Thought I’d take a few moments to post up some photos of my typhoon thus far (on which I’m progressing slowly). Thank you Jack, Nathan and Don for the advice on the control surfaces, this will come in handy when I get to that stage. She’s destined to be one of three craft loaned to the RAAF for tropical trials, SN DN323. I’m using Eduard’s unpainted etch set, CMK’s Napier engine (I have yet to add the barracudacast exhausts, they look nicer than the CMK offering) Aries gun bays and main wheels and Scale Model Conversion’s main gear oleos and tail wheel. In the end, she’ll wear middlestone, dark earth and azure blue (Vallejo) and I’ve ordered a set of Maketar masks for the roundels and code letters (fingers crossed, my first go at painting national markings or radio call letters). Comments and criticisms are always welcome.
Nice to see some work from you Andrew. I like the way you attached the upper wings first, although will you have to sand the wingtips some to match up once the lower wing half is in place? How are the resin gunbays gonna fit once the lower wing is on? I’ve heard its a tight one. Always good to see a Tiffy round here.
Thanks, Nathan. Before I attached the upper wings, I did a lot of dry fit between the upper and lower wings with the gun bays taped in, and I’ve got it so I can close them up without issue. The resin on the bays is thinner than paper now, but no fit issues. The wingtips, I’m not sure. I did tape everything up first (and that worked about as well as it sounds, lol) and things seemed to line up nicely, when stuff wasn’t flopping around. If I have to sand and putty, I will. I know with Hasegawa (and I generalize here) kits it’s far easier to attach the upper wings first rather than deal with the root gap. My other fit issue will be the tube frame of the pit and the firewall of the engine, but looking at the dry fit, I can sandwich and glue the pit, then sand any forward protrusion back to the panel line, and I’m hoping that won’t affect my glue. That will allow the engine and firewall to fit. I did notice that the ‘replacement’ panels don’t line up at all, but as I’m going to display them beside the finished kit, I’m not too worried.
its a nice start, but the engine looks like a blob of black. Maybe try defining its features more?
Nice start!! The pit looks good so far, I like the look of the belts. I do agree with Owl on the engine. Surely there may be a few items that can be picked out to give it a bit more detail. Looking forward to seeing this come together.
I’ve taken a touch of silver and white and drybrushed a little for the Napier (I’d done a few layers of gloss and washes, must have lost a little of my original drybrushing in doing so, so this should bring it back up)
Thanks for the advice, guys.
Andrew, looking good - is this a Hasegawa kit? About nine years ago I was considering building one of these, but only got around to purchasing a book on the subject in RCAF service. Your posts have resurrected my interest, so I will be following this one.
I have had some experience with Maktar masks - which type did you order? I’ve used the vinyl ones and should warn you to be careful as they are quite thin and easily stretch. I ended up with oblong roundels, (it was only about 1mm off, though at this scale is quite easily seen) but were easily fixed by re-doing the blue section.
regards,
Jack
Jack, thank you. Yes, this is the Hasegawa kit, the car door version. I’ve personally got very little reference on this, other than Google. I’ve ordered the vinyl masks from Maketar. I’d recently ordered some hakencruz, balkencruz and RAF roundels through them, and I’ve only practiced a bit with them on some primed up construction paper. So far, I’ve not found myself stretching them, but looking at them, I can see where your warning comes from. I’ll have to have a gentle hand.
Well, over the course of a week and a day I’ve got my fuselage halves joined with the pit sandwiched, the lower wing mounted (and no sanding at the wing tips) and quite a bit of putty applied and cleaned up. I found I had to putty quite a lot on the leading edges of the wings, at the top and bottom of the fuselage halves and probably due to my jointing the lower wing to belly. Each line was re-scribed as carefully as possible, and I think most of it looks passable. I’ve started painting the lower wing, and specifically in the area of wheel bays to get the tough masking out of the way. I’ve done a varied pre-shading by using pale blue grey as my base color, blue as my shade, white as a tint and an over coat of azure blue. To make masking of the wells easier, I wound up going to aires aftermarket wells, pre painting those and pre painting the lower wing area around the wells and wheel covers prior to joining. This may also have been part of why I had to putty the leading edges of the wings, not sure. I apologize for the shine in a few of the photos, maybe too much flash from the camera.
Nice job. Clever idea to paint around the gear bays ahead of time. I hate masking those. Looks like you got the Aires resin to fit pretty well.
Andrew, she’s looking good.
Any idea if this scheme also had the b/w recognition stripes applied to the wing bottoms - a result of an incident on June 1st 1942, where two Typhoons were shot down by Spitfire pilots, mistaking them as Fw. 190’s. The stripes though did not always help as the Typhoon would still, on occasion, be preyed upon by friendlies.
