a lot of great buolding still going on here!  I've been busy lately, haven't gotten to the bench in a while...although, my eduard canopy mask arrived in the mail yesterday, so I should probably start masking all those tiny pieces of glass!

Thanks for your kind comments guys.

Damien - hope you can resurrect the finish on the Mossie.  It looked great in the just-painted stage.

All - About those injector pin marks - I do remember seeing someone's trick for eliminating them.  It involved drilling a hole to completely remove them, then inserting a piece of styrene rod or sprue (of the right diameter) into the hole just flush with the surface.   It seemed like alot more work than I was willing to put in. (another fallen brother) 

Bish - I looked back on that Xtradecal sheet and found that the Air Sea Rescue BP Defiant is in fact from an RAF squadron 277 based at Stapleford Tawney, Essex in 1942.  It's the only Defiant scheme I've seen that uses Extra Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey over Sky-S.  That's what made me think that it was an FAA bird.  So I think I might add that to this GB after I finish the Hurri.

Chris

The Air Sea Rescue Defiant sounds interesting Chris, never come across one of those.

Hello all,

Here are the decal layout plans from the decal instructions.  Uniquely Defiant !

Can't wait to start . . . but I will.

Chris

Looking forward to that Chris. I was reading up on these last night. So does the Airfix kit come with the dinghy canistors.

Bish

So does the Airfix kit come with the dinghy canistors

Bish -  Nope, no kit parts - but it looks like scratchbuilding won't be too difficult.

Chris

Man... Just here a few days ago catching up, and all of a sudden 52 pages! I'd say your GB is a rousing success Bish! It is a great topic to build on. 

Chris... are you going to do the two grey shades? That will look so cool...

Well, Time to start the 75th Battle of Britian Commerative build we talked about Bish. This will be an Airfix 72nd scale Hurricane Mk1. and a Hobby Boss Euro Fighter also in 72nd scale and in 1940 Battle of Britian period colors... When I saw those pictures of the 2 aircraft together... How cool was that. Any way, The Hurricane first, and at first glance, not a bad little kit at all! Very nicely engineered and finely detailed. I was really impressed, being that my first real job was working at MPC (Model Products)1970 & 71 and at the time they had just aquired the Airfix of England line, and what a nightmare that was. The kits were just short of junk, and there was no co-operation at all from airfix. However long story short, the latest releases from Airfix have been Very nicely done and are a FAR cry from the kits of the past. SO... Here we go...

The 2 kits... All I'll have to get is some extra lettering to have both aircraft with the same ID markings.

These little canopy sections were without a doubt the EASIEST to mask that I have ever done. One thing though, the canopy is very thin, (and thats a good thing) but very fragile. Handle with care! I heard it crack a bit during handeling but it didnt break in two (Wheew). Again, very well detailed and easily masked and trimmed.

The little cockpit section, assembled well and fell right into place.

the control stick and foot pedals mounted to the upper wing section, I've never been a fan of this set up cuz they rarely fit together properly, But... Look at the fine detail on the wing surfaces... Might be just a wee bit heavy for a 72nd but I for one am impressed! Even the plastic is a much higher grade then in the past... I'm liking it so far.

And lastly everything painted in the interior green primer. Well , let that dry and more to come.

Thanks...

Doug

Great idea for a project, Doug!

Doug,

That 1/72 Airfix Hurri is a peach.  A sweet little kit that builds up nicely.  And pairing it with the Eurofighter anniversary scheme is fitting for this GB.          I say !  -  Good show ol' boy !  

_{(please forgive this yank - 'is wife put him through a few too many episodes of Downton Abbey)}

Yes - I'm planning on doing the "greys" scheme.  Even though neither of them is really grey - one of them is pretty close to US Intermediate blue, and the other is a shade of green that is not quite the same as RAF Dk Green.  Regardless of what they are called - I like 'em.

Chris 

If anyone wants a quick but very hard and very bright gloss, hand brush Future over the areas you want to put your decals. When sprayed, Future is satin. When hand brushed, it's very gloss. I know one good modeler that mixes Future 50-50 with water as a version of "micro sol" (not set, although I dropped a decal onto major irregularity on a tank with a puddle of future and it set great.)

Looking forward to this Doug. And i fully agree about the new Airfix kits compared to the old ones. I did not know MPC had bought Airfix. I have the Airfix boxing of the Star wars Speeder Bike, i thought Airfix i had just re-boxed the MPC kit. Learnt somthing new.

I'll add thye Hurricane to the roster, already have the EU on there.

Bossman

Hello all,

Here are the decal layout plans from the decal instructions.  Uniquely Defiant !

Can't wait to start . . . but I will.

Chris

 

Ye, should not be to difficult. I do get a bit annoyed somtrimes when i see decal sheets with options that you can't buy the kit for or any conversions.

Morning Bish... Thanks... Yeah, back when I worked for MPC, They had just aquired Airfix of England, and also During the time , They bought Lionel trains, Crafts Master paint sets, Estes rockets, and several other holdings. We were known as "The Fun Group at General Mills" and thats how the boxes were marked. AirFix kept the packaging and independent Logo, But most all the mouldings were now done at MPC in Mt. Clements Michigan. They later moved to New Baltimore Michigan, to consolidate everything into 3 huge factory buildings , all next door to each other.

