**** DONE: GB-41 1/48 Hawker Hurricane Mk XII - PTO from 1937

Crimea_River · May 12, 2019

Thanks Hugh and Wayne.

Jumping ahead a few steps, the home made stencils were applied, some paint was chipped, mast and landing gear added, and a coat of Tamiya Flat Clear was shot on. The following shots were taken with the wheels freshly glued in place with the flat spots rotated to the correct position so I didn't want to move the model a lot.

The masks removed from the wing lights reveal a nice, clean transition with the the camouflaged surfaces. Happy with that. Note that at some point along the way, I lost one of my brass gun barrels. Not happy with that.

Port side showing the s/n and "Lift Here" stencil. The decals are passable, though there is some silvering that I will need to address. Close-ups later when the wheels are dry and I can move the model.

The resin exhausts are beautifully done, with delicately moulded complex openings. Not seen very well are the 3 different shades of brownish steel paint that I applied before gluing these in.

A general shot of the starboard side.

On finals now with just the tail wheel to paint, add tape for the gun barrels, replace the broken aerial post on the rudder and string the antenna. More soon I hope.

fubar57 · May 12, 2019

Looks very nice Andy.

Wurger · May 12, 2019

nsmekanik · May 13, 2019

Lookin really good Andy, just caught up and going back a bit, as a suggestion, what I do to prevent any potential bleed through is to mist on a clear coat to seal the edge of the mask, I do this with canopies although in that case I like to use a matt coat .

destrozas · May 13, 2019

so pretty plane, i love you work

Crimea_River · May 13, 2019

Thanks everyone.

nsmekanik said:
Lookin really good Andy, just caught up and going back a bit, as a suggestion, what I do to prevent any potential bleed through is to mist on a clear coat to seal the edge of the mask, I do this with canopies although in that case I like to use a matt coat .

Normally, yes but the issue I had was that the stiff vinyl masks would not settle into the rib contours on the fuselage so a precoat of clear would not have helped in this case.

le_steph40 · May 13, 2019

The final lapp soon Andy. Good work ! :thumbleft:

Airframes · May 13, 2019

Nice !

Gnomey · May 13, 2019

Great work so far Andy!

nsmekanik · May 13, 2019

Crimea_River said:
Thanks everyone.

Normally, yes but the issue I had was that the stiff vinyl masks would not settle into the rib contours on the fuselage so a precoat of clear would not have helped in this case.

Ah ok, I'd seen it suggested to use a hair dryer on vinyl masks, I've only used those once so far and using the hairdryer on the canopy and wheel masks worked very well, haven't tried it on the markings yet as I haven't got that far., but I can't see those presenting any sort of problem.

Wayne Little · May 14, 2019

Looking real good Andy.

Crimea_River · May 14, 2019

Thanks Wayne.

Crimea_River · May 16, 2019

Over the last couple of days, I tackled the silvering under my home-made decals. The before:

And the after. This was a real b!tch to fix as there were a couple of very stubborn areas that would not react to multiple rounds of Solvaset and pin pricks so I had to carefully touch them up with paint and one of those mascara brushes. It was getting to the point where I was making things worse so I stopped and the brutal close-up reveals many imperfections. However, viewed from a distance the decals look acceptable.

Several of my reference pics of Canadian Hurricanes show the use of some rather unique circular tape patches over the gun openings. Though the one pic of 5389 is taken from the wrong angle to confirm this, I decided to do it anyway. I used an old Tamiya RV band decal and a 9/64" punch to make these circular patches. The first two I made disintegrated so I sprayed a clear coat and tried again. In the end, it took 21 punched circles to complete the 12 patches. I decided to break them open so that all the work I did to reveal the outer gun barrels wasn't wasted.

I think I said somewhere that I was going to keep the weathering restrained. And you believed me!? Here's where I ended up on the port side of the the cockpit where the area would have seen plenty of traffic. Paint was chipped to the aluminum undercoat, Tamiya panel wash was carefully applied, pastel powders dabbed on, and various minor scratches in the paint were simulated using a green and brown Prismacolor pencils that are of a lighter shade than the underlying paint.

Yet to go on is some exhaust staining and that will round out the weathering on top. Thanks for looking.

Wurger · May 16, 2019

Wayne Little · May 17, 2019

Sweet Andy.

Gnomey · May 17, 2019

Looks great so far Andy!

Crimea_River · May 18, 2019

Finishing touches done tonight.

Exhaust stains were sprayed on. First, a thin mist of dark brown is applied and next a thin mist of rubber black is sprayed in the center of the brown. It's important to fade the stains as they move toward the back. To do this, I rotate the airbrush whilst staying near the front of the stain and then move away from the surface as I move back. The Hurricane had a distinctive arch shape to its exhaust stain which I tried to replicate here,

The prop was finished with small yellow patches and some simulated writing on them. I was winging it here a bit based on pics and assume that they are some sort of maintenance record. There are no Hamilton Standard logos on the prop blades in any of the pics that I saw.

The antenna wire was attached last and for this I used invisible mending thread. The small clear nav light in front of the mast was inserted just before this.

The tail light was a blob of grey styrene so I cut this off and added a small bulb made of white painted stretched sprue and then dipped multiple blobs of Testors Clear Parts Cement while suspending the model vertically. Not the best outcome but I've touched it up a bit since this pic was taken.

Here's the underside dirtied up with streaks and earth stains.

At this point the model is pretty much finished. I'll give it a once over tomorrow and hopefully get some final shots posted shortly. Thanks again for your interest.