realworkingsailor

It doesn’t look like it, they have a web storefront in $US through their parent company (Hornby Hobbies), the only customer support I found was just helpful tips and suggestions, as well as the usual returns information. The technical support and spares is all in their UK “Airfix” storefront. I suspect if you dug around on the “US” website, you’d just end up there anyway. 
 
Andy


 
 

Thanks Mike!
 
Yeah, it’s really nice that Airfix does stand behind their products. Gives me confidence in buying their products in the future.

I can now stop staring at the mailbox hoping that maybe something might show up, and start staring at the mailbox knowing that maybe something might show up! 🤪
 
Andy

A minor setback, and a lesson learned.
 
Yesterday afternoon I was all ready to begin applying the decals and lettering. My intention was to first start with the sky coloured band at the tail. Well, I was not at all happy with the kit supplied decal, firstly because it had to be cut free from the invasion stripes portion, and secondly, because it simply refused to wrap neatly around the tail. It was like playing wrinkle whack-a-mole. There was no amount of setting solution that would ever make that decal comply with the instructions is was being given. So rather than get overly frustrated I decided to go with plan "B": mask off the area and paint it. Properly.
 

 
And boy, am I glad I went that route. Lesson learned, don't waste time with large stripe decals if you have the option to paint instead. This also reinforced my earlier decision to paint the invasion stripes.
 
One thing I've found with Cartograf decals, while their printing is nice, the decal film can vary in thickness considerably. On my Wellington build, the decal film was thicker, so the decals were fairly robust, and didn't distort when applied. The film for the decals supplied with my Typhoon kit is considerably thinner. This isn't normal a problem for smaller decals, but for larger ones this can be a problem, as the decals will be easier to tear or distort or some miserable combination of the two. The supplied decals for my Hurricane build also had very thin film (hence the issue with the registration number balling up into a mess). For my Defiant build, the film thickness was somewhere in the middle, not as thick as the Wellington decals, but slightly thicker than for the Hurricane, or Typhoon. 
 
I should add that since my little detour, I've resumed applying the lettering and have not run into any further issues or, at least, I'm ready for any issues that my crop up and I can plan ahead for dealing with them. 
 
Andy

As always, thanks everyone!
 
No point getting too verbose about the next stages, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves:
 

 

 

 

 

 
Big sigh of relief, everything went according to plan. Just a couple of very minor touch up spots. This is probably one of the more complicated paint jobs I've done (on account of the invasion stripes), but I wouldn't hesitate to do it this way again.
 
Andy

Thanks everyone!
 
Mike  (@Landlubber Mike), Thanks! I agree in many cases painting is the way to go, especially for invasion stripes.
 
Speaking of which, they really pop after the grey underside has been painted:
 

 
Really pleased with how things have turned out so far. Hopefully that continues. After masking the undersides, the blue-grey has been added:
 

 

 
The photos don't really show it well, but it is the lighter blue-grey that everyone chose. Once the paint has had the chance to fully dry, it will be time to start making the skinny little poster-putty worms for masking off the camouflage scheme. Then there will be a lot of breath holding, and finger crossing that it all works out and I'm not left with a mess. 
 
Andy
 
 

I have to continue to express my profound gratitude for the continued kind comments and "likes", you guys are the greatest!
 
I figured things would begin to speed up, and I don't think I was too far off!
 

 
First up came the seatbelts. Some minor surgery was required on the right hand side of the seat (left in the above photo). Airfix has a cast on lever on that side of the seat, and by carefully inserting a sharp chisel blade I was able to cut it free from the seat. The important thing is to leave the detail intact, so a lot of care was needed. By cutting this slot, this then allows the lap belt to be properly anchored on the side of the seat, with the lever passing over top. I know these particular seatbelts are not 100% accurate for a Typhoon, but for me (and any casual observer with a magnifying glass) they're close enough.
 

 
After the seatbelts were attached to the seat, the seat could then be mounted in the cockpit. Overall I think the aftermarket made for a nice little upgrade, at a relatively cost effective price point. With these details, I am seriously giving consideration to having the canopy open, I think it would be a disservice to hide all my "hard" work! 
 
*Eagle eyed viewers may notice the bandage on my left index finger. This is due to an unrelated bread slicing incident last evening, and not the result of any lapse of due care and attention in the employment of my hobby knife. Incidentally, if you're slicing some crusty bread, make sure you have a good grip to prevent the serrated bread knife from grabbing and rolling the loaf and dragging your finger into its path. Oh yeah, and keep your fingers further away from the knife next time too.....🙄
 

 
Once the glue for the seat had set, the fuselage halves are then mated, and glued, and taped together. There's a few extra bits and pieces to navigate around to get the halves to join up, but with a little care, things came together nicely.
 

