AZ Models Supermarine Attacker F1

The second item in the initial wave of fall modelling to be completed is the AZ Models version of the Supermarine Attacker F1. AZ kits are a bit rougher than the best short run makers like MPM, but they are still quite buildable. And although I don’t feel to compelled to buy every mark of Spitfire that they have been producing (though the PR1 is tempting) I do understand the economic imperative behind it. If it allows them to continue producing buildable kits of obscure types like the F6U Pirate, Ki-54 Hickory, K3M3 Pine, Gauntlet, and those early ragwing Hurricanes, I’m all for it.

There were some fit issues with the kit, which I solved in greater or lesser degrees of success. The fuselage can use some sanding of the edges prior to sealing it up, and the wing/fuselage joint was pretty awful. The tail wheel has no positive location for gluing, and ended up detached and lost in the fuselage before too long. I went ahead and built a replacement using strip styrene that satisfied me, at least, though those with more of an engineering orientation would probably want to do something a bit more realistic.

Painting provided its usual content of drama, given all the masking that was necessary. You wouldn’t think a simple thing like that patch of Sky between the Dark Sea Grey of wings and the upper fuselage would cause issues, but with the vertical tail surfaces also Sky – well, there was a lot of Tamiya tape on this kit in the painting queue. It all turned out well enough.

Given that the markings are pretty generic for the type, I used the kit decals for the most part. The blue in AZ’s roundels looked suspiciously light to me, however, so I replaced them with Modeldecal postwar types I had in the decal vault. As is always the case with these postwar naval types, those underwing serial numbers were a pain where they crossed the various landing gear doors. Blessings upon the decal makers who provide those in pre-measured pieces that fit precisely on the doors themselves. AZ, however, is not one of those makers, and you are forced to cut them out yourself. Never one of my best moments, and I was mostly happy just to see the end of that decaling session.

Nonetheless, I was generally pleased with the way the model turned out. It certainly helps to expand my postwar RAF collection in the display cabinet.

This is completed model #364, finished in September of 2011.

Xtrakit Supermarine Swift FR5

It appears that the post-summer logjam is really breaking. I have no less than 5 completed models in queue, which will be debuting here on the blog over the next few days. And there are a number more in the final stages of construction, painting, and decaling. Looks like the goal of 40 completed models in 2011 in coming within reach.

Tonight’s entry is the Supermarine Swift FR5. It is part of a small postwar British fighters project that includes an Attacker and a Seahawk. It is the Xtrakit, which is a reasonable short run kit, though it does require some extra work to smooth over fit issues. Panel lines are nicely engraved and the canopy is injected. The Swift was one of those types we thought would never get kitted in injected plastic (unless you count the aged Hawk version from when the type was actually in service). But thankfully Hannants/Xtrakit has been making an effort to plug some of the holes in British types.

Derived from the Attacker, by way of the type 510 and 535, the Swift featured swept wings and tail, along with a longer nose for placement of the FR5s camera. It didn’t spend much time in front line service and was replaced by the Hunter in 1961.

Mine is in the red arrow markings of 79 Squadron RAF. The camo is PRU underside, with Dark Green and Dark Sea Grey on top. All paints were Xtracolour and I used kit decals.

This is completed model #363, finished in September of 2011.

You’ll also notice that the Sukhoi T-50 and the F-22 are being readied for paint. They should be finishing up in a few days. And my J-20, to complete the set, is on the way from Great Models. Finally, the last photo shows the current state of the Hobbyboss Seahawk, a P-47, and a revived SA Bulldog.

Catching up with modelling activity

I have fallen a few days behind on reporting the progress in the modelling bunker. The weather did a bit of a turnaround and gave us some 80 degree days, but in September the nights tend to cool things down wonderfully. Given my employment status and my natural cycles, most of the modelling I do comes at night anyway.

In terms of construction, I’ve been pounding away on a Revell P-47 (after painting both the wheel wells and the cockpit) that will use the “Sigma Nu Girl” decals I’ve had for a while. Also, I’ve started on a Eurofighter and Tornado to showcase other recent decals as well. Finally, I’ve gotten the major bits together for an F-16C that will carry District of Columbia ANG anniversary markings. Believe it or not, this is the first F-16 I’ve ever built. I’m using the Hasegawa kit.

The paint room has also been busy. Besides getting the first coat of white on the substantially complete Valiant (and a fine kit it is), I’ve gotten the Dark Sea Grey coat applied to the Attacker. The Swift is fully painting and awaiting decals. It should show up in the finished column shortly.

