Hawker Hurricane Mk 1 by Realworkingsailor - FINISHED - Airfix - 1/72

[realworkingsailor]

Happy New Year Everybody!

 

OK, so I couldn't wait any longer. Especially since the paint I had ordered, mostly to finish my Wellington, arrived yesterday. For some reason the post office was being extra efficient. Never would have thought they'd deliver on a weekend, but I'm not complaining!

 

For those not following along with my other airplane build, I picked up this little kit back in the beginning of December. 

 

 

 

The kit depicts an early Mk 1 Hawker Hurricane that was deployed to France in the spring of 1939. For a more complete history of the aircraft type, click here. The kit has the fabric wings, two bladed propellor and lacks the armour plating behind the pilot, that are the hallmarks of this sub-variant. It does, however, feature the spin recovery strake that was fitted at the bottom of the tail. This modification was made early in Hurricane production as spin recovery proved to be an issue with the aircraft as designed. Conveniently, Airfix provides plenty of extra parts in the kit, like the later three bladed propellor as well as the cockpit armour plating etc. Although I intend to build this kit mostly out of the box, I will take a few liberties in fitting out the plane using these extra parts, to suit my taste. Historical accuracy can get stuffed! My main preference is for the three bladed propellor (the two bladed prop is too "biplane" like for my taste), as well I will be using the armour plating in the cockpit. I am also not keen on the early black and white paint scheme on the underside, and I will opt for the sky grey-beige-green (whatever that colour is) underside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's no real way around this, but for what it's worth, it's a cute little kit. There are five (small) sprues moulded in the usual grey plastic, as well as a small sprue in clear for the windscreen (both armoured and unarmored, although I'm hard pressed to tell them apart) and canopy. The moulding looks clean and crisp with minimal flash or other imperfections. The decals look reasonable, although being from Cartograf, the film will be a little thicker. While this does make the decal more robust, it can hinder it from settling down in higher relief areas. 

 

All in all, this should be a fun, quick(ish) little project (the biggest hold-ups being waiting for paint to dry). The nice thing is, while I'm waiting, there's a Wellington that needs finishing!

 

Andy

[ccoyle]

4 hours ago, realworkingsailor said:

I am also not keen on the early black and white paint scheme on the underside

 

What?? I've always kinda liked the half-black undersides.

[realworkingsailor]

15 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

 

What?? I've always kinda liked the half-black undersides.

Not saying it doesn’t have its place, just not for me 😁. I’ve done one airplane with the camo-over-black, I want to do something different.

Actually, I don’t mind the scheme from the first release of this kit, a pre-war black and white with silver down the middle:

 

But in my kit there are no decals for the large registration numbers under the wings, so it wouldn’t look right….

 

Andy

[Canute]

Wasn't that bottom color duck egg green? My RAF camo books are packed away in the archives, so I'm dredging up 40 year old memories.. I'm in on the build, Andy. Battle of Britain colors would be apropos, I think. The Hurris chased the bombers and the Spits duked it out with the Messerschmidts.

[realworkingsailor]

11 minutes ago, Canute said:

Wasn't that bottom color duck egg green? My RAF camo books are packed away in the archives, so I'm dredging up 40 year old memories.. I'm in on the build, Andy. Battle of Britain colors would be apropos, I think. The Hurris chased the bombers and the Spits duked it out with the Messerschmidts.

Every hobby paint manufacturer seems to have a different name for the colour. Beige-grey, green-grey, off-sky… (okay I made that last one up, but it sounds good… like “off-white”). 
 

A lot of people forget that while the Spits get all the glory, the Hurricanes were responsible for 60% of enemy aircraft lost during the battle.

 

Andy

[Old Collingwood]

LF-363  Taken by me  in  2017.

 

OC.

[shipman]

 I always liked the black/white undersides, a feature shared with the Spitfire at the time.

 

The first production batch Hurricanes had silver dope finish underneath.

I believe the black and white was an 'emergency' field modification, applied by 'erks on station.

Because of this I'm sure no two were exactly the same.

 

The kit is depicted with far too emphasised fabric wings. Doped fabric was always drum tight and you'd have to get up close to see the difference.

[AJohnson]

Shipman is right, the predominant standard for the fabric wing Hurricane’s was silver undersides; quickly being replaced with varying schemes of black/white emergency identification schemes. The fabric wings versions did not last long and were lost in large numbers either in the air or on the ground. If you are set on Duck-egg underneath then you would be on safer ground with an all metal winged, three bladed prop Mk.1 kit. Or do the initial silver underneath without the black/white for a Summer ‘39 version. 
 