 
The rudder and tail fins were next to go on. Nothing really remarkable. Just be aware that, as far as details go, the tail fins are not symmetrical, make sure the correct one goes on it's proper side. I think I did a quadruple double check on that before I applied any glue. I'm pretty sure I got it right... I think...
 

 
The lower half of the wing was next. This was a multi step process to get them glued into place. Tape was used to hold things in place temporarily until the glue set.
 

 

 
For today's finale, the upper wings were also attached. The kit does make provision for the gun bays to be left open, but I decided on mine to keep them closed. A personal decision, mostly because, for me, I felt it complicated the painting and lettering process.
 
The next steps are hardly worth documenting; there's a few areas where some filler and some sanding is require. Nothing too major, the worst spots are the chin fairing under the radiator, followed by the forward joint of the lower wing (just aft of the radiator outlet). This shouldn't take too long and painting will happen soon.
 
Andy
 
 
 
 

Thanks again, everyone for all your valued contributions, both with this build and the discussion about a future build! There was a little good news in the mail yesterday, the PE bits I'd ordered arrived! Yay! Still waiting on the replacement parts from Airfix, but I can start building finally!.
 
First up, the goodies:
 

 
The replacement instrument panel looks pretty good. The gauges are very nicely printed on the PE, almost legible! I also picked up some PE seatbelts. I know they're not 100% correct for the Typhoon (or Tempest), but they're close enough that some minor fiddling will suffice. The price was right, so I figured "why not?". 
 

 
The PE has been attached to the Airfix part. I had painted the moulded knobs on the lower "legs" previously. It looks sooo much better than the kit supplied decal. For $5, even if it's going to be hard to see, it's a worthy investment.
 

 
There is, of course, the issue of the PE increasing the thickness of the original part. I figure there are two options to deal with that. 1) thin the original part of compensate for the added thickness, or 2) skive off some more space in the fuselage halves. As you can see, I've opted for the second option. The shape of the panel is rather complicated. It's curved vertically, as well as having a raised centre section. Thinning the back may have caused issues with fitting the compass/gunsight casting. Some careful work with a sharp blade and sanding sticks and I soon had everything fitting together cleanly. Had it been a straight forward instrument panel, as in my Hurricane or Defiant, it would have been much easier to thin down the panel. The paint was subsequently restored and the panel fitted to the first fuselage half.
 

 
I then decided to fit the cockpit floor/radiator/wheel well piece next. I'm waiting for the paint to dry on the seatbelts, so installing the seat had to wait. I think this also makes things easier as you don't have to risk snapping off the control stick. 
 
As I mentioned earlier, I'm replacing the kit supplied munitions with some aftermarket castings from Eduard.
 

 
You can see the difference clearly, between the kit part and the casting. Going the aftermarket route also required some changes to the underwing mounts, as you can see above, the mounting lugs are in slightly different places.
 

 
After glueing the fairings to the underside of the wing, I used some scrap styrene to fill the mounting holes. The styrene was then cut and sanded to shape, and a little filler was used to smooth everything out. 
 

 
New holes were drilled to match the replacement munitions, and after the above photo was taken, a quick shot of primer was applied to confirm everything looked good. 
 
It's nice to be constructively moving forward with this build (for now). And it's probably nicer for everyone following not to be bombarded by endless pictures of paint chips (😁). Once the seatbelts are dry and the seat installed, construction should move quickly. I expect I'll have something that looks more or less like an airplane by the next update.
 
Andy
 
 
 

Andy
One of my favorite modelers to watch and learn from is a guy named Greg, from the UK (Gregs Models on YouTube). Many times, I have watched him scan/copy his decal sheets then print a black and white copy which he uses to cut his own masking to paint his markings instead of using decals. His finished work is always superb. I believe you are right on the money about painting vs decals particularly when it comes to large stripes but it's also true of national insignias and ID numbers. often the national marking decals are not colored properly and need correction. 
I love the results you got painting on your stripes.

And if you would indulge me...I forgot that I should test the fit of the transom carvings as well.   There were so many angles to hopefully get correct when developing them.   Doing the transom as one piece was the only way to do it for Speedwell as the carvings are so intertwined.   I was really nervous how everything would fit as it was very expensive to develop these.  But I am relieved to say that the master fits perfectly.  That is such a relief.  I was so stressed about that.  The curved transom as developed sits perfectly in place.  No bending needed.  The shape above the windows and their position also match really well.   
 


 

A minor setback, and a lesson learned.
 
Yesterday afternoon I was all ready to begin applying the decals and lettering. My intention was to first start with the sky coloured band at the tail. Well, I was not at all happy with the kit supplied decal, firstly because it had to be cut free from the invasion stripes portion, and secondly, because it simply refused to wrap neatly around the tail. It was like playing wrinkle whack-a-mole. There was no amount of setting solution that would ever make that decal comply with the instructions is was being given. So rather than get overly frustrated I decided to go with plan "B": mask off the area and paint it. Properly.
 

