Martin's Christmas Cracker(s)

[Jagewa]

Liking the yellow spinner Martin, almost a Messercane, or Hurrischmitt..

[ShaunW]

Great work Martin.

[Martin R]

Good looking hurricane. But, do you think the dark earth might be a bit light shaded?

BW,

Thank you!

Yep, certainly looks that way from the photos (although I hadn't noticed this when I posted). When I look at the real model though, it's much darker than that, so I suspect this is a flash-induced thing. I'll see if I can take some photos without the flash and post them.

regards,

Martin

[Martin R]

Hmmmm. After an hour and a half of Dremelling, scraping, filing, wet sanding and snipping, I got both side walls attached in approximately the right position with 2 part epoxy. Lo and behold, the cockpit floor almost fits (although it pushes the fuselage sides out and causes the wing roots to splay a bit, reducing the dihedral).

So, we're going to have to fettle carefully to get the last half mil fit. Also, the canopy sills are rather thick (the fuselage sides were translucent and I sanded through the resin in one place, so don't know how I could have got them thinner. Never mind. With a bit of tidying up and careful painting, the cockpit could look quite nice. I still hate using resin, though.

I'll take some photos tomorrow.

regards,

Martin

[Martin R]

Liking the yellow spinner Martin, almost a Messercane, or Hurrischmitt..

Hi Jim,

Yep, I thought it looked a bit different.

regards,

Martin

[Martin R]

OK, so here we are on the Spit cockpit:



As the Aires set is not designed for the Airfix Spit, fit is somewhat approximate, and I had to do a fair bit of investigation to get the fore / aft position of the seat right. According to the instructions, the seat should sit on the floor, which is held by those recesses at the lower edge of the sidewalls. However, when I placed the seat on the floor, in situ, it sat much too low in the cockpit. I added the seat supports you can see from an old Italeri Spitfire kit, but the seat is actually sitting on a piece of square rod positioned underneath it. Actually, once the fuse is buttoned up, you can't see the supports anyway. A quick semi-dry brush of H78 and there we are. I now need to go and buy some brick-red paint for the seat and screw up my courage to sort out the PE / resin / film IP and the very fine PE seat belts.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, here's the Hurri after a couple of coats of special night:



A couple more coats will be required. I intend to take the Hurri up to finishing off the undercarriage legs, then adding wheels and windscreen. There it will languish until I can get decals for it from the next Airfix Hurri boxing.

No, I don't know why I do these things either.

regards,

Martin

[PaulBradley]

That night is special.

[Clashcityrocker]

From the ridiculous to the sublime, here's the Hurri after a couple of coats of special night:
regards,
Martin

I remember special nights

Nigel

[ShaunW]

That Aires set is a thing of beauty and well worth the effort bodging adjusting it to fit. The Hurricane is coming along nicely, I like the early war black and white undersides schemes on early Spits and Hurris.

"Special" nights are a long time ago for me now, my back isn't what it was you know

[Martin R]

Well, everyone can remember their "special nights", but unfortunately my memory's not what it used to be. Moving on, the Hurri's underside paint job is finished, together with the addition of gear legs, wheels and exhausts:





Still some greeblies to tidy up, but I'm pleased how the demarcation looks. So, I'll put on the undercarriage doors, the windscreen and the landing lights, but I'll leave everything else off until I get hold of the decals I'm planning to use. As this is unlikely to be in January, this one'll go to the shelf of shame for the meantime:

regards,

Martin

[Martin R]

Well, without the specific decals, this is about as far as I can get with the Hurricane. Sorry, Secret Santa; I caused the problem by trying to do a somewhat later 'rag wing', but I have enjoyed this more and more as I've gone along. I was initially concerned that the build was a bit 'faffy', with lots of detail combined with indifferent fit, but I now realise that most of the issues were down to me. I still wouldn't recommend letting a youngster have a go at one as his first kit as many of the parts are quite delicate, but it is very nicely detailed and it seems to have the Hurricane shape 'nailed' - unlike the "Eggplane" Mk IIc that Airfix released first.

I know I'm a philistine, but I'd have preferred if Airfix had released a new metal wing Hurri I to this quality, as the 2 bladed Watts propeller and early canopy / underfuselage do nothing for me. I like WWII types as the pressure of conflict accelerated the natural evolution of the state of the art markedly, but the choices in this boxing are a bit early for me.

I am now toying with buying another for the decals and cross-kitting this with an old tool Airfix metal wing Hurri I and a spare Revell underfuselage recess and hook and trying for an Op Pedestal Sea Hurricane 1b.

Thank you very much, Secret Santa and, like I said, sorry I won't get it finished in time.

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Here's the Spit cockpit latest. So, chronologically, I did the following: coats of H78, klear, Tamiya smoke wash, matt varnish, 'dry-brush' H78 with some white added to lighten it. If I can get some more time tonight, I'll start detail painting the sidewalls and try my hardest to get the IP and harness done in a half-decent fashion. I'll do my best to have the aircraft structure together and ready for priming before the end of the week.



regards,

Martin

[ShaunW]

The Hurricane has turned out very well Martin and hopefully you will be able to finish it before too long. That Spit cockpit looks really excellent.

[Martin R]

The Hurricane has turned out very well Martin and hopefully you will be able to finish it before too long. That Spit cockpit looks really excellent.

Thank you, Shaun.

I appreciate the encouragement.

regards,

Martin

[PaulBradley]

Agree with Shaun - Hurri looks really good.

[AndrewR]

Yes, nice work Martin.