At first the mouldings from air fix were TERRIBLE! Warpage, pieces missing, incomplete moulding shots... and the plastic was so brittle at times, it would crack and break at the slightest attempt to glue into shape. But , That was the past, and not having kept up with it over the years, all I know is, They are loads better, and my goal (Someday) is to get one of the 24th scale Hurricane Mk1 kits. They are BEAUTIFUL!  Tons of detail and supposedly taken from actual Hawker design. 

Any way, Nuff said... Thanks again for the Good GB topic! Thoroughly enjoying building these!

Doug

Chris: That's awesome looking! Love those bright yellow life-raft cannisters. 

That's funny, when I think of a dinghy I think of a small solid boat, not an inflatable. 

Doug: I had to double check the scale there, I could swear that was 1/48th or larger! I had a few old Airfix kits back in the '80s-'90s but don't remember any being that badly molded. I did have a few MPC ones and don't remember being very impressed with them at the time. 

Glad things have moved on since then Doug. I had not bought an Airfix aircraft in years and avpoided them at all costs. But now i have not only been buying them but am eager toi see what else they are bringing out.

I was re-reading your otehr posts and interested to see what you said about the canopy. That does sound very nice and good to see 72nd canopies that were a bit more to scale in regards thickness. And as far as the success of the GB, i just come up with the theme, the rest is down to you guys.

Gamera... Yup, Like I said after I left MPC I never kept up much with them, and I know over the years General Mills sold off alot of their aquisitions from earlier, so no telling who owns what now. When we got material in from Airfix, that had been QCed, we would have to go through it again and no joke , about half would be rejected as unusable. We took over the dies and tooling and when received and inspected, They were horrible condition, cracked and rewelded, with poor resurfacing, way out of specs, broken and still in use... BUT... Todays Airfix again are beautiful kits! I for one would not hesitate to buy more of them. Only problem is, they make 72nd , 48th, and a few 24th, scale aircraft, but no 32nd scale. Who knows, maybe later... 

Good to see you underway, Doug. Looking forward to following along.

Good point there Doug, would be nice to see Airfix produce 32nd subjects.

I have the following Airfix kits - newest I believe from 2014. 1/48: BF109, P-40B, Hurricane, Ju-87: 1/72: HE-111, C-47, B-17. They all look great. (There are older models of most of these so make sure you check Scalemate for "new tool" date.) Phil Flory has video builds on both the 109 and Hurricane and praises both to the sky. (Speaking of which, the new C-47 is called Skytrain. When writing I interviewed several C47 pilots and crew flying in New Guinea and never once heard the term Skytrain. Not once. A nickname was Goony. But mostly it was "47." Americans during WWII still loved baseball and perhaps that explains why they were so keen on numbers for their aircraft. (Two of the names that stuck - Lightning & Mustang - came from Brits.) There's an excellent video build on the B-17 from a very good Polish modeler "Big Modeler" on YTube and he likewise praises the kit. Should note though, that Tamiya just came out with a new Ki-61 for about $5 more than an Airfix P-40. Tamiya is still king of the hill any time they want to prove it and I'd pay the exta $5 any day.

BTW: criticism for the otherwise highly praised Stuka? Injector pin marks. On your knees those who are fallen.

Eric

Eric, 

I have to agree with the quallty of the new Airfix kits. I recently finished their B5N2 Kate and was exceedingly pleased with it.

I may just sell my stash and replace them the new Airfix products. I really wsnt the 17.

Bish,

I received the decal sheet for the Tonka and it looks exceptional. Can't wait to get to that point. 

Steve, can't wait to see that as wel. Can't remember if you mentioned it, which aircraft are you doing again.

Eric, very good point about checking if the Airfix kit your loking at is new or old tool. Fortunatly hannants does mention it on their site, but of course thats only any use to what they have out at the time. So far i have bagged 5 of their new 72nd kits and they all look very nice, of course the proof wil be in the building, but i am pretty confidant i won't be dissapointed.

Just nice to be able to buy British with confidance for once, even if they are actually moded in India

Bish

Steve, can't wait to see that as wel. Can't remember if you mentioned it, which aircraft are you doing again.

 

31 Squadron 100th anniversary which should be perfect to the GB I should think

Thats it, thanks Steve. Just checked out the decal sheet, some interesting schemes on there.

Yea, I still want to get an EF-2000 and Chinook at some time.

I MAY be receiving the new Italeri /48 Hurricane Mk.1 Trop to review at some point. If or when I do I'll want to add that to the roster.

I have built the old matchbox Chinook, but would be nice to get a newer RAF version. But from what i can tell, none of the existing kits would produce one OOB.

Add away, who will you be reviewing it for.

Bish

Add away, who will you be reviewing it for.

SPAModler

Greg

Good to see you underway, Doug. Looking forward to following along.

 

Take care!

Doug

Working on the Hampden wings

Ailerons are each in one piece, but they needed a lot of clean-up for flash.

Test-fitting them to the wing shows a pretty huge gap.  

Looks like new holes need to be drilled, to bring them in closer to the wing.

Then these little brackets are supposed to hold the landing gear in position.

And the wing parts.  Again following Airfix's instructions, I painted them RAF Interior Green.  Likely they should be black.

Now those ailerons bring back some memories of old Airfix kits.

I would not worry to much about the interior colours. A lt of hampdens were built before the RAf moved to night bombing, and while they would have re-painted the undersides, i can't see then doing the landing and bomb bays.