Hawker Hurricane GB

AFTERMARKET PARTS:

I was looking at Squadron and found some listings that have me a bit confused; for instance there is a listing for FALCON in New Zealand for Canopy Sets. Thing is it gives a long listing of of aircraft, Hawker Seafury, Spitfire, Typhoon..........etc. but doesn't list any of the kit mfg's. Does that mean that for the quoted price of $8.99 you will get canopies that will fit all those aircraft irregardless of mfg? Nor does it give the scale. I find this confusing. Does that mean you get a 'grab bag' of assorted aircraft canopies of various scales or is something like this a thing to stay away from?

here are some parts

http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=EU49252

I am not sure if you need any for Hasegawa kit. It is aretty well done and only thing what need is a set of seatbelts and possibly IP (but in Hasegawa and Tamiya kit I just drybrush the IP and it looks pretty good (to me )

so, any additioanl parts may be too much  

Hurricane had a variaty of canopies made. With and w/o armor. 

Poopie

If you have never used any after market stuff before start off slowly.  A few resin part and/or some PE stuff.

 Take a look at Ultracast for some simple resin part replacement that are top notch. Roam around the Eduard site. They have lots of stuff for the Hurricane and it will tell you if it is for Hasegawa or Tamiya or whatever.

Poppie, I tell you how I am doing it.

I use Paint Shop Pro - it is a pretty nice and relatively small program (I used it since it was a shareware few yearts ago).

I like this program because is really fast and small. It does not take half of the hard disk space and 2 GB memory to run (I exadurate a bit but you can see my point here) and it is a fraction of the Photoshop price.

I download pictures from my camera to a MODEL directory and I pick few inpurpose of publishing into photobucket. I copy those few to the directory (MODELS_PICTS_PUBLISHED) and than I open PaintShopPro and RESIZE each image to 800x600 (or 1024x800)

Since I am using Cannon Digital Rebel, my picutrs are about 3-4 MB each. After resizing it with PSP, each has only 70-80kB - very reasonable. You have to use proper jpeg compression allowing to shrink the file. 

Files from this directory are taken than to photobucket and published on this forum 

If you set your camera for this resolution than you will still have the largest jpeg file due to limited compression (and high quality required by the camera)

I hope it helps.

I just went through fitting the wing into Classic Airframes fuselage ... including resin wheel wells .... what a pain. I think there will be a lot of sanding and fabric surfraces will not help doing it ...

I focused on a good fit at the root area hoping sanding the leading edge is simpler than root I may not need much putty anywhere to finish this bird. 

gzt wrote:

Since I am using Cannon Digital Rebel, my picutrs are about 3-4 MB each. After resizing it with PSP, each has only 70-80kB - very reasonable. You have to use proper jpeg compression allowing to shrink the file.

This step is essential to allow the poor forum members who are saddled only with dialup internet to see pics (or any threads in general, for that matter). Sadly, I'm one of them.

Oh, the bird's looking good btw, GZT!

a little problem...

I am looking for a side view of Mk I with Rotol prop. Why ? here we go ...

I am not sure if the fit presented on this picture is correct. Classic Airframes kit is ... pretty poor quality and instructions simply ... s..ck  

Poppie wrote:

Reload wrote: Poppie, I am asuming you are in the CF? Been a long time since I have seen a cornflake (refering to your avitar) let alone worn one. That brings back memories of Cornwallis.......good grief...LOL Cornwallis, or should I say "Cornholeis", is a long way behind me too, but I'm retired out of CF;s Maritime, as a Padre. Long story.  Enlisted as an ordinary seaman, got my commission,  but served as an exchange officer with US forces in the brown water navy, got shrapnel in my spine, 100% disability. It was funny for awhile because I was drawing full disability, and full pay and allowances while I attended grad school and seminary then continued to collect disability and full pay as Capt!! I really and truly regretted having to finally have to take full retirement as things just got too hard to handle. Couldn't take morphine and do the job too. Ah well, as a veteran, I'm treated very, very, well.

I here you on the Cornholeis.........was there in 89, then went infantry, borne, and JT in Pet. Got out in 94. It is good to hear that my old home land is finaly treating it's vetrans well, it wasn't that way for me. Down in the US, the patriatism and show of support for the troops is impressive to say the least. Even I am treated well, and as an armed gaurd I work closley with alot of military types.......great hunting buddies!!

Anyway, welcome to the board, and all I can say is go over alot of these posts, the work found here is top of the class. The info and helpfullnes is terrific, and the chaps ain't to bad either.

Brent

If anyone is looking for a good, free, image editing program check out paint.net. I put it on my laptop and have photoshop on my desktop and it has much of the same functionality. All I need at least. Best of all, its free!

On the Hurricane front. I'll take some pics tommorow, but my cockpit is coming along. Starting to put all the pieces where they are supposed to go, and cursing at Classic Airframes all the way. The resin parts are top notch, but the injection molding is terrible, as are the instructions.

Keep Pluggin' away.

gzt wrote:

a little problem... I am looking for a side view of Mk I with Rotol prop. Why ? here we go ...I am not sure if the fit presented on this picture is correct. Classic Airframes kit is ... pretty poor quality and instructions simply ... s..ck

 I had a look through my Hurricane in action book and I found this info.

Seems to me that the extream contours of your nose do not look right. Then again, I'm no aircraft historian mind you!

If you should need a closer view, let me know.

Cheers

Brent

Thanks Brent. A closeup of the nose would be nice.

I am searching myself for a clean side shot of the nose with diferent props. The classic Airframes kit is a real hassle.

I thought I did OK with the fuselage (almost no seams) but now the spinner is just driving me nuts. I stopped believing the instruction for some time already. I never saw worse than this one yet. 