I’ve been having confounding paint issues with the Hobbyboss Seahawk, though. Though the paint seems to go fairly smoothly, it manifests some very pebbly surface texture in a couple of places, notably the horizontal tail surfaces. I just assumed I put too thick a coat on it, or perhaps got a bit of water into the airbrush stream (my compressor is pretty medieval and without a water trap). So I buffed down the tail and reshot. Same result. I buffed it down again and used a different tin of Xtracolour. Same result. I am going to shoot a very thin coat over it all again this evening. Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I am badly infected by the bane of all (good) modelers, impatience. But really, it has had a number of chances. Not sure of the root cause: some chemical contamination on the plastic? But would it still be there after numerous sand-and-repaints?

I’m not sure why I’m producing so many Cold War British aircraft at present. Maybe it is because the mainstream modelling companies have finally discovered the era (or run out of options for anything else) and have begun turning out kits. Airfix Valiant, Trumpeter Lightning, Hobbyboss Seahawk, Cyberhobby Sea Vixen. But I’ve always been a Britophile, so it really isn’t much of a surprise. I’m considering doing another trio: Heller Vampire, Airfix Javelin, and Xtrakit Scimitar. The only disadvantage is that these kits are either short-run or, shall we say, not current state of the art. But hopefully the Profoundly Average Modeller can keep from making a mess of them.

One problem I am going to have to confront is storage, what with the Valiant, B-47, B-1, B-50 and 707 working through the queue. Besides my three 6’w x4’h x3’d ex-retail display cases I bought in the 90s, I have been constructing little flat boxes out of shelving wood with a sort of poster/particle board as the bottom and a sheet of thin glass laid on the top. They were never really meant to be permanent. Just a temporary stopgap until I could afford to buy a nice tall 6’w x 7’h x 2’d display case. But as with so many “temporary” situations, this has been in place for a long time. I’ve already picked out the case, but at $1600 it certainly isn’t going to happen until I resume drawing an income, and even then there are more pressing issues (house repairs, property taxes) that will take first place in the money-eating stakes. But when I do get it the model room will be truly majestic. The current cases, along with the airbrush area, are all in the garage.

My model production, due of course to my employment state, continues to be high. I am just finishing my 27th of 2011, equaling the total for 2010. And the last four months of the year are always the highest for number of completions. There is a good chance I could hit 40 this year. The downside being that if I do hit that lofty number, it will likely mean I haven’t hooked up with another PM position, which will shortly become a disaster of epic proportions when even the minimal unemployment funds run out.

End of summer

Summer is drawing to a close here in the northwest. It has been a very nice one – in fact, the highest recorded temperature in Auburn in all of summer 2011 that I can find on weather.com was 85. That works for me. I am not constitutionally built for heat, which is one reason I moved away from Southern California in 1985. Any city whose highest temperature was 100 even, and can have a summer perpetually under 85, gets my vote.

We went out to the 2011 version of Harbor Hounds, a dog event in Gig Harbor. This year it was Harbor Drowned, since the weather chose today to reintroduce we mossheads to the glories of Seattle rain.

Since the model room and the garage were cooling down, I was able to get some construction and painting done. There are actually a couple of painting sessions combined into the following photos. The Valiant has gotten all of its detail painting done, was masked, and is now getting its first coat of white. One roadblock – I appear to have run out of white paint! Sounds like it is time for an order of Xtracolour.

The trio of Cold War Brit fighters – Swift, Attacker, and Seahawk – have gotten their wheel wells painted Alclad White Aluminum and the Sky has gone on the Attacker and Seahawk. While I had the Sky paint out, I did the fuselage band on a Hurricane. The Swift is a little farther along, and already has the lower surfaces done in PRU Blue. I was able to paint the Dark Sea Grey uppers and the Dark Green camo.

The Sukhoi T-50 is in queue for its camo area of Gloss Sea Blue. Not a color that Soviet aircraft are necessarily known for, but that is a Zvezda interpretation. They do use a number of unusual blues on their Su-27s.

A bit more wheel bay detailing in Zinc Chromate Yellow has been done on the B-47, along with the wheel wells of a P-47. I’ve been trying to group models that need the same colors, since painting is not something I’m terribly good at.

Lurking on the horizon is a B-1, and stalled efforts on a B-50, SM-84, and F-22. And you can see that the 707 has gotten the fuselage blue (for a Braniff jellybean). It still needs some detailing in Aluminum and the underside of the wings done in Boeing grey.

