Christmas Mojo Build - Airfix 1/48 Hurricane Mk1

[Brad Cancian]

Hi all,

Well, it's been quite a busy year with work, which has meant another slow year at the bench. It's been quite difficult with lots of distractions to keep the modelling mojo flowing this year. I've recently started my Christmas holidays, and I've felt the need to do a quick and simple build, to get said mojo flowing again, and to kick off the new year on a good modelling foot.

I recently asked my 85 year old father in law (who is still an avid modeller) what I should build. Being an ex-pat Brit, and a young lad when the Battle of Britain was raging over his home in London, he suggested a Hurricane ("the Spitfire is a beau'y and awl, but the 'urricane was the real work-'orse", he said). I had the 1/48 Airfix Mk 1 in my stash, and promptly dusted it off. It's the 'trop' boxing, but all of the parts for a standard Mk 1 is in the box. Somewhere along the line i'd also added an ultracast seat with moulded harnesses, and exhausts into the box.



Now, I know very little about Hurricanes, which is perfect (as I won't get bogged down in details or accuracy related rabbit holes, as I often do). My deadline for completion is 16 January, when I start back at work.

"The game is afoot"!

So far, I have completed the interior. In keeping with the the simple theme of this build, I kept the cockpit essentially out of box, save the aforementioned seat. I did have to add belts to the top of the seat, to slot through the bulkhead behind the pilot. The Airfix interior is complex yet simple to build, and looks very nice (especially when compared to their earlier 1970s/80s rendition of the Mk1). I followed the Airfix instructions for the interior colours. Thankfully, most of the cockpit and interior is silver, with some RAF interior green to add colour. I decided to avoid the complexities of using the kit decal for the instrument panel; the panel is buried quite far inside the cockpit so not much will be seen. A simple dry brushing and picking out the dials with Future will suffice. Here's some pics so far:








I also painted the wheels (one of my least favourite parts of any build, so best to get those out of the way early). The wheels and hubs are quite nice out of the box.



I don't intend on showing off the gun bays (again, a complexity I don't need, so I'll likely trim the spars away, just in case they muck with the wing fit, which looks a little tricky. We'll see how we go with that when we get there.

So far, so good!  All feedback welcomed.

Cheers lads,

BC

[KiwiZac]

Gorgeous work so far Brad! The tyres in particular look like real rubber.

[gedmundson]

Your builds are always a treat for me to see, Brad. Your work so far is absolutely impeccable, and I’m looking forward to seeing this one progress.
Cheers,
Gary

[gbrivio]

Nice to see a great classic and a clean work on the insides.
Ciao
Giuseppe

[RAGIII]

Beautiful work on the Interior Brad! You make Me even more certain I need a 1/72nd Airfix Hurricane 
RAGIII

[rhwinter]

Beautiful!

[pepperman42]

Great work!! You've really brought the best out of the kit parts and the seat is a nice upgrade.

Steve

[Brad Cancian]

Thanks all, I appreciate the kind words and encouragement!

Construction is progressing steadily. I decided to deviate from the instructions by attaching the top wing halves to the fuselage halves ahead of mating the lower wing and cockpit assembly. I went with this approach in order to save having to fill and sand away the fine fastener detail that seems to all be situated around the wing root. Thankfully the fit of the upper wing panels to the fuselage halves is reasonably good.



This approach (and the flexible Airfix plastic) may have caused me some other fit problems; the fit of the lower wing was reasonable but I did need some heavy clamping at the trailing edge portion, and at the wing root around the engine cowl. I also found that the shape of the under-chin cowl panel didn't conform to the corresponding part at the forward centre of the lower wing; I am not sure if this was my own fault, but as the parts had quite different curvatures, I think this was something inherrent in the kit. That being said, it was all relatively easily fixable with some sanding and rescribing.

The rest of the parts fit reasonably well. For some reason, the control surfaces have large gaps at their edges, in particular the elevators, which are a good 2-3mm too short in chord at the tips. I had to add thin plastic to get these parts correct.



Corrected:



And here's where she's at:





I have some family engagements over the next few days, but if I can get her to the point of being primed before New Year's Eve then i'll stand a chance at meeting my deadline...!

Cheers,

BC

[pepperman42]

Wow!! Your job must require tight deadlines as you're working fast and furious on this one. She looks great. I'm surprised the moving surfaces are that "off" but you have resolved all of it well.

Steve

[RAGIII]

Another outstanding update and bit of work on your part. The fit issues whether self created or kit related have been dealt with in your usual exemplary fashion Brad! Looking Awesome!
RAGIII

[Brad Cancian]

Thanks gents and happy new year all!

Only minor progress over the last couple of days; I got the priming and inevitable second round of clean up, rescribing, and repriming finished.

I have also been musing about which scheme to paint her in. I've always been fond of the old 1970s/80s earlier Hurricane kit from Airfix. I have very fond memories of building the below boxing as a kid; I remember it was my first 'proper' go at RAF camouflage using the 'proper' humbrol colours, haha:



I looked at doing that kit's subject, VY-G of 85 Squadron in France, April / May 1940, as a homage to the previous kit - the Squadron number fortuitously also aligns with my father-in-law's age of 85... perfect! Alas... VY-G was a fabric winged Hurricane, and not a metal winged, aircraft, so I settled for VY-H, a metal-winged sister aircraft seen in photos with VY-G.




There's more discussion on this aircraft here, where several possible serials are suggested (I went with P2535 as it will be the easiest for me to deal with)-

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234907653-hurricane-i-vy-cg-of-85-sqn-lille-seclin-around-apr-1940/page/2/

As the SQN code letters used by 85SQN back in April / May 1940 were larger than 'standard', I would need to mask them. I prefer to spray these kinds of things after the camo has gone on; mainly to avoid problems with the edges of the masks (in the past I have masked the code letters / roundels first, then done the camo, and ended up with odd edges / bleed due to the several paint applications needed for the camo schemes and shading). I also wanted to see if I could get a single mask for the letters / roundel to maintain proper spacing and alignment.

I have a silhouette cutter, so decided to use this to make up some masks. I used the old Airfix kit decals as a measure of the correct sizings and spacings for the code letters and roundels, and made up my own masks:




Here's a trial fit; I think I should be able to get these down reasonably well with some strategic cuts here and there.





I have also deliberately left off the radiator and nose scoop to make masking the black / white undersides easier. 

Onwards and upwards!

Cheers again,

BC

[WD]

Great looking build so far.

Warren

[pepperman42]

Nice update!! Is that basic masking tape or low tack? Did you use a sheet or a wide strip and finally how does the tape go in the cutter? On a backing sheet?

Steve

[RAGIII]

The Hurri looks great assembled Brad! I really Envy you guys with cutter skills. That Mask looks terrific!
RAGIII

[Brad Cancian]

Thanks gents!

Steve - I use a Silhouette Portrait cutter; it's like a printer but with a cutting blade. I use low-tack Tamiya tape which you can buy in sheets. The sheet is then laid onto the tacky plastic cutting mat provided with the Portrait which sticks it in place. This then feeds into the front of the unit and the cutter does its thing from there



It's a handy little unit and is quite capable. I've even used it to cut thin plastic.

Cheers,

BC