AJohnson

Evening gang, I've been grappling with this little kit a bit and nearly decided to give it a miss as the quality of the moulding and thickness of many of the parts, trench-like panel lines and pock-marked sink holes everywhere offended my sensibilities! Then I told myself to not be so "precious" and just stick it together! and remember that the eight year old me would have been ecstatic at the mount of detail this kit has compared the Airfix Harrier GR1/Kestrel of the 1960/70s... 😁 - So onwards! That been said I'm not going to be buying any aftermarket bits for this kit, as it doesn't warrant it, just do what I can with some scratch built bits and pieces. I know there are plenty of resin Martin Baker Mk.10 seats and cockpit tubs out there, but as the whole cockpit opening is less then 10mm long, I don't think much would be seen without illuminated magnification anyway. Beside the aftermarket stuff would cost way more than the kit did! So out of the spare box has come some PE. bits, thin wire and plastic rod to pimp up the cockpit area and ejection seat a bit. Pictures are before I painted any of it, also added the front fan, again a bit crude but it will be hidden deep within that gaping inlet area fortunately.

Intrigued with what these are for! 🤔

A trip on the Steam Trains a definite, I work in the Railway industry for my sins and volunteer on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway for renovation works at Levisham station 🚂. We love north Norfolk, plenty of old bomber bases to visit, “Rescue wooden boats” near Stiffkey, “Lucy Lavers” at Wells, Cromer, not to mention Nelson’s birth place, just love it. 😁 The “Card side” is strong in you, I am afraid Darth @ccoyle has you in his grasp now! 🤣

Hi Edward, just to let you know I'm off with the family to Sheringham for a short holiday in a week. I shall pay a visit to the West slipway for a look! 😁 How's this build going, or you still hooked on card models? 🤣

Got to disagree Brian, I for one think you are doing great work! 👏. For the capping piece to the transom have a look at @Moonbug build log of his HMS Pegasus, he added a fine capping strip in his which really nicely finished it off.

👻 spooky! I have been looking at these Eduard F2.Bs only this last week as a future project as I was fancying a biplane for a change. Pulling up a chez lounge, as you wanted us to be at home!

I know the one! I built one also as part of a “group build” when in the Air Cadets as a kid. We mocked up HMS Hermes on a table top and added our Harrier builds. - Happy days 😄

Evening all, Last of the plastic aircraft builds I want to finish up before I go back in to the "Boat" yard! ⛵ I did a search and this fine build by @Old Collingwood is the only other Sea harrier I can find here. But this is only a tiddler at 1/72 so it won't be as complicated a build and I am doing it out of the box without "bought-in" additions. I intend to do it as FRS1 - XZ451; one of the kit options. This aircraft was delivered in 1979 and initially served in 700A flight (see second picture, this is how I intend to finish the model), before being transferred to 899 NAS in 1981 sporting codes "100" & "VL". It took part in the Falklands War and was transferred to 801 NAS onboard HMS Invincible. During the conflict it shot down a C-130H Hercules, this has caused some controversy in some quarters since as Commander Nigel "Sharkey" Ward expended two AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles and 240 rounds of 30mm cannon fire into it to bring it down. ZX451 itself came to grief in 1989 after mechanical failures and crashed into the Mediterranean sea off Sardinia (pilot ejected). Hope this log of interest to some of you.

Looking very tidy Mike, good tip to watch out for the backstays when I eventually get around to my “Snake”

I did a quick search to see if there were any Harriers lurking on MSW and I might have known there would be one by you @Old Collingwood! 😁 and lovely build it was I have a 1/72 Airfix FRS1 to finish up, next non-ship build log from me.

Thank you @Old Collingwood, @king derelict, @Edwardkenway, @Canute & @CDW for your kind words! Yes, it is interesting to compare a Lancaster & Mosquito for size and to think they both could carry the 4,000lb "Cookie"! Okay so not the 8,000lb "Cookie", or 12,000lb "Tallboy", or 22,000lb "Grand Slam", but you get the idea, for the "Light Bomber" category the Mossie was THE benchmark for speed, range and payload. I can only finish off by quoting a Nazi! (😲 - I know, not expecting that were you, but it is the finest compliment to the "Wooden Wonder" I know of...) “In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I’m going to buy a British radio set – then at least I’ll own something that has always worked." – Hermann Göring, 1943

Hello all , here are the final pictures of the Mosquito, including a few with a Lancaster I did a while ago. ("Pathfinder" for the heavy!) Thanks all for following along. One more kit to finish up and I'm back on the boats for a while.

Hi Edward, For a fuzzy edge, as I don’t have the requisite airbrush skills, I would still mask, but lift the paper mask off the surface by use of small blobs of blu-tac to allow some under spray. You’d have to experiment a little to find the height of mask you need for a given “fuzz”. Is this kit the the old Matchbox one, rebranded? nice work!

