1:32 Hawker Hunter - Miss Demeanour!

[Guest]

This is going to be my attempt to produce the version of the Hawker Hunter that is doing the airshow circuit currently, the fabulous Miss Demeanour!

from this kit:

and decals, paint masks and guides from Cammett Ltd, whose website has disappeared it seems.

I think I'll source the ladder and ground support equipment from Flightpath as well just to be complete about it

I hope to do this justice!

Box plus the decals and paint instructions from Robin at Cammett

Thats a LOT of plastic!

Next, kit decals and instructions

Well that was a turn up - the instructions are mostly missing! I got this kit off eBay a couple of months ago and didn't notice that! However, thanks to an appeal on another board, a very kind soul posted me a set of instructions he didn't need anymore!

Added to this rather large kit, I've picked up the True Details resin cockpit which looks superb! Also picked up the pitot tube and a bag of lead shot to weigh the nose down!

Now this will be my chance to try to use the new airbrush I bought myself for my birthday in February. First big use was the Revell Rafale M I posted a couple of weeks ago. However this paint job is goignt o be a lot more complicated, so to this end I've started to practice:

As a first attempt its pretty pitiful the white/yellow mix was too thin and ran down the sheet. The Yellow mix was okay but didn't adhere well. yellow/red mix ditto but the red was actually okay. All these were Vallejo model colours, thinned "about" 50/50 with water. The blue is also Vallejo but thinned less, about 66/33. This covered most of the previous spraying and the final band or red was tamiya X7 thinned with isopropanol.

Okay so lets try again:

MUCH better!

For a start I prepared the surface properly with Tamiya white primer, then used Tamiya paints thinned with isopropanol which gave much better coverage and adhesion. The earlier attempts were with Vallejo thinned with water and I think I went too thin hence why I had so much running. Then again the surface hadn't been prepared properly so overall is a learning process. I think the red needs to be a little more intense, but I'm getting there!

Just behind the test sheet you'll see my improvised extractor fan... the business end of my new Dyson vacuum cleaner taped to a tripod

So thats where it stands for now. The build itself is being put on hold until after I've completed the Aliens Dropship, so watch this space!

[Guest]

This will be a cool build. A mate of mine is friends with the pilot of that hunter and owns a single seater aswell as a Swiss T68 twoseater I just repainted a few months ago.

Let me know if you need some pix.

Theuns

[Guest]

Nice aircraft Andrew. When I was young it was every boy's favourite. English names for aircraft are really well suited. Spitfire, Hurricane, Comet, Brabazon, Typoon, Meteor, Jaguar & yours the Hunter.

Look forward to this Andrew.

Laurie

[papa 695]

Nice colour scheme Andrew good luck with it should look great will watch this one as well if WIP

[Ian M]

I am so going to be watching this.

Ian M

[Guest]

Please be patient chaps, I actually started this last week but got distracted by the Aliens dropship, so I have to finish that first I thought I'd post here anyway to whet your appetites

[Gern]

Looking forward to this one Andrew! The Hunter has always been my favourite. I'm working (occasionally!) on this kit and I've done enough to say you'll have no problems with it. Fit is excellent throughout.

Gern

[Guest]

i`m gona watch this also to see the paint job which i think will be outstanding

mobear

[Guest]

That paint job is an amazing challenge to take on. How are you going to ensure the perfection of the curves? I would use raised masks, adding a new radius for each colour change, but it is still going to be quite a job.

[HAWKERHUNTER]

I built the 1/32 Hunter F Mk6 by Revell a couple of years ago. A fantastic kit that went together well. Enjoy your project

[Guest]

... and we're back...

After the mammoth build for the Aliens Dropship, its back to something nice and simple (hah!). However, just to complicate matters, I've only got 2 weeks to complete it before jetting off on holiday on 15th and I had signed up for a Single Type GB on another forum to build this back in February and that has a deadline of 20th May! Ho hum, life would be dull without challenges!

So I had left it back at the end of Feb with the resin cockpit partly painted...

Initial Nato Black base coat, with dials picked out with Tamiya XF18 semi gloss back to give the faces more contrast. Once the dial detail is picked out, I'll drop a blob of Klear over the dial to represent the glass. More work needs to be done on the seat, I've so far only picked out the buckles with silver.

I've been looking further afield on the net for photos of the cockpit of MD but the best I could find was a video taken inside the cockpit over Biggin Hill which shows a sort of "over the shoulder" shot from the port side. So instead I went to the Heritage Aviation site and filled in the contact us form and emailed Jonathan Whaley directly asking if it was possible to get some photos of the cockpit for this model and he very kindly replied and included just the thing! I was very impressed!

So basically there Garmin sits in the upper middle of the console, where the gunsight would have been. There is also a screen down on the starboard console, just above the fuel indicators. Quite a few of the displays are differnt to the True Details cockpit I have, but I think I can make a good attempt at reproducing the layout. Scratching up a Garmin box shouldn't be too difficult - hell, I've built 32 sodding missiles for the Aliens Dropship - after that almost ANYTHING is easier!!!

I'm seeking

Jonathan's

permission to post the cockpit photo here, so as soon as he says its okay you'll all get to see it.

Anyway, enough chit chat, now for some resin and plastic bashing...

Damn, no more Aliens quotes to sign off my messages...

[Guest]

Looking very forward to seeing this build Andrew,especially that wicked paint scheme!

[papa 695]

Some nice detail in that cockpit Andrew a nice start

[Guest]

Time flies! I've been busy picking up this build where I left off... First though, as promised Jonathan Whaley gave me permission to post this photo here so long as I watermarked it with his copyright so here is the cockpit of Miss Demeanour:

and here is the link to the full size photo 2000 px x 1333 px

So as I described before, the main garmin console sits where the gunsight used to be and there is anther screen on the right console, above the fuel gauges. What is also interesting is how many LCD readouts have been embedded intot he variosu consoles, replacing whatever dials or displays were originally there - I doubt there was much LCD technology in the late 50s...

So here is my start at reproducing the Garmin in the cockpit

Just to get it into scale - this addition is 7mm wide by 6.4mm tall (okay call it 6.5mm if you must ) building the box over it will be tricky until after the cockpit is assembled, the front fuselage closed up and the coweling is finally in place. I'm going to have a go at shrinking the screens in the photo down to 3mm wide to fit in the model and print them out on the decal paper I've had on the shelf since last summer

Earlier this week I concentrated on building the normal parts of the model, as I needed to take at least a few days break from scratch building stuff after the Dropship! It was really nice to get back to normal model building for a while lol So this are the bits that have been assembled

I'm seriously thinking about building this with wheels up and flying - I mean its a Hunter which is a beautiful flying machine in the first place and then its got that amazing colour scheme! It should be seen flying, not stranded on the ground! This will also make the build somewhat quicker as it saves me having to bugger around with the landing gear. The downside will be there is no pilot in the Revell Kit, so I've ordered one from PJ Productions, this one

( http://www.pjproduction.net/en/product/321...ed-in-ac-80-90/ )

which is a NATO pilot from the 80s/90s but looks like the flight suit, helmet and mask that Jonathan wears while flying as seen in various photos on the net. The downside is that I ordered these on Monday and PJ Productions STILL haven't got back to me about paying for the items let alone dispatching them so time is running out!

So next job is the screen on the right console - and maybe trying to add the knobs to the Garmin console...

Tally ho!

[Guest]

One more for tonight - added the other screen on the lower right console plus knobs made from very small snippets of wire...