A quick trick for camera flash: tape a piece of tissue over the light to lessen the harshness. It will produce darker photos, but you should be able to lighten them in photoshop.
regards,
Jack
Nathan, thank you. The resin went in reasonably well, but again I had the walls paper thin to do so. A fair bit of work, but like yourself, I hate masking off wheel wells and I think the results will be worth the work. Jack, no b/w stripes on the images I’ve seen of this craft. I have three photos of the craft and one color plate, one of the images even shows no radio call letter, only the s.n. Part of the reason I chose that particular craft was not to have to paint the stripes, as I dislike the decals included and don’t want to mask and paint them. Maybe laziness, but I don’t really like the look of them either.
Thanks for the words of encouragement.
Jack, thanks for the tip with the flash, I’ll keep that in mind for the next photos. I’m hoping by next weekend to have most of my main painting done.
Well, after a fair bit of painting, I think I’ve got the belly done. Here I’m looking for opinions, as I’ve tried to give the landing flaps a ‘sandblasted’ look (prop wash, spit up from main wheels) as she served in a tropical environment (I’m thinking a bit of sand in the area). Though I know they’d not taxi with the flaps down, I’m thinking as a trial aircraft, she probably got quite a few touch downs and over time probably a fair bit of wear to the flaps. I’d like to know if it looks overdone, as I can always go back and re paint if need be.
Hi Andrew,
Tough question on the undersides weathering as it is rare to find a good photo reference from that point of view. Have you looked at other aircraft based in the desert?
Just my opinion, but it being a trial aircraft and the actual fighting had returned to the mainland Europe by October 1943, I’m thinking the ground crew would have time to take better care of it. Then again maybe not as the below photo shows a fairly grubby mount.
Technically, I’m not even sure that such harsh abrasion would happen. True it is a desert setting, but the runways, I think, would be more sand than rocks. Tires might throw up some dirt, but debris from prop wash likely would first have to hit the ground, and then bounce up to reach that area?
Here’s an interesting one of a desert Hurricane. Looks to be dirt and and lost fluids on the undersides, particularly the wing flap area. The fuselage area seems to have some brighter spots - bare metal? Maybe, but the dirt is also darker, so just could be a higher contrast.
This probably is one of the better photos for undersides in terms of accumulated dirt and fluid leaks.
In the end though, as they say, it’s your model so proceed with what you feel good about.
regards,
Jack
Thanks for the photos, Jack. I appreciate that. Looking at the piece, I felt it was a little heavy handed, so I went over with a very thin blue again, and just left tiny chips at the edges and joins (basically what a 2000 grit paper would touch) and felt a lot better about it afterwards. I left about 10% of what is shown in my photos chipped. I’ll keep those photos at hand for when I start into weathering. Thanks again.
A little desert colored pastels could help dull the effect down if you wish later on in the build. Nice belly shots Jack. I wonder if the Sabre engine was dirtier and leakier than the Merlins?
I haven’t discovered any photos of the Typhoon that had anything near the oil streaking that the early Merlin Spitfires had. Though the Sabre engine did have it’s own issues.
Here’s a few more belly shots:
That one above is quite grainy quality, so have to take that into consideration.
regards,
Jack
Having put another week into things, I’ve got most of my shading done on the middlestone layer, with just the panel around the Hispano cannons to finish and the gun bay cover plates, which I’ll do all in the same session. I’ve been picking a few panels at a time and painting those, masking and doing another section. I’m doing this a) in the hopes to break it all up and have an uneven wear pattern and b) to avoid hand cramps and acrylic paint clogging of the airbrush when painting (big sessions, I tend to cramp up, get clogs and then sputter and crappy paint). I’ve used only vallejo paints, first a layer of light brown, second a layer of ochre to warm it up a bit, tinting using white and shading using wood color, then the final layer of middlestone. I’ve been doing a little experiment with the scuffing of the wing walks, now I have to carry that through my later layers. Any screaming color variations in the pictures are most likely due to still wet paint, as I’ve photographed just after painting.
Coming along nicely.
Do you have some sort of masking agent on the metal exposed wing roots? Hairspray can be handy, just decanter it first and apply to the required area with a paint brush. Salt granules would be another option, though it will give a more hard edge once removed.
regards,
Jack
well, since I was going for a scuffed look, I tried to set that up early. I laid down a patch of steel before painting, covered it in future and then a lacquer gloss, figuring they would be pretty hard to scratch through. Next, I did my paint and scratched those areas with a toothpick. I feathered back my scratching with a polishing stick, laid a very thin coat of middlestone over that, and sanded very selectively and lightly with a 2000 grit stick. I figure this way, the ‘scuffing’ is feathered out, and not a hard chip, hopefully looking a little more natural.