While that was all setting up, I painted the propeller and landing gear. 

The kit wheels were unacceptable, so I took a pair from an Airfix Hurricane (which I replaced with after market items).  During the Battle of France/Dunkirk era, the RAF painted the undersides of fighters in white (starboard) and black (port).

I think I'll not push my luck with another computer jam, and continue separately.

Now about that cockpit--there is none without the odd pilot figure.  Nothing much is visible underneath the canopy, which was severely scratched, maybe because of the age of the moulds.

So I went to the "failed modeling efforts" box and found an old B-17 seat, which I sanded to some semblence of shape, painted it and added seatbelts from painted masking tape.

Then I positioned it with poster tack where it is supposed to sit atop the upper wing and tested its location.  Once that was OK, I glued it in place with superglue and removed the poster tack.

I assembled the propeller by pushing the shaft through the hole in the nose, and attached the retaining bushing from the inside of the assembled fuselage.  Unfortunately this means painting the thing with the prop in place.  I made a mask with a hole in the middle and slipped it between the prop and the fuselage, then got busy painting.  The photo shows the paint work up to the application of MM Dark Earth.

You can see that the model is a wonderful combination of lots of rivets along with engraved panel lines.  One other item let out of the kit was the antenna.  I used one from the spares box, and drilled the hole for it.

Again, to keep the photos to a minimum, I'll post pics of the finished build separately.

Everything jammed up again, when I tried to put six photos into one post, so I'll have to split these again.

Here is both a top and bottom view.  I used a black wash around the control surfaces and a dark gray wash in the panel lines on the bottom of the aircraft.  It doesn't show up too well on the black side in the photo.

On the top side, I used a dark brown wash in the panel lines.

The Casper decals went on very well, and even snuggled somewhat over all those rivets.

Final shots, and they are probably self-explanatory.

When I can get to it, I'd like to post an Airfix Hurricane I build along with this one.  It was a lot easier.

Thanks again, Ms OWL, for hosting this build.

Wow CMK2 you cranked that one out! Looks awesome too!

Thanks, TREY.  It took a while.  I just didn't post photos till I knew it'd turn out.

Stunning looking Hurricane. I do like the black and white bottoms on these. Great work.

Thanks, Bish.  Yes, the b&w makes a nice change from Sky.  The Casper sheet has a couple of Spitfires on it with variations on the theme:  aluminium fuselage with b&w wings.

I worked on the Hurricane from the VC Icons set from Airfix (1/72) at the same time.

I didn't take many photos of the construction phase.  At least, it came with a seat.  The harness is made of masking tape. 

The fuselage assembly.

The wing assembly.

Everything is basically assembled here, and the undersurfaces have been painted using WEM Colourcoats "Sky."  In better lighting, it looks more pale greenish than the photo shows.

And the finish photos.  As you can see, the major blunder here was the shell ejector ports.  I assumed Revell knew what it was doing, and duplicated the placement from the Revell kit.  This I have learned is horribly wrong.  I made them out of black-painted decal stock, since I didn't want to cut holes in the wings, and bungle it.  Unfortunately, the location is where I bungled.  Live and learn.

The panel lines on this Airfix offering are all raised, nothing engraved, so it was a challenge to highlight them.  I used a thin acrylic pinwash and allowed it to sit long enough to "grab," then I wiped it down with a damp q-tip (cotton bud). 

So as to avoid more jamming up, I put the last views on a separate post.

The markings represent the aircraft flown by James Nicolson (249 Squadron) at the time he earned the Victoria Cross.  There is some controversy about how they actually appeared, since no photo of the plane is known to exist.  I followed the placement suggested by Airfix.  Aviaeology includes the markings in their "Vital Storm Pt. 2" decal sheet, and they suggest alternate placement for the codes.

That's it.  Thanks for looking.

Another great looking Hurri CMK ,that pinwash worked perfectly. Very nicely done Sir!

