Interior – Eduard Wessex Cockpit set for Wessex UH5
Exterior – Eduard Wessex exterior set for UH5
Exhausts – Hendie Scale Models
Lobsterdeck – Hendie Scale models
Wheels. Armory
Decals Kit
Introduction
Despite my previous Wessex build feeling at times like a bit of a slog, I still felt like there was one more left in me. The green and sand scheme on the box. quite appealed to me.
But, where to find one though? Turns out these things are like rocking horse poo, Italeri no longer producing the HAS1 boxing.
However, by a great stroke of luck and planets aligning, a local club member was selling one, so it was promptly snatched up. My second Wessex build was on! Would I regret it?
Construction Notes
Construction of the Italeri Wessex has been outlined in my 31B article, although with this kit , I employed an Eduard cockpit PE set, Instead of building up complete PE seats, which would have been very fragile and would not have had seat cushions anyway, I chose instead to just add the seat PE side pieces as veneers to the kit parts 4c and 5d. This also had the added benefit of retaining the plastic seat locating pins so that a much more solid fit was achieved between the seats and the rear bulkhead. This would have been an extremely fragile fit just using the PE seats.
For the cabin, the same Seaking that had its seats raided for the 31B gave up its last remaining seats for this build. PE from the Eduard Wessex UH5 set was added to the kit interior framework, which surprisingly added some much needed depth to it.
The rest of the build proceeded fairly easily with the same fit issue around the hellhole mesh framework part 18A as the previous kit., although this time more care was taken with reinstating the detail around to make it look like a separate panel. Again, the windscreen was not the best fit, requiring filling around its base. Also in common with the other kit was the terrible pebbled plastic that required a lot of sanding and polishing to get a smooth surface, although in hindsight, I could have still put a bit more effect into this. Hendie’s 3DP parts again provided the lobster deck and exhaust pipes.
Painting and Decalling
I usually decide on the scheme before starting the build. This case was no different with the camouflaged version being chosen..
However once the light sand had been applied, using Tamiya LP27 Light Sand, I decided an overall light sand machine would look quite different from other Wessex models that had been looked at on the various modelling fora. ( Yes, sites such as BritModeller are still visited on a weekly basis)
Over the existing sand coat another coat lightened with Tamiya buff was mottled and streaked in random patterns. To this mix, white was added and some random streaking applied, which imparted a bit of a bleached look to the colour. Things were progressing nicely. A thin wash made of Sepia oil paint was then applied to all the panel lines and rivets. Opening panels had a black wash applied. The next day a gloss coat using SMS Gloss clear was applied and this too was allowed to set overnight
The kit decals were used and these performed magnificently, sucking down into the detail using a couple of applications of Gunze Mr Setter. Again, the decals were left overnight to completely set and allow the decal solutions to work their magic. Allowing these things to set overnight is a recent new technique for me. Yes I know lacquer is dry within an hour, but this allowing these coats to set properly has rewarded me with hardier paint coats that less easily chip and scratch. These days, I also wet sand with micro mesh between coats.
The next clear to go on was a VMS satin coat to allow some key for the oils which were going to be used for further leaks and stains. Various photos of the real machines found on The Imperial War Museum website showed them surprisingly clean and free of leaks , although there was quite a lot of staining from grubby fingerprints around the nose access doors. Ammo Starship Filth was my weapon of choice in achieving these, whilst Sepia was used to add various rain streaks from window frames and the conduits on the fuselage. The exhausts were painted with steel and then very thin coats of Alclad Sepia and Violet glazed over the top with the airbrush.
Final Assembly
The wheels were painted AK Rubber Black with sand hubs, then Mr Weathering Color Sandy Grey liberally applied over everything., taking care to ensure no pooling. This imparts the tyres with a lovely dirty warm colour. The treads had a black wash run into them.
The winch was added with the plumbing from 0.2mm lead wire, then the previously painted rotors were added. Lastly, the clear parts were unmasked. Everyone’s favourite part of a build although, always done with trepidation. On this build, there is a slight glue blemish on the windscreen. So close!
One day, I will be rewarded with truly clear flawless clear parts.
Conclusion
Im still surprised that after finishing one Wessex, I immediately wanted to do another, given the Italeri kit is not the best- albeit only- starting point in 48 scale. What can I say. I just love the subject. Its such a purposeful, brutish looking machine, very Cold War British
The overall light sand colour serves to emphasise those big code letters, D type roundels and Royal Navy titles. I love it, its now one of my favourite builds, but that’s it for me and the Italeri 1/48 Wessex.
Westland Wessex HAS1. 945 N.A.S Royal Navy. Borneo. 1962
This build illustrates the progressive march of better aftermarket accessories that have hit the market over time for particular kits.
To make a Mk31B used by the Royal Australian Navy, you needed to combine this kit with the Italeri HAS3. That kit included the Dogbox, that sat on the rear engine deck. The HAS3 kit was also needed for some scoops and fairings present on a Mk31. These days though, there are people like Hendie from Britmodeller making available the parts needed here. One doesn’t need to have both kits for this conversion. If only using the HAS1, though, some scratch building of scoops and fairings will still be required.
Similarly, the decals, once upon a time, offered only the less than comprehensive Aussie Decals sheet. Now there is the far superior L Decals sheet. If you can still find it, the Southern Sky Models decal sheet includes all the stencilling as well.
Sadly, Italeri’s kit hasn’t improved with time. However, even using this as a base kit is progress. Prior to this, the modeller would have had to use the old and poorly detailed Revell kit. The plastic in this boxing is particularly pebbly and textured. It requires much sanding down and describing. Plus, all the shallow and inconsistent rivet detail needs redrilling. In the end, it needed more rubbing down. Some areas were still textured after the application of paint. Id love Airfix to release a new tool Wessex, but fear they would only do the HC2 version
Construction Notes
Of course, us Australians had to fiddle around and change stuff! So a Mk31 cannot accurately be made straight out of the Italeri box. There are a few additions and modifications required. The best online reference for these is Graeme Moulenoux’s Grubby Fingers site.
We start off with the interior. Scrap plastic strip and mesh were used to build up a bench seat. It sits over the auto hover gubbins, so no need to scratch build all this stuff. The Navy also had the good grace to hide all the interior wire jumble behind a drape. This was made from rolled Tamiya epoxy putty.
The bench seats came from an Airfix Seaking and the cabinet was built from plastic card. Plastic card also filled in for the plywood floor the RAN fitted over the actual floor. The electrical component box was constructed from the ever useful plastic card. The wire loom was crafted using speaker wire.
The bottom panel needs the sonar detail removed from within the hatch. Then, the opening should be faired over with a panel from plastic card.
The below image taken by myself of the Wessex in the South Australia Air Museum shows what is required of the kit nose filter to properly represent a RAN Mk31B
Basically, two spherical compressed air bottles and extra framing around the grill.
Hendie Models supplied a new nose bulkhead complete with the bottles and piping, and plastic strip formed the framework. The scoop you can see on the right side of the photo will also need to be added. I used the item from a HAS3 kit I had in the stash. The HAS3 also gave up the rectangular slanted fairing that sits on the nose. From this point, I methodically worked around the airframe. I added bits and pieces that I noticed when comparing the photos to the kit parts. These included a scratchbuilt IFF antenna to the rear of the fin. I moved and added fuel caps. Additionally, extra antennae needed to be added.
The pylon, stores carrier and fuel tank were resin items from a local Australian cottage producer, Hamilton Hobbies. The tank required several rounds of filling and sanding to reduce all the pinholes. A Hawker Hunter drop tank could also be used if you have a spare one floating around. Cabling was added from the flotation bag compressed air canisters to the fuselage. Brake lines from the wheels also need to be added , although I didn’t . An eagle eyed mate spotted I had glued a length of the kit ducting on at an angle. It broke into three bits when I tried to remove it. I had to use plastic rod to make up new ducting. An Eduard PE set provided various enhancements around the airframe as well.
Sun blinds were made from paper and added to the upper panes of the windscreen. The windscreen was not the best fit, requiring a lot of fairing in around its base.
The side kit aerial masts were modified with sections of brass tubing. This allowed EZ line to be run through them to represent the aerial wires. Rather than rely on glue, these masts were all drilled and pinned with brass wire for some additional strength.
A final look was made to check for seams. The airframe then received a coat of Mr Surfacer primer. This revealed a few seams that still needed addressing. Always the case with my models. No matter how smooth and blemish free I think I have the model, the first primer coat still always reveals flaws.
Painting and Decalling
Common sense would dictate starting with the white, but on this occasion I thought masking the model would be easier starting with the blue. Initially the model was painted with Gunze Mr Color C328. I returned to the model the next day and realised it looked too “blue.” As a result, the blue was darkened with a few drops of black and resprayed. Now it looked a much better match to photos of the actual aircraft. The white was GSI Mr Color Character White. Some touchups were needed where I had not applied the tape tightly enough around protrusions. The front curved demarcation was achieved with Tamiya flexible tape. The rear one over the tail boom was created using a circle cutter to cut a tape mask.
