<> **** DONE: 1/48 Fairey Swordfish MkII - WW1 / WW2 over Water.

[Michael Stolting]

Andy,

Although I've no doubt you're already past this step and would not think about gluing parts together without dry fitting them, I only offer this suggestion because I ran into difficulties at the point you seem to be in your build.

Mike

 

[Crimea_River]

Already tried a dry fit but thanks for that Mike. The only worry I have at this point is that the PE x-bracing in the outer struts had a tendency to buckle so I may break the bond on the low side before final assembly. The only thing glued at this point is the outer strut to the upper wing underside. Everything else will be carefully aligned before glue meets plastic

 

[Wayne Little]

The challenge begins......

Got that all to look forward to with my Fokker...!

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Could be a Fokker of a job - yep, coat on and out the door !

 

[T Bolt]

Fine work Andy

 

[Michael Stolting]

Andy,

I'm envious of your modeling skills and know that you're techniques and plans of attack on any aircraft kit would follow a logical and efficient build process.

Having said that I'll enter a link from my failed WIP build of the stringbag that I'd posted on FineScale early last year and from which I've posted some pages in your thread.

Even though you're light years ahead of me in this hobby someone might glean some useful information from my screwing up my kit.

Tamiya 1/48 Fairey Swordfish Mk.II - FineScale Modeler - Essential magazine for scale model builders, model kit reviews, how-to scale modeling, and scale modeling products

Mike

 

[Crimea_River]

Found this pic at Vintage Wings of Canada's site. Can't read the s/n but the plane has a strong resemblance to the one I'm depicting, though mine, HS158 made it through the war according to records provided in a book sent to me by Geo. At least it more or less confirms a question I had in my mind: the demarcation between the white fuselage sides and uppers appears to be soft so I will go with that.

The think I'm debating now is whether, or not, the upper fuselage ahead of the cockpit was painted black for anti-glare. It appears that some aircraft just had the camo colours there. Based on the pics below, I'm thinking camo, not black. Thoughts?

 

[Wurger]

I think you are right Andy. Undoubtedly the top of the fuselage was painted with the camo colours. However the colour at the front area could be the darker one and therefore it might be confused with the black.

Here is an enlarged shot of a crashed Swordfish coded H. I would say it doesn't look like the black colour ahead of the cockpit, especially if you notice the lighter spot at the top of the engine cowling just behind the front ring what may indicate two colours there.
The origin pic source: THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR (A 19723)

If these three pictures posted by you show the same Swordfish, according to the caption she was of the serial you mentioned above. The soft camo demarcation line between top and sides can be noticed too.
The pic source: the net...

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Wojtek, I agree with you regarding the camo on the nose. It did not look like black to me either.

 

[Crimea_River]

The latest for your viewing pleasure:

I'm not used to painting models before final assembly but, as stated earlier, it's necessary due to all the spots that will be inaccessible, what with two wings and rigging all over the place. I started by painting all the white which is a 50/50 mix of Tamiya flat white and Future. This was painted over Tamiya primer and took multiple passes over two or three sessions.

I then tackled the upper camo by spraying mixed colours freehand. My initial colours did not turn out as I well as I would have liked, the Dark Slate Grey being close but the Extra Dark Sea Grey being too washed out. Here you can barely see the demarcations between the two colours.

Below is the newer version. Here I used straight Tamiya FX-24 for the EDSG. The DSG is an odd mix I read over at Britmodeller that is attributed to Ron Sutherland but I like how it turned out: To one bottle of XF-22 RLM Grey, add 35 drops of XF7 (red), and 125 drops of XF1 (flat black). As I didn't want to use a whole bottle, I had to ratio the above down to a usable scale and found that I had to lighten it a touch with white as I probably had too much black in the mix.

Using the same colours, I sprayed the fuselage and horizontal stabs freehand as well.

Here's a closer look. The wires on the tail planes did get in the way when spraying up to the fin but I think I was able to get it done well enough. Some minor touch ups of the white will be needed in various spots.

Almost forgot the cowl which got a narrow stripe of EDSG. I had previously masked the collector ring and then also painted the narrow band of lighter bare metal behind the ring before doing the white.

Those patchy areas on the wing uppers will disappear after a shot of gloss clear and that's what I did before calling it a night. I'll let the clear coat fully dry before tackling any assembly of the wings.

Thanks for checking in and for all the input.

 

[parsifal]

Im hoping against hope that my Camel will be easier than this when the rigging and wing assembly finally floats to the surface.

 

[turbo]

Yeah, those colours look good Andy. Looking nice...

 

[Wurger]

 

[T Bolt]

Real nice paint work Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks all. Next will come the fun part - stacking the wings and getting the rigging in.

 

[Michael Stolting]

Andy,

Although I thoroughly screwed up at the rigging stage, I believe, with more patience than I can usually muster, you'll be able to pull it off swimmingly. So try to check the lengths of the Tamiya PE rigging wire carefully. I believe George mentioned he had problems with the wire as well. I've read somewhere in one of the reviews I bookmarked that someone cut them down in length just a tad. Anyway, be on the alert for buckling, etc. The John Ratzenberger kit review of the Swordfish (which you said you'd already bookmarked) goes into his method for attaching the wires. I'm not sure I understood everything he was trying to do but I'm sure you'll at least look at what he had to say and perhaps profit more than I did from his build.

In any event it's such a pleasure watching you work on the stringbag. You're doing a great job on it and I'm very grateful to be able to watch it come together properly.

Mike

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Mike. I've been dry-fitting one pair and have been getting buckling of the x-bracing between the outer struts. I have cut them away from the bottom of the struts and will fish them into the slots after the wings are together until they are straiht, then add a dab of CA. Will show pics of this as I tackle the real deal some time tomorrow.

 

[Crimea_River]

I just finished reading over Geo's thread on his build and realized that I missed the possibility of the lower wings having a counter scheme of lighter colours. Mention was made this was only on Blackburn built aircraft? Mine was built by Fairey and pics of this and others from the same squadron don't seem to support lighter colours on the lower wing. Any more info on this?