Thanks, Trey.  Saw your P-40 in the Aircraft section.  Excellent build.  The "in-flight" photos were outstandingly good.

TREYZX10R

Hey Owl can you put me in for a 1/48 P-47 revelogram next?thanx

updated!

nice hurri's checkmate!

oh! for a tip with raised panel lines, I like to either prime in a dark color or preshade along the panel lines. Once the camo is finished, take 600 or finer sand paper and lightly buff the surface. The paint should come off the raised details revealing the dark lines

thats the process I used on my ZERO kit:

Owl thanks, I like using that same treatment on the raised details. I've mixed results tho

Basic Dry fit looks promising

Trying not to go hog wild with a/m goodies on this one so making the most out of whats in the box is a must. First up I gave the wheels a retread and then 'weighted' them,may have weighted them a tad much but I'll roll with it!

Next I opened up the vents behind the cowl flap area

Cleaned up and thinned the aft fuse vents

More cleaning and drilling,will be straying from the oob by adding some tubing here

Razor sawed the cowl flaps ,filed them a bit and thinned the trailing edges

Rescribed and cleaned up the front cowl

on to the office next! cheers Trey

CallSignOWL

nice hurri's checkmate!

oh! for a tip with raised panel lines, I like to either prime in a dark color or preshade along the panel lines. Once the camo is finished, take 600 or finer sand paper and lightly buff the surface. The paint should come off the raised details revealing the dark lines

thats the process I used on my ZERO kit:

CallSignOWL

nice hurri's checkmate!

oh! for a tip with raised panel lines, I like to either prime in a dark color or preshade along the panel lines. Once the camo is finished, take 600 or finer sand paper and lightly buff the surface. The paint should come off the raised details revealing the dark lines

thats the process I used on my ZERO kit:

Nice tip. I don't normally pre shade but i have nightmares about doing raised panel line. This might be worth a try. As CMK points out, will need a very light touch.

CMK2: Wow, looks like a bear of a kit but you did a beautiful job on her! Kudos sir!!!

Trey: Nice work there, don't think I'd be brave enough to thin the cowling flaps like that. I'd seen what Owl described in FSM but again I haven't been brave enough to take even fine sanding paper to a painted model like that!

Thanks Cliff. I 've tried Owls tip and it works fine on some kits ,like all those Otaki kits I did in the Japanese G/B . Epic fail when I tried it on the XB70 tho. I'm a bit ham fisted so most of the fail was my own fault. A super light touch with some very fine wet (2000grit 3m) seems to work best for me.

you could also use steel wool, instead of sandpaper. It works just as well

Office is a wrap,not a very accurate molding I might add. A lot of missing and misplaced components .Still trying to avoid resin replacements with this build so in it goes.

But it's looking good anyway, Trey.

Thanks CMK!

I'm still cleaning up the fuse and opening up tiny vents

Does anyone have a good detail picture of this area?Been searching for hours and coming up dry. Would be greatly appreciated

cheers Trey

B-17 in the stash gave up a turbo(more to come on that build later) and using the donated part I finished up the aft turbo vents.





 I also used some sheet styrene painted black to block light from passing thru the opened vents and installed the office.



Glued the fuse halves together


started working on the gun sight

after it sets up it will be time to decide what to do about the raised panel lines,not really wanting to rescribe this thing. Geuss it depends on how much detail I loose sanding the seams

Coming along very nicely.

CMK thank you!

The wings next,opened the spent shell ports ,landing lights and ID light holes

Cleaned up the engine and firewall,opened the intakes and removed areas around the cylinder heads

Joined the wings and set the dehedral,its close but not exact

filled the minor gaps with green squadron putty

smoothed out the filler and painted a guide coat of thinned grey to highlight imperfections

I just had to touch up a few panel lines at the seams avoiding a major rescribe job.

Thinned MM enamel applied to get a uniform base before the NMF

canopy added

NMF is next,cheers Trey

Looking good, TREY.  What's the pink stuff you used to mask the landing gear bays?