Right from the get go I said that I was going to write up a walk through of the kit's instructions. The instructions were the kits biggest flaw and I'm hoping to help out future builders.




With the Mosquito making a return this calendar year, I thought I’d take the time to write up some of the notes I made during my build. I hope to save some modelers some potential headaches. It does build up to be a beautiful machine, but if there’s one thing I’d change about the kit, it would be these terrible instructions.


Also, speaking of the instructions, with a 1/24th scale kit – why are the instructions comically large too? Your workspace is already covered in parts and tools and now you have to fit this book somewhere handy too. The booklet is 17”x24” – and yes, you’ll want it even and close by because of the aforementioned ambiguity, double checking what goes where as you’re gluing.


As they say – Let’s take it from the top.


I wont include notes on every step, just the landmines.

One of my biggest peeves with this kit (and consequently the Typhoon) is that Airfix references Humbrol paints (which aren’t especially popular in North America), but does not have a chart anywhere in the book. So if you’re like me and don’t regularly use Humbrol paints, you’re going to have to constantly look the numbers up and you will constantly making ‘one more’ trip to the hobby store to get a crucial colour that was hiding in midst of a sub-step.

The instructions start out with diagrams of all the sprues – I’ve always liked this approached when you have lettered sprues. The letter tabs on the sprues are annoying to find – I would put a tab of Tamiya tape on each one with the appropriate letter. You’ll be juggling these often enough that you’ll be thankful that you did.



You start by assembling the pilot’s seat. I found the alignment to be tricky with no real positive alignment tabs. Also the kit will have you build the seat, but then install it much later. This is very fiddly, the seat isn’t especially strong and this is all the more complicated by the fact that the tables on the arms do not fit into the seat back. I would precheck all of the square tabs for fit as these seemed to be especially problematic through the build. I would also paint the yellow on the back of the armor plate before building the seat. I painted the back yellow, then I took a hole punch and punched a piece of Tamiya masking tape (attached to some scrap styrene for a clean circle) place that where the decal would go and THEN paint the interior green. There are two similar decals which you can paint this way at this stage – one in the nosegun bay and I forget where the third is…[found it! The back of the navigators seat]

Step 5 has you assemble the cockpit floor. I hate how Airfix has done this because it is absolutely crucial to the fit of the entire model – the fuse, the wings, the bombbay, everything – but there is no positive method of alignment. Admittedly I’m spoiled as my last kit was a newer Tamiya kit and the one before that was the Tamiya 32nd scale P-51, but given the quality of the mold for this kit, the engineering should be better. If I remember correctly, there are alignment steps on the inside of both fuselage halves. I recommend dry-fitting the parts to one of the sides, using sticky tack or tape to hold the parts in place, and then run your cement. The four parts form three 90 degree angles, and they’re glued edge to face.

Step 6 – You’re assembling the internal structure of the lower gunbay, it should be noted that Airfix have built this kit so that when detail areas are closed off, you cannot attach the detail pieces. For example, if you attach the exhaust fairings, you cannot have the exhausts on. So no clever little magnets like Tamiya, the parts are either on or off. In this step, parts from step 6 and 7 do not fit with the lower gun bay cover in place. I installed them and found out the hard way so I ended up breaking them off so I could put the fairing on. It’s unfortunate because the parts that all come together in step 7 are some of the very few parts that fit very well without cement.

Step 9 – another 90 degree edge to face joint. Be careful with parts 25L and 39L as they only go on in a particular orientation.

Step 11 – I remember having fit issues with part 29L, I don’t recall what specifically, but I think it was the length of the rod that extends to the fuselage side. It’s hidden under the seat, so I think I just trimmed it down.

Step 13 – the chain is beautifully molded but incredibly fragile.

Step 14 – I think I remember the problem [from step 11] I think the parts from step 12 wont slot into the hole on the vertical wall at a 90 degree because the rod from 29L sticks out too far.

Step 15 – part 11L is a first aid kit. It’s a metal case, but inexplicably airfix wants you to paint it khaki.

Step 16 – see what I mean about trying to fit this seat in now?

Step 26 – part M10 is a clear part – ignore the instructions when they tell you to paint it black. In fact as far as I can tell, this Perspex cover was never found on any mosquitos, but is on the first restored example to take flight just recently. It’s some sort of guard over some toggle switches. I included it in my build, but don’t feel you have to.

Step 27 – CAREFUL! This is where the ambiguity screwed me hard. It doesn’t really explain how to align this part. First of all this part is a tray for a map drawer. It also is not khaki and the kit part doesn’t have the drawer in it. Care must be taken in placing this part – I had to break it off after I had closed the fuselage to move it. If I remember correctly, it has to be slotted into that groove, but slid all the way rearward – I had mine too far forward and the bulkhead that fits to the front of the main fuse wouldn’t fit or it wouldn’t fit with parts from step 35 in place. Dryfit if you can – this is part of the problem, all of the sub assemblies in this kit are incredibly fragile and I found it hard to dry fit different assemblies without breaking at least one of them.

Step 30 – why couldn’t the cockpit floor have been engineered like this? Dryfit this assembly (after step 31) to the fuselage halves. After I had glued them together, this seemed to be the culprit for them not fitting well. As if it was too big.

Step 41 – hope and pray this fits well.

Step 43 – Pucker

Step 45 – play around with these two parts. Make sure you fit them to the fuselage because this is the crux of the entire model.

Step 46 – 50; These parts fit very well, but I would glue the two radiator halves together first, then fit them to the wings without cement, then slot the covers on. The alignment is tricky but the end result is convincing. Watch the ejector pin marks on the radiator doors (14F and 15F) they are inexplicably on the OUTSIDE of the doors. I ignored sanding them down initially, assuming that the side with the potholes on would be the inside. Also make sure you have 19F and 18F marked – they ARE actually different.

