welcome aboard to the new recruits you'll find the mess fully stocked.

Guy that is a great subject, the fury is one of my all time favourites,

Mike, that is one great girl you have there with magic taste in plastic.

Simon the phantoms markings look like they'll turn out really sharp.

Steffan "the surgeon" with that old dog. I see use of a razor saw in your future.
And Nick is that the AccMin reboxing I saw one
recently second hand at a show and was sorely tempted.

great work both.

Well I thought I should show you how I am progressing on this model. Though I want to let you know that this model will be hand painted, and it wasn't the best molded one I have picked up. Besides that I think that this model will turn out fine.

http://gallery.kitmaker.net/showgallery.php/cat/24524
follow the link to the gallery.

Chris

[/quote]And Nick is that the AccMin reboxing I saw one
recently second hand at a show and was sorely tempted.

great work both.[/quote]
Hi jaypee ,
Had to revert to googling it, but yeah its their reboxing and if you see it again, buy it!! It really is a nice kit; nice and clean and no flash at all. Plus it comes with a few different options for the decaling.

I'll post some more progress shots when I get a chance.
Nick

Nice to see some new guys in this campaign. Welcome, Guy and Simon!

Guy, nice choice for a kit. I have been tempted by this kit many times, but resisted so far. It will be interesting to follow your build.

Simon, what scale is this kit? I cannot see it on the box.

Stefan, very nice cockpit! It must be a vast improvement over the kit cockpit.

Thanks for the welcome. This forum is great!
The Phantom is 1/72nd, which I stick to quite stubbornly.

I'm making progress now on the Skua. Pretty much all subassemblies are assembled and painted. I'm up to the scary part, joining the fuselage halves...test fitting shows some minor adjusting and careful glueing will be needed here. Also this model has the fuselage bow noted by some build reviews, though seemingly not as bad in my kit.

Then the well documented wing to body join will then be attempted- the kits worst fit problem. I've got a cunning plan though...




Andrew

Back again already, this pic shows the first stage of joining the Skua's fuselage. So you can see the bowed fuselage clearly! It is not caused by any internal structure forcing the halves outwards, they are doing that by themselves. So it will be a multiple staged joining process. I'll let it set well for a day at least, then do the aft fuselage and reinforce along the cockpit floor undersides using epoxy to prevent later springing apart. Well that's the plan.



Andrew

Ouch, that's a LOT of bend!

I've made a start on my Phantom. Tub went together quite nicely, all painted in light grey. Used the kit decals for the instruments. Just put the fuselage halves together. I'll let it sit a while before I make a start on the seams.

A bit more progress. Either this is a really nice kit, or I really like Phantoms (maybe both!), but I'm quite enjoying this build. Wings are on, and I will have to start getting some paint on this baby next.

You're making rapid progress on the Phantom there Simon. Looks like you're doing a very tidy job of putting it together as well.

In the same amount of time i've only just managed to get the Skua's fuselage together. The thing is, i think the worst fit problem is yet to come on this one. The fit of the outer wings is looking a bit dodgy at the moment. I've glued the wing tips together and left most of the wing halves unglued so that i can spread them apart slightly at the joins to avoid a step at the wing centre section. My motto always being "better to make a deliberate easy to fix gap, than settle for a hard to fix step". We'll see.



Andrew

My cunning plan has turned out okay. From other magazine and online builds i knew that there is a problem with the wing joins- inner to out sections. A nasty step occers underneath if you just assemble everything straight from the box. What i did is use some sprue offcuts like in the pic, and only glue the outer wing halves to about the halfway point...leaving the inboard halves from the landing lights inward able to flex and be spread around the sprue stubs.



I like how it worked out, it completely removed the steps. The tradeoff being an ugly but easy to fix gap along the leading edge halves. It's all ready for the final sanding and minor filling stage now. I'm liking this model a lot so far, despite having to resort to the use of my brain for a few areas of problem solving.



And the Skua is one ugly SOB!