To say I was stoked when L Decals released their sheet containing 36 is putting it mildly! This particular helicopter is now preserved in the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Nowra NSW. I first came upon it whilst it was operating as an Air Ambulance at The Australian Grand Prix Adelaide 1987. The crew even allowed me to clamber up and stick my head in the cockpit. The memory of how basic the cockpit looked staying with me.And of course there is the Ambulance connection reflecting my 40 years as a Paramedic.
The L decals are beautifully printed, although some of the yellow items were slightly out of register on the sheet. No matter as I used these items from the superlative Southern Sky Models Wessex decal sheet. Unlike the L decals sheet, this contained all the stencilling for the aircraft. The kit sheet stencilling is a bit oversized in my opinion.
Decalling was carried out over 2 nights. Applying all the stencilling was finicky. However, it really does add to the busyness of the airframe. All the decals were excellent to use. They required just a couple of applications of Microsol. This allowed the decals to conform to all the raised and recessed detail. A toothpick also being employed to push the decals into all the recessed rivets where required. Stencil date from an Airfix Hunter sheet was used on the fuel tank. The writing on the white panel should have red lettering, but on the decal was black unfortunately. I will keep looking for an appropriate decal.
Final Assembly
The rotors had already been assembled and painted , just needing a matt coat. It was decided to use a semi sheen to dull down the very glossy paint used on the model., although I did brush matt clear over all the walkway areas. No weathering was added. All examples I had seen in contemporary photos looked reasonably clean. However, people who worked on the machine tell me the underside was filthy with oil leaks and stains.
Probably one of the trickiest parts of the build was rigging the cargo hook underneath. This was eventually accomplished with brass wire and EZ line. The aerial wires were then added using the same material, and with that she was done. Well, done is a relative term! But where do you stop? There were plenty of details, the modeller could still add like tie down rings and other cabling. There should also be aerial wires that wrap around under the tail. By this stage though I was ready to move on. All my models are compromises in this way, but I am happy to accept that. It is what allows me to complete 5-7 models a year. These models are reasonable in detail rather than one super detailed model that is accurate to every last detail.
Conclusion
The build was not enjoyable at times, but ultimately satisfying once complete. The Italeri kit is typical of their products, inconsistent detail, poor fit of some parts and soft mouldings. However, it is leaps and bounds over the old Revell kit. The kit has shortcomings. Despite this, I am still eager to tackle another to finish as a 945 SQN RN machine from the Borneo conflict. The aftermarket items I used are not absolutely necessary to build a RAN Mk31. You only need them if you don’t have a HAS3 to use, although , there will still need to be some scratchbuilding required. . The fuel tank and carrier can be easily converted from other components. They can also be scratch built. The Hamilton Hobbies items are still available. Naturally you will need decals for a RAN aircraft, again, the L decals are still available. The rest of the Hendie stuff is just a very nice refinement over the kit parts.
Westland Wessex Mk31B. 723 SQN R.A.N Adelaide South Australia 1987
I remember being quite excited at the news that Trumpeter was releasing this, as it filled a major gap in 1/48 RAF WW2 subjects. Its not a kit that has graced many competition tables or on line sites though, so that to me tends to indicate not many are getting built, perhaps as its a sizeable model once done.
Accuracy wise, it suffers from a too narrow undercarriage and very overstated surface textures.The undercarriage I could live with, the surface detail though had to be reduced. There is a reasonably complete interior, albeit somewhat simplified, that pretty much gets hidden away once the fuselage is closed up. Fit for the most part is good, but the kit shows its age as one of Trumpeter’s earlier releases with the parts not as sharply moulded as some of their later releases, and also exhibiting fine mould seams along mating edges. Perhaps the biggest plus of the kit are the THREE sprues of early RAF type bombs Trumpeter includes to load the bomb bay with various types of bombs. Transparencies are lovely and clear, but the decal sheet, as per usual with Trumpeter RAF subjects has markings with colours that are far too bright.
Construction
Even before construction started, several thick coats of SMS surfacer grey to the wing and horizontal stabiliser parts. Once dry, it was rubbed back until the kit surface detail showed as bare plastic . After being repeated a few times, the Trumpeter geodetic pattern had become somewhat subdued. This probably could have been taken further as it shows as quite subtle in photos, but I chose to leave it as was.
The colour call outs in the instructions were disregarded as mine would be an early war bomber and research on Britmodeller had uncovered more correct colours.
So on my kit, cockpit is RAF grey green as is the bomb aimers position. Mid fuselage is a brick red colour with silver framing. Floors are black. Bomb bay interior and insides of doors are silver.
Turret interiors are also silver. Black turret interiors seem to have come later after the RAF doctrine had changed to night bombing.
I would recommend that the turrets complete with guns are built as a whole rather than doing what I did, and leaving the guns out to be added later. This resulted in me having difficulty aligning them. The kit barrels were replaced with brass items at final assembly.
Aside from the ventral turret and rear ammunition runs, the complete interior was assembled , although not a lot of effort was expended in painting it as very little can be seen. Don’t forget to paint the underside of the front turret as this can be seen through the bomb aimers window. Trumpeter have not included a bomb sight, so one will have to be scratch built should you desire.
The engines assembled fine, just ensure you double check the instructions to ensure the parts are correctly orientated. Don’t bother with after market engines as you can see very little of the completed engines.
Why Trumpeter made the wheel well interiors from PE, is a bit of a mystery to me, but they must have been made by Bluescope Steel! Have fun removing them from the frets! I also took the precaution of drilling all the holes out so that the landing gear assembled easily. Apparently the wheels and therefore struts are too narrow., not something that bothered until me until found out, then it did!
Back in the day when this kit was first released CMK did resin wheel wells for it, but these have long since disappeared from shops (as has most AM for the kit). The kit rubber tyres needed to be dunked in boiling water to soften them enough to conform to the rims. Although I did have Brengun resin wheels, they were even narrower than the kit wheels so were not used.
The only major construction issue faced by me was, when locating the bomb aimers window, it was found to be wider than the fuselage cutout. This must have been me as the rest of the transparencies fitted like a glove. In the end a piece of clear CD cover and a shim were used to bring out the fuselage to match the bomb aimers window.
If you are reluctant to test fit the wings fearing, like the Tamiya Mosquito, they will never be able to be removed again, don’t be. The wings are a very sloppy fit, and hardly a friction fit to the support boxes, so can be slid on and off with carefree abandon. To attach these, you are best off using epoxy glue , ensuring the wings are level to get a nice solid fit. There were no gaps on my kit . The PE ?cable cutters were left off my kit as I could not find any photos of machines with them fitted. My references were the 4+ book and images from IWM website.
The Brengun flap interiors fitted nicely into the kit flap wells, once the required material had been removed. I do wish these companies though would engineer the flaps to fit far more solidly. Small glue contacts areas such as PE hinges just don’t cut it.
Painting and Decaling
From the start, my Wellington was going to portray an early war bomber to pay homage to these early Bomber Command crews that starting taking the war to Germany just a few days after the Declaration of War. An early war scheme of overall DE/DG almost won out, but the toned down roundels on the Xtradecal sheet really appealed to me, bringing home these early attempts at toned -down markings, plus it had an early fin flash, replacement rudder and those lovely large codes. What’s not to like there?
SMS Camo black is my favourite black these days, having a warmish brown tone to it. Over this was sprayed various shades of greys and other blacks such as NATO and Rubber Black. This was done through two different splatter type masks. Not forgetting to also do the flaps and bomb bay doors at the same time
For the top sides, LF camouflage masks were used with the Dark Earth being SMS, and the Dark Green GSI Gunze.. Darker and lighter shades of these colours were used to break them up. Oil paints were used to depict oil leaks and staining trailing back from the nacelles across the wings. AK Starbay sludge was used for this. A shade which in retrospect is far too browny -grey . I should have used black or Sepia
The Xtradecal decals performed well. As they are printed by Microscale, they really only needed the mild micro products to settle into any detail. As I had nil micro sol, I used Mr Setter, which was far too hot and damaged one of the roundels. It was repainted with a mask created on my silhouette machine.
Final assembly consisted of bringing the various components together and adding all the fiddly little details such as gun barrels, flaps, propellers and aerial mast. Oh! And the 30 separate bomb bay doors.
Conclusion
It’s a large model!
In the main, it was a fun build, let down by the very exaggerated surface detailing and some strange engineering choices such as the requirement to fit the turrets before closing up the fuselage
That aside, it was an enjoyable build, and most likely the only 1/48 Wellington we are likely to see, although back in 1975 we all thought the Tamiya Lancaster would be the only 1/48 Lancaster we would ever see!
