<-- 1/48 Mosquito PR.IX -Twin Engined Aircraft WWII

Nice work Terry. That's one kick-arse sprue attachment - hope the leading edge turns out OK!

Thanks Kirby. The leading edge is the least of my worries at the moment - I'm just hoping the wings go together, before I throw the ****ing things across the room !!
Why Airfix (at the time) tried to cut costs by getting an Indian company to make new parts to fit the old parts, and still include around 80% of the old FB.VI kit in the box, is beyond me !!
I'm tempted to use the 'old' upper wing sections, and scratch-build the extended upper nacelle cowling panels.

After eight hours working on the wings, I've managed - just - to avoid beating the living cr@p out of this kit with a bl**dy big lump hammer !
The overall fit of the 'old' and 'new' parts ranges from bl**dy awful to abysmal, with even some of the 'old' parts poorly moulded, compared to the original, 1980 issue. I appreciate that Airfix, or the then holding company, were going through a 'bad patch' at the time this kit was first released, and obviously tried to cut costs by 'out sourcing' production (in India), which itself seems to have been modified before release, judging by the obviously deleted features and the mix of old and new parts, but this kit, as far as fit of parts is concerned, is hardly fit for purpose, although the actual 'new' mouldings are quite nicely produced and detailed. What's even more disgraceful, is that the kit has recently been re-released, in its current state, at a retail price of £25, when it should have been either totally withdrawn, or re-tooled.
A young, or inexperienced modeller, could very easily be greatly discouraged after trying to build this kit OOB, which is not good for the Airfix image, or for the hobby in general.
Putting aside the slight inaccuracies around the front of the nacelles, more simplification than anything, overall the kit has the potential to be good to very good indeed, and as far as I know, is the only example (along with the Airfix NF.30) of a 'two stage Merlin' Mossie in this scale, but it is spoiled by the shoddy moulding of the connecting areas of some key parts, mainly the wing sections, and the overall 'cheapness' of the mouldings.
I'm almost ready to attempt to fit the wings to the fuselage but, as there is very little contact area between the wings and the recess in the fuselage, I have doubts that the wings will actually stay in place once cemented !
If things do go t*ts up, then I'll put this one aside for now, as I need to move forward, and finish the other two Mossies, so that I can get on with the other models for the 46 Sqn reunion.
Anyway, the pics show the problems, and the little progress, with the wings, mainly the port side wing assembly. Strangely, although fit of the starboard wing is far from perfect, it's nowhere near as bad as the port side.

PICS 1 and 2. The forward section of both the upper wing, and the lower, inboard section, had to be filed back, in order to allow the wing to slot into the fuselage recess. Even then, the fit is very vague, and I'm fairly sure that the vertical surfaces are not making contact with the 'wall' of the recess. On the original FB.VI kit, the fit of this wing is tight, and could almost be left without cement.
PICS 3 and 4 In order to eliminate that taper on the radiator intakes, shown earlier, a shim was added, from scrap plastic card, on the outboard end of each radiator.
PICS 5 and 6. There was a distinct overlap of the lower, outer wing panel, with the 'new' one-piece upper wing section, which needed to be trimmed and sanded back to shape.
PIC 7. Once set, the wing leading edge was sanded smooth, to eliminate yet more slight 'mis-match', and that huge sprue attachment mark was removed.
PIC 8. Oh Dear ! This is how the port wing looked when doing a trial fit. More work has since been done and, although there is an improvement in the fit, there will still be some areas which will need to be filled - IF the wing remains attached once cemented in place !


Given that I don't resort to that bl**dy big lump hammer, I'll be back, eventually, with another up-date.
EDIT:- Oops ! Hit the wrong button before loading the pics !

Nice progress Terry

So other than a few hiccups, things are fine?????

Absolutely old boy, nothing some delicate attention with a ****ing big sledge hammer can't handle !

Well, after yet more fit problems, I finally managed to get the port wing assembly fitted to the fuselage. Whether or not it stays fitted is another question, and I'm leaving it for a few hours before even thinking of proceeding further !

