Wow,an Avenger and Canberra. An very good selection of kits guys. As for myself, I have this little relic from the past. By way of Kitmaker, Airfix, and now Dapol comes the British Rail 10ton Ventilated meat van, complete with improved wheels an couplings!



A bit of history on the kit box art. http://www.airfixrailways.co.uk/Meat.htm The kit was first listed in the Airfix 1962 catalogue. The Dapol release comes with decals for the then current "modern" paint scheme.

I'm in with this, the venerable Hs 123.
IMG_1585 by stu Kendall, on Flickr

Not sure how sensible an idea this will turn out to be mind, time will tell.
stu

Welllllllllll if you like Canberra's you're going to love this! I'm in with Airfix's 1/48 English Electric Canberra PR.9! Fantastic kit that I've been looking for a reason to build so thank you Airfix IV!

This is my entry here:

I'll build it OOB, so it will take no time

started by eliminating the legacy of the mad boiler-maker.

IMG_1593 by stu Kendall, on Flickr

cheers
stu

The wings, engines and tail planes came together in about 30 minutes - which brought me to this point:


The fit of the canopy needed to have the forward contact point on the cockpit reduced slightly to make it sit better - but now the top of the ejector seat touches the inside of the canopy, making sit to one side slightly (a couple of swipes with a file will sort this).


Thinking ahead to paint schemes I found that the newest release of this kit has a subtly different scheme which has a black painted gun pack - which I will copy.


Cheers

Guys, a bunch of good looking model kits being assembled.

Hi guys, here's my submission, another Hurricane Mk.I, but mine is in 1:72. It comes in a huuuge box containing four planes. I will only build Hurricane at this time though. Very excited about this one.

A bit more progress with the Canberra. Camouflage applied using Humbrol satin 163 & 164 over a coat of Tamiya grey surface primer.

Unfortunately the resulting finish only appears satin for the grey and matt for the green (probably an effect of the temperatures at the moment (28 deg C in the modelling cave) and not enough enamel thinners in the green

I will gloss coat the whole plane anyhow to get the transfers down - so its not the end of the world!

Chris and Richard, I am following your Canberra builds with anxiousness.

Stu, Ive not seen that kit for a long time.

Martin, how do you build 1/72 armor? I have a hard enough time in 1/35.

K.Iwan, nice kit. Three a/c in a box, I don't think Ive seen this one.

My 1/48 Hurricane has been used as a paint test for another build in the ETO campaign.



Bob

Greetings,
This will be my project for the Campaign.
Firstsergeant

getting going on the 123. plenty of work to get the cowling right thanks to a lovely seam that runs through the blisters.
IMG_1590 by stu Kendall, on Flickr
Smoothed the fabric areas,built a rudimentary cockpit interior (really not that accurate but better than the nothing that was there before.

IMG_1609 by stu Kendall, on Flickr

Fun, fun, fun, I do like these old kits.
cheers
stu

Small update:



I'm working on 1/72 because I don't have enough space for big models

Martin, I have the same problem, but I cannot see good enough even with glasses to work in 1/72. So I work on 1/48 and give the finished model away so I can work on more.

The Duck Egg Blue and Dark Earth have been applied.

I've got some progress report on my Hurricane too. Cockpit is an area I really need to improve, but fortunately in 1:72 you can't see anything after it's been assembled. I've only had minor troble with wings, top and bottom did not fit very well, there was half a milimetre difference a the edge. Actually it looked exactly like the masking tape sticking out on Bob's photo. I thought it would have big trouble woth it, but somehow managed to sand it all in no time. I also had to trim away the trailing edges of the wings as they were very thick. And then there was an ugly sink at the wing root on both sides, I've filled it in and will sand when it's completely dry. Now I think I should have taken a photo before I applied the putty, but I am always smart after the fact. All in all it's going very smooth. Looking at the old kits I cannot help but think what an unbelievable leap in quality has Airfix made. My parts are all crispy sharp, very little seams or mold marks and they are located in spots that will be concealed anyway, parts are made in a very clever way that makes it impossible to mistake left and right side (and that did happen to me several times in the past).

K.Iwan, nice job on your Hurricane interior. How much putty did you need on the wing/fuselage?

Bob

Quite a bit actually, The "step" was close to 1 milimetre deep on both sides. I was very surprised at that, because other parts fit so nicely, there was not a tiniest gap to fill anywhere else.

