The Hurricane went into the paint shop today, and this is how shew emerged.
The kit is Hasegawa’s 1/48 Hurricane Mk. I, with Aires and Eduard details. I used Model Master enamels for the camo. The lower surfaces were painted Sky Type “S,” then masked. The upper surfaces were painted with RAF Dark Green and Earth Brown, sprayed freehand.
After I posted these pics to Ron’s gallery, I noticed that I missed an area of dark brown on the port tailplane ! Looks like it’s back into the paint shop !
Thanks for letting me share the progress with you !
Pix: Very nice Hurricane. I am hung up on middle aged and senior citizen jets, but the WW-II projects are great too. They offer a much wider choice of subjects and color schemes, if you can find color photos. Great paint job. [alien]
That’s very nice. I happen to be building a Hurricane mk1 for the BoB group build. I have already sprayed the bottom sky type ‘s’ too, but you beat me on the top colors!
Please keep us posted! Can’t wait to see how yours, (and mine) turns out[;)]
Thanks Tankmaster, pingtang, yardbird, nicodemus, Jason, and mkhoot !
Tankmaster - unless it’s a Luftwaffe splinter scheme, I prefer to paint freehand. It can be tightened up later (as you can see in the new pic). Masked disrupted camo schemes always looked kinda toy-like, to me. Just personal taste.
yardbird - that’s why I only build WW II birds in 1/48. I love the variety of shapes and color schemes.
nicodemus - I always spray the airframe colors in the same session. The paints seem to level out together.
Jason - just practice with the pain/thinner ratio, air pressure, distance from the model’s surface, and paint flow volume. Once you know what effect these have on your system, you know what to change in order to get what you want. You won’t get the results if you don’t put in the time. Play around, and have fun ! Yopu’ll probably be able to surprise yourself once you get the hang of it.
I sprayed the patch on the tail, and tightened up a couple of lines.
Nice paint job Pix, looks real good. Just curious, but why did you freehand a soft edged camo ? Hurricanes were masked & had a hard edge disruptive camo.
Hiya Bill,
WOW, she turned out great indeed. Now when you say that you tightened up the lines, how did you accomplish this??
Over all well done especially the paint job… Hats off to you. BTW, I was kinda thinking the same thing as Rick mentioned. I am not really up on the painting methods that the British used but I thought that they mostly used rubber type mats to aid in the painting of their a/c. When they did any repairs or touch ups, thats when free hand came into play?
Flaps up, Mike
Rick and Butz - the camo is not hard-edged. Here’s a pic of one in a British museum.
Most WW II photos I’ve seen agree with this. Most pics of models show they were masked, however. I just go with the reference pics I find. I couldn’t find any WW II pics that showed edges as hard as the underside/topside line.
There’s 28 pages of pics here: http://images.google.com/images?q=Hawker+Hurricane&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search
Butz - I tighten the lines by using a thinner paint, at a lower pressure, closer to the model. I tilt the brush into the area to give me a tighter line.
I read somewhere that all factory finished RAF aircraft were painted using rubber mats as masks,
While modern re-paints and field sprayed aircraft would have probably had a softer edge, the new birds would have had a harder line.
I have noticed that early spitfires built in different factories could have the same camo pattern, but in reverse.
Nice Hurri BTW
ie. if two different spits were wing tip to wingtip, it would be like a mirrored image
Oggy: The reversing wasn’t an accident. It is listed as schemes A and B in RAF painting guides, and are indeed mirror images of one another.
Pix: As I said earlier, I am in the middle of my Hurricane IId after the disaster with the first one being made from a bad batch of styrene. I’m using a Falcon canopy because, like you, I have all the nice Eduard stuff in the cockpit and don’t want to hide it, though I didn’t go as far as to cut away the emergency panel (which can be done and still be accurate, since it was commonly removed for maintenance, though it was not a door as on a Spitfire). Though my Hurri is in desert scheme, I have lots of references for this build and soft edge camo is the rule, hard edge a very rare exception, at least during the war years.
One thing I learned to my dismay, and I want to confirm this with you: The indented area just behind the headrest, I’ve read and seem to have verified by photos, is not accurate. Like you, I painted mine RAF interior green as an extension of the cockpit. However, this recessed part of the fuselage was put there by Hasegawa to make their lousy one-piece canopy fit flush. The rear fuselage actually should end right at the headrest, not a scale foot behind it.
I hope my new Hurricane looks half as good as yours. But then, I am a fan, Pix.
TOM
Thanks tigerman, Awood, dj, Brian, oggy, and sharkskin !
Awood - although it’s my favorite aircraft (and the Trimaster/DML/Dragon kit my favorite to build), the Me 262 is only a small part of my collection. My only requirements are that it be WW II and in 1/48 scale. Plenty of material out there.
oggie - I based my choice on wartime pics. The pic I posted of the museum aircraft has a hard edge on the upper/lower demarcation line, and soft edge on the top colors. If they masked that line, then why not the top colors? I’d just rather base my choice on the wartime pics, and not on what someone wrote somewhere (I’ve never seen pics of one with mats being painted, either). There’s tangible authentication in the pics.
sharkskin - thanks for the info. I’ll have to look at some pics, and see if I can do anything about it. I’ve got lotsa pics, I just never looked at that area, for some reason.
Looks great! I like the way the camo has turned out. It does seem to look very much like most of the photos I’ve seen, and very much like the flying Hurri. out here in Chino. I like it!
Not to hijack the thread, but I’ve heard the stories of the rubber mats, and I’ve never seen photos of them being used. Not that I’m an assembly line expert, but the thought of hauling rubber mats that had to be about 10-20 sq ft in size to the top of wings and then draping them over fuselages doesn’t seem to be the most practicable solution. Not to mention prying them off when covered in paint. I find it far easier to imagine skilled painters freehanding with a spray gun after “rote” memorization of the scheme they were painting. Does anyone else think this could explain why the upper camo often looks “medium” hard edged while the demarcation between upper/lower is often razor sharp.