PIC 1. The port, upper cowling panel was first test fitted, and found to be short by around 1 mm if the flange is located beneath the wing part of the cowling, as intended. I re-checked the position of the nacelle in relation to the wing and the pointed, upper wing trailing edge fillet, and found this to be correct. So another mis-match with the new parts !
The cowling was moved forward, to align with the front of the nacelle, and the gap, fortunately partly 'bridged' by the locating flange, will be filled with plastic strip and sanded smooth.
PICS 2 and 3. The starboard side was even worse, with the flange needing to be level with the front edge of the wing nacelle fillet, revealing a gap of 2 mm this time !
Again, this will be filled and sanded smooth.
I also noticed that the exhaust slots are not equally spaced on both nacelles, indicating that something is not right in the production !
PIC 4. After many, many trial fitting sessions, I was still in doubt as to whether the wing root actually made contact with the 'wall' of the recess in the fuselage, so attacked the latter with a file, and also filed around the rim of the recess. This resulted in the wing being able to slot into the recess a little further, almost, but not exactly, as the original tooling design intended.
PICS 5 and 6. The port wing is now attached and, given that it stays attached, the small gaps at the leading edge root, and a smaller gap at the flap line on the trailing edge, will be filled with plastic card, trimmed and sanded to shape.

After that marathon session of cutting, scraping, filing and sanding, and the odd expletive, I was very tempted to raid the bar in the 'Tin Tent', and demolish a goodly portion of a bottle of Scottish White Wine ( a decent 12 year old variety), but sense prevailed, and I got a few hours sleep instead !
With a bit of luck, I might be back later, with pics of the starboard wing in place, but first, I need to check to see if my hair has turned grey overnight !!!

Hmmmm almost bought one of these, glad I didn't now !

Seem to be beating it into so e semblance of order Dogsbody.

Thanks Karl and Wojtek.

Funnily enough, I very nearly bought another a couple of weeks ago, on offer at £14, with the intention of doing either a B.XVI with the bulged bomb bay (included in the kit), or an immediate post-war PR.34, again with the bulged bay.
Whether I'd get another now, I'm not sure. It might be that I just got a "bad un", as I've seen build reviews where there was trouble with the wings, but not as bad as this.
At least it can be beaten into submission, by the looks of it, with a bit ...er, a lot - of work !
And, of course, as the kit includes around 80+% of the FB.VI parts, it could be built as a B.IV, if a vac-formed canopy is used, or a Canadian-built bomber, using the kit 'blown' canopy, as well as a few 'fighter' options.

I feel your pain Terry. I built what I guess is the 2003 version of this kit (box art below) shortly after my return to the hobby. Mine also had god-awful gaps at the leading edge of the wing roots (amongst other problems) which I had to stuff full of plastic strip. As you mentioned above, it made me wonder why I started up this caper again! Anyway, it turned out OK in the end so keep battling on...although at least I didn't have the nacelles to battle with!

Thanks for the encouragement, and yes, that's the original issue of the kit, with options for the bomber or PR aircraft.
The wing fit, or lack of, although shameful for such a 'prestige' company, and bad enough to deal with, is fairly minor in the overall scheme of things, and I think is due to the 'soft' moulding, where the fuselage recess just isn't 'sharp' enough to accept the wings without modification.But those short top cowling panels puzzle me. How the hell could they be moulded so wrong ?!!
I haven't seen any mention of the cowling panel problem in any build features I've read, or in any photos of the finished model.
Having checked-over all the parts in the kit, including the 'old' FB,VI parts, it's evident that my kit, at least, has been poorly moulded, as there is a lot of flash, and some 'soft' detail on many of the original parts, with the crew figures being a good example.
I've built at least four of the original FB.VI kit, and still have some of the unused parts left over, and compared these to the parts in this kit.
The difference is very noticeable !
I'm wondering if either the quality control in the Indian production plant was non-existent, or they didn't care, or if something like a resin 'clone' moulding tool was used !

Anyway, I'm still plodding on, and the port wing root gaps have been successfully filled, with those cowling gaps about to get a dollop of 'Milliput', and the latest test-fit of the starboard wing, after attacking the fuselage recess with a file, looks promising.
Oh, and the port wing hasn't fallen off yet !
I might have some pics later this evening.

Looking forward to further glowing reviews......

It looks like quite a struggle with the fit but you've made things work!

