Peter s

Here's some useful tools . From top to bottom Archimedes drill with .5mm but #22 swan morton scalpel. Nice chunky blade but a sharp point so good for modelling Tamiya mini razor saw. Comes with several blade. You can find all these for a few quid on ebay. I used that saw to do the gun bays on the 1/72 typhoon kit so it'll do your sea hurricane easily and safely. /media/tinymce_upload/1d4945439facc97a3eb8ceb7e5f1805f.jpg

"The other brand" have an amazing range of rare RAF subjects but Jesus are they hard work to build.... The Airfix are idiot proof in comparison. It's a shame the early variants are so different to the later versions with 6 wing guns that Airfix are unlikely to do such a variant.

Don't use a scalpel. I'm trained as a pathologist so I'm VERY familiar with them. They're extremely high carbon steel so brittle as hell. A tiny twisting action shatters them like grenade fragments. Get a razor saw. Tamiya make good ones in all sizes. You can get small PE ones too. Use the saw to do most of the work and just tidy up with the scalpel. Worked perfectly with my 1/72 typhoon.

Ps this might be useful i wouldn't have dared put so much exhaust on the wings of mine if I hadn't seen the bottom right photo

I'm not sure that's without controvesy! From what I've read online you've a mix of fairey new builds with sky grey undersides, Blackburn ones like mine and pre war silver dope ones repainted on board. I've even see a claim the second wave had bombs and torpedo. My attitude is that lifes too short. If it can't be proved right it can't be proved wrong either.

I think you've already done a better job on the cammo pattern than I did. I totally agree 're the decals. I've nearly finished a bf109 that was literally transformed when the decals went on. BTW good job with the green-gray primer colour on the flaps. "Just Jane's" hidden bits are a very similar ( probably a bit darker) shade. Far more like German army uniform feldgrau than "cockpit green"

Allegedly one of the swordfish that attacked bismarck had a primer red rudder (also a replacement). It's these little touches that make things fun even if you can never quite prove it.

Ps 're the rudder potentially being a replacement. I agree. it looks odd. Have you any idea where they got the DC3s from? The dark green used by the USAF in Vietnam is really dark. It's not ridiculous given 1970s colour photo stock further distorted by rounds of digital processes that it's not off black but very dark green possibly a bit sun faded.

Looks like raf medium sea grey to me. The Tamiya and Vallejo versions are almost identical shades but the Tamiya gives a more Matt finish. Interesting as I interpreted the original pic as black underside (like a Vietnam gun ship) but that's probably just heavy shadow. The engine cowlings must be filthy! They are dark.

If you can post a real pic I can tell you if a conversation is possible. Mine has the potential for a tail gun like the Doolittle raiders and the perspex side panels were huge. They look like Airfix have factored in waist gunners for the future

Looking good! I found similar issues with the bomb bay. Mine is held on with dots of superglue gel and luck! I have read of a few Lancs that dropped the bomb bay doors over Germany as well as the bombs. Given everything was sacrificed for bomb load the real things didn't waste weight on chunky bay hinges.

What you're looking at is something that's sat in the sun too long and bleached. The black on the rudder is like Tamiya NATO black. Very matt, a bit like charcoal black rather than true black. The earth and green could be RAF colours again sun faded. Tamiya flat earth looks close. The green was probably an raf green but now looks more like xf70 dark green (good for green Mitsubishi zeros). The original raf colours mixed with some light grey or a yellow colour to lighten them would do it. That pic is very very matt. Mix some Matt medium in the paint and give the finished plane a few costs of good Matt varnish. Good luck! I keep meaning to start mine and never do. Ps if you airbrush spray a slightly dark colour first then overspray very lightly with a slightly paler shade focusing on the centre of each patch. That'll aid the faded look. If you brush paint you can dry brush a lighter shade. I'm an acrylics person and favour tamiya/Vallejo .

From my 20 year out of date TA experience you tend to mix rounds on the same belt. 1 in 4 tracer mixed with ball or 1 in 10 etc. Different rounds tend to behave slightly differently too so mixed ammo isn't a great idea at long range.

Here's the pics. A slight delay getting some taken as I had another winter project to snap at the same time. These were taken on my rather elderly phone camera so nothing special tech wise. I've tried to get the light to look a bit like Winter. Not easy when the sun is blazing through the back door. I maybe chickened out of some final weathering touches with these guys.... at one point I was going to use a rather excellent artificial snow on the Spit (one reason I used the type B mask was that originally the camo pattern wasn't going to be as obvious) but despite the fact its a cheap ancient kit my wife persuaded me its too pretty to cover in white stuff. With the exception of the radio wires and stub aerial on the swordfish this is straight out of the box. The pilot is from the Spit plus two twins from the spares box. One thing the Swordfish would benefit from is a crew. I've copied the instructions for the swordfish. There's some online debate the H should be on the tail. /media/tinymce_upload/1e3f0d2268c51ee232fed5ea4ee9e442.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/0fd1a27322d2b76b0f75e1f0da178780.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/76feab5e7143c97d8b0910d8296baabd.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/10a7204bd1a2a662a8996ca2648abc8d.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/3ca86435734784370a65b8e9604c6c68.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/165831731ab2da5eafbb0b0d0cd92e33.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/301b5b965f487fb5f4fe75c663174952.jpg

