Frog DH Hornet (F239) 1/72 - AndrewR and Lancfan

[lancfan]

The undercarriage is now in place, the airscrews are now being painted and afterwards the undercarriage doors will be separated and thinned down ready for fitting.


David.

[AndrewR]

Very little action on the Hornet tonight.

The props got some blue paint on the spinners, after a lot of fiddling about. I had a new bottle of Model Colour Ultramarine Blue, and was going to use that, but it came out of the bottle with the consistency of toothpaste, so I gave up on that
I ended up using VA Light Sea Blue, plus a drop of VA black. I'm not sure it's quite the right shade, but it's better than nothing.



I've also put a "landing light" mount in the hole in the wing, from a piece of plastic tubing which fitted rather nicely into the hole. I will put a little clear piece in the hole to represent the bulb. It got a squirt of primer on it, while mounted in the hole, so then I had to tidy up a slight overspray on the PRU blue. I put a piece of blutack over the mounting while I was doing this.



The good news is that I checked the demarcations between upper and lower colours, and they don't need any retouches. Yay!

Exhausts and decals coming up next.

cheers

Andrew

[lancfan]

The model is looking more like an Hornet now as it steps nearer to the finish line, the radiator detail escaped me completely until Andrew pointed it out- in the end I represented it by glueing tiny pieces of stretched sprue into the radiator intake in pretence of the fences, depth will be represented by colour. The propellers have been painted but there is some touching in on the airframe to do yet before I fix them in place.


David.

[AndrewR]

That's looking good David. How did you do the white bands on the spinners? Decals or paint? I think I'm going to opt for decal strips.

I've made yet another crash mould canopy, which is the best yet (finest quality Lego packing material used!). I'm building the canopy frame up out of strips at the moment. I've also fitted the exhaust stubs.



I hope to get more done later tonight.

cheers

Andrew

[lancfan]

I pushed the spinners onto cocktail sticks and painted the rear end in blue, when that had dried I brushed the white on , turning the props with the sticks as I went, finally I painted the front blue section again turning the props with the cocktail sticks.

David.

[AndrewR]

I pushed the spinners onto cocktail sticks and painted the rear end in blue, when that had dried I brushed the white on , turning the props with the sticks as I went, finally I painted the front blue section again turning the props with the cocktail sticks.

David.

Ah! That's a good method.

Cheers

Andrew

[lancfan]

Checking through my refs I found a colour picture of this very aeroplane, discovering from the caption that 19 SQDN used their own colours on the spinners and not PRU Blue. I checked this against 'Squadron histories' by Peter Lewis and have removed and repainted them to match the roundel blue of the decals. I sent Andrew a PM to warn him and hopefully I am not too late.
The rocket rails and bomb racks are now in place but I won't fit ordnance to this as it was a UK-based machine and would have not normally carried weapons unless they were to be used for training or were inert units fitted for public display. The exhausts have also been fitted and the next step will be to fit the propellers (when they are dry) and then make and fit the flaps.


David.

[jssel]

Looking very nice, David.

[Martin R]

David,

I'm seriously impressed with the amount of work you have put into the old FROG kit and I'm sure your efforts will be rewarded with the finished result. I have a couple of questions, though. Firstly, could you post some pictures from head on when it's finished? I would like to see how much thinner the wing section looks; secondly, did you do anything to the canopy and nose shape at all? I don't know if it's true, but it always looked to my eye that there was something wrong in this area. Basically, the nose looked too blunt. What's your view?

regards,

Martin

[AndrewR]

Thanks for the PM David, I have not done anything to the spinners since my last posting, so I will be able to look at the colour again.

Martin, I have a feeling that the canopy isn't quite right in shape, and this may contribute to the nose looking blunt as well.

I'll be going slowly for the next week. I have 150 exam papers to start marking this afternoon

Cheers

Andrew

[lancfan]

The model now looks like this with the repainted spinners, in front of the model is the finished canopy mould.
Martin the best way to illustrate what I have done is demo it using a scrap built up model, will post this when it is ready.


David.

[AndrewR]

Spinners repainted a darker blue

And yet another attempt at a crashmould canopy
Sooner or later, I'll get one I like!

Cheers

Andrew

[Martin R]

OK, I give up.

I had planned never to build this kit again, because of what I considered 'fatal' outline errors. However, if you guys can get yours looking like they now do, then clearly I was talking rubbish. E-bay, here I come . . .

regards,

Martin

[lancfan]

Martin,
This is how I modified the nose- this fuselage is from a spares box wreck I acquired as part of a boxful of old built models. as kitted it does look blunt but it is not too short but is rather the wrong shape, the top view shows the model as Frog intended and below that is the same nose modified as I did the SB kit (highlighted in yellow) by simply flattening the top edge and blending that in with a smaller nose radius, it now looks more like the correct shape. With the new vac formed canopy it should look the part.


The wings needed filling before I altered them and the demo piece is no different, that will follow tomorrow when I have finished that off.

David.

[AndrewR]

OK, I give up.

I had planned never to build this kit again, because of what I considered 'fatal' outline errors. However, if you guys can get yours looking like they now do, then clearly I was talking rubbish. E-bay, here I come . . .

regards,

Martin

Given what you achieved with the Matchbox Beaufighter Martin, this kit will be the proverbial "Piece of Cake".

Well, "Piece of Plastic"...

It's actually a very underrated kit, I think. Not great, but with plenty of scope for detailing. There are some nice F1 schemes too and some of the F1 were retrofitted with the F3 tail to boot.

Cheers

Andrew