I have built this kit a few times and it is a nice easy build. I did a set of Battle of France models including a Hurricane. 

Edited January 2, 2023 by AJohnson

[shipman]

WOW!

I've just realised I've been a member of this rewarding forum for 10 years now.

[realworkingsailor]

Thanks for comments, guys! I figured if I shook the tree hard enough, a few purists might fall out!🤪

 

I’ve made my decisions based on my preferences on how I want my build to look, rather than going for 100% historical accuracy. 
 

I do appreciate the information, however.

 

Andy

[realworkingsailor]

3 hours ago, shipman said:

WOW!

I've just realised I've been a member of this rewarding forum for 10 years now.

If I’m not mistaken, many of us are approaching that milestone on this particular iteration of the forum. I believe  the ten year anniversary of the “Great Crash” is coming up in February. I was a member here for a couple of years before that historic event. I wonder if @James H will be throwing a party to celebrate? 😁

 

Andy
 

 

[AJohnson]

39 minutes ago, realworkingsailor said:

Thanks for comments, guys! I figured if I shook the tree hard enough, a few purists might fall out!🤪

 

How rude! 🤣🤣🤣 (he says rubbing a bruise from a recent fall!)

You go for it Andy, rightly so it’s your kit! 👍

[realworkingsailor]

Time to get stuck into it, or, what to do on a gloomy January day (it's been cloudy and wet and just generally bleh weather since the weekend, good hobbying weather!)

 

The build starts simply enough with building the landing gear bay in the lower wing:

 

 

Nothing too complicated, but reasonably detailed for this scale. I pre-painted the parts in aluminium before assembly. This was quickly followed by adding the upper wing surface:

 

 

A little bit of a seam remains to be addressed, but otherwise the parts went together rather well. No alignment issues to speak of.

 

 

After the glue had set, I then drilled out the "gun ports". To me, the little moulded dimples  lacked appropriate depth, and look much more realistic having been opened up. Moving along, the next step involves adding the cockpit foot plate, rudder pedals and control column:

 

 

I will continue to take some liberties with the suggested paint scheme. Mostly to show as much of the details as possible. The cockpit is fairly small and once enclosed some things will likely not be seen anyway, but I thought I should do my best to make it possible that these details are not entirely lost in a monochromatic darkness.

 

Work has not turned to the aft bulkhead and pilot's seat:

 

 

I've opted for the armoured bulkhead, there's a little more detail on it (for the sake of interest) and I will be adding some PE seatbelts. Fortuitously, I had some PE leftover from my Wellington build, and while these belts might not be 100% correct for a fighter plane, they should do the job. I actually have two entire frets left over, as I had mis-interpreted what was included in each set when I ordered them, and Eduard mis-interpreted the number "1" when packaging this particular set. Happy accidents! 

 

I am really enjoying this build so far, it's a nice little kit and well worth it.

 

Andy

[realworkingsailor]

If nothing else, this build moves along pretty quickly.

 

I left off yesterday about to finish the cockpit. Well, that didn't take too much of my time. All done. Very simple after all the complex fiddling about that I did building the Wellington.

 

 

The seatbelts fit not too badly, and add a little touch of extra detail. The instrument panel was a basic decal. The heavy white lines actually make it slightly more visible (in a much smaller space) than the layered PE of my Wellington. 

 

 

A quick dry fit to make sure all the components will slide together nicely. I only had to tuck the ends of the seatbelt a little further under the seat to avoid them getting pushed up above the seat pan. For the most part I painted the interior green  with aluminium components and gun-metal highlights on the details and various struts and whatnot.

 

 

After the cockpit, things move swiftly and before long there was something that looked like an airplane.

 

 

 

For the most part the fit was okay, but there are a few small seams that will need addressing with some filler. The after part of the wing/fuselage transition has the most obvious gap, but there are some small ones along the horizontal stabilizers and one the left side of the tail fin. There's also a bit of a lip on the chin of the plane, where the wing assembly meets the fuselage, that will need some sanding and maybe a little filler to smooth out the transition. I don't expect too much trouble dealing with these little areas.

 

Andy

 

 

[realworkingsailor]

Thanks, everyone, for the likes. Always appreciated!

 

So before I knew what was what, painting had started. The gap filling was not too excessive, and didn't take much time at all. I was too distracted by my progress I didn't take any pictures of the underside. Oops! You'll all have to wait for the reveal 😁.