I kind of shake my head when I see all these large models that I start, given my upcoming storage crunch. I'll have to build up another temporary display box to accomodate the Big Iron.

As an aside, condolences to those related to anyone involved in the tragic crash at the Reno Air Races.

Flying Heritage Center Battle of Britain Flight Day

Another non-modelling road trip to tell about today, but this one at least has aircraft related application. I paid a visit to the Flying Heritage Center, where Microsoft co-founder (and former aircraft modeller!) Paul Allen houses his fleet of flyable historic aircraft. As you can imagine, with that much $ to throw around, the collection is very impressive, not least because all of them are maintained in flying condition, though not all will be flown. Bf-109, Hurricane, Ki-43, Fi-156, P-51, Spitfires, a recently acquired B-25, Fw-190A and D, Po-2, I-16, and even the nose of an Avro Lancaster. I didn’t ask, but I suspect that one doesn’t fly.

On many weekends during the summer, the staff takes a couple of the aircraft out and fly them for an hour or so. This weekend, being an anniversary of the Battle of Britain, they had scheduled two Spitfires and a Bf-109E. As it happened, the Arizona CAF had their B-17 and B-25 in town as well, and they would join the other three in the air. More warbirds in the air than any airshow that I have seen since attending the Chino airshow a few years back.

The Bf-109 had some cooling problems almost as soon as it took off, and landed after only two circuits. The Spits circled for a half hour, and the B-17/B-25 pair also did a few laps before landing. I had never seen a 109 in the air, so that was quite a thrill. There were hundreds of spectators in attendance; this was obviously a well run and well publicized event. If you are ever visiting the Puget Sound area, we have a lot of aviation related stops (the Museum of Flight, Olympia Flight Museum, the Boeing company tour) but you should really put the FHC on your itinerary as well. Especially since it is so close to the Boeing facility. There were quite a few partially assembled 787s parked along the way to the facility, most without engines.

I went with IPMS-Seattle’s newly elected president, Andrew Birkbeck, and ran across another long term IPMS member, Bob Labouy, while wandering the museum. There may well have  been others from the club in the significantly large crowd. Kind of warm, but excellent blue skies.

Below are a couple of tasters. The lighting in the museum hangar was a bit tricky, with the clerestory windows always backlighting the aircraft. One of those times that I would have benefited from Seattle's normal clouds.

The full album is on Photobucket at http://s958.photobucket.com/albums/ae67/a172ndguy/FHC%20Aug%202011/

Hasegawa Junkers Ju-88A4

I was actually pretty happy with the way the J-10 turned out, though unfortunately I can’t really say that for today’s finished model. The problems were all my own fault, and the proper attitude is to make some notes on what went wrong and move on.

This is the Hasegawa North Africa boxing of the Junkers Ju-88A4. I’m a sucker for desert markings, and decided this would be a good follow up to last year’s Hs-126 and Hs-129. Like many Hasegawa kits it feels over-engineered in order to allow for the maximum number of boxings. This makes for a few seams that aren’t really needed.

But I managed to pile on the errors too. Miserable cockpit canopy masking ended up with some stray RLM65 making it to the inside of the front canopy, and some of the canopy framing being indistinct. But worst was the RLM 80 mottling. This is the second version on this kit; the first was truly lousy, and I decided to respray the RLM79 and try again. I’m not convinced that version 2.0 is much better than the original, but my unavoidable impatience kicked in again and decided that this is what I was going with. The fix, as we all know, is a compressor with a variable pressure valve so that the pressure can be cranked down to facilitate the small mottling. But that isn’t going to happen until my income returns.

Still, it is what it is, even though it will likely spend its days in the back half of the display cabinet.

This is completed model #362, finished in August of 2011.

Paint shop action

Since I was in the paint shop to add the overall matte coat on the J-10 and Ju-88, I decided to get some other painting that was in queue done as well. The T-50 got its first coat of Medium Grey, while the 707 is covered in all of its blue Braniffy goodness. Both will need some buffing down and a surface coat however. Blue especially seems to be one of those colors that tends toward a bumpy finish.

On the construction line, I painted the cockpit and then completed major assembly on a new-tool Airfix Hurricane F2C. Plus I finished up the major bits on the Xtrakit Swift. And of course the Valiant is all together and waiting for some detail painting and masking prior to its first coat of White.