Andrew

Simon,that Phantom is building up nicely

John-Paul Is there a gallery for the finished models? making nice project on my Wyvern,pictures real soon !!!

there is indeed a gallery here is the link.
http://gallery.kitmaker.net/showgallery.php/cat/23559

Excellent progress by all those on approach.

Andrews Skua is coming along very nicely and an education in "working with the grain" to make the build easier.

And I agree Simon's phantom is really taking shape,

Looking forward to seeing some colour on these builds now.
I hope to be joining the fun soon with a wyvern of my own.
I'll be following your footsteps Anthony

The Skua is all primered up and ready for paint coats. White primer this time time so that i can cheat/save time and use the primer for the white underside colour as well (one wing is white the other black).

I must be getting the hang of these limited run kits and the use of filler. This would have to be the first time ever where i've primered and decided i don't need to do any further work tidying up any joins.



Andrew

Today i managed to get most of the colours sprayed, the black underwing, slate grey and mixed grey. Just the Sky Grey to go, hopefully tomorrow. I left the Sky Grey to last, even though it's the lightest colour- simply because it's an easier masking job this way, with the high demarkation and all. I followed the builds of others before to select the FAA colours. Tamiya XF22 RLM Grey looks nothing like RLM02 to me- but simulates a faded Dark Slate Grey quite well. XF24 as the mixed grey.



Andrew

Brilliant that looks suitably ugly, did you get masks for the canopy or make your own?
The framing must be quite tricky.

The masks are the Eduard set made for this kit. I just happened to walk into the LHS and there they were, just arrived. So i bought them of course. They fit the canopy perfectly and save a lot of time. The fact that i had them was the simple reason that i chose the Skua over the Roc or Barracuda.

Andrew

Well I got my Trumpeter 1/48 Wyvern done over the holiday weekend.I have not done many aircraft over the past 3 years,mostly armor.When I build planes it's usually clean and out of box.This one went together easily with no real issues,it was a nice change of pace getting involved in an aircraft campaign.So here it is,any comments welcome of course.

you put me to shame mine not even out the box yet and nothing wrong with navy clean. esp on a post suez wyvern
are you the first on deck? congrats anthony.

Nice looking Wyvern, Anthony. A really unique looking aircraft with the double propeller.

Nice job on it - thanks for participating

Great job on the Wyvern. I also have the Trumpeter kit, and i happen to think it's their best aircraft model so far. When i ever get around to mine i'm not sure about the wing folding...it saves display space just like the real thing, but i also like to keep the lines of an aircraft intact as well. Tough decisions...

Andrew

John-Paul thank you,I checked out your gallery and by the looks of your work,yours will be fine,thanks for the compliment and running the campaign.

Jesper+Andy thanks for the comments.

My entry for this campaign is done. I'm really glad that Special Hobby decided to bring this subject into the modern era...i've had a liking for the Skua ever since i messed up the Frog/Novo kit when i was about 11.

The SH kit can be made to fit well with a few simple tricks. The worst problem is the bowed fuselage halves- but i think i know how to solve that now if i were to do one of these again.

I decided to use the more colourful "A" type roundels on the wings, that were/should have been turned into "B" types by the Norwegian Campaign. Also the large fin tri-colour should also have been overpainted as well. The Skua that was recovered this decade near Norway had B roundels and no fin flash. However it seems that not all aircraft were brought up to the new regulations in time, as i found a pic of my subject aircraft crashed on a Norwegian beach. And it definately still has it's large tail tri-colour and also has the yellow banded fuselage roundels- so Special Hobby definately got that part right. Can't see the top of the wings in the pic though.








Andrew

Andrew,she looks real good,real interesting paint scheme,nice amount of weathering.On my next a/c I have to try some subtle weathering,like the panels and wheel wells.
nice job on yours.

Well Andrew, a Skua has never been a sleek and pretty aircraft, but your makeup takes her a long way. Beautifully done!

Tony