hi fellers, tire o’ me yet?!! well, git over it!!!LOL[:D] just finished this bird tonight. this is Classic Airframes 1/48 Westland Whirlwind, another plane i fell in love with while digging through the bottom shelf at the LHS. I love the way this bird looks, with the awesome looking twin engines, and the narrow tail fuselage, then got the fire power with the 4 nose mounted 20mm cannons!!
anyway, me and this bird played tug of war for about 4 months now, i won the war, but it won several little skirmishes in between. when i paid $50 bucks for the kit, i thought it’d be a dream to assemble (along the lines of tamiya or something). i popped the wrapper off this jewel and experienced culture skock!! no locator pins, flash hangin’ off every piece, really shallow engraved panel lines, about 20 styrene pieces with the rest being resin, PE, or metal!! But, i got over this quickly when i examined the emaculate resin and PE cockpit for this bird. i spent many hours detailing the cockpit only to loose the battle of getting the thing in the fuselage properly. the kit came with one canopy and it was in the closed position, which was fine with me after screwing up the cockpit mounting deal. there was absolutely no locator marks, pins, or anything to go by!!![V] nothing fit on this kit…at all. alot of sanding, filling, filing, and priming!! the wing to fuselage fit was a total nightmare. i’d put the kit away, then bring it out a couple of hours and be frustrated, put it up, back and forth until finally here it is. enjoy. later.
Oh yeah, this bird is dressed up to go to the Dieppe Disaster.[;)]
Sorry guys, trying to get this thing to work properly!!! sorry for all the edits!!!
Extremely nice build of a beautiful bird! Glad you overcame the difficulties in the build and shared the pictures. I continue to be amazed and inspired by many of the builds I see on the forums.
thanks for the compliments guys. i will return to this subject someday and do it like i wanted to do to start with, but you only really get one good chance with resin and CA glue!! i thought the color was screwed up too…too dark or something, but it turned out ok in the photos. later.
What a cool looking bird! You pick some builds that I have never heard of and then want to do so badly after I see your pictures. Thanks for sharing!
Leon
I always thought the Wirlwind was a slick looking aircraft.
I’ve got a Classic Airframes kit packed away back in Canada that I’ll get to at some point, I like any information I can get on what to expect from those kits, everytime I here feedback about them, it differs with every kit.
Thanks for sharing the pics, and giving an intelligence report on what to expect if I ever pick that kit up.
Well Saltydog it sounds like that kit pushed you to your limits.With that said,it turned out real nice.A good looking museum piece and a work of art to be proud of.I know the pics I have seen of this bird don’t do it justice.I think you have a wonderful piece there.Digger
[bow][bow][8D][bow][bow] That is one impressive model of one of my favorite WWII fighters! I think it turned out great: the cockpit looks perfect to me[:P]. We’re always our own worst critics aren’t we? Thanks for sharing this one.
Chris:
Absolutely gorgeous. What color is it? And I’ve asked this before, but how do you get that great overall weathering effect? I just can’t do it, and in fact am afraid to try because by the time I get to that point in a tough build, I’m terrified I’ll screw it up beyond repair trying to weather the entire airframe.
Tom
