Construction (P-47, Hurricanes)

Now to bring you up to date on the construction that has been going on in the workbench queue.

I put together a Hobbyboss Hurricane 2c. Unfortunately there were some problems with what is admittedly a pretty simple construction sequence. I was experimenting with some new clamps that I had purchased. They turned out to be a lot bigger than I was expecting, but figured that holding a fuselage together while drying should not be an issue. But the amount of pressure that these large clamps exerted was enough to distort the glued connection. Being a Hobbyboss kit that I bought when they first came out, I considered just trashing the whole thing. But I thought I would one stab at prying the bits apart and regluing. If that didn’t work, bin it. I did get the bits apart and discovered a secondary problem: the hole-and-socket bits on the kit (I think the fuselage is actually meant to be snap-fit) didn’t allow for a good seam. I snipped those bits off, reglued, and wrapped some rubber bands around to add pressure. I wouldn’t consider it an unqualified success, and it will need a bit of putty fu to clean everything up, but it isn’t the worst hash I’ve ever made of a seam. That this is a fact is something of a sad commentary.

Not to be thwarted by a bad seam, I went ahead on initial construction of the still relatively new Airfix ragwing Hurricane. I’ve built a couple before this, am quite familiar with the pitfalls, and got the cockpit and wing assembled. Next will come painting of the interior and then completion of major assembly.

Work continues on the Tsar Bomba transport carriage. Since this seems to be Hurricane week, I also did some masking to prepare the German captured ragwing for RLM75 paint.

The last kit to receive attention was the Academy P-47 bubbletop. This will be destined for Kits World decals. The cockpit was pretty much painted (using Model Master ZC Green) so it was time for details. I painted the instrument boxes Black and added a set of Eduard super-fabric belts. They worked well enough, attaching with white glue. Then some dry-brushing over the whole of the cockpit and the completion of major assembly. I didn’t get a good photo of the cockpit before the fuselage went together, alas.