**** DONE: 1/48 Hurricane MkIIc - Mediterranean Theatre of Operations

[T Bolt]

Excellent work Andy. I love the way the landing light turned out. I'll be remembering that method.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thank Wojtek as he posted that method somewhere here on the forum. I stole it.

 

[Crimea_River]

The oil vent and crank start holes have been added. I also scratched in the non-existent cowl attachment screws with a piece of sharpened brass tube. Placement of these holes reveals yet another couple of faults with the kit, though minor, in that the fairing for the Vokes filter does not extend far enough toward the spinner and the panel line for the cowl extends too far forward of the wing leading edge. I will accept these as a given at this stage, though there is another panel line that I now see I need to scribe in.

I have a 4 day weekend coming up (hopefully now the norm going forward given that I've negotiated a new role at work) so should see some good progress toward completing the paint on this baby.

 

[Airframes]

Nicely done Andy. I thought the filter looked rather short in the other pics, but presumed it was of a different type. Seeing it now, you're right - they got it wrong !

 

[fubar57]

You've done some great things with this kit since my last visit Andy. Hopefully I can apply a few of these tips in later builds.

Geo

 

[Wildcat]

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. I'm never quite sure about whether to use a soft or hard edge on the camo. It seems there's an argument for either one:

Looks to me like a hard edge:

Then this one looks soft.

Comments welcome.

 

[Airframes]

I think they're both hard edged Andy, with the second pic being diffused by dirt and oil etc.
Notice that the breather hole has been blanked off in the first pic, but is very obviously open, given the oil stains, in the second pic.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Terry. Hard edge is easier, so if I can justify it, I'll do it! Andy yes, I did notice the blanked off vent but it was the best pic I had to confirm the location. Odd that it would be blanked....

 

[Airframes]

Maybe to prevent sand and dust ingress.

 

[Crimea_River]

Maybe.

For the canopy, I decided to use the kit wind screen rather than the vac-formed one. I had to cut it from the sliding section first though and here it is masked up and with a mirror added, built from square rod.

The uppers were preshaded and parts that will receive some paint chipping got some aluminum Alclad.

The base coat Stone is now applied. For this, I used my old PolyScale Middle Stone acrylic and mixed in about 20% Medium Sea Grey to give it a bit of a bleached look

I've begun masking for the Dark Earth and tomorrow should get that coat on. Thanks for your continued interest.

 

[Wildcat]

Looking good now Andy! IMO, right or wrong, I prefer the look of "hard edge"camo lines.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

 

[JKim]

Initial coats look good Andy! I think you've approached the paint chipping areas in more logical way than I did. I sprayed the entire bottom of my Hayate with Alclad but I can't chip it because I forgot to apply hairspray!

 

[Crimea_River]

I decanted hairspray into my airbrush and went over the NMF areas. I have a fear that the masking tape will rip off more than I plan but I reduced the tack quite a bit.

 

[Airframes]

Looking darned good Andy.
Rather than using masking tape to 'rip off' for the paint chipping, how about using spots of PVA or liquid mask, then paint over that?
Once the paint has dried, remove the PVA 'spots' to reveal the bare metal or base primer.

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Terry, I was not planning to use tape to rip off the paint. My concern was that the tape I used to mask for the Dark Earth would do just that when I removed it in a rather unplanned fashion.

Anyway, all went well, except that upon removing the tape, which thankfully did not lift the paint at the hairsprayed areas, there were a few spots where the darker brown got under the tape but generally I was happy with the result. The Dark Earth was, again, an old bottle of PolyScale and this was cut about 20% with Medium Sea Grey to bleach out the colour. Here are pics taken immediately after the tape was removed, including some of the areas that need to be fixed.

Once the tape was off, I immediately set about removing paint chips. For this, I used an old brush with the bristles cut back to about 2mm, dipping in water and rubbing back and forth and in circles until the paint started to come off to reveal the aluminum underneath. Unsurprisingly, more effort was needed to remove the Dark Earth paint as this had a coat of Middle Stone under it. After the paint chipping was done, I started to add a little weathering by brushing on some different colours. The reddish brown you see over the Middle Stone looks nowhere near as bright in real life. Something in the camera is making it stand out a lot.

So now the model has been given a coat of Future for the decals and I'll let it marinate for at least 24 hours before doing any more on it. I'm off to Nanton tomorrow to work on the Merlin and may do a bit of work on the Lightning tomorrow evening, depending on my mood. Thanks for watching.