Tom's Skybirds DH Hornet **Finished**

[JamesPerrin]

The airframe looks great Tom. Your patience has paid off!

[TomW]

Thanks James , the camera has shown up a couple of areas that aren't 100% but they don't notice anywhere as much when looked at with the old mk1 eyeball.

Bruce, thank you for the suggestion, I'll see if I can knock together a jig this afternoon to let me dip both spinners at the same time, expect a Heath Robinson style affair with cocktail sticks

Regards

Tom

[MerlinJones]

Or pieces of tubing, wider than the spinners?

[JohnRatzenberger]

One of the quirky things I've seen used was an Easter Egg painting tool from Mattel (I think). You put an egg between the clamps and turn it with the brush against it to get bands. With little effort, it work just as well for spinners. If you are really clever and coordinated you can do spirals also.

I am none of the above ....

[TomW]

ooo I wish I could get my hands on one of those John, guess I'll need to keep my eyes open for one


So a picture heavy update this evening 'cos I got lots done this afternoon on the Hornet.

Firstly I've dipped the spinners in Hu25, which I think is a fairly good match for Roundel Blue, I've heard that Hu104 is pretty close as well but I didn't have a tin of that available. Here they are drying:





I had lashed up a little assembly to dip them together, got it all aligned so both spinners were level, was feeling rather please with myself till I got to the dipping part, turns out two spinners side by side are rather too wide for a Humbrol tinlet , and there is no way i'm going to decant again after the last time (read ruined shirt ) so it all came apart and I've done them individually.

The wheels have been painted and washed to bring out all the detail that they have:




And I've trimmed and shaped the canopy to fit nicely, it still needs a final gentle sand and then Klear coating before I can get to masking:






Whilst all these bits were drying I turned my attention to the exhausts and main gear, drybrushed Citadel boltgun metal and dwarf bronze on the ejector stubs and washed the main gear in Citadel devlan mud:







And I managed to start the decalling process :










The end is getting near...

Regards

Tom

[AndrewR]

Looking very smart with that paint job Tom!

cheers

Andrew

[Jagewa]

Tom great job, the blue spinners will set it off nicely.

Cheers
Jim

[TomW]

Props and wheels on tonight:









I'm not 100% happy with the white bands on the spinners as they are a bit too wide, however this is after 3 attempts and was the most equal between the two, even so I still had to touch up by hand and eye I really must invest in a good protractor to cut curved masks.

Talking of masking that'll be the next job on the canopy now it is Kleared and properly cured. Yay

Regards

Tom

[airjim]

This is really helpful. I have one of these, but wasn't sure it was worth the effort. While the metal is nice, the plastic...well not so much. But it appears to scrub up really well.

Jim

[TomW]

The appearance of the plastic was nearly enough to put me off starting this too Jim but I've always wanted an example of the ultimate piston engined fighter in my RAF collection. I'm really glad I took the plunge, its been a pleasant introduction to real short-run, multimedia kits


Finally got the canopy on yesterday after much faffing about, tried fitting with PVA first but got so much smeared around trying to tease the vacform into place that it had to come off and be properly cleaned. Then I noticed that the build instructions say the canopy is made of a material that wont be attacked by CA glue, brilliant! so I attach it with said glue.....which starts to fog after 45 seconds

So off it came again for a polish and re-Klear, third attempt went like a charm with PVA although in some angles it doesn't look to be on straight whilst in others it does

Repainted the frames and left well alone








You can also see that I've repainted the spinners in solid Roundel Blue, I wasn't happy with the white banding so will need to experiment to get a result I'm happy with, though it is tempting to leave the bands of altogether as the solid blue is quite fetching (to my eyes at least), the U/C doors have also gone on.



This will however be the last update for a few days at least as I've had some unhappy news about the passing of my Grandmother

So till next time folks.

Regards

Tom

[AceSeafire]

Hi Tom, fantastic progress made here.

Sad news about your grandmother, my condolences

[ShaunW]

That's a great job Tom and goes to show what can be done with a kit that at first blush would seem to be problematical.
Sorry to hear your bad news, you have my sympathy also.

[TimJ]

Great work Tom.

Sorry to hear about your grandmother, my condolences.

[Jagewa]

Sympathies about your Grandmother Tom.

Jim

[TomW]

Thank you everyone for the kind support, managed to get a little time to myself today to spend with the plastic, the best kind of therapy I'll try and get some shots up later or tomorrow.

Regards

Tom