Reposting photos since issue with photobucket.

well only took me a month into the campaign to finally decide on what to build but I'll be working on the Boulton Paul Defiant Mk.I

Casey, nice choice on the kit. Better late than never.

I finally painted the dark green on the Hurricane.

Hi, I've completed some work on my Hurricane too, camo is done. I messed up a little bit with the masking. I have tried a different approach than usual. Before I used to apply the second colour free-hand, but I was not happy with the results: my movements had to be careful and very slow, resulting in visible brush strokes, accentuated even more because they traced regular curved lines. So this time I've decided to mask the base colour allowing me to paint the green bits with the usual quick staight strokes that leave smooth finish.
I have cut very thin strips of elastic tape and traced the camo lines to get nice curved shapes, then covered the brown with a new addition to my tool set - Humbrol Maskol. Then I've painted the green and removed the mask. Effect was mixed. Humbrol Maskol turned out to work great, I am quite delighted with it, but paint still got beneath my tape strips in some places. I forgot to seal it with clear varnish - d'oh! Anyway I've cleaned it up and although the results are far from perfect, this is still by far the best result I've ever managed to get. Next time I'll try to go with the Maskol thing alone.
As for the pilot figure, I've found out Polish pilots in RAF wore British uniform with Polish ranks on the collars. Since I fond it impossible to replicate any of that in 1:72 and I was not quite sure about the uniform colour, I gave him a leather jacket instead. Pants colour might be off, but I don't think it will be visible. I still need to apply wash to the pilot. I've made a stupid mistake though and forgot to measure the pilot before painting. Now I have found out he does not fit - leg amputations will be required By the way I've noticed accomplished modelleres don't use pilot figurines unless in a diorama. Why is that? Obstructing cockpit detail, they don't look too good or are there other reasons?

Bigrip74, I've compared your Hurricane to mine. It looks like mine has got the early wings made of wood and fabric, while yours are the improved stressed-skin metal ones. Is that still Mk.I version or did it have some differce in designation? I've tried to go back to your original campaign entry post, but the picture seems to have gone bad. Also I can't help but notice my colours are so much darker... how badly did I mess up?

K.Iwan, my kit is the 1/48 mk.I and colors are always up to the individual. Yours may be the correct shades, I just went with Tamiya acrylics and IPMS Stockholm comparisons. Dont worry about the colors, I thought yours are more correct than mine. Nice build so far I cannot wait to see the finished a/c. My PB photos were lost due to their issues, but I will post the rest of my build using another photo sharing site.


Bob

Shrimpman as to some of "us" not using figures it boils down to one simple reality ..... I'm crap at painting figures! LOL

"DITTO"

Started the really thick decals. Looks like Ill need to purchase more decal sol.

The Hurricane is done:

That's a real gem! I realy like it. I'm getting closer to the finish line too. Decals done. It was a bit of a challenge as Airfix decals seem to be immune to my softening solutions. I presume it's beacuse they are quite thick. I also used some after-market squadron markings and stencil data by Techmod, as decals provided in my kit were very basic. Don't worry about the cockpit, it's my wife, the moment I look the other way, she replaces the pilot with one of her polymer clay creations.

Shrimpman' I used the kit decals and they were thick also. I just kept using the Microscale Sol till they looked good to me. Your wife is funny and to notice your hobby this way, you've got a gem there.

Bob

The first 50 Mk1 Hurricanes had fabric covered wings, a few served in the RAF and some were sold to Belgium. Airfix do the fabric wing Hurricane in 172 with both markings. All Mk1's from then on were metal winged but all marks had the fabric covered rear fuselage. Hope this helps

Bigrip74 - Your are quite right, she's great! Best friend I've ever had!
Berwickboy - Thank you for the information. I've spent quite some time trying to figure out which wings were fitted in Squadron No.303 Hurricanes, but it looks like I've made a mistake. I think they used the metal ones, but cannot be sure. Logic tells me that as a foreign squadron they would have been very low on the priority list for upgrades, but then again by the time Battle of Britain was in full swing, there would not have been too many fabric wings ones left.

Greetings,
More progress to report on my Spitfire MkIIa:






Regards,
Firstsergeant

Got some work done this weekend so far have had no problem and the cockpit and wings have fit like a dream. just need to put the instrument panel and some touch up work.

Bob,
Your Hurricane looks great! Well done

Airfix officiandos:
I'm curious: My favourite online supplier (and the other online suppliers I could find here in Australia) has had the Airfix 1/48 Ju-87 B1 Stuka as 'out-of-stock' for six months.

So, I finally found one on Ebay that I've ordered. Hopefully it'll be here this week.

Anyway...I haven't noticed anyone building one anywhere, yet. Has anyone?

Anyway...if it arrives I'll join this campaign with it. I've never built an Airfix kit before.

Cheers,

Gaz

Hi Gaz!

I hope you like the 'new' Airfix as much as I do!

In fact, I absolutely love their new kits!

I hope to throw my hat in the ring on this campaign with a couple of Airfix builds within a couple of months once i wrap things up with the Prinz.

In the meantime, it may be hard to find 1/48 Stuka builds on the new kit with the all problems with Photobucket occurring, so yours will be a sight for sore eyes!

Gaz, I have the Ju87B-2.R kit and it looks to be a big airplane. I also have not seen any Stuka's in the campaign, will be watching yours to gain some tips.

Bob

You're right, by the time the Battle of Britain got under way, very few fabric-winged ("ragwing!") Hurricanes remained in frontline squadron service. Most had been either re-winged with the metal wing, or been passed back to the training units.

Well, it arrived today, so I'm in! Airfix Ju-87B1.


I gotta tell ya it's an impressive amount of plastic in a big box for a single-engine 1/48 kit. And that plastic looks pretty damn nice. Crisp, heavily detailed pieces and lot's of em.

And the wing-to-fuselage join looks to be foolproof. Weighted wheels made to be set in either flat-sided or full round. Some hefty thought went into designing this puppy.
Even the instruction booklet deserves to be called a manual with sweet-looking illustrations.

The only down I see at this point is the decals. You can use either a Spanish Civil War set, or a Sitzkrieg dated StG 2 set. Without Swastikas. Not even half or quartered swastikas. anyway, I won't relaunch the swastika debate.

So, I decided to look for decals from my favorite Stuka picture:


For those that didn't know, a company in France made decals just for this kit...so, they're still NEW! NGdecals:

Cool, eh?
Oh, and the previous photos are for discussion only.

Gaz

That has to be the happiest looking Stuka I have ever seen

Well, the Stuka may look happy, but I'm not.

I pulled apart the plastic bag containing the parts to discover, to my horror, that I had no fuselage!

So, I've gone to the Airfix support site and filled out the form. It's late Thursday night there, so I don't imagine anything will happen for the next 12 hours or so.

So... There will be some delay...

Gaz

Gaz, that really sucks, hope they can get you a new fuselage

made some more progress on the Defiant. was able to sand and fill the wings and fuselage with minimal wear to the details, also added the tail and back panel by the turret. However I wish the instruction gave you a little bit more detail about what the difference between the two back panel options were. The wings joined with no problem and i really like the V notch in the tail as it makes it almost fool proof to get the tail on straight

Casey,
You're getting some good work done on your Defiant.

I got an e-mail from Airfix and they're going to replace the sprue. Until it arrives I'll work on a couple other irons on the fire.

Gaz