I am remiss. I owe Kinetic a build log for their generosity in supplying this review kit. I should have been blogging this build as I went along so now I'll have to play catch-up.


Here's the beginning post, just after I splashed a little Neutral Grey about over the cockpit bits. The paint is still wet in the pictures. Once it's dry, on to painting the details.

While waiting for the paint to dry I indulged myself in subassemblies.

The sprue gates on the bang seats are very inconveniently placed.

They need very careful cleanup.

Another poor sprue gate is the one in the flap recess. Once more, cleanup must be done with extreme caution.

There, subassemblies galore

More subassemblies. The intakes in white primer

Instrument panels with the first bits of black on them

And the cockpit tub with its black

I've done some drybrushing in the cockpit


And a quick test fit

I've been doing more cockpit work in the Hawk, plus a few other things.

The bang seats have their preliminary paint and drybrushing done

I tried to portray a slight amount of wear on the edges

The seat belts have their base colours on

A bit of a wash and brush-up in the cockpit. The flash washed out most of the wear I drybrushed onto the floor


Now on to other parts of the Hawk's anatomy. The intake and turbine fans with a dark wash and polish respectively

The business end of the jet pipe, plus just a sliver of the zinc chromate painted on the interior of the fuselage showing which is exactly what I wanted to happen here.

I'm not very thrilled about the bang seats' firing handles and I really hate trying to paint the yellow and black spirals.

I'm going to solve this little problem by borrowing Drabslab's thread technique and modify it a little bit. Since I haven't got a button, I'll need something else. First, the thread

Then instead of a button, I used my Vice-grips, dangled them from the thread and spun them for a few minutes while the threads wrapped together.

I clipped the plastic firing hoops off

Drilled a pair of holes

Superglued in a loop of the twisted thread, et voilà! Instant bang seat firing handles, no fussy painting required!

The seat looks much better with seat belts on it

And a quick test fit in the cockpit to see how they look

I have a cunning plan to deal with the intakes. Here it is.
First, chisel out the bottom of the rear intake mounts on the fuselage sides

Glue the intake halves together, making sure to remember to glue on the intake fan, then deal with the seam inside the upper exhaust vent

Now a quick digression to make sure all the other things which have to go inside the fuselage are all glued in. Add 21 g of nose weight, just because

Then once the fuselage is nicely buttoned up, it's time to deal with those intakes. Drop the rear inside the fuselage

Then carefully shoehorn the intakes into their mounting holes on the fuselage sides. They'll snap into position with a little persuasion

Now we almost have an airplane!

The wings, intakes and several smaller bits are glued on. The fit in general is atrocious.

Some more progress on the hawk. The cockpit is for the most part complete. The canopy doesn't fit terribly well closed so I guess it's a good thing I intend to have it open.

The seams are sanded down. Now I need to put the remaining little outside bits on and I can give it a coat of primer.

The majority of assembly is finished. Some last bits of cleanup will be needed and then I can get a coat of primer on.

Cockpit masking on and sealed with Future

And now the primer coat

Coming along very well.

Really looking good, Jessica.
Never heard of sealing in the mask tape with future. Will that not make it more difficult to remove, with a beautiful paint job at risk?

Most of the future is on the tape itself, to seal any potential gaps rather than gluing the tape to the model. In any case I'm going to be running my knife blade over the edge of the tape to release it when it's unmasking time.

Very nice to see this big Hawk being build.

Will it be a mirror-like black shining hawk?



Jelger

No, dark blue with maple leaves

Color isn't important, as long as it gleams, because that is what I like so much about Hawks .

So I take it that the Australian Hawks wouldn't get your approval?

I must admit, that two tone grey color scheme looks nice, but not my first choice for a Hawk scheme.

Hawk has come down with a case of the blues


After this dries I'll do the undersides and then see how it turns out.

Unmasking reveals the need for touch-ups




There are a few places where I didn't get the paint on thickly enough, and a few others where it crept under the masking, but it could have been so much worse. Soon enough it'll be time for the decals.

Construction is essentially finished, barring a few pieces of the canopy which I'll leave to the last. Now it's time for clear coat and decals.

The major decals are on and it's looking much more like an airplane


I'll let those dry and then get started on umpty-zillion tiny white stencils...

Finished!











The decal placement instructions could have been much better. The dark shading washed out the shapes of the stencils, and the small print was difficult to read clearly. I had trouble getting the upper wing roundel to conform itself to the vortex generators, and it distorted. The decals are extremely susceptible to Solvaset. I recommend a gentler setting solution.