 

I did remember to snap a few quick picks after I'd masked off the underside:

 

 

 

I figured I would challenge myself to make the canopy masks, rather than hunting for an aftermarket masking set. Seeing as it is a relatively simple canopy, it was far more economical to do it this way, and good practice for any future builds too! Just regular Tamiya masking tape, a fresh #11 blade and some patience (and a lack of the red leaky stuff that can emanate from one's fingers if one is not careful with the #11). I am pleased with the results. Prior to being glued in place, I gave the canopy a quick coat of Testors gloss to seal the tape edges. This should mitigate any paint bleed.

 

Once the canopy glue has set, it will be back to painting.

 

Andy

[Javlin]

Nice ,Quick and Efficient work Andy.I do not play in 1/72 much anymore but I do like that upper one-piece wing design. 

[realworkingsailor]

2 hours ago, Javlin said:

Nice ,Quick and Efficient work Andy.I do not play in 1/72 much anymore but I do like that upper one-piece wing design. 

Thanks!
 

A lot for credit is due to Airfix. Not that I’ve a lot of experience with many airplane kits, but this one seems to almost fall together. They really designed this kit well. 

 

Andy

[realworkingsailor]

As always, thanks everyone for the comments and "likes".

 

The last couple of days have been spent on painting. Mostly things went well, my only real issue came with my first attempt at the green camo bands. I had made them a little too skinny, almost anorexic. So I had to take a big risk and re-mask everything and make the green bands a little healthier. Luckily things worked out, excepting a few very minor areas in need of some touch up.

 

 

 

I wish I could post some better photos, I don't have any really decent photography lights and the ambient light sucks right now (we've had nothing but thick dull overcast skies for almost a week straight, with no signs of it changing any time soon). Overall, I'm pleased with the outcome. I opted to use the lighter shade of RAF green (as opposed to the shade I used on my Wellington build). I thought it better represented  a day fighter and it compares favourably with the grey/green underside. 

 

Next up after some touch ups and a layer of gloss will be the lettering. Hopefully there will be some sunshine by then.

 

Andy

[Jack12477]

Andy try taking ordinary household aluminum foil, place it over an 8 x 10 or 11 x w 14 piece of cardboard, make 2, position them so they reflect the light back on the model but are outside camera view. It will fill in the shadows. Old DIY photography trick. 

 

Model is coming along nicely

Edited January 6, 2023 by Jack12477

[realworkingsailor]

24 minutes ago, Jack12477 said:

Andy try taking ordinary household aluminum foil, place it over an 8 x 10 or 11 x w 14 piece of cardboard, make 2, position them so they reflect the light back on the model but are outside camera view. It will fill in the shadows. Old DIY photography trick. 

 

Model is coming along nicely

Cool! Thanks for the tip, I’ll give it a shot!

 

Andy

[realworkingsailor]

Well, things have just come to an unexpected pause…. Speed bump… pothole… something…

 

I was starting on the lettering, following my usual (well proven) procedure for applying any kind of decal. I decided to start with the registration number, as the next fuselage side decals take their relative positions from the number. Just as I’m sliding the decal gently off the carrier sheet, into a dab of micro set,  the whole decal balls up into a Gordian knot…. What happened next is not permitted to be printed here🤬. 
 

Looks like I’ll have to chase down Airfix for a replacement lettering set. Nuts….

 

Well, back to the bomber 🙄

 

Andy

[Egilman]

Had that happen all too often before... My solution is to take the gordian knot and place it back into the water, they usually will unfold themselves with a minimum of prodding and can be picked up on a flat brush and placed on the model... But then, there have been those times, where even that doesn't work.... (which results in the same unprintable ideals, chuckle)

 

Paddinghouse, Xtradecal, Printscale and Techmod all have suitable replacements...

 

 

[realworkingsailor]

9 minutes ago, Egilman said:

Had that happen all too often before... My solution is to take the gordian knot and place it back into the water, they usually will unfold themselves with a minimum of prodding and can be picked up on a flat brush and placed on the model... But then, there have been those times, where even that doesn't work.... (which results in the same unprintable ideals, chuckle)

 

Paddinghouse, Xtradecal, Printscale and Techmod all have suitable replacements...

 

 

I tried that trick, it had vacuumed itself shut, and the film seemed too thin to risk trying to even gently tease it apart.

 

I’ll see what Airfix has to say on Monday, and then I’ll go hunting for aftermarket replacements.