 
And boy, am I glad I went that route. Lesson learned, don't waste time with large stripe decals if you have the option to paint instead. This also reinforced my earlier decision to paint the invasion stripes.
 
One thing I've found with Cartograf decals, while their printing is nice, the decal film can vary in thickness considerably. On my Wellington build, the decal film was thicker, so the decals were fairly robust, and didn't distort when applied. The film for the decals supplied with my Typhoon kit is considerably thinner. This isn't normal a problem for smaller decals, but for larger ones this can be a problem, as the decals will be easier to tear or distort or some miserable combination of the two. The supplied decals for my Hurricane build also had very thin film (hence the issue with the registration number balling up into a mess). For my Defiant build, the film thickness was somewhere in the middle, not as thick as the Wellington decals, but slightly thicker than for the Hurricane, or Typhoon. 
 
I should add that since my little detour, I've resumed applying the lettering and have not run into any further issues or, at least, I'm ready for any issues that my crop up and I can plan ahead for dealing with them. 
 
Andy

A minor setback, and a lesson learned.
 
Yesterday afternoon I was all ready to begin applying the decals and lettering. My intention was to first start with the sky coloured band at the tail. Well, I was not at all happy with the kit supplied decal, firstly because it had to be cut free from the invasion stripes portion, and secondly, because it simply refused to wrap neatly around the tail. It was like playing wrinkle whack-a-mole. There was no amount of setting solution that would ever make that decal comply with the instructions is was being given. So rather than get overly frustrated I decided to go with plan "B": mask off the area and paint it. Properly.
 

 
And boy, am I glad I went that route. Lesson learned, don't waste time with large stripe decals if you have the option to paint instead. This also reinforced my earlier decision to paint the invasion stripes.
 
One thing I've found with Cartograf decals, while their printing is nice, the decal film can vary in thickness considerably. On my Wellington build, the decal film was thicker, so the decals were fairly robust, and didn't distort when applied. The film for the decals supplied with my Typhoon kit is considerably thinner. This isn't normal a problem for smaller decals, but for larger ones this can be a problem, as the decals will be easier to tear or distort or some miserable combination of the two. The supplied decals for my Hurricane build also had very thin film (hence the issue with the registration number balling up into a mess). For my Defiant build, the film thickness was somewhere in the middle, not as thick as the Wellington decals, but slightly thicker than for the Hurricane, or Typhoon. 
 
I should add that since my little detour, I've resumed applying the lettering and have not run into any further issues or, at least, I'm ready for any issues that my crop up and I can plan ahead for dealing with them. 
 
Andy

If I may, one of my other hobbies is collecting brass model locomotives, so I may be able to provide some insight. Pretty much all brass model trains available are hand assembled, even commercially made ones. Generally the production runs are very small (a few hundred units of a given type), so the industry does not lend itself to expensive tooling and mechanization. The only fundamental difference between a brass locomotive kit (or scratch build), and a "factory" assembled model is the box it comes in.
 

 
Pretty much all of the solder joints are located in areas that are largely invisible, so that a causal observer wouldn't see them. (There is a little tarnish and staining on this model as its previous owner suffered a house fire and the model was subject to the liberal application of water that fire departments are rightfully well known for), it's otherwise in good mechanical condition. The model was built by Samhongsa in Korea and imported by Van Hobbies (who had a working relationship with Pacific Fast Mail).
 

 
After removing the three screws that hold the shell to the frame, you can see the underside, and interior is quite mottled with solder joints.
 

 
Adding to an earlier post about soldering multiple details, in most brass train models, multiple different solders are used with different melt temperatures. Starting with the highest temperature solder and working down to the lowest (although it's worth noting that in the above model, none of the solder will melt with your typical OTC hardware store soldering iron. To perform any repairs, generally a resistance soldering iron is needed, at the very least.
 
Andy
 

And the base coat done. I’m not sure if the colours are exact but Meh!

If I may, one of my other hobbies is collecting brass model locomotives, so I may be able to provide some insight. Pretty much all brass model trains available are hand assembled, even commercially made ones. Generally the production runs are very small (a few hundred units of a given type), so the industry does not lend itself to expensive tooling and mechanization. The only fundamental difference between a brass locomotive kit (or scratch build), and a "factory" assembled model is the box it comes in.
 

 
Pretty much all of the solder joints are located in areas that are largely invisible, so that a causal observer wouldn't see them. (There is a little tarnish and staining on this model as its previous owner suffered a house fire and the model was subject to the liberal application of water that fire departments are rightfully well known for), it's otherwise in good mechanical condition. The model was built by Samhongsa in Korea and imported by Van Hobbies (who had a working relationship with Pacific Fast Mail).
 

