Airborne01's generosity build - Airfix 1/48 Hawker Sea Fury FB.11

[Guest]

This is to be my next build and I'm blogging this to open it up to scrutiny and / or observation from Airborne01, whom I got in touch with for one of the recent freebies, which resulted in the most generous provision of this kit and extras!

As promised Steve, this will be wings folded!

Thanks again to you Steve for this, I hope you'll be happy with what I do with it!

[Airborne01]

This is to be my next build and I'm blogging this to open it up to scrutiny and / or observation from Airborne01, whom I got in touch with for one of the recent freebies, which resulted in the most generous provision of this kit and extras!

As promised Steve, this will be wings folded!

Thanks again to you Steve for this, I hope you'll be happy with what I do with it!

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I'm really looking forward to the end result - I just love this airframe and colour scheme! Thanks Chris!

[Guest]

I am on with this now and am looking forward to getting stuck in with this one. I don't often do 1/48 due to space restrictions. This will be only my third 1/48 since I came back to modelling and my first RN in this scale.

For now the cockpit has been primed and given a once over with black. I'll lightly drybrush this before assembly to make sure all the nooks and crannies that will be unreachable are attended to and then I'll pop on the coloured etch.




Cleaned up all the parts for the next steps which included the wings and wheel wells. Some pin marks needed sorting in the wheel bay.




On inspection of the fuselage there is a small area of mismoulding too which I'll need to sort out.




In preparation for the assembly of the wings I would usually prime and paint the wheel well. The instructions call it out as humbrol 74 'linen', which didn't seem right. I checked the instructions for the wing fold which is usually the same colour and this too is called out as 74. I have never encountered this before as usually war era RN aircraft had these areas in silver and post war were sky grey, so I set about researching it.



Steve kindly sent over an article with snaps of the wheel wells which did indeed show them painted in linen. This aircraft was being restored at Duxford.



Confusingly though the oleos appear sky grey. In other examples the oleos appear to be plain sky!.

Google shows the wheel wells for the operational Duxford aircraft in linen too. I suspect this is the restored version from above.



I dug deep in the internet and found somebodies walkaround from 2007 of the specific aircraft I am building (VR930), which at first seemed inconclusive. What you can say is it's not linen, but it's not clear from this if it's silver or sky grey.



A different angle though shows greater contrast to the sky underside and a non-metallic finish.



In conclusion, it appears that the linen is correct for a metal finish aircraft. Aircraft in post war service colours is as I suspected, sky grey.

Seems like a lot of effort to arrive at a conclusion I knew instinctively. The question is why Airfix didn't do this and get it right!

Anyway. Now that I have the answer I can review any scratching I think might be worth adding to the wheel wells, pre paint them and get the fuselage closed up.

[Guest]

Finishing up the cockpit tonight and it's one of those sessions. Spilt the paint water, knocked over the pot of glue...


What started it was reaching for the airbrush hose to paint the inside of the tail wheel well, as I swung it clumsily across the bench I knocked both cockpit side assemblies flying. I retrieved one of them from the floor but I was certain the other had gone in the waste bin, so torch in hand I got on my knees and started digging. Absolutely no sign of it. Then I checked underneath my monitor stands, the back and sides of the bench....still no sign. So I cast an eye across the bench with a torch and spotted it poking out.

Can you see it?




That's right. It's there, nestled in the hinge of my angled tweezers!




Thankfully both retrieved undamaged. Here's some pre assembly shots.




And assembled.

[Airborne01]

Looking good - lovely work Chris!

[outrunner]

Loving the cockpit detail, great work.

Andy.

[Tim Marlow]

Very nice job on the pit!

[Guest]

Thank guys!

[Guest]

Been a bit slow on this since the summer arrived! Been out fishing and kayaking, sometimes both concurrently, so really making the most of it!

The other delay was procrastination over the detailing of the wheel well and where to start. I decided that it was holding up the build unnecessarily and it's unlikely to be viewed, so I thought I'd leave as is and get on with it.

Fuselage is together, lower wing assembly primed and prepainted as necessary, joined to fuselage and joins treated. Also filled the mis-casting on the tail.




Next was the engine and cowling. Again, the engine will be completely obscured once the massive spinner is fitted so no detailing necessary here.
The instructions tell you to glue the top and bottom halves of the cowls together and then fit between two circular mouldings. Test fitting these revealed huge steps at both endswhich I didn't much fancy dealing with so opted to fit them to one end to mitigate the step and to deal with the gaps at the joins. You can see it fits flush with the end and the resulting gaps! I'll fill these in with plasticard once the engine and nose piece are on.

[Tim Marlow]

Nice to see this on the move again Chris.

[Lee Drennen]

Chris great looking updates sorry I missed this

[Jim R]

Hi Chris
Nice subject. The cockpit looks superb. That pre-coloured PE works very well for cockpit detail. Nice to see folded wings with all the hinging detail. That gap in the cowling is bad. You'll sort it but it really is not acceptable.
Jim

[colin m]

That's a great looking 'pit. If the rest of the build is that good, this will be a stunner.

[Guest]

Thanks for stopping in and leaving a comment chaps!

The slow pace continues. Not much to report as the kit is so good.

Been working on all the little sub assemblies and cleaning up seams. Nowadays I tend to run mr surfacer down all seams with a cocktail stick before I begin cleaning them up. My thinking is it’ll fill any gaps and give a more even result than retrospective treatment.

This all done I set about getting it ready for priming. I’ll give everything a final wash before painting.
An overall shot and a close up of the nose with the gaps sorted.

[Guest]

I have been working on this despite my lack of presence on the forum.

Have finished painting the main colours and applied gloss in readiness for decals.

I also painted a little 1/72 Pioneer2 Sea Fury my grandfather started but never got to finish.