 

The worst I ever experienced was a bad set from Black Cat Publishing. The film was so thin it just shattered.

 

Andy

[realworkingsailor]

So I’ve ordered some replacement decals this morning. I decided to skip Airfix altogether and try something aftermarket. Thanks to @Egilman for the advice on what’s out there, I opted for an Xtradecal set. Initially I looked to order them directly from Hannants, but the price for shipping a $10 envelope of  decals was over $15. I “noped” out of that option. A little bit of digging and I found the same set available from a company called Thunderbird Models. They’re a small operation somewhere up in Saskatchewan. They have some interesting products if you’re into bush planes and the like. Anyway, their shipping was a much more reasonable $2.50. Fingers crossed my order will be shipped soon and Canada Post will deliver.
 

Andy

 

PS: All prices above in Canadian dollars. 😁

[realworkingsailor]

Soooo…. kind of a good news bad news update. 

 

First off, the bad news. I will start by allaying everyone’s fears, no models were harmed in the performance of this particular dumb human trick.

 

I was out skiing yesterday, getting in some nice runs in, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. The club was making the most of the cool weather to make snow. Shortly after lunch I was skiing down one of these particular runs where snowmaking was in progress (run was still open). To avoid getting hit full on with a blast of spray, I’d aimed for a spot close to the base of the snow gun, that looked clear. Well, as I was traversing this area, my skis abruptly stopped in the freshly blown crud, but made no prior mention of it to me, so I kept going.  It felt like I was hurled into the “snow” onto my left shoulder. I plowed a pretty deep furrow in the hill (probably the only thing that stopped me digging any deeper was my head). The end result is I now have a broken collarbone. I have an appointment on Friday at the fracture clinic to see if I stay in the sling or get surgery to pin me back together. 
When my fall occurred I was in sight of the ski patrol station and they’d seen it happen. They also complimented me on the size of the crater I left in the hill. I was always told, if you’re going to do something, do it right, no half measures. 😁

 

On a lighter note, I also received a confirmation email yesterday that the decals I ordered have been shipped. So silver linings.

 

Andy

[AJohnson]

1 hour ago, realworkingsailor said:

The end result is I now have a broken collarbone. I have an appointment on Friday at the fracture clinic to see if I stay in the sling or get surgery to pin me back together. 
When my fall occurred I was in sight of the ski patrol station and they’d seen it happen. They also complimented me on the size of the crater I left in the hill. I was always told, if you’re going to do something, do it right, no half measures. 😁

 

On a lighter note, I also received a confirmation email yesterday that the decals I ordered have been shipped. So silver linings.

 

Andy

Wow Andy, bad luck!  Hope you can be fixed up soon.  🤕 

 

And I hope there isn't any "silvering" of the lining when you use your new decals! 😆

[popeye the sailor]

I do have to apologize Andy for not looking in sooner.........I though this was the other log and since I had already looked in.......failed to look into this one    of course.........I must have cursed you......I look in to find your on the mend    here's one of my follies to cheer you up.  I lived out in the country too........my younger days were farm life and fishing {go whenever I could get away}.  during the winter,  sledding and tobogganing was the norm,  we on the other hand,  used car hoods.  I also liked to snow shoe.......there were a couple pairs left by the previous owners of the home,  as well as some skis.  I got this insane ides one time to go down our sled run with a single ski,  since the run was formed very well by the car hood.  I did well in the beginning,  but it quickly went south on me,  once I lost my balance,  sending me right into a tree!  .....didn't break anything,  but I wasn't up to a second run either     I hope you get better quickly.  your doing a great job on the Hurricane........here's hoping you can get back to it    

[popeye the sailor]

I would have mentioned that there are many places where you can get aftermarket decals........Mega Hobby is one of them  

[realworkingsailor]

6 minutes ago, AJohnson said:

Wow Andy, bad luck!  Hope you can be fixed up soon.  🤕 

 

And I hope there isn't any "silvering" of the lining when you use your new decals! 😆

Thanks, me too!

 

Yeah, I kinda left myself open to that pun! 🤣

Must be the painkillers! 🤪

 

Andy

[realworkingsailor]

2 minutes ago, popeye the sailor said:

I would have mentioned that there are many places where you can get aftermarket decals........Mega Hobby is one of them  

Thanks Denis! (And for your other kind remarks as well!). No need to apologize, this build happened so quickly up to now, you’d be forgiven for not even seeing it at all. Probably a good thing my injury slowed it down to a stop, maybe allow people to catch up!

 

Andy