The Wellington has a lovely quaint ungainly look, belying it being one of the mainstay bombers of the RAF throughout the war. Im looking forward to the ICM Hampden joining it in the cabinet to represent Bomber Command in the first year of the war.
Vickers Armstrong Wellington Ic 149 SQN R.A.F Mildenhall UK 1940
Seat; resin cast by Piero on Britmodeller. No longer available
Jet nozzles. Aires
GR7 pylons: Wolfpack
GR7 Nose: eBay seller Sonconat
Tanks; Reskit
CRV; 3D printed from modeller on eBay. Sonconat
Bombs; Reskit
DJRP; 3dP from ebay. Sonconat
TIALD pod; Brassin
BOL Rails. ; Jet Passion
Introduction
Trumpeter’s supposed GR7 Harrier followed on from their release of the US variants, these being the AV-8B and Night attack variant. I say supposed, because despite saying GR7 on the box, Trumpeter failed to include any specific GR7 parts, the nose being the most glaring inaccuracy, despite getting expert assistance from a UK Harrier model group
Trumpeter’s RAF Harrier is nothing more than their US Harrier boxed with some British markings, and even these are wrong. There are no specific RAF weapons either, the kit coming with the standard US weapon sprues. The national Markings look to be the wrong colour and size as well.
The kit has several incorrect shaped access panels for a GR7. I decided to leave these as they came in the kit, but if you want to correct your kit, pretty much all the access panels and rivet lines on the wingtips need changing .The kit wings have a weird bulge midway along the wing leading edge when looked at front on. I suspect this is Trumpeter’s method of dealing with the wing “kink” but it just looks wrong. Mould lines will also have to be removed from each upper wingtip. Raised panels on either side of the nose should be sanded flat and the foremost panel just behind the nose on the port side removed as I cannot see this panel on any GR7s I looked at. A deliberate decision was made to not go down the rabbit hole of changing every detail on the kit to accurately portray a GR7 or 9, as one could spend 6 months doing this. Consequently, whilst my model better represents a GR7 than an OOB build, it’s still not an accurate to the last detail GR7. And Im quite happy with this compromise in the name of a quick build.
Construction Notes
Aires’s cockpit actually wasn’t a bad fit . Although not quite a drop fit, it didn’t take too much sanding to fit between the nose halves, even locating to the kit cockpit location tabs. Ah, if only all Aires sets fitted like this.
Trumpeter would also have you glue all the auxiliary intake doors in the open position, rather than just the top 3 on each side that flopped open through gravity. Look at photos of parked Harriers to see what I mean.
In a similar vein, Trumpeter would have you glue the main undercarriage doors in the open position, again not prototypical for the real jet. all photos I looked at showing the main doors closed. Achieving this took a bit of work, as the doors are not the best fit in the closed position, requiring lots of filling and rescribing.
The kit pylons are the US pattern, so the Flying Leathernecks supposedly RAF corrected pylons were used, although comparison to photos, showed they are still not correct for RAF pylons. In fact the Flying Leathernecks pylons were a bit of a disappointment, also being a very poor fit to the wings. At least the rear of them was contoured to fit over the flap actuators, unlike the kit pylons. Speaking of the flap (and aileron) actuators, they will need to be extended with scraps of thick plastic card as they are too short, and uncorrected, leave large gaps as they don’t meet the control surface actuators.
I only used the 2 halves of the engine and the mounting bulkheads, enough to mount the aires jet nozzles to. The rest of the kit engine parts were confined to the bin, as they will never be seen on the completed kit. Similarly thrown out were the kit blast plates and nozzles, these parts being replaced with the Aires items.
Parts D24 and D25 were not added as I could not see them on photos of real GR7As. All moulded vents on the rear fuselage and wing top were cut out and replaced with suitably sized PE mesh .
Part E55 was added but all the detail was filled and then faired into the fuselage contours. A new RAF type Flare unit was then shaped from laminated sheets of thick plastic card and added just behind the rear wheel bay. Details were represenrted with decals. The square GPS antenna was shaved off the wing centre section, and replaced with a round one as per photos.
The new 3D printed nose fit reasonably well, just requiring fairing in on one side after the kit nose was cut away, it being completely wrong for a British Harrier.
Painting and Decalling
The first thing to do here was throw out Trumpeter’s painting guide. Instead, I borrowed from the painting guide for Airfix’s 72 scale kit, which calls out the correct Herrick scheme of Dark Sea Grey and Dark Camouflage Grey. The Camouflage Grey proved a problem until I found AK Real Colours offered it.
MRP furnished the Dark Sea Grey. Photos of this particular jet were quite hard to come by and I am indebted to Nick Greenall from the UK IPMS Harrier SIG for sending me some through as well as details of the correct Operation Herrick load out.
The colours were faded just slightly. Whilst photos show a lot of staining and fluid spills, there is not an awful lot of paint wear evident. A replacement grey panel was depicted on the tail despite this not being evident whilst the jet wore the nose art. Artistic Licence! The jet is pictured at a later date with light grey replacement panels in evidence, but by this stage “Michelle” had been painted out. She wasn’t getting painted out on this jet, let me tell you!! The tanks also had different greys applied to the separate sections as images of real harriers showed this was a thing.
Michelle, the mission tally and the tail number all came from Zotz decals. Not my favourite manufacturer. I find their decals quite thick, and generally non conforming to detail. Here they were coated with several layers of gloss varnish and then gently sanded to blend the carrier film into the surrounding clear coats, which, to my surprise. worked very well. A new technique to me. National markings came from an Airframe decal sheet as both Trumpeter and Zotz had the size and colours wrong, likewise all the stencilling and serial numbers. No underside stencilling was applied as it looks like it was not reapplied after the undersides were repainted with the camouflage grey on the real jet. There was some evidence of general grubbiness around the engine bay doors, so I used Starship Filth to add this. Wrong colour!! I should have just used black as it looks like there’s been an engine bay fire. Nethertheless, I was quite happy with my blending efforts, these being better than some previous attempts at the technique.
Final Assembly
In what was becoming a recurring thing with this kit, the Trumpeter pylons and weapons were thrown in the bin. ( I used to keep all this stuff, but it was becoming unmanageable, and it turned out a lot of it wasn’t getting used, so now it just gets thrown out {I imagine Jon Bryon is grimacing with horror if he’s reading this!})
I have already given my thoughts on the Flying Leathernecks pylons, but at least they are better than nothing and I’m happy that Flying Leathernecks saw fit to release them. Kit fuel tanks were replaced with the fantastic, but expensive Reskit items. Bombs are also by Reskit. These are 1000lbers, as I could not find any 540lbers, which I think are the correct bombs for this particular loadout. The pilot will soon find the jet feels a bit sluggish!!
BOL rails came from Jet passion, the CRV pods and DJRP came from a fellow on eBay who 3d prints corrections for the GR7. Originally I was going to use a cast nose that I got years ago from a bloke off Britmodeller, but the 3DP nose had a lot more fidelity, it just needs the print lines sanding off, as do the rocket pods and the fuel tanks. And finally the TIALD pod came from Brassin, it being drilled and pinned to the adaptor pylon that comes with the Wolfpack Sniper pod, with brass rod , as were all the stores.
Conclusion
Not the most enjoyable build. OOB, the Trumpeter GR7 needs A LOT of modifications if you want to accurately portray a GR7 or 9. Aside from this, the model is not some of Trumpeters finest tooling, the plastic being textured with some panel lines that fade away. However, like all Trumpeter kits, the model looks complex, but is not that complicated to assemble. The gaps between the flap actuators, misnumbered parts in the instructions and poor engineering that required the nose leg to be fitted at an early stage all combined to make the model frustrating to construct in some respects. I doubt, I’d do another.
To finish off, I thought I’d list the Aftermarket used and how important it was to the build. Please note, these are my opinions only.
Aires Cockpit. Definitely adds to finished build with minimal effort needed to fit to kit. You will need a MB Mk12 seat though and not the American Stencil one.
Aires Jet Nozzles – Essential. Much better than kit nozzles. Again minimal effort needed to integrate into build
Resin wheels. I didn’t use any, but looking at my completed model, Im going to suggest they are essential as the kit rubber tyres are rubbish. At some stage mine will get replaced with resin ones too.
Soconat 3DP nose and DJRP – Essential if you want to accurately portray a GR7/9
Flying Leatherneck correct GR7/9 pylons. – Again essential if you want to do a RAF jet, for the only reason they more closely resemble RAF pylons than the Trumpeter pylons. And that’s not saying much!
Reskit Drop tanks – Very nice to have , as the kit tanks are inaccurate. Not essential though.
Weapons – Essential as kit weapons are US pattern weapons only.
This was my first completed build of 2025. There was a stage where it was looking like it would be my only 2025 build, So Im glad its done.
BAe Systems Harrier GR7A 1 SQN Royal Air Force. Kandahar Afghanistan 2007
This model filled the need for a bit of a short sharp build interlude from my rather large ongoing 1/48 Hercules project.
