WiP - 1/72 Airfix Hawker Hurricane (and extras)

[Brad Cancian]

Hi everyone,

Here's my next project; the little 1/72 Airfix Hawker Hurricane Mk.1, with the early fabric wing. I've been collecting a few bits and bobs over the last year or so, with the idea of having a couple of engine and gun panels off, to add a little more interest. The Airfix kit is a nice little kit - not quite up to Arma standards, but still the best game in town for an early fabric winged aircraft.



I will state up front that I am very much NOT an expert on these aircraft... so be gentle! I have a plan to perhaps finish this one as a Belgian or Battle of France aircraft (noting I'll need to get a two-bladed prop from somewhere, if I want to do the former).

A very small start this afternoon - I started prepping the engine bay for the CMK resin engine set. It's always daunting hacking into the nose of a perfectly good kit...! I did think about extending the removal of the cowlings to the panel in front of the cockpit (to scratch build and show the fuel tank), but the CMK firewall is not quite the correct shape to do this, so I settled with only having the front most three cowling panels off, as per the set. The CMK set looks very nice at face value, with some crisp details on the Merlin engine and the firewall. It did take a bit of hacking and sanding to get the parts off their casting blocks (those engine cowls are wafer thin...!). 

The biggest problem with this set is that the engine bearers are too short and too shallow, which means they don't follow the line of the chin panel. I scratchbuilt new bearers from strip styrene:



I also had to shim the bottom of the engine cowl piece so that the nose was long enough to accommodate the engine but still allow the exhausts to clear the fuselage panels aft of the engine bay.

A quick test fit:



And a quick test fit in the model:




Now, the modified bearers are far from perfect, and not quite 100% accurate, but I think this should work reasonably well to give the appropriate impression. I will need to take care as I do a little more clean up of the plastic opening, and as I add details. I'll also need to take care to make sure everything is square on the finished model.



As I said, not too much of a start... but it's a start none the less!

Cheers

BC

[KiwiZac]

As I said, not too much of a start...

I beg to differ: removing the kit cowls, scratching the engine mount? That's huge! Well done Brad! I admire anyone who can work wiith exposed engines in 1/72. I'm very excited to follow along.

[RAGIII]

Knowing what your standards are I Really Look forward to your further progress!
RAGIII

[Brad Cancian]

Thanks chaps! 

Hi all - many thanks! I appreciate the kind words and encouragement   (And many thanks for the offer Steve, but I have managed to secure a sprue for the single bladed prop - I really appreciate your offer though!).

Small work in the past day or so. I have added some wiring to the engine bay; I have not gone overboard, firstly because I just want it to look 'busy enough', and secondly, my eyes and hands aren't that good!






I think this will suffice for detail

I started some basic work on the wings today also. I know the Airfix kit didn't get the inboard section of the wing quite right; the 'fabric' section on the aft part of the inner wing were metal, so I taped this area off, in preparation for some filling and sanding.



I also decided to add the CMK flaps (from their resin flight control set for this kit). I know that Hurricanes generally did not sit on the ground with the flaps extended, but I couldn't help myself...




The set fits quite nicely, though I will have to take care when gluing the upper wing trailing edge, as there is a chordwise gap there (to be fair, this was there also with the basic kit), so sanding of the underside of the top wing piece will be needed.

I also want to use the CMK fabric wing gun bay for this kit, so, some more hacking to the wing to open the gun bay. I have only done the starboard side at this stage. Again, the fit here is reasonably good, and the piece sits against the wing with the appropriate 'inset' to replicate the edges of the bay where the wing panels would fix into (though again, I do need to do some more minor fixing here to straighten a few bits and pieces up).




Question for the crowd - should I open up the other gun bay also, or just the one, to leave a little more visual interest?

Thanks for looking!

Brad

[Whiteknuckles]

Nice work so far Brad, love Hurricanes
I've nothing but admiration for those of you who work with 1/72!!

Andrew

[RAGIII]

Looking awesome Brad!
RAGIII

[Davos522]

Hi Brad, I'm fascinated by the way you're proceeding with this build. My (probably old-school) instinct would be to prepaint all the components and then assemble them after scraping off the contact surfaces, but I've noticed that many people now are painting after everything goes together. I assume you're airbrushing the larger areas and then touching up with a brush...?

RE: the gun bays, I saw an amazing HE-219 at the IPMS show I went to a few weeks ago, with every possible panel removed and detailed—guns, radar equipment, wheel wells, everything. It was a real tour de force, but you kind of didn't know where to look... my vote is to leave it at one bay

Dutch

[Brad Cancian]

Thanks gents!

Dutch - I do tend to keep things in big enough sub-components to allow ease of construction primarily, with paint generally following afterward. I find that sometimes trying to be too clever with painting subassemblies can end up being a mess when one has to make adjustments for fit, or when one has to thread wiring / piping etc around an engine.

Rick - thanks also for your message - Rick kindly pointed out that I had the wing correction wrong; I smoothed the inboard panel at the wing root, when I really needed to fill the panel aft of the gun bays, i.e. it should be like this:



So, this afternoon I re-added the fabric look on the wing root panel (using sandpaper wrapped around a small file), and filled and smoothed the section aft of the gun bays. I then added the panel lines which provided the demarcation between the metal and fabric sections. Hard to see in these photos, but hopefully this should do the trick...!




Cheers Rick!

BC

[RAGIII]

I am Happy I was able to help and that you were able to easily correct the error! With all the added detail and now the proper correction this will certainly be a winner!
RAGIII

[Davos522]

Thanks, Brad! I learn something every day on this forum (often two or three somethings...). This is going to be another gem.

Dutch

[WD]

This is so great!!!  <insert image of Flounder from Animal House>

I'm really looking forward to following along with this.

Warren

[Brad Cancian]

Hi all - just a minor update, the gun bay has been detailed. I foolishly followed the CMK instructions and installed the ammo boxes with their length running fore to aft, which I thought about afterwards and worked out after the fact was wrong; they needed to be rotated 90 degrees to run lengthwise (which makes sense). I destroyed much of the edges of the bay trying to remove them. I then needed to rebuild the edges of the bays, which I tried to do by cutting pieces off the spare bay. It's far from perfect, but it will do. In the bay itself, I added ammo chutes from strip plastic, wiring from fuse wire, and breech details and fastener attachment points from the ends of etched rigging turnbuckles. 





In the end, a tad bittersweet and entirely preventable if I hadn't just blindly followed the instructions... sigh!

Cheers,

BC

[DaveB]

Wow!

Another masterclass job coming from your stable, Brad!

Regards

Dave

[pepperman42]

Great progress and a save since last time! One of my favorite books of all time is Fighter Pilot by Paul Richey.  I Would love to see his airplane although it was a pretty bog standard scheme....maybe Cobber Kain?

Steve

[Tim Mixon]

Wow!  Amazing details Brad.