K.Iwan, my experience with the Hurricane and their 109 was to insert sheet plastic in the gap at the wing and fuse then putty them.

Bob

Awesome work gents love the old mould kits that are being built! A real nostalgia buzz for me. This time around I've decided to build one of Airfix's more recent offerings their E.E. Canberra PR.9.

Construction starts with the cockpit and the first thing I've realised is that the cockpit has no alignment guides/pins in the fuselage. It rests against the nose wheel and is suspended from the upper fuselage by the pilots cockpit fuselage panel. So the first thing when building the cockpit is to ensure everything is square. Not easy when it comes to the navigators station and it's wall of switches, instruments as the slot it fits into is wedge shaped. I've glued it to the pilots I.P. after a quick file of the I.P. hood as it wasn't at 90 degrees. I put a strip of plastic in front of it in the wedge to pack it out and help it sit at the correct angle.

Another thing is that the instructions are the old type and the placement guide is vague at best useless at worst. The Pilots instrument panel would appear to be placed in front the supports for it (closer to the nose) but the construction of the panel suggests it should sit behind it closer to the pilot, which is what I did and it worked out pretty well. So my advice is to test fit and see what works best.

The cockpit after a look at images online is completely wrong for the PR-9. The second crewman's entrance is through the nose cone and he sits completely separated from the pilot. The top of his position has an eject-able panel that's replicated by a decal in the kit but is quite prominent on the real thing. There is no second station by the pilot at a lower level, relevant to the bomber version but not for the PR-9. So I'm not going to have the navigator's position open but it may be something I'll attempt in the future as it would make a standout model.

I've applied a coat of Tamiya NATO black to the cockpit and the inside of the cockpit panel. I've allowed it to dry over night now I'm going to dry brush the cockpit with white and then pick out some of the dials gauges etc. I'm not going to work on the rest of the cockpit as it won't be seen, out of sight out of mind.

The fuselage walls are incredibly thick 1.5 to 2 mm at least so pleasingly rigid. The location pins are quite large in diameter and provide a really positive fit that requires a little force to get them to close up. There are no supports for the belly insert so some will have to be created as it'll just drop inside as I've discovered from dry fitting. Also at this point you'll need to decide which version you re going to build as it dictates which insert you'll use. As I'm building the last version I'll be using that one. It also has under-wing pylons with what I assume are either ECM pods or sensors or both. Given today's battle field and the array of infantry launched and self propelled anti-aircraft missiles and guns ECM counter measures would seem likely.

The wings where they join to the fuselage at the leading edge didn't actually close up as the pin closest to the fuselage is a little tall and a quick snip with a pair of sprue cutters solved that problem.

Chris, I see that we use the same clips and that's where all of my tooth picks ended up. Nice looking Canberra.

Bob

Chris,

I think I am suffering from Canberra envy!
Nice to see something resembling a cockpit is now in the kit.

Cheers

Richard

Well,I've had some time free recently - so here is the Canberra:






A fun build with a thankfully low parts count - just a shame that decals silvered on me!

Cheers

Richard

So... wings have been moderated - more fabric covered, less ploughed field, interior painted up and top cowling prepped for rigging.
IMG_1624 by stu Kendall, on Flickr

IMG_1628 by stu Kendall, on Flickr


IMG_1627 by stu Kendall, on Flickr



next up, scribing and - inevitably - more filling & sanding

stu

Stu, nice subject but I don't envy the sanding.

Bob

GlueFinger - that Canberra is fantastic. I wish I could achieve such a smooth finish. Really impressive work!
Stu - this must be a huge challenge. I'm sure it will be worth it, though. Henschel 123 is a beautiful plane, one of my favourite designs. I've got one in my stash made by Fly, but so far I'm leaving it alone until I build up some skill.

Meanwhile I've painted the underside of my Hurricane in Eau de Nil, I was supposed to use Sky, but I wanted the Hurricane to look a bit different to Sky painted Spitfire I already have in my colleciton. I've also just finished the last coat of Dark Earth on top side. Now that I need to wait for it to completely dry, I turned to the pilot figurine. I'm having trouble now, I simply don't know what uniform colour was used by Poles flying in RAF. Would any of you know? I can see pictures on the internet that would suggest they wore standard British gear, am I right? This is one of the moments I think scale modeling might not be a best hobby for a someone having trouble differentiating between colours. Anyway I've also noticed 303 guys apparently did not like to tuck the leg sleeves into the boots. I will try to recreate that look.