This particular came into my collection earlier this year after being sourced for me by a friend, who had in turn sourced it from another modeller. It came half started but given I paid only 10 AUD for it, I was happy to take it on. the work done though wasn’t great. The wings had been glued together without first placing the landing light lenses in their holes, the nacelles had also been glued to the wings leaving a few steps, and one set of undercarriage struts had been assembled including the wheel with an untreated join. The original builder had also glued on the flame dampeners without first adding the exhausts.
Whilst these were all annoying, they were not unfixable, save the exhaust dampeners, they would just have to be left empty and see through .
Construction
Although one of their earlier kits from the 90s, Tamiya’s Mosquito still exhibits their legendary fit and ease of assembly. The cockpit is very simplified, even by Tamiya standards, so didn’t take long to build and paint at all. As this was going to be a quick build, I was not too worried about accuracy, so did not delve into the correct radio fit, in itself a rabbit hole, for the particular machine I was doing.
With the cockpit completed, and the wings already done, assembly of the kit was achieved in no time! I deviated from the instructions in joining each nose half to its respective fuselage half before gluing the now whole fuselage halves together. Should you build the kit as per instructions though, rest assured the completed nose mates very neatly with the completed aft fuselage.
The centreline nacelles seams proved particularly stubborn to eradicate , needing several applications of CA glue and sanding. The seam on the wheel well rear bulkhead was hidden by skinning with a thin piece of plastic card. The steps the previous builder had introduced when glueing the nacelles to the wings were somewhat lessened by rehydrating the glue join with tamiya extra thin glue and then reglueing the rear of the nacelles. They still required some filling to make a gap and step free join at the rear of the wing .
The top of the fin was reduced by 2mm by the simple expedient of tracing the outline of the one fin half onto the inside of the other fin half 2mm lower measuring from the top of the fin. The fin above this line then being cut and sanded down to this line. When the fuselage halves are joined, the other fin half is sanded down to match. The rudder hinge line will then have to be rescribed 2mm lower than the existing one. To be honest, Im really not sure it makes a very visible difference to the look of the model, this modification was called out by a thread on Britmodeller. If I build any more tamiya Mossies, it won’t be a correction that will be repeated by me. The clear under fuselage hatch will also need to be filled and its outline eradicated as it was not present on the fighter bomber version. Tamiya including it as the fuselage parts are also used in the bomber version which does have the hatch. The assembled undercarriage leg had the wheel cut away, and both legs had their axles replaced with brass tube. The holes in the lovely Brassin wheels being drilled to match. The mudguards also had the lightening holes added.
Painting and Decorating
My chosen scheme was a 23 SQN Night intruder based in Malta. This decision was arrived at purely by spotting the scheme whilst going through one of my decal folders looking for something else. How many of us have done this! there is a good photo of the actual aircraft on there Imperial war Museum site that confirms Xtradecal have got the scheme correct, although the machine did not have the radar aerials as depicted on the sheet. So starting off on the top surfaces, Gunze Medium Sea Grey was airbrushed on. The helpful camouflage plan tamiya include was photocopied before the grey bits were cut out and taped to the model so the green could then be airbrushed on, in this instance Tamiya RAF Green type 2. Blu tac sausages were used to mark out the upper camouflage delineation line and the black undersurfaces sprayed with SMS German Grey and SMS CARC Black highlights. The black demarcation on this aircraft was unusually high and also formed a wavy line on the nose and nacelle sides , all of which were reproduced on the model, although I could have possibly gone higher on the nose.
The model was then gloss coated before a wash was applied to all engraved detail using tamiya panel line colours, in this case dark grey and dark brown over the MSG and DG respectively and black used along the control surface and openable hatch lines.
The upper wing roundels gave me a few problems with them refusing to settle down wrinkle free, three different roundels having to be used before I was happy. The roundel that lies over the stiffening rib also refused to mould itself to the rib, instead tearing regardless whether I left the decal alone or tried to mould it over the rib with the aid of a cotton bud. Eventually we got there after another 3 roundels. No wonder people paint on markings! The wing do not walk squares had their inside carrier film cut away to reduce the chances of silvering. I didn’t do this nearly neatly enough. You can see the ragged edges on the model, although there was no silvering.
Photos did not show the overall paint finish looking too worn, although there was a fair bit of grime around the nose and spinners. I probably didn’t add enough, jut relying on some airbrushed brown /black stains around fuel fillers and along wing roots. Piant chips were applied with a silver pencil.
This just left the final assembly and again, a bit of earlier sloppy modelling came back to haunt me when adding the machine gun barrels. I had earlier during assembly, cut the barrels away from the breeches, knowing I would be replacing them with the master brass barrels. What I didn’t do though was be precise in drilling the holes to accept the replacement barrels, consequently, I had great difficulty in. adding and aligning the barrels. The thing to do would have been to leave the nose cap off until final assembly as it was a good fit, and this would have ensured straight barrels that would have also been far easier to add to the breeches. Little lapses in planning like this and not thinking through all steps constantly let my builds down.
I really need to address it – despite saying “I will on the next model” – to lift my models.
The underwing landing lights were represented by using AK 4mm light lenses glued with white glue to a supporting plinth of blu tac.
The wheels were weathered with a wash of Mr Weathering Colors “sandy wash” with the excess being wiped off with a cloth. Finally the masking could be peeled off the canopy, and I was happy to see on this occasion nothing had leaked or marked it, despite Eduards ill fitting mask set.
Conclusion
This was a quick build done on an impulse to build a machine that I liked the look of. The opportunity was also taken to get this half built model out of the stash and provide a bit of a respite from a bigger build. Consequently, a lot of short cuts were taken with the finish. This aside, I am still quite happy with the completed model. There are two more tamiya 48 scale in the stash, a bomber and another fighter. I enjoyed the build enough to still want to build them at some stage in the future.
De Havilland Mosquito NFII. Royal Air Force. Luqa Malta 1942
The Arma Models 1/48 Hurricane was the perfect antidote to the preceding Walrus It is a lovely fitting, well detailed model that builds up very quickly. the surface detail is some of the best out there, Arma using both raised and recessed detail to achieve the multitude of rivets on the wings. The fabric surfaces are not overdone, also being rendered subtly. Heres hoping Arma follow it up with the Mk1.
Construction
Really there’s nothing that I can add here that the many YouTube builds of the kit don’t already cover. The cockpit whilst being a little fiddly to clean up fits perfectly. It even clips into place without the need for any glue, although obviously you do need to use glue. For one thing, your seat will fall out! Talking about the seat, the kit one is a little thick, my boxing came with a lovely resin item, making the kit seat redundant. Same for the exhausts.
Some further thoughts;
Be precise cleaning up all sprue stubs , ensuring all mating surfaces are flat as this determines how much filling you will need to do.
If you are fitting the drop tanks, you can dispense with filling the shell ejection ports as suggested by Arma as the drop tank pylons cover the holes that need filling
Added details,; Obviously this is entirely up to the individual modeller how far he goes with adding all this, but Id suggest, at a minimum, the radiator bracing, upper nav. light, brake lines and rudder control lines although only the prominent brake lines were added to my model. I did open up the slot in the rear armour plate to allow the shoulder harness tail to fit through.
When choosing a particular airframe to model, check such details as round or rectangular rear view mirror, cockpit ventilation slots present or not, glare shields fitted or not and IFF aerials as these details varied greatly from airframe to airframe. As an example the aircraft I modelled had the cockpit ventilation slots fitted and no glare shield whereas other planes in the same Sqn did not have the slots or had the glare shields. Photos are your friend, and for RAF Aircraft, Flickr and the IWM website are the first places I visit. If I have any questions, Britmodeller will usually have the answer.
Finishing
A mate of mine, being Kiwi likes to finish a lot of his WW2 aircraft as aircraft that were flown by NZ pilots. Obviously he can’t do this with modern day subjects as NZ don’t have an Air Force of note anymore ( Sorry all my Kiwi followers, Im assuming you all have the same sense of humour as my mate that requires you to keep on kicking that dead horse until its completely lifeless!!)
So when I found an 87 Sqn, machine that was flown by an Aussie, Sgt B Bawden from Sydney, I decided to take a leaf from Calum’s (rather thin) book. My model was always going to be finished as an 87 Sqn machine so an Aussie pilot was the icing on the cake. Of course there were no available decals for Sgt Bawden’s machine in 1/48 scale meaning the scroll and NIGHT DUTY title would need to be hand painted. The below photo shows the actual machine, and Yes, I keep referring to aircraft as machines because thats how Biggles referred to them !
Researching the 87 Sqn machines revealed they were a Night Intruder Squadron, with overall black aircraft, however as the aircraft were required for daylight missions over the Dieppe beaches to support the landing their top surfaces were hastily painted with brushes in the temperate land scheme which at that stage would have comprised of mixed grey, (not Medium sea grey as Ive used) and dark green.
