1/48 RCAF Fairey Battle Mk I STF Build (1 Viewer)

[Airframes]

Yeah and verily I jest, but don't call me Shirley - Julie is fine on Sundays, or Angela on Mondays .................

 

[turbo]

Were you drinking and riveting in that first pic Andy?!

 

[Crimea_River]

No but I wish I was. Might have been straighter.

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far Andy!

 

[Richard E.]

Hi there Crimea_River. I'm new here on the this forum and was wondering if you already completed the build. Looking out for more picks of this build. Got me a CA Battle TT last week, maybe one of the last to be found so very pleased with it. Found out that with this kit you can also build the bomber version, just need to find me a canopy or at least the last section of it....

 

[Crimea_River]

Hi Richard. Welcome aboard and thanks for your interest. Unfortunately, I ran out of steam on this build and the model is still as it appears in last few photos of this thread. Sometimes the group build schedule gets in my way of finishing kits and that's what happened to this one, along with my Anson and Wellington and.....

Hope to see you start a build thread for yours and if there's any info you need, just shout.

 

[Richard E.]

Oeps, just read your reply today... Thanks for your reply and hope to see more of your build on the Fairey Battle. Will keep looking out for a spare canopy !

 

[nuuumannn]

Nice choice Andy, dont see a Battle too often

There's one raging on a different part of this Forum as present...

 

[rochie]

There's one raging on a different part of this Forum as present...

if its the one i think your referring to, then i am reading it with great interest !

 

[Crimea_River]

Oeps, just read your reply today... Thanks for your reply and hope to see more of your build on the Fairey Battle. Will keep looking out for a spare canopy !

I completely missed that you are looking for a spare canopy. My kit came with two identical full vac-formed canopies and you are welcome to one of them. PM me your address and I'll send it off in the post.

 

[Peteflint]

Here I'll take a walk through the kit parts. Lazy as I am, I include verbatim some words from the CyberModeller site:

The Classic Airframes Battle is the usual mix of injected plastic parts, resin details, vacuformed canopies, and nice decals. As the instructions state up-front, this is a limited production kit, so it lacks many of the conveniences that less-experienced modelers are accustomed to like locating pins, perfect fit out of the box, etc. For the more experienced modeler, this kit provides the basis for some serious detailing, or just the fun of building it straight from the box.

The main airframe parts are injected plastic. The type of plastic that Classic Airframes uses is a little softer than the 'mainstream' kits, so it responds very well to Tenax cement. In fact, with a little trimming, dry fitting and patience, the kit fits together very nicely.

If you want to build a 1/48 Battle (and why would you?) this is the only kit out there AFAIK. It's a fairly large airplane so the finished product in 1/48 builds out to a sizable model about 11 inches long with a 14 inch wingspan. The decals look nicely printed with separate enter dots for fuselage roundels. Three different birds can be done, including a Greek version. There are no stencils provided though I'm sure the real aircraft would have had plenty. Two vac-formed canopies are provided (they assume you will only screw up one I guess) and these are decently clear,

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A colour sheet is included for decal placement reference. The Greek version is on a separate black and white sheet (not pictured here).

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The instructions are minimal and I anticipate some ambiguities on how to fit some of the parts as I experienced on the Anson.

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A saving grace form the rather basic styrene moulds is the inclusion of these rather nice resin parts. Cockpit floors, walls and various other bits are replicated which should make fro a decent display through the large greenhouse. For some reason, two prop hubs are included. Maybe one is a Hamilton Standard and the other a ....? Not sure why the Battle didn't have a spinner and will read up on it some more.

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The rest of the box contains just two sprues of the main styrene parts.

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The lower center section has some fairly deep surface imperfections that will need to be filled in with primer and smoothed out.



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The landing gear legs look atrocious and will benefit from some detailing.

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There's some flash on many parts and the prop blades are very thick. Unfortunately no resin blades are provided so these are going to see some real scrubbing.

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The second sprue contains the wings which have all of the control surfaces moulded in.

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Panle lines are nice and crisp, though I can't vouch for accuracy. I will need to see if I can find some good plans so that I can maybe run my rivetin wheel over these surfaces to add some interest.

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So that's it for the parts breakdown. As always I will look to as many available references as I can to add any necessary detail and have bookmarked a couple of walkaround picture sites.

Interesting looking kit

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Pete. It's been gathering dust for some time ever since I screwed up the rivets. maybe some day I'll get back to it.