 
After removing the three screws that hold the shell to the frame, you can see the underside, and interior is quite mottled with solder joints.
 

 
Adding to an earlier post about soldering multiple details, in most brass train models, multiple different solders are used with different melt temperatures. Starting with the highest temperature solder and working down to the lowest (although it's worth noting that in the above model, none of the solder will melt with your typical OTC hardware store soldering iron. To perform any repairs, generally a resistance soldering iron is needed, at the very least.
 
Andy
 

It doesn’t look like it, they have a web storefront in $US through their parent company (Hornby Hobbies), the only customer support I found was just helpful tips and suggestions, as well as the usual returns information. The technical support and spares is all in their UK “Airfix” storefront. I suspect if you dug around on the “US” website, you’d just end up there anyway. 
 
Andy


 
 

Thanks Mike!
 
Yeah, it’s really nice that Airfix does stand behind their products. Gives me confidence in buying their products in the future.

I can now stop staring at the mailbox hoping that maybe something might show up, and start staring at the mailbox knowing that maybe something might show up! 🤪
 
Andy

It doesn’t look like it, they have a web storefront in $US through their parent company (Hornby Hobbies), the only customer support I found was just helpful tips and suggestions, as well as the usual returns information. The technical support and spares is all in their UK “Airfix” storefront. I suspect if you dug around on the “US” website, you’d just end up there anyway. 
 
Andy


 
 

Thanks Mike!
 
Yeah, it’s really nice that Airfix does stand behind their products. Gives me confidence in buying their products in the future.

I can now stop staring at the mailbox hoping that maybe something might show up, and start staring at the mailbox knowing that maybe something might show up! 🤪
 
Andy

Nobody is getting rich selling this stuff unfortunately...but its a living!!!
 
Beats sitting behind a desk though....I prefer sitting in front of a workbench,  LOL.
 
So the quarter pieces are not that easy Greg!!!  Ok yes they are...
 
Basically there are two really not so hard things you must do to this piece before you glue it on the model.
 
First....sand a bevel onto the inboard side.   Not the outboard side with the laser etched reference lines.....the inboard side.   If you bevel the outboard side side the piece will be ruined.
 

Then step 2.....on the outboard side you have to bevel a few parts.   The two tabs that sit against the last aft cant frame.   And then the aft side of the piece.   As shown below.
 

 
Also note the reference marks for your fixed block and where the other aft cant frames will fall along the bottom edge.
 
Then glue it on...thats it.   The two tabs are flush with the outboard face of the cant frames.  This means you will need to fair the outboard side of the hull before you add these.  It wont work if you dont.  At least not as well.
 
Here are photos of both quarter pieces on the model.  They have been faired on the outboard side as well although not completely.   I will wait for those last few aft cant frames.
 

 

 
And I couldnt resist just test fitting the transom piece.  We wont need this for a while but if my design skills and concept didnt work for the hull framing and this didnt fit....then it would be firewood.   But lucky me it fit just perfectly.   The hull has ended up the perfect width and shape.
 
I can finish up the framing with confidence.  
 

It doesn’t look like it, they have a web storefront in $US through their parent company (Hornby Hobbies), the only customer support I found was just helpful tips and suggestions, as well as the usual returns information. The technical support and spares is all in their UK “Airfix” storefront. I suspect if you dug around on the “US” website, you’d just end up there anyway. 
 
Andy


 
 

It doesn’t look like it, they have a web storefront in $US through their parent company (Hornby Hobbies), the only customer support I found was just helpful tips and suggestions, as well as the usual returns information. The technical support and spares is all in their UK “Airfix” storefront. I suspect if you dug around on the “US” website, you’d just end up there anyway. 
 
Andy


 
 

Thanks Mike!
 
Yeah, it’s really nice that Airfix does stand behind their products. Gives me confidence in buying their products in the future.

I can now stop staring at the mailbox hoping that maybe something might show up, and start staring at the mailbox knowing that maybe something might show up! 🤪
 
Andy

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it!
 
@Egilman I wouldn’t claim to be a master yet, but given how inexpensive a package of poster putty is (and how far it goes), I can afford a little error in my trials. 
 
Well, I received some good news this morning, Airfix has shipped out the replacement landing gear parts. Yay! 
 
Andy
 

It doesn’t look like it, they have a web storefront in $US through their parent company (Hornby Hobbies), the only customer support I found was just helpful tips and suggestions, as well as the usual returns information. The technical support and spares is all in their UK “Airfix” storefront. I suspect if you dug around on the “US” website, you’d just end up there anyway. 
 
Andy


 
 

Thanks Mike!
 
Yeah, it’s really nice that Airfix does stand behind their products. Gives me confidence in buying their products in the future.

I can now stop staring at the mailbox hoping that maybe something might show up, and start staring at the mailbox knowing that maybe something might show up! 🤪
 
Andy