Yes agreed, the Green/Grey is very muted, almost "Coldwar" modern in look. Colourcoats do put a lot of research into their paints (many warship ones also.) So, fairly confident I'm in safe hands on that score; initially I thought the Grey looked too "blue", but it looks close to the few colour photos I have seen. Green/Brown is also my favourite, I'll post up some pictures of this one next to my "Phantom of the Rhur" Lanc. I did a couple of years ago when finished.

Now that is wonderful, lovely scene, very atmospheric. 👏

Last update I think before the big reveal. Enamel "Bomber black" from Colourcoats applied, it has a semi-satin type finish which is fine as the next job is a gloss coat for the decals. So after the gloss coat, all that is needed are the decals, adding the undercarriage and bomb bay doors and finally the props. I will do some weathering, mostly the "chalky" looking staining from the exhausts on the black, perhaps highlight a few panels lines around the engines, but not much more. Certainly no need to add "metal" chips to this one! 😁 (well perhaps the odd one on the metal engine cowls / radiator panels....) Then a final flat coat. Not sure, I think I prefer the "look" of a Mosquito in Daylight camouflage, the black disguises her lines a bit - shock! - do you think that was the purpose for black night bombers? 🤔 😂 Thanks all again for the interest, feedback and comments on this build, who knew - one of the best "aircraft" forums is on "Model SHIP World"! 👍

Well Brian did say it was a Secret! 🤣

As an aside the factory picture of the Lancasters also shows they were “freehand” painted, each is slightly different than the other, so just shows research if your friend if you are after a particular aircraft to model. You can tell these are later mark Lancaster as there are no small oval fuselage windows. So maybe by the time these ones were being built the “mask to spray” or even “mask to chalk line” the airframe were not used at least in this factory. But given the average lifespan of a Lancaster was about 20 missions, it is a wonder they got a lick of paint at all!

Yep we are definitely on the same page, certainly no offence dear MSW friends - you should see some other forums get hot and bothered over fuzzy v hard camouflage lines! 🤣

Here is a picture of some clearly spray-painted Lancasters in the factory, you can just make out the "fuzz", but try that at 1/72 and it will be very hard to see as Javlin says. All down to research on a particular A/C. or personal preference, after all these are our models, me personally I don't like "fuzz" on my clothes or my models! 🙂

Hi Javlin Thanks & @Egilman & @Canute for the kind words. Regarding the "fuzzy" v "hard" demarcation of the camouflage, I discussed this in my Beaufort build not long ago. Yes scale has a great deal to do with it, but also (with the caveat there was huge variation) the full-size aircraft were also sometimes painted in this manner with masks. So unless doing something 1/24 scale and bigger, or modelling something that actually was sprayed with a large "fuzzy" width in real life, some form of masking on model camo. is the only option really. Besides this is all academic really, as my "freehand" airbrushing is not up to doing anything without a mask"! 😆 The black underbelly will be done today, more updates soon! Thanks all.

Painting update, but first a school-boy error to confess! 🤭 Whilst going over the kit and doing last minute polishing and filing around the canopy frame with thin putty I noticed I had glued the horizontal stabilisers on upside down! 🤣 Not too bad to fix, they are almost identical surfaces but for two circular access panels that should have been underneath and two rectangular raised ones that needed to be on top. So needed to fill one pair and made the other pair with thin plastic card, there nothing to see move along.... 😉 Painting was fairly straight forward, Colourcoats Enamels doing the trick again without drama. This all needs to harden off for a day, so I can mask it all for the bomber black coat. Until next time! 👋

Hey Brian, good to hear you can still do something on the "Granado" as well as your "secret" vessel, I'm following both! 😁

Very nice OC and I hope the "Admiral" continues to recover.

Well we are about ready for painting, undercoat done, final inspection, fine rubbing down and the addition of tail aerial to do; I would be happier leaving that off until the end, but the way the part fixes to the tail fin means it might spoil the paint finish, so I will have to be careful! 😬 The hardest part of the build has actually been the canopy. It has alternate parts for the side window panels, so you can have the "blown/bulged" B.XVI versions or the "blister" alternative - similar to the ones on the Lancaster's canopy. (This indicates for those who might be interested, Airfix might be intending to do another version of the Mossie, probably a Photo recon. bird, which might interest US members as a few USAF units used the Mosquito in that role.) Anyways these little side panels have been an absolute B@&^%£! to fit satisfactorily. 🙄 Being safe I used canopy glue to avoid fogging, but this would just not pull together the main canopy to these small panels and keep their shape and twice the assembly sprung apart. (I think the main canopy is slightly bent upwards away from the seating on the fuselage.) So with a deep breath, plenty of magnification and lighting I fixed them with medium C-A used very carefully with an applicator tip. Blowing on the parts like an asthmatic 🌬️to keep the air moving to avoid the dreaded fogging. Upshot I think it is all still clear, though I will probably find later my masking hasn't worked and I now have a green canopy! 😂 Next update Cammo time! 😁 thanks for looking in and the likes. 👍