To achieve this rough look the model was first painted overall black, then a very patchy coat of MR Paint MSG applied by airbrush. Panzer putty was then used to mask off the grey areas and the green applied, this time using Gunze . The demarcations o these aircraft were not standard and differed from machine to machine.
There are some excellent articles on Britmodeller regarding these schemes, well worth a read if you love getting into the minutia of these things. It appears on this particular aircraft, the green covered the black quite well, but the grey, not so much. The plan was to brush tamiya MSG around the codes to emphasise the brush painted nature, but of course, I didn’t have any.
The rest of the national insignia were from the kit decal sheet. Codes came from a generic Xtradecals RAF code sheet. Colours for the wing roundels were Tamiya Flat Red mixed with a bit of Hull Red until a matt with the decals was achieved. The blue was Royal Blue with a few drops of Flat Black.
With regard to the HAD masks, I thought a real shortcoming with the set was no masks for the underside demarcation. Aircraft from this squadron had quite distinctive wavy demarcation on the empennage, and HAD should really have included these on their otherwise very complete mask set as its a unique feature of these schemes
That just left the scroll. The Eagle Strike Night Hurricanes Part 1 sheet contains a red scroll of the right size, but it reads – actually I can’t remember what it reads, but it certainly wasn’t NIGHT DUTY!. Underneath this red decal, the modeller applies a slightly larger white decal which allows the white border and lettering to appear.. Current sources suggest the scroll on Bawden’s aircraft was red with yellow border and lettering.
This was achieved – after a night of thinking about it in my sleep – by cutting out the underlying scroll shape from yellow decal using the Eagle Strike decal as a template. this only took 4 goes!
The lettering on the red scroll was painted out and I found some tiny tiny yellow decal letters to spell out Night Duty, as you can imagine, these were incredibly difficult to apply and I resorted to (untidily) brush painting the I and Y
No one seems sure how long these aircraft stayed in this scheme so I went light with the weathering. Just some black chips around access hatches and wing roots and exhaust stains as evident in the photos. The chipping on the canopy was achieved with the hairspray technique.
The exhausts were painted an orangey colour as the real things were coated with a paint that reduced glare, hence why this particular machine is not fitted with the glare guards./ Feedback from a couple of modelling friends led to me darkening them up as my mates felt they were too orange. They were shaded with a black brown mix, which I feel does make them look better. They are 3D printed by ARMA and have incredible detail. Far and above better than the kit offerings.
Conclusion
The Arma Hurricane is highly recommended. Although Arma market the IIc and IIc Trop as separate boxings, all the IIc boxings come with the parts to make a tropical or Night Fighter, so it doesn’t really matter which boxing you buy unless you are after one of the particular kit schemes. The only thing I wish I had done differently was use a mixed grey rather than the Medium Sea Grey for the camouflage.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable kit and I have already ordered a Sea Hurricane and a IIb . As Molly Meldrum would say ” Do yourself a favour”
Hawker Hurricane IIc 87 Sqn. RAF Charmy Down UK June 1942
When this kit was first announced by HpH, I was immediately on board as the Walrus is a favourite of mine. The only kits in my preferred scale of 48 were the awful SMER and slightly less awful Classic Airframes kits, the superb Airfix kit still being 3 years away. A 32 scale Walrus sounded very epic. It was also very expensive!
I was somewhat dismayed upon arrival of the kit to see the small resin parts had been cast attached to a sheet of resin. Separating the parts was going to require quite a bit of sanding!
Aside from that, the main airframe parts looked to have been cast very cleanly and with excellent detail, the fuselage being fully riveted and the flying surfaces being cast in solid pieces with rib detail that mimicked the sturdy construction of the real thing. The bow section had been marred by the rough removal of the casting block at the factory leaving a ragged gap when both fuselage halves were dry fitted together. Instructions were on a CD which I printed out, so as to make them more accessible on the bench. It is handy though to keep the CD handy as you can zoom in on the parts to help identification. Whilst the parts are numbered in the instructions, the actual parts aren’t. Numbers on casting blocks would have helped greatly in assembly. This would have to be one of the most complete kits on the market, with decals , photo etch, masks and even HGW fabric seatbelts all included in the box.
Construction
The first order of business was to straighten the two fuselage halves. Although I had taped them together many years ago to preserve their shape, they had still developed a few warps. These were straightened by the simple expedient of dunking the fuselage halves into boiling water until they naturally returned to their original state.
Construction was able to be commenced straight away, thanks to me having removed most of the resin parts from their backing a few years ago during downtime at work
Much sanding was involved, the parts either being hand held or taped to a small piece of aluminium angle whilst sanded against a sheet of wet and dry taped to a flat surface. My recollection at the time was a few parts got damaged but looking at my work now, far less than I remembered. Yay for me!
The interior is VERY complete, with a full cockpit, radio operators and navigators station included. The only thing missing was the run of control lines along the fuselage, which of course could be added by the modeller. The bell cranks leading off the control column and rudder bar are provided though, ready for you to connect the lines to.
Id suggest adding the side windows first whilst you still have good access . If the resin flash from the window openings is carefully removed, the resin windows should be a push fit once the window opening corners are squared off
To keep the build momentum going an early decision was made to only build the visible items. So into the spares box went the radios, the operators seat, and a few other bits and bobs that would never be seen. The roof trellis was replaced by a piece of plastic card that formed a tab to help align both fuselage halves.
There are side windows which you can see flashes of the navigator’s table through, but that’s about it. Given this, adding the radio sets, and all the other mid fuselage fittings seemed pointless as they would be invisible on the finished model.
So, only the parts around the gunners openings were added, such as spare drum magazines, ribs and floor sections.
Constant dry fits of the fuselage halves ensure they would mate without any of the ribs fouling. There was a bit of filing required, and snipping of various ribs needed throughout this process. All in all, though, everything went fairly well, with the various components locating nicely, apart from the floor which required new slots cut for the ribs to fit into. Tedious but easily achieved by holding the floor up to the ribs, the new positions for slots marked and then cut in.
To help matters, ensure you add the side windows early before any of the other parts and that you glue all the bulkheads to the same side. I didn’t do either of these things and it complicated assembly a little bit. Ensure you get the snuggest fit you can with the main bulkhead against the interior wall. Mine also needed sanding a fair bit to reduce its width.
Once this was in place, 2mm holes were drilled through the depressions HpH had thoughtfully added. K&S stainless steel rod was used. Lines were marked out on the wings to ensure the holes were drilled perpendicular to the fuselage. With as much of the interior as I wanted installed and painted , the fuselage halves were now joined. It was not the best join, with several steps in the keel and one behind the canopy. These were fixed by cracking the join and reglueing the area, one area at a time. This worked quite well with all of the steps being eradicated.
The entire seam required filling with super glue and repeated rounds of sanding and priming to remove all trace of the seam. The main area being the top of the fuselage between the rear gunners area and the cockpit. The area immediately behind the cockpit required its raised detail reinstating with plastic strip as my judicious sanding had eliminated it. The aforementioned tab of thick plastic card under the roof join ensuring that seam didn’t crack open with all the required sanding.
A spot primer coat of Mr Surfacer was then applied and the rivets reinstated with a Rosie Riveter riveting tool.
Although the holes for the wing spar were drilled where HPH indicated. Looking at the model in plan view revealed the wire was not exactly at 90 degrees to the fuselage centre line. Redrilling it would have caused a loss of the structural integrity I was hoping for, so it was left as is, my thinking being the matching hole in the wing could be drilled at an angle to compensate.
Next on the list was the fitting of the engine nacelle. HpH providing a helpful jig to aid in its alignment
HpH provide dimples for where the strut location holes need to be drilled, however no advice as to what angles the holes should be drilled at. It is left up to the modeller to determine by studying the walkaround photos included in the instructions.
To me, this is one of the areas where HpH could really improve the modellers experience in building their kits. Yes, I know HpH market to the advanced modeller, but this does not absolve HpH from providing detailed instructions to assist in making their kits an enjoyable build. This is a key part of the build. The nacelle provides the base to which the top wing centre section is attached. Getting the struts at the correct angle here is imperative to getting the geometry of the aeroplane correct. Given you are joining a centre section which needs to be square to an offset nacelle, strut placement and angle is critical. No assistance in the form of diagrams, pre drilled holes is offered by HpH though, the photos in the instructions being less than helpful.
Its these kinds of things that don’t make building the kit as enjoyable experience as say for example, a Fisher Models kit. Anyway, the nacelle was fitted. 4 of the 8 struts needed fairing in to the nacelle with Milliput as they were a little short. I was concerned my nacelle was not forward enough, a point that was reinforced later when fitting the propeller as it fouled the wing trailing edge. Oh well!