Chip #16 in the link looks like the Vallejo ash grey to me.... After a photo is digitised and then we all view it on different devices (I'm using a kindle at the moment) we could all be seeing different shades. Who calibrated their monitor much less a cheap tablet? I used to have very minor fame in a very small modelling sphere (1/16 armour) and got utterly sick of people quoting paint chips. On the real thing when a genuine WW2 tank or aircraft has its post war paint removed for restoration the original paint is usually a long way from the chips. See Patton museum restorations or the wildcat or corsair at FAA yeovilton. Expose it to sun for any length of time and the paint fades. US olive drab (sherman etc) is ochre and black pigment only. The black breaks down in the sun so dark greenish-Brown becomes light tan eventually. Any shade lighter than the original can be justified as a result (unless your model is meant to be factory fresh) Secondly from a model POV there's a phenomenon called "scale colour". A 1/72 model viewed from a metre away is like viewing the real thing at 72 metres. The further from an object the lighter it looks. A slightly satin finish will reflect light and make it look lighter again. Or in summary... If it looks right to the modeller it probably is more or less right. Ps I visited the Lancaster "just jane" in January. Where major parts were removed the primer underneath was a dark greenish grey. Basically German army feldgrau.... Quite different from any shade sold for British model aircraft.

Thanks! It's a big plane. Similar to a twin engine in size. It's warload was more than a Blenheim could carry. All that wing gave it a lot of carrying power.

Post #4/media/tinymce_upload/ab791756690a105c509b6c46ed41aef7.jpg Sky type S used to paint the lower fuselage. I added a little pale grey to the dark slate grey and brush painted a paler shade on the lower wing. Spit underside painted in medium sea grey then 5mm flexible tape applied to the wing edges. These were sprayed in flat white (Tamiya) with plenty of alcohol for an instant dry then oversprayed with XF-3 flat yellow. Without the white base bright yellow goes on muddy. /media/tinymce_upload/607cf2188f6ae50273c2352423acd62c.jpg The Spit got type B cammo.... I don't know what mix of A or B 72 squadron was using in 1942 but I normally do type A so this was a mild change from the norm. Some models looks like a mess until close to the end but from start to finish Spits always look gorgeous! Where the left wing on the swordfish catches the light you can appreciate the counter shading a little. Its a subtle effect really. I wouldn't bother on a small plane. I've airbrushed all I can at this point so its brush and pencil work from now on. /media/tinymce_upload/2fbf8aded4e31c147f61804ba20a9e0c.jpg I started on the engine and cowling. Vallejo have a new range of metallics which spray well (over a matt acrylic base) and although very thin brush paint well. For the cowling I hand painted with the AK True Metal copper stuff. This is basically a coloured wax not a paint but dries in mins, goes on really well and doesn't react badly with vallejo acrylic varnishes unlike some other metal products. I had a busy bank holiday and actually finished both models.... I need to take the final pics ASAP so thats it for a few days.

Post #3 /media/tinymce_upload/71a91f867741a6e768a872c4d5204bb5.jpg Swordfish masked off and extra dark ocean grey applied to the upper wing and fuselage. Spit masked off and the ocean grey applied. The same Ocean grey was used to paint the lower wing of the swordfish. Early British biplanes tended to use a counter shading trick on the lower wing where lighter colours were used. This countered the shadow cast by the upper wing and aided the camo effect. In an attempt to speed up aircraft production from 1941 onwards this was officially discontinued but was used on Walruses right up to the end of the war. Not all swordfishes used it but most sources say Blackburn did. At this stage I also painted the torpedo. God knows what colours they really were. I've seen modellers use every shade imaginable but I went off this pic /media/tinymce_upload/1de05c8db18916153a5e872a26a2e1ae.jpg which seems to be a dark blue or gray rear and pale grey warhead. I used a luftwaffe grey and a USN extra dark blue. Post #4 to follow