Airframes said:

Thanks Paul and John.

Robert, unless the area of Milliput is very thick, then a rotary tool will probably be far too powerful and aggressive, as it is with most areas of plastic modelling.
Carving can be done with a sharp scalpel blade, using the edge and the point lightly, and only 'cutting' to a very shallow depth with each stroke.
The Milliput will only crack if it is 'attacked' deeply and with pressure, or, if incorrectly mixed, or not fully cured.
The trick is to try to achieve as near to the required finished shape as possible when applying and moulding the putty, then lightly sand and shave to get nearer to the shape, progressing in stages until the final, very fine sanding - I use worn 1200 grit wet and dry, used both wet and dry.
To make indentations in the putty when making objects such as, for example, parachute packs, this can be done after shaping the item, then letting it set for about an hour, before gently pressing or scribing the required line or shape, using either the tip of a fine scalpel blade, or a pin or similar tool.
A lot of the carving is actually more like shaving, using the edge of the scalpel blade on the backstroke, at an angle of around 45 degrees.
Note that all of this work should be done only when the putty has fully set and is rock hard, which, depending on the depth or weight of the putty, and ambient temperature, could be up to 24 hours.
Even if the surface seems rock hard after, say, three or four hours, it's best to leave it to fully cure, as. below the surface, it might still be slightly soft, and this will cause cracking when worked.
Hope this helps..

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That makes sense, I only waited about 4 hours. I am new to Milliput so will give it a full day next time. I appreciate your in depth response. After your numerous examples of using it I acquired some for myself to give a go. Thats why I went to the source as it were for my question.

Thanks Andy and John. Having a couple of hours break from working on this wonderful example of precision injection moulding, but should be back later with another installment of "Honey, I wrecked the kit".

Robert, the longer the 'Milliput' is left, the harder it gets, even when the curing process is complete.
I left the areas on this build for a couple of days, before carving the intercooler vents, as i knew that, being fairly thin, and even with a very delicate touch using the various tools, some surface 'crumbling' could occur, albeit very minor. However, as the vent slots are only around 2.5 mm wide, and the depth of putty is about 1 to 1.5 mm, even minimal crumbling or cracking would ruin the shape.
When working with 'Milliput', and cutting or carving, a very light touch is required, and it's best to more or less shave thin slices, rather than try to cut one large area.

Airframes said:

Thanks Andy and John. Having a couple of hours break from working on this wonderful example of precision injection moulding, but should be back later with another installment of "Honey, I wrecked the kit".

Robert, the longer the 'Milliput' is left, the harder it gets, even when the curing process is complete.
I left the areas on this build for a couple of days, before carving the intercooler vents, as i knew that, being fairly thin, and even with a very delicate touch using the various tools, some surface 'crumbling' could occur, albeit very minor. However, as the vent slots are only around 2.5 mm wide, and the depth of putty is about 1 to 1.5 mm, even minimal crumbling or cracking would ruin the shape.
When working with 'Milliput', and cutting or carving, a very light touch is required, and it's best to more or less shave thin slices, rather than try to cut one large area.

Click to expand...

Brand new blade installed! I will give it a full 24 hours to set, the layer is only 1 to 2 mm thick I am working with. It is on the horrible seam where the nose cone goes on my Lightning for the GB. This model has no less than 5 different types of putty in and on it as I have been experimenting with the different types to see what works for me. Now it is Milliputs turn!

Speaking of Milliput, I bought both the "Standard" and "Fine" variants. Any preference based on your experience for which one works best? I am currently using the fine version on this build.

The 'Milliput' company suggest that the 'Standard' is more suited to modelling, and that's what I use.
The other variants are designed for specific areas of use, such as porcelain, pottery and metals and, although they work in plastic modelling, and can be used as a general filler, in some instances they're not as good as the 'Standard' type when it comes to carving and shaping.
I've tried the 'Fine' and the 'White' types, and found that both were not as resilient when carved or shaved, with surface dust and very fine crumbling or cracking, compared to the 'Standard' type, which I've used for well over forty years.
Additionally, I find it much easier to blend the two parts together equally using the two-coloured 'Standard' type, rather than a single colour such as the 'White' variety.

Don't let it beat you Terry......