The next step was to fit the rather large tail unit. The tail fin is a separate part and when test fitted, had quite a large step on one side requiring building up the side of the fin with milliput. Rivets and panel lines were then reinstated . On top of the vertical fin sits the tailplane. In the kit they come as right and left halves, one of mine had a casting flaw that left a mark which would have been incredibly hard to sand away without destroying the rib detail. All the tailplane parts need to be pinned to each other to ensure maximum strength. There was no real difficulty in this stage, just ensure everything is square. Mine looked square, that is until I got the wings on!
There are two bracing struts each side. Dimples for drilling are there on the fuselage, but not the stabilisers. Consequentially, my struts were fitted to the tailplane one rib too close Of course they had been soundly glued and faired in before this was realised. I didn’t pick this up until comparing the model yo photographs of the actual aircraft.So they were painstakingly unglued, holes redrilled and the struts relocated one rib further out. I was starting to not enjoy the Walrus.
Wings were added next, again not as neat a fit as the dry fits suggested. This was purely down to my imprecise drilling, rather than the kit, as dry fits had shown a step and gap free join several times. The upper wing is quite a heavy sizeable assembly when the outer wings are glued to the centre section. 2 part epoxy was chosen for its added strength. Adding the upper wings to the struts took several goes to ensure everything was straight. My top wing has got a slight twist in it due to the top nacelle struts being out of line, thus causing the wing centre section to not be square to the longitudinal axis.
Rather than continue with a blow by blow account detailing all my errors, below is my suggested assembly sequence for anyone else attempting this model.
Ensure all contents of kit match the photo of kit parts
Drill holes for spars in wings and fuselage. Test fit often. Ensure all holes line up and are perpendicular to fuselage centre line. Do not add upper wings to centre section yet.
Add the main bulkhead which will have the wire spar pass through it and drill this.
Assemble fuselage adding as much of the interior as you desire, bearing in mind much of it will be invisible. Ensure canopy will fit.
Pass wire spars through before closing fuselage. It’s a lot easier than afterwards!
Build and add tail unit ensuring everything is square.
Build up engine nacelle as complete unit with lower struts, ensuring by repeated dry fit it will be able to be added later. Use supplied jig to ensure it will be sitting in correct place with struts angled accordingly. Drill holes for the nacelle rigging.
Ensure lower wings are a good fit. Do not attach them yet.
Use the lower wings as a jig to assemble the outer floats but do not attach them at this time. Drill all holes for rigging.
Add the upper nacelle struts to the upper wing centre section, ensuring all your struts are at the correct angle to ensure the centre section remains square to the fuselage centre line. This is vital in ensuring your model will have correct geometry. It will also take lots of trial and error , remember that nacelle is offset, but the centre section needs to remain square. The instructions don’t really illustrate the position of the struts at all well, You want the angled bits of wire plugging into the upper wing. Glue the struts to the nacelle, but not the centre section at this stage
Disassemble the model into subassemblies of fuselage, nacelle and centre section
Add canopy. You will be annoyed to find the supplied masks are all undersized!
You can now paint the fuselage and nacelle and wings and I would go as far as even decaling.
Glue nacelle to fuselage and add rigging.
Add floats to wings, rig the floats then add wings to fuselage.
Add outer wings to centre section, glue struts in place and into wings.
The tailwheel/sea rudder should be added last to save breakage, mine must have snapped about 3 times despite having a steel wire core.
Ah, the benefits of hindsight. I’m sure my build would have gone a lot easier if it had been tackled this way.
By the stage of adding the upper wings I was completely over the model, in fact a couple of times I simply just did not want to sit at the bench.
The decision was made to finish the kit to the bare minimum standard. My initial vision was a battered weatherbeaten aircraft, but at this stage, simply did not have the strength to invest any more time than was needed to get a basic paintjob on the model. For the above reason my model’s weathering is limited to some chipping along the hull using the hairspray technique. It was left at that. The weathering may get revisited at some stage, but probably not.
Paints used were MRP for the top surfaces and white Ensign enamel for the underside Sky Blue. Enamels are not my paint of choice these days, but this sprayed beautifully, but boy did it pong!
Anyone that says lacquers smell worse than enamels are kidding themselves. HpH threw in one last annoyance with their provided canopy masks all being undersized, necessitating new masks being cut from Tamiya tape. I was by now thoroughly over this model and just wanted it off the bench.
Masks for the markings were cut after scanning the decal sheet for the Airfix 1/48 scale kit.
Rigging was fishing line. Holes were drilled right through the upper wing so that the line could be pulled taut, the holes then being filled. It would have been better to drill right through the bottom wing, but this is the kind of model you simply just don’t turn upside down if you can avoid it. It weighs a ton, turning it upside down would be just inviting disaster.
With the rigging done, all that awaited was the wheels being added. This was accomplished without incident, and with that, the Walrus was done.
Conclusion
I have very mixed feelings about the finished model. It is nowhere near my best work. In the haste to get it off the bench, several compromises were made, especially in regard to the finish. Parts such as bomb racks and the machine guns were left off, although photos do show this machine with no gun armament. Despite this, the finished model is a beast, it captures the nature of the Walrus like no other scale can, and looks very impressive in the cabinet. I love it. HpH have made an excellent kit, although some details like landing light and wingtip lights are missing. The model certainly is not fun to build.
Strangely it has not lessened my desire to build the 2 other HpH kits in my stash, these being the Hornet and the Helldiver. What it was responsible for though, was me deciding to sell just about all of my bigger 32 scale kits. hese big, complex builds in my stash, so onto the For Sale pile they went, and I feel a lot better for it. Most of them have already been replaced with the same subjects in 48 scale. My cabinet thanks me.
Now for a lie-down and a Tamiya kit!
Supermarine Walrus MkI 5 Communications Flight. Royal Australian Air Force. New Guinea 1943
I enjoyed my other Gladiator so much, I decided to build the second one in the stash rather than selling it as was the original intention.
Even without considering the “foreign” air forces, such as Sweden or Finland one is spoilt for choice with Gladiator schemes, do you do a silver interwar one, or a camouflaged war RAF example? Then there are the Sea Gladiators as well. My previous model was finished in early war RAF camouflage, so this one would be a silver interwar RAF example.
Construction
To take a different path from the usual “starting with the cockpit”, the rudder, stabiliser and elevator halves were first glued together so that they would have time to properly set up and allow any glue shrinkage to show itself.
With this done, construction returned to following the steps outlined in ICMs instructions, starting with the cockpit. ICM provides parts that when built up result in a reasonably busy looking cockpit.
Of course, the builder can improve on this. In my case I included some simple additions and refinements starting off with wrapping thin copper wire around the spade grip of the very plain looking control column. A brake lever, cam and the brake line were added from scrap plastic and solder.
Map cases were built up out of plastic card, and the slots on the throttle quadrant deepened with a Trumpeter scriber before new throttle levers were added from slivers of plastic card topped with blobs of paint.
Quinta 3D Decals were used to replace the instrument panels and seatbelts. The kit compass pedestal was replaced with a better detailed Quickboost item.
There is an ejector pin in the seatback that needs to be filled and the gunsight requires the clear reticule adding. A punched disc of clear plastic did the job here.
Once the cockpit shelf is added, you really can’t see too much into the depths of the cockpit, even with the cockpit access doors opened. Speaking of shelves, to better replicate the real item, the rear shelf behind the pilot (part C22) was cut down to leave just the central beam. To my eye, this really adds to the open framework look of these 30’s era aircraft.
If you wanted to add detail to the now visible interior behind the pilots seat, frames and a radio could be built up from card and strip. I didn’t bother as my canopy will be open and sitting over the top of the fixed canopy section, so hopefully, that empty space will not be too visible. Finally, the machine gun barrels were cut off, as these would be replaced by brass Master Detail barrels once all painting had been completed.
With the cockpit painted and detailed to my satisfaction, the fuselage halves could now be closed. This was achieved with Tamiya Extra Thin Glue which was liberally applied allowing the excess to ooze out to fill any gaps.
The two halves fit tightly. The lower insert…..not so much. That said the gaps here were minor and were eradicated with CA glue mixed with Mig Ammo Steel metallic pigment. To me the pigment seems to make the CA slightly easier to sand and also has the benefit of colouring the glue so you can see what you are sanding!
The fuselage was then mated to the lower wing assembly with some filler required to blend in the rear join. A result of the soft ICM plastic the wings are alarmingly flexible but adding the struts and top wing will hopefully add some rigidity.
ICM would have you rely on a small diameter plastic peg, inserted into a hole in the fuselage to hold the horizontal stabilisers in place. Given the soft plastic, this would likely end in tears so the pegs were cut off and a suitable diameter brass rod used to provide far more strength. Even more fortuitous is that the real Gladiator has a small gap here between the fuselage and stabiliser. While you have the brass rod out, the tailwheel strut can also be cut and replaced as this is another weak area of the model.
With this done, a complete airframe and top wing sat on my bench awaiting primer. Prior to priming, a No. 77 drill was used to open up all the rigging points as I intended to use EZ line for the rigging. Once all holes were drilled, the struts were cleaned up and attached in their respective positions.