Step 64 – Literally impossible. You have to slip the wings on at the front edge, then lift the rear into place. Look carefully – the rear edge of the bomb bay has locating tabs for the bomb bay sides – There just isn’t room to flip the rear edge of the wing up, you’ll end up breaking part of this tab off no matter how much care you take. There simply isn’t room. You could groove the horizontal face of the back of the wing so those tabs slide through unimpeded I suppose. I mention this because the fit of all of these components is so tight , and you WILL need the top half of these tabs (ie the part that you’re about to break off) to make the bomb bay sides fit flush against the bottom of the wing.


Step 71 on – The engines, oh Christ the engines. The basic components fit together well, but the piping and hoses are a NIGHTMARE. Study the diagrams in step 102 for several days. When you think you know the routing of the hoses, think again. The issue isn’t so much their glue-points as it is their routing. It’s complicated by the fact that you fit the engines into their bearers and then take the entire assemblies -which are probably the most fragile of the entire kit – and attach them to the firewalls. The tabs on the end of the bearers (more square tabs, yay!) parts 16J and 14J did not fit into my firewalls.

Build the bearers before you attach them to the engines. And before you paint them. Attach 17J to 16J and 15J to 14J. Otherwise you will not get the strength you need from these parts. Install these on the engines before you start attaching the parts from 96 – 99. This is where things get tricky. Check out my build thread on Aeroscale/Modelers Alliance, I took photos of the final assembly JUST so you could see where things go – I screwed up the first three times I tried.

Building the landing gear just sucks. It’s really annoying having the main gear sticking out throughout the rest of the painting process and decaling etc. I wish they had been engineered in such a way that you could install them at the end of assembly. I know there’s a build online where the author did just that, but I can’t imagine how.

To the Guns! The ammo bins for the cannons, shown in steps 149 – 152, is the best fitting assembly of the kit. I had to pry mine apart just dry fitted! Note that the bins you assemble in 149 and 150 are not symmetrical, part 87K has a tapered edge. You’ll need to know this for step 151, where Airfix could have been kind enough to point out the orientation of the bins. Don’t confuse part 35E with part 34E.

Step 153 – Skip this step. Attach the vertical feed chutes to the bins in step 161, and THEN attach the curved part. Trust me, it might be easier to build them and then paint them, but I promise they wont line up with the cannons properly. To cover the seam building in this order, I just glued a piece of styrene strip over the join. It looks like a sleeve, similar to what you would see with pvc piping.

Step 158 – take note of how the cannons mount. The adjusting screws from the brackets fit into the holes, not between the two ridges.

Steps 163 – 167. I wrote a note on my instructions to glue part 7L to part 50L and then complete steps 163 – 169. Otherwise you’ll have a nightmare of a time trying to press part 7L onto the bomb rack assembly without breaking a lot of things.

Step 170 – 171. The kit actually has parts for 4 bombs, although it only shows the assembly of 2. Two of these bombs have square holes in them. I think they might be the ones for the wing pylons, but they seems awfully big for wing mounted bombs The colour call out in step 171 I have marked as an error, but again because there’s no damn chart I don’t remember why.

Step 174 – 177. These metal tubes provide heat for the guns. The instructions don’t show you where they attach to the cannons, I had to dig a while to find a photo but they sit next to the feed chute against the cannon.

Step 185 – 186. Took me a while to figure out what these two non-steps were showing you. It simply shows that there are two door configurations and how they would go if you built them closed. Of course you couldn’t build them like this until you install parts 7D and 8D, which aren’t even mentioned until the following step.

Step 187 – pay close attention to how these fit. I don’t mean the quality of the join, I mean the mechanical method used to align them. There’s a negative recess in the inside of each of these bomb bay walls, the tab in the fuselage (If you managed to not destroy it when attaching the wing) slots in there – pressing these up flush against the wing. It would be nice if you could clamp them in place, but you can’t because everything is installed in the bomb bay. And you can’t install the stuff in the bomb bay after, because you need access to the bottom of the wing to slot the gun bearers in place. Facepalm I used some brand new alligator clips – they provided enough strength to hold the parts in place as the cement dried and were small enough to fit.

The Machine Guns. Steps 203 onwards. The ammo bin fits well together, but doesn’t fit nicely into the bulkhead. The rubber ammo chutes are a pain. Like photo etch, if you paint them before hand, the paint will crack and peel, if you paint them after you’ll by hurting for space to maneuver the brush. I installed the feeds into the guns, and painted them after step 214. Step 208 is especially tedious. I would probably attempt to mount the machine guns onto parts 7&8E before attaching the whole assembly to the floor. Note that there are notches in the end of 7&8E, which will be the primary way you locate that sub assembly into the gun bay. It would’ve been nice if this was made a little clearer.

Step 220 – I’m not sure why 14B attaches only to 18B as opposed to the roof of the gun bay, which would make this juggling act a little easier. Fear not, I attached those two parts together and found there was ample room to slide the cannons through.

Step 241 – there are only two parts, one numbered 29E and one 30E. So regardless of which option you choose, you wont find a second part numbered 30E.

Step 254 – Enjoy.

I admire your dedication and hard work you've put into this guide, Matt. Hat off to you; well done

Thank you very much for that Matt, dedication indeed

Thanks guys. I wish there was something similar to this when I built mine. There weren't even many good photos of some of the assemblies from completed builds. I just hope this guide helps one person one time and it will all have been worth it.

This is immediately getting printed and going into my Mossie box. Thanks a ton Matt!

Michael

Yes! I've helped one!

Feel free to PM me on here when you get around to it if you have any questions. I'll also be curious to know if yours fits better than my copy did.

Yes printed