1/48 RCAF Fairey Battle Mk I STF Build

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Scrubbed down the bulge and now it's not as noticeable but there is definitely a slight hollow in the area. I will leave this now as it's just you and I that know about it.

I've now moved on to the radiator which is supplied as a resin part for the front side only. Obviously, because they closed up the exit duct there was no need to supply the back of the rad but now that I've opened it up I will need to make something there. Pics on that later.

 

[SANCER]

Waiting for those pics mi amigo

 

[Crimea_River]

Se paciente mi amigo!

 

[Wurger]

 

[turbo]

Scrubbed down the bulge and now it's not as noticeable but there is definitely a slight hollow in the area

Irregularity in the aircraft skin!

 

[Crimea_River]

It's what trim wheels are for.

 

[Crimea_River]

OK, here's an update on the radiator situation. The below pic, though rather poor, shows the resin part that is visible through the intake. More to the point here as that I added some styrene card between the radiator face and the start of the intake as there was nothing but a big hole there. Part of this space will be filled by the carb intake as well, allowing me to leave some of seam alone as it will be hidden. Before closing the area in, I painted the various surfaces black to create shadow. When painting the Yellow undersides, I will only partly spray into the opening.

This is the view through the cockpit. I purposefully delayed installation of the tub until I dealt with this radiator stuff, otherwise I would have had real challenges getting stuff in there. Forward-most can be seen the styrene sheet intake duct which is CA glued to the pale yellow resin grille. Behind that is the back of the radiator which I scratch built out of two pieces of styrene sheet.

Although not easily seen, the grille on the back was simulated by scribing tightly spaced lines with my scalpel. I made these cuts horizontal and vertical, only to find out later when looking at detail pics that the grille was an X pattern. Not going to fret about that though. The baffle on the right below is another piece of sheet styrene and represents the separation between the oil and coolant radiators. The vertical baffles on the coolant radiator are just bits of stretched sprue. Note the varying thickness of the kit plastic in the radiator tub which forced me to make the grille asymmetric.

Again, an exit duct had to be fashioned so that you would not see a gaping hole when viewing the rear end of the tub. This was again made of styrene card which I shaped and attached to the wing center section. I made the duct piece long so that I could adjust the other end by cutting it back until it butted against the radiator when dry fitting.

Once I had that detail sorted, it was time to install the cockpit tub. I didn't realize that the tub stuck down so far and it initially fouled the radiator I had just built. Fortunately, the part that fouled was the resin casting block on the cockpit floor so there was lots of meat there that could be sanded away. Below is the final assembly of the tub showing the clearance with the radiator after sanding.

This is what it looks like with the center section loosely fitted. Happy with that.

At this point I have painted the grill and the shadows and have glued in the center section and this whole assembly is now curing. The next step will be to rescribe the fuselage (oh yay) and I may just run the riveter on it as well. Will see.

Thanks for following!

 

[Airframes]

Nicely done Andy - happy scribing !

 

[Wurger]

 

[SANCER]

It is part of the dirty work, but it must be done, ... the satisfaction of the duty fulfilled and clearing the obstacles, are the reward.

(It looks like the script of a war movie !!)

Good job Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks L-C!

 

[turbo]

All this stuff's a bit of a pain but well done Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Yes, it's a pain alright. What a contrast between this and my Eduard 109, two ends of the spectrum.

 

[parsifal]

Kinda a reflection of these a/cs history really....

 

[Gnomey]

Looks good so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

This project was gently simmering on the back burner while I've been working primarily on my BoB 109 but there has been some progress.

The main efforts were geared toward rescribing the fuselage where the turtleback repairs were done. While I was at it, I decided to attack this model with my riveting tool, quite literally actually. Being a limited run kit, the surface detail is minimal and can stand some sprucing up. The challenge is that the Battle fuselage was constructed in ship-lap fashion with lots of narrow bands of sheet metal running longitudinally that were attached with lot of rivets as seen here:

I began by carefully scribing the panel lines using a scalpel which I ran along some Dymo tape stuck onto the model as a straight edge. This process was pretty straight forward and was completed with little problem but the story changed when I got to the riveting. The Dymo tape I have doesn't make a hard enough edge to run a riveting wheel along and it was impossible to tack on a metal straight edge securely onto this narrow and small diameter fuselage. The first few attempts saw my riveting wheel slip and so as a result, I had to resort to going freehand and the outcome was frankly just short of horrible:

Needless to say, this just won't do so many of the rivet lines have been filled with primer and sanded smooth and are not waiting to be redone. The fin got the benefit of a straight edge and came out much better. The below pic had some gamma correction done to make the rivets stand out and that's why it looks odd.

The underside of the center section needs attention as well and here's the start of the scribing work. The area forward of the trailing edge has some detail already present courtesy of Accurate Miniatures but the fuselage behind that was completely smooth and devoid of detail. I therefore scribed in the circular panel, shallow V-shaped line, and the curved wing fairing joints. This area has not yet been tortured with my riveter but its day will come.

The fuselage deck between the pilot and gunner also needs work as all of this can be seen through the extensive glazing. The below reference pic and a few others confirm the presence of circumferential riveted seams as well as 4 square openings to the interior, possibly to give the bomb aimer some light.

The model therefor got more panel lines, rivets and the holes were then positioned and drilled out with my square drill.

And that's how she looks today. I will do take 2 of the fuselage riveting when I either gather up the necessary courage or get pi$$ed enough not to give a crap. Pics then!

 

[Airframes]

Nicely done there Andy, and I like that square drill - are they available as oblong drills too ?

 

[Crimea_River]

Surely you jest you silly man!

 

[fubar57]

Nice work despite the riveting issues

 

[Wurger]