Next up was the engine. Again, ICM have done an excellent job of portraying the Mercury engine. When completed it looks quite busy with its cowling support braces and cooler intake tubes. Quickboost do make one piece air cooler intake tubes that are slightly better detailed however I didn’t use them on my model as the kit ones looked fine to my eyes. The instructions here were slightly confusing, but eventually I worked out you have the option of building the cowling closed or open. If building the closed version, do not add the cylinder heads, parts D14 or exhaust pipe “plates parts D21 and D22.
In a perfect illustration of the pre planning that goes into all my models, it was now that I decided the model would look better rigged with the AIMS PE Bracing wire set rather than the EZ line. The reasoning being that the PE would better represent the flat RAF wires that were used on the real aeroplane. The set was promptly ordered from AIMS in Hungary. Post from Hungary to Australia takes about three weeks.
Painting and Finishing
While waiting for the PE bracing to arrive the model was painted. A primer coat of Mr Surfacer 1500 revealed a few seams, mainly around the lower fuselage insert. These were eventually dealt with, some which required multiple attempts!
The fixed tail surfaces and wheel hubs were then given several light coats of SMS red. This was then masked off and the remaining airframe, tail control surfaces and cowling got the Tamiya LP11 treatment with the model being rubbed down with fine 8000 grit sanding pads between coats.
Once the AIMS rigging arrived a careful perusal of the instructions revealed that AIMS wants you to remove the moulded inspection hatches from the wings so that they can be replaced with PE items. The idea being that the hatches are placed over half the hole drilled for the rigging to make a slot for the PE bracing wires.
Whilst the AIMS instructions provide clear photos of an actual Gladiator to assist you with placing the PE bracing wires, it would have been more useful to have been given precise measurements as to where to drill the holes to accept the wires. Of course, this meant that some of my previously drilled holes were in the wrong spot so these were carefully filled and redrilled all the time dodging previously installed struts.
In the end it all looked a bit messy, so the decision was made to strip the model using Mr Thinner and repaint. This took me back to where I was 3 weeks prior. I would complete far more models each year if I didn’t have to do so much twice or three times to each model!
On the other Gladiator build I had used a 1 Man Army mask set for the stencils and these had really impressed me sot they were put to work again. If you have not seen these sets, they are laser cut masks for not only the national markings, but also all the maintenance stencils. As the surrounding area needs to be taped off to prevent overspray, all these markings were sprayed prior to applying the decals as I did not want to be applying Tamiya tape over decals. SMS Super matt Black was used to spray all the stencils, and then the masks removed.
The decals are by Aerocraft Models. These performed very well, laying down with the aid of Microset and Microsol. However, (there’s always a however!) Aerocraft do not give you handed fuselage Sqn flashes.
Both flashes provided are for the port side fuselage. To apply the flash correctly to the starboard side and have the serial read correctly, the modeller will need to cut the serial from the flash and apply it separately so it is correctly orientated. If applied straight off the sheet without modification your serial on one side will be upside down and back to front.
The front of the stripe is also angled to follow the panel line there, and if not corrected, this will slope the wrong way also. Aerocraft helpfully supply some spare striping in both red and blue, and this was used to reverse the angle of the flash on that side.
A sealing coat of SMS flat varnish was then applied over the whole model. Once dry, panel lines were given a wash using Tamiya dark grey panel line accent with the excess being wiped off using white spirits. Removable panels were outlined with black wash.
I wanted something different from my usual weathered finishes so on this model I went with a cleaner finish.
The exhaust collector ring and exhaust pipes were painted in a mix of MRP Exhaust Colour and SMS Dark Bronze. If using the kit exhaust pipes, they will need their ends drilled out.
The Master Details machine gun barrels were first sprayed with Mr Metal Primer, followed by a coat of Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black with a final coat of Humbrol Gunmetal. This was then gently buffed for about 20 minutes which imparted a lovely metallic sheen.
Rigging
The rigging could now be attended to using the AIMS set. All started well with the crossed cabane wires and inboard wires working as advertised. Turning to the tail, despite drilling the holes as called out in the instructions, I just could not get the AIMS wires to fit. AIMS only provide measurements for the holes in the tailplanes. I really wish they had supplied all measurements.
Of course, a better modeller than me would probably have measured the wires against their respective positions before drilling. As a consequence, the interplane wires were far too short to span between the holes I had drilled so EZ line was used for the rigging. EZ Line was also used for the tailplanes. In all, only the cabane rigging was used from the AIMS set. Other people have used this set without drama, so the inability to get a good result using it was purely my doing.
Final Steps
On the final stretch the wheels were added. Then the model was given another coat of SMS Flat varnish, which dulled the silver nicely, making it look more like doped silver.
The clear parts were then unmasked and the gun barrels added.
The aerial wire on these early machines extended from the tail fin post to a point just behind the canopy where it then split into two wires reaching out to each wing. To portray this, first a length of EZ line was added stretching span wise across the wing. Next, another length was glued to the fin post with its other end intersecting the wing line. Tension was then taken up so that the wing line stretched into a V, meeting the fuselage wire at a point over the spine. A couple of turns around the wing wire were added and then a drop of Superglue was added to the fuselage wire to keep it all in place.
Finally, a length of monofilament thread was run from behind the cockpit up to meet the junction of all these wires. Small dabs of Vallejo matt varnish were brushed over the superglue to remove any shininess and the model was done.
Conclusion
I found the ICM Gladiator an enjoyable build, to the point this is the second one I have completed.
Only a minimum of aftermarket enhancements were added to enhance certain details. In my opinion there is enough detail out of the box to satisfy most modellers, what is there providing an excellent base for further detailing and refining if that’s your thing.
For me, the machine gun barrels, seat belts and instrument panel were “must have” refinements. To this I would add the Quickboost cockpit doors, exhaust pipes, and if doing a MKII, the carburettor intake as “seriously think about getting”.
The AIMS bracing wires did not work FOR ME, but I do think they would enhance the finished model nicely being the proper flat section wire.
Weak points (literally) of the model were the stabiliser and tailwheel mounting points due to the ICM soft plastic.
Gloster Gladiator Mk.I No.72 Sqn Royal Air Force Church Fenton. UK 1937
ICM released two boxings of the Gladiator. An initial Mk.I boxing followed by the Mk.II boxing a year later.
The MKII boxing being the one to get as it also contains all the MkI parts.
The kit is well moulded and comprises surprisingly few parts. This is the second ICM kit I have built, and they’ve both been very enjoyable build experiences, aided by good fit.
I was very much looking forward to starting this one too.
Construction Notes
Construction on this model started with the engine. No additions were used, it being built straight from the box. The completed engine looking quite busy to my eye. But spark plug leads could be added if desired, for a proper prototypical look. The join between the front collector ring and manifold should be filled, although this would be tricky to clean up, unless using a water based putty.
The breakdown of the cockpit gave me the initial impression ICM had greatly simplified it -true of every kit cockpit. But again upon completion and fitted, it looked suitably busy, especially if you enhance the Instrument panel with one of the 3d printed sets on the market, like Quinta, or as I used Yahu.
The throttle quadrant had two slots cut into it to accept the throttle and pitch control levers, and the rear of it was backed with some scrap card. The compass pedestal was replaced with the better detailed Quickboost item with the -in my case- out of register Yahu compass rose added to the face. The machine guns all had their barrels cut off, to be later replaced with brass barrels from Master Detail. The gunsight, part D19 also needs the reflector added from scrap clear plastic, a strange omission by ICM.
An example of how ICM have simplified the cockpit is Part C22, the rear shelf, which to be accurate should in fact, not be a shelf, but just the central beam. In the actual machine, you can see down into the fuselage either side. On the port side there is a TR9 radio , the face of which Yahu supplies in their set. Some photos show a rectangular box mounted to this frame that sits behind the pilots head. All this would be quite easy to replicate from scratch if the modeller so desired.
The very plain control stick really should be replaced with either a better detailed resin item, or detailed with sprue and scrap to better replicate the real thing. I just added a hand brake lever to mine, and left it at that
SMS British interior green was used, with a wash added from Modellers World ”wash for cockpit green.” Photos were conflicting on whether the cockpit was all green or green just above the sill with everything below silver. Mine was all grey green with a silver floor and seat. Once the prominent ejector pin mark in the seatback had been filled, seatbelts from HGW were added
With the cockpit added, the airframe built up fairly quickly, even with the added complication of cutting the flaps out and building up the AIMS PE flaps, which was achieved with some thin super glue applied with a bit of brass wire. The plastic flaps were cut from the kit wings with a thin PE saw after deepening the scribed lines so as to act as a guide for the saw.