#Post 2. /media/tinymce_upload/29564e7d9dcf07e3a3d5719202618bd3.jpg Both kits were built very easily straight out of the box. Spit first. I've a second Spit V part painted and that has 1974 on the inside of the fuselage. Its not the most advanced Spit I've built but it costs pocket money (I actually spent pocket money on these in the early 80s) but it looks like a Spit V and goes together really nicely. I needed a little plastic filler at the wing roots but apart from that no issues at all. It must have taken a whole 30 mins to build. The swordfish is a much more sophisticated beast. 6 hours build time, including some rudimentary painting of the cockpit as I went along. There's two small windows at the pilots feet which are irritating. They have to be fitted from inside but once the lower wings are fitted access to them is very awkward. A neater builder than me would be advised to try and paint and assemble in sub-units as it gets awfully cramped above the lower wing when everything is in place. I recently sacrified a defensless gladiator working out how best (ie the least scream inducing way) to rig biplanes. I've settled on 0.2mm albion alloy brass rod held in place with superglue gel. Its easily cut with scissors and easily held in place by forceps. The superglue can leave white marks so I chose to rig before painting. Whether thats the smartest thing to do is highly debatable but I got away with it this time. /media/tinymce_upload/d57c0ef616545fffd52573a773bb38b7.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/2a71a2bcc1c685e2c1993bb44e1ed1ca.jpg I primed both kits in Tamiya colours similar to those I intended to use for the final underside colour. Sky for the swordfish, med Sea grey for the Spit. This ensures a decent coat of Sky ends up on the underside of the upper wing above the fuselage. You don't want to be touching that area up by brush. Its all strut and no space! /media/tinymce_upload/026a328d2591d2a1253b929d3f119171.jpg Finally for this post I put two coats of Vallejo model air onto the uppersides. The swordfish got 71.309 dark slate grey straight out of the bottle. The standard vallejo RAF green (71.324) looks OK with dark earth but is far too green when used with grey. I mixed it 50/50 with US Dk Olive Drab (71.316) and got a perfect shade. /media/tinymce_upload/1d06c6134fe8cec0e1f2aa7d560413d1.jpg More to follow...........

Post#1 This is the 2nd build thread I've "diaried". Hope its helpful. I buy an awful lot of my models from "the well known auction website". In among all the big sellers every now and then you find something a bit different at a good price. I recently bought the "channel dash" gift set..... not fully appreciating that my stash already contains 2 Airfix Spit Vs and another "Op Torch" club Swordfish and Sea Hurricane set....... DOH! TBH I've built 2 previous airfix new tool swordfish and both were learning experiences. Both came out OK but not well enough that I'd like to share them. #3 has gone a lot better. The Channel Dash was not one of our finer moments. During the 11-13th Feb 1942 the German battleships, Scharnhorst Gneisenau & the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen slipped their moorings in Brest, joined up with nearly 60 smaller ships and with 250 single seat fighters charged up the English channel. Due to a serious of mistakes we ended up attempting to stop them with SIX Swordfish escorted by just 10 Spit Vs. The swordfish were led by a veteran of the Bismarck attack, Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde who was posthumously awarded the VC. All other swordfish crew were mentioned in despatches for their courage. The airfix gift pack comes with decals for Esmondes aircraft plus one of the 10 72 squadron spits that provided close escort. I should point at at this point that if you google colour schemes for Esmondes aircraft you will find a serious debate. There's a rumour the 6 swordfish were painted black for the strike (the British forces believing the Germans would try and pass Dover at night). There's few sources for this idea and I personally don't believe it. Airfix wisely hedge their bets. The box art depicts a black airfcraft but painting instructions are provided for both all black and standard FAA colours as worn "before the 11th Feb". Personally I doubt the "painted black" story. The south of England was blanketed in snow at the start of Feb 1942 so even at night black aircraft would stand out horribly from above over snow. Over sea the extra dark grey and dark slate grey is an ideal camo. Its possible the undersides were hastily painted black (like Taranto aircraft) but I don't see any huge advantage to this. If the swordfish had attacked any lower the crews would have been classified as submariners! Partially with this logic in mind and partially because it will make a more complex build I'm doing the swordfish in the standard colours of a Blackburn built Swordfish and the Spit in regular Green/Ocean gray over med Sea grey colours. More and pics to follow.

However, it didn't take long before I realised that none of this additional work would ever be seen. Photos to follow. I've found this on almost all my builds. I've a swordfish almost complete and even with the open cockpit you can barely see any of the detail parts i painted. Personally I save the pennies/time for aftermarket parts you can see or more kits. Regarding the pics : maybe reactive moderation would be more efficient?

I've seen the same. I guess for Malta the combat was low level and "scramble" meant NOW! not in 5 mins when you've changed your trousers ☺

As above too. Even in mid summer it's freezing at 20,000 feet and even lower down pilots tended to over dress. The thick leather flying jacket would boil you alive on the ground but offered life saving protection if the cockpit was aflame or if you ended up in the sea. I had ten mins stick time in a tiger moth at 1000 feet on a hot August day and was very glad of the (provided) leather jacket , flying hat and overalls.

Agree with the above. FAA really means carriers and the B24 isn't really suited to a deck! My parents neighbour, now well into his late 90s flew them and I wanted to make him a model one but found many of your problems. Most of the u boat hunters I've seen (extra dark grey/slate grey/white) lack nose guns. Those in india/burma generally do have nose guns.

Don't worry - the instructions ay the pointy ones and I just checked Peter's build and it looks like he used them, so I'll take it as correct. Cheers. That's trusting! The instructions said the pointy ones so went with them. Given Airfix have done b1 b2 and b3 versions and that there's a lot of parts in the kit you don't need it's not crystal clear. Add in that both versions were relatively old planes when depicted and it gets even more vague.