Greg,

I agree, the nose profile doesn't look quite right.  Although, some of the early Hurricanes used Spitfire spinners as there was a shortage of the "correct" ones for a time.  Here's a profile of one with a SPitfire (I believe) spinner:

Thanks Frank. I think you are right. I looked into my books and basicaly Rotol and DeHaviland were a vit oversized for the engine cawling. Looks to me like an inch on the radius !

So I think I will be OK if I use the one shown before.

enough for tonight :) 

Poppie,

The Falcon canopy sets include the canopies for all of the listed aircraft, and they are quite nice.  I have the Spitfire set, but have only used one.  A place I have had great luck with for finding aftermarket parts for Hurricanes is Sprue Brothers.  Just type in "Hurricane" and you will find quite a few things.  Good luck!

I bought the Eduard RAF seatbelt set and it includes the Sutton Harness as well as the "punch" (it may have been twist, I'm not sure)to release type. When was one type used over the other or were they used simultaneously? I am building an early MK I with the fixed pitch prop.

 Thanks!

This is better.

Brent

Thanks,

obviously the spinners were made for Spits and those were a bit to large for Hurricanes.

I am going to sand a bit my Mk I and possibly sprawy first color tonight ... 

PAINT SHOP PRO,

Thanks for the lesson Greg. I've downloaded the 30 day trial of Paint Shop Pro and have started to play arouond with it. I'll make sure my pics are down to a reasonable size, once I have some pics worth sending, so I don't jam up someone's connection. The price right now is $80 US but it looks like its worth it.  I used to have Corel Draw 3 and paid a couple of hundred for it and it didn't do half of what this little program does. My wife should have fun doctoring up the pics of the g/kids as well!

Thanks for the leads on other aftermarket parts guys. I'm going to have to be really careful with what I buy given that I have only 30 days to raise the bucks for Paint Shop, but, like I said, I'm going to use this 'Finnish Air Force'  kit as a learning project and then try and 'spruce up' a 'regular Hurricane'.  Where do most of you guys get your decals from? Shipping and Handling charges to Canada almost double the price of anything I buy from the states so, again, I have to learn to shop carefully and get as much in at one time as I can to save shipping costs.

I was looking around the Ultracast site, trying to learn how to read the catalogue and find things and this ad caught my attention as I have a couple of early Spit I's I want to do.  Does this ad mean that the seat will fit any kit so long as its a 1/48 scale kit?  I noticed on the Sprue Brothers catalogue that they had several parts for 1/48 Hurricane Mk I and they gave a Has #

Does this mean the part will only fit that particular Hasegawa kit or will it fit any Hasegawa Hurricane Mk I kit?

Sorry to be asking so many questions but the learning curve is a little bit steep at this point.

Hard to tell from that Poppie, if they will fit. Usually they will say if it is produced for a certain kit or not. If there were a fit problem, this would be a great, and relativley easy way to break into the "modifying" part of our hobby.

Brent

Iflyprops- The early Hurri's should have the Sutton Harness, as opposed to the twist to release one.  HTH!

Poppie- That seat SHOULD fit any kit, though a little trimming or modification may be necessary to get it to fit properly into some cockpits.  Ultracast really seems to favor Tamiya and Hasegawa kits, so fitment into one of those would probably be easiest.  As for the Hasegawa Hurricane kits, they are the same kits with a different sprue or two to differentiate between the different versions on the aircraft.  For instance, Ultracast makes a couple of different exhaust manifold sets that will fit all of the Hasegawa Hurricanes, but you must make sure to get the one that is correct for the Mark that you are building.  If you could tell me which kit you are going to build, I would be happy to help you pick out the parts you need.

a "no pic" progress report... due to extreme laziness as I don't want to walk out to the truck to get my camera.  Got the wings glued on finally.  LOTS of fine tuning with the sading stick to get the seam gaps to go away but it looks like my extremely long run of aircrat modles with ZERO putty on the wing roots is still going to be intact.

wing_nut wrote:

... my extremely long run of aircrat modles with ZERO putty on the wing roots is still going to be intact.

Hmmm... Can I send mine over to you to fit the wings for me?   Looks like the gaps as supplied as HUGE!!! 

Sure what the heck

I just looked atthe roster and the amount of Has. kits beingbuilt.  Looks like there will be a lot of wing root puttying going on

You can say that again! My kit has been bloody awful!!

In the meantime, I have defeated the little and I am now glad to report that my decals have been sealed in with a nice gloss coat. Tomorrow, the weathering begins!

TANGO 1 wrote:

You can say that again! My kit has been bloody awful!!

Yikes!  You're makin' me nervous here... Looks like lots of filing, sanding and fitting ahead.  Ah, well...it'll be worth it to finally have a Hurri on the shelf.

I just finished sanding my Classic airframes MK I

but... it may not be over yet

What kit do you work on ? Hasegawa ??? I though Classic Airframes is awful kit ... 

gzt wrote:

What kit do you work on ? Hasegawa ??? I though Classic Airframes is awful kit ...

Yep, the Hasegawa kit.  Looks like the fuse joints and the wing-to-fuselage joints are going to take some work. 

here is my Classic Airframes 1/48 (future L2048)

it took me a long time to put fuselage together. All crooked and twisted. A lot of tenX7 and superglue ...

It took me quite few hours to put fuselage together. 

I looked into Hasegawa kit and ... one thing I can not understand: why the heck they made a subdivision in the middle of "fabric" section . I have no idea how to make it look even close to "good". This will be my (when I start this kit) primery objective to avoid sanding in this region.

(Bottom side of the fus/wing connection)