Any gaps were filled with my super glue/metallic pigment mix. The underside insert needing a couple of passes before it was completely eradicated . There is no way those skinny little tailplane locating pegs are going to survive a knock, especially given ICMs soft plastic, so they were pinned to the fuselage with an old broken drill shank. The real machine having a gap between the tailplanes and fuselage. Whilst we have the brass rod out, the tail wheel should also have its locating peg replaced with the brass. This is another part that is prone to breakage, especially as ICM would have you fit it early in the construction process. All struts were left off until the painting was completed. Their fit to the wing is both positive and secure, so no problem adding them later. Same with the undercarriage, in hindsight, I wished I had of added it later as it made handling the model during the rigging process trickier. Whatever stage you add them, ensure you check the fit of the wheels to the axles. Mine were a little tight with the consequence that I broke an axle, which was sort of inevitable, given the soft plastic. The silver lining to this was it was repaired with a bit of brass wire that greatly increased its strength and also removed the flex from the plastic.
Painting and decaling
It took a great deal of studying photographs to decide on a scheme. The decision was complicated by the fact I wanted chosen scheme to feature black and white undersides , underwing roundels, early war type roundels and the four colour counter shaded scheme. If you think this would be an easy ask, think again! Early war Gladiators featured a multitude of schemes, sometimes, even in the same SQN. The Munich crisis roundels really appealed to me, but these aircraft were mostly silver undersides with no roundels. Eventually the 615 Sqn machine was picked, and to my joy, upon opening the 1 man Army mask set, roundels and codes for this very machine were included, saving me some Silhouette design time.
Painting started with the white half of the undersides using MRP white. The areas between the ribs were then sprayed with SMS German Cream and MRP Insignia white for some tone differences. The black half was base coated with SMS Camouflage black (my favourite black incidentally) and then the areas between the ribs were sprayed Tamiya rubber black. This was then masked off and a 50:50 mix of Gunze dark earth and MRP middle stone to represent the light earth was then sprayed on the top surfaces of the wings and lower fuselage. Tamiya RAF Green type 2 was mixed with a “smidge” of SMS Yellow for the light green. For painting the flying surfaces, TopNotch masks were used for the pattern, however the masks for the fuselage did not match the camouflage pattern of this particular aircraft , so blu tac sausages were used to mask the camouflage pattern.
These machines had gone over to France camouflaged in the standard DE/DG camouflage in 1939, Whilst there, the newly developed counter shade scheme was applied, possibly around early 1940. I imagine it would not have been the neatest job, due the RAF having no large maintenance facilities in France. In any case Gladiators in France did not last too long, the SQN being re equipped with Hurricanes soon after.
The Dark Earth and Dark Green were Gunze colours subtly shaded with some lightened and darkened mixes.
There is no definitive proof what colours the wheel covers actually were. Both red and green being called out by various profiles and kit manufacturers. I went with green.. The white outline though is very clear from period photos.
MRP Medium sea grey was used for the codes, the roundel colours are tamiya Royal Blue and SMS red, the red at this stage of the war being the bright red.
Rigging
This was by far the most frustrating part of the build. Contrary to all those modelling articles stating how easy EZ line is to use. “Just add a drop of super glue into your pre drilled hole and the line pulls taut” my experience was anything but the simple, relaxing task all these articles and youtube videos make rigging out to be!.
First off, the CA, despite being a new bottle would not stick, not sure if it was the humidity, but you’d think that would help set it. This was after 10 interminable minutes first trying to get the EZ line to into my drilled hole! It seems if the EZ line even sniffs the presence of CA, it curls up, refusing to be poked into the hole. Poking the line into the unglued hole was easy enough, but then getting the CA glue onto your brass wire applicator and then apply it accurately into the hole. You need another two hands!
EZ line was used as I wanted to replicate the flat RAF wires, despite my best efforts, there are some twists in my rigging lines, and by this stage I’d lost all patience in going back and removing the twists. Anyway, for what its worth my method was to attach the various lengths of line into No.80 holes drilled into the top wing, which at this stage has not been attached to the model, ensuring that they would be aligned so as to give the flat effect of the real rigging.
The top wing was then attached and the lines cut to slightly shorter than the required length and fed into the pre drilled holes in the lower wing. This is where it all started to get pear shaped. Anyway, I persisted until all wires were added.
The eagle eyed most you will spot a gas patch white metal RAF terminal used on the lower wing to see how this looked. This was the only one used as I found it too hard trying to line up the others to the exact angle needed, the metal not being malleable at all. Finally it was all painted Vallejo steel. and the model just needed the canopies unmasking and she was done.
Well not quite done as I needed to add the antenna post as ICM don’t include one. Probably a blessing as any part supplied would probably not stand up to the pull of the EZ line that was used for the antenna wire. A mast was formed out of brass wire and glued to the starboard wing, not centrally as ICM show on their box art
CONCLUSION
I really enjoyed this build, so much so that I started the MkI that was still in the stash which was initially going to go on the for sale pile. ICM have done a lovely job on this model and delivered it in a scale which does the real aeroplane justice. There are some annoyances, the soft plastic being the main one as it really requires the modeller to replace the tailwheel and stabiliser mounts which otherwise are far too weak and prone to breakage. Other than that, I found the rigging very frustrating, but thats on me! Lots more practise needed before tackling all those Wingnut Wings kits in the stash, me thinks!
Gloster Gladiator MkII 615 SQN RAF St. Inglevert. France 1940
Another project (and Spitfire) started on nothing but an impulse. That impulse came in the form of fellow modeller Andy King publishing a post on his blog on how he was tackling converting the above two kits to arrive at an early Spitfire MkXIV,
His clear photos and narrative indicated what seemed a fairly straight forward conversion, one possibly even I could handle despite my inability to constantly cut straight lines.
A mate very graciously sent me the required Airfix kits, those being the Spitfire MkVb and XIV. Thanks Norm!
First order of (de) construction was too cut the kits along the required panel line as indicated in Andy’s article, although I deviated from Andy in just cutting straight through the rear access hatch rather than cutting around it to make the cut easier. Take particular care around the fin fillet of the XIV. Once cut, I traced the fillet onto the Vb fuselage halves with a pencil so I had an accurate edge to cut to.
It was then a simple matter of joining the spine from the Vb kit to the lower fuselage of the XIV.
This had been the deciding moment. If this had not worked, the project probably would have been binned, but I was very happy with the result.
A tape together showed everything that needed to match up did
From here it was just a matter of assembling the spitfire as per the XIV instructions. The fuselage join did require some filler and subsequent rescribing of the lost panel line with that troublesome little jig just aft of the canopy. My work here was not great and I wish i had of had the patience to persist with it until I was truly happy with the result rather than settling for just “good enough”
If I could offer one bit of advice to modellers on the oft asked question of “How can I improve ?” it would be to persist until you are happy with your efforts rather than just accepting mediocrity. If only I took my own advice more often!
For the cockpit, the rear bulkhead from the Vb was married to the sidewalls of the XIV cockpit, and the fit of the fixed rear clear section from the Vb checked for fit. All good
What wasn’t so good though was when it came time to offer the lower wing section up to the fuselage, I could not get to mate to the wing fillets as it was fouling on the rear of the cockpit tub. Talking to Andy, he’d faced the same problem although in his case it was possibly due to him using the Eduard cockpit.
A long process of elimination and trouble shooting revealed the Vb bulkhead was not sitting as deep into the tub as it could. Remedying this sorted the problem and i got the lower wing fitted without further problem, and before you say “Bruce, that photo does not look like the fit is problem free,” the clamps are actually ensuring the underwing radiators sit flush with their cutouts. They mating surfaces do require some judicious sanding to ensure their fillets sit flush with the wing.
The top surfaces were then added for a nice tight fit. There was a small misalignment on the cannon stubs, but a skinny sanding stick paid short shift to that!
Painting time!
Annoyingly I had small flecks of paint pull up with tape all through the painting stage, no idea why as I had cleaned the plastic prior to painting with tamiya thinner X20A, and also used a primer. Nothing major, until I went to swab up some surplus Mig Ultra decal solvent with a cotton bud and removed not only the decal solvent, but also the clear finish and paint down to the plastic.
I have never had this happen before. It was easily touched up, although you can still see the scar. Also evident in the above pic are my dodgy scribing skills.
The camouflage demarcation was achieved by using the AML camouflage mask set. Its designed for the Academy kit, but still fits the airfix kit nicely. I managed to create a few ridge lines though with over judicious coats of paint.
Weathering was achieved with oil washes and spattering on Tamiya brown panel liner to represent spaces of mud kicked up by the propeller. Just needed to add the exhaust pipes and the mirror that came from a quick boost set and she was done
There exhausts were base coated in dark iron, then washed progressively with tamiya dark brown panel liner, Vallejo pale german camouflage brown and finally Vallejo white grey.
Im very happy to have this mark of Spitfire in the cabinet. A shout out to Andy King for doing the conversion as I never would have thought of it. Do check out his blog. He has always got something interesting on his bench.
Bruce’s-Scale-Models 
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