The old Airfix Bolton Paul Defiant nightmare.

[rtfoe]

Hi Everyone,

Pre-Airfix new molds...
Here it is...having this kit in my stash for many years and being the only one of the Defiant apart from one from a Czech company which I couldn't get hold off I pulled up my socks and dived into it.

Post-Airfix new molds...
WTFish...why didn't I wait...well if only I could read the future.

Present time...
I'm featuring my build nightmare and hope you appreciate how lucky we modelers are now with manufacturers re-tooling their kits.
I will not go into the history and development of the Defiant as it's covered in the two other thread builds by Steve and Barry however it will be a quick image laden thread and I will try to explain what I did to overcome the shortcomings of the kit and references I had at the time. Also my scratch skills were still in the learning curve.

Starting with the box cover...


I didn't take any photos of the sanding of the rivets and scribbing of the panel lines...didn't think it was important at the time...how naive.
Anyway the belly air intake I guess for the gun turret or engine needed covering or else i could see right up into the cockpit and turret. This was solved with some plastic card.



Then with the same plastic card I covered the wheel wells and it also acted as the cockpit floor. I had to shave off a bit of the rear leading edge wing to fit snuggly with the bottom of the fuselage.



I made a joystick from strip and wire and raised it on a block of plastic strip.



Here you can clearly see the scribbing of the panel lines.



More to come next

Cheers,
Richard

[Jim R]

Hi Richard
Another silk purse from a sow's ear. I think this kit goes back to the 60s - Airfix just kept putting it in a new box :rolling:
Jim

[rtfoe]

Hi Richard
Another silk purse from a sow's ear. I think this kit goes back to the 60s - Airfix just kept putting it in a new box :rolling:
Jim

Yup...you should see the undercarriage legs, they're just one stick. I knew what I was getting into as there wasn't much of a choice then. :smiling2:

I have just added the link to the finish build here.

Cheers,
Richard

[Richard48]

Some wizadry of Scratchbuilding going on.Nicely done there of a golden oldie.
Richard

[rtfoe]

Thanks Richard, the old gal gave quite a fight.

Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

Now let's have a look at the fuselage...

This image shows my attempt at engraving the panel lines on the curved surface. The plastic was rather soft so I had to be careful not to run the needle too deep.



There was nothing for the dashboard so I made up an instrument panel dials with sliced rods of different sizes and glued them on sheet plastic and cut to fit the fuselage.



I don't know why I made the gunsight as the Defiant didn't have any forward firing guns.



Both sides of the fuselage didn't fit and had a large step at the joint. I cut and placed sheet plastic to hide the horrible seam line for the head rest bulkhead.



The soft plastic definitely made scribbing a pain.



If the real plane had this much of putty it would have been too heavy to fly...



Typical Airfix at the time with protrusions on either side to place the seat on and no floor. You can just make out the simple ribbing supports on the cockpit sides I made from plastic strips. I was going to pose the canopy open so should have done more.



Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

Speaking of open canopy, the kit comes with a full canopy so I cut it and mad a muck of the center portion and since it was made up of three flat sides I cut three flat clear sheets and replaced it. This meant that I cut off more from the center and saved the wind shield and fairing. Also the thinner clear sheets made it possible to slide over the fairing.



The turret as you can see is horribly molded missing the panel frames. Masking needed planning ahead and I sculpted the gunner and his hands with the O ring to resemble the mechanism holding the .303 brownings.



Forgot to mention the little headrest and armored shield...don't know if it had one but it looked nice. Gaps at the wingroots were plugged with plastic strip and sanded down carefully as I didn't want to loose huge rivets along the side of the wingroot.



Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

Ahah! Found the image showing the full canopy before cutting it. You will also notice the tapered and sharp nose which is wrong in shape. I would be rectifying that later.



This is with the new cut and modified canopy. The turret clear part didn't sit well so I sanded and made a base to fit flush with the circular fairing base.



Ah, yes, a clearer image of the wingroot assembly.



The molding of the ailerons fell short at the ends and needed spaces from sheet plastic.



Same goes for the other side as well. I cut the tail elevators and posed them down slightly.



The error in the nose shape is very apparent from this angle. Even the prop hub stands proudly over the nose edge.



Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

Here's looking at that nose. I had to split it and push in some plastic spacers to widen the nose. On hindsight I should have puttied and widen the nose even further and then taper it at the edge towards the prop hub.




The other area was underneath where I had to build up the chin with putty. If I was bolder as I am now I would have made it more pronounced and enlarged the chin air scoop.



Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

The wheel wells were next to be improved. There wasn't any detail and had unsightly gaps inside the wings.



Using two part putty I filled the gaps and flushed the sides with the contour of the well.




I didn't have much reference to show the large circular door leading to the turret for maintenance and re-armouring as Steve mentioned.

Cheers,
Richard

[rtfoe]

The undercarriage...this was what was given...single spindly legs. No supports or struts. I had a look at a real image of a Defiant's undercarriage and it looked more complex. And the doors were thick as slate slab stones.



You'll see next what I did to it.

Cheers,
Richard

[adt70hk]

Richard

Rather you than me......

Great work so far!

ATB

Andrew

[JR]

I enjoy these older builds you go through, glad I wasn't modelling back in the day.

[rtfoe]

Sorry Fellas but I can't continue with this thread....so you need to look at the finished build and guess how it was done.

Richard

[rtfoe]

Hi all, I'm continuing this as I just decided to correct the nose of the kit further so there will be another set of complete build images when it's done. With the 1/48 newer kit I used it as shape reference for the correction. Firstly lets start again with where I left off with the undercarriage.

I only used the bottom portion of the undercarriage and made up the rest with rod and plastic strip. I should have replaced the tyres but couldn't find any .



Made the doors from thin plastic card sandwiching a smaller cut down size to create the edge lip. Also added center hub rings to the wheel.



The undercarriage struts and supports were quite complex and I had a hard time figuring out the mechanism from photographs.



I shortened the arms that held the wheels as they were too long.



Even with the arms shortened the undercarriage still looked a bit high.



By this time I had already glued it and it wasn't so noticeable so I left it. Tyres could have been a lot thicker.



Cheers,
Richard