1/48 scale ICM Hampden Mk.1

[gedmundson]

I was finally able to acquire a kit of the 1/48 scale ICM Hampden recently. It had been advertised by my local hobby shop as "pre-order" since last November, and as of yet they still don't have it. I ended up putting in an order with Inside the Armour in the UK, who had a "bundle" sale for the kit including their 3D printed set of accessories. These accessories consisted of the engines, wheels, Vickers K MG's, and the cockpit interior.

As I'm part-way through building the kit, I had a chance to load up some photos and show some progress. I'll display the model with a couple of figures from MODELU from the UK which are 3D printed also. And I bought the masking set from 1ManArmy which give the same markings as the kit-supplied decals.

I tackled the engines first, and captioned some photos to describe some issues I had - possibly self imposed. The engine detail of the ITA parts far exceeds the kit detail.

Cheers,
Gary

01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

02 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

03 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
Although the figures look ok, I may have to fix the map with some putty.

04 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
The printed accessoried come well protected with cages.

05 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
The cockpit parts are very nicely detailed.

06 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
The individual cylinders for the engine fit well.

07 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
The tabs on the exhaust ports had to be trimmed for the front to be "presssed" into place without breaking the brittle elements off.

09 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
The cowlings wouldn't fit properly without filing down the cylinder heads.

10 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
I still needed to fill gaps on the cowlings after they'd been installed because of the fit problems.

[Rookie]

Great start Gary.

This will no doubt be another gem!

Willem

[NigelR]

Aftermarket parts are great but can cause a few issues, it seems like you have encountered and overcome them! Nice subject, looking forward to this.

[lone modeller]

Excellent start Gary. That will be quite a large model when finished - so all the more impressive.

Stephen.

[gedmundson]

Thanks Willem, Nigel & Stephen!

I watched a couple of videos on line and took notes of some of the trickier aspects of the build. One thing I found (and was emphasized by the videos I watched) was the excellent fit & engineering of the kit. It's really well molded with all sorts of rivet detail too.

If one wants to leave off the main undercarriage legs until after painting, the assemblies can be put together ahead of time, painted up and added later. I did this, and added some brake lines with lead wire. I think the hub detail are all that the 3D printed wheels really offer.

I also added some Uschi wood decals to the forward part of the fuselage based on some of the reference photos of the refurbished example  at Duxford.

Cheers,
Gary

DSC_3238c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
I'll probably end up painting the brake lines black.

DSC_3231c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
Uschi decals used for the wooden portions. There is still a wealth of interior parts to add before joining the fuselage halves.
Gary

[NigelR]

Very nice interior!

[RAGIII]

Awesome!
RAGIII

[gedmundson]

Thanks Rick & Nigel. The kit provides decals for two of the panels and I found them quite poor, with huge white outlines used to frame the dials & switches etc. Not very realistic at all. I did my best to paint out the worst of it with a fine brush by leaving a slight outline which helped. This is where an Eduard after-market set would be really nice. I should have done a better job at aligning the dials with the panel part itself.

For the transparencies, the kit provides templates on the instruction sheet for masking the many panels needed. I made a copy (and measured them to ensure identical dimensions), then cut out some tape using the templates as a guide. The results tested on the upper MG glazing were a bit disappointing, with me having to add a few extra bits to cover it properly. There are many panels to mask on this model, so this will be quite a task to manage all of them.

I added some lines to the oxygen bottles using lead wire since I could see them in the reference photos of the restoration aircraft. ICM does call out the interior to be painted entirely in cockpit green, but the restoration again shows the back half to be painted silver in some areas - I'm putting trust in the fact they know what they are doing!
Cheers!
Gary

IMG_0820c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
The template copy was placed over masking tape on a pane of glass to cut the required masks. They didn't fit perfectly.

IMG_0823c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
The decals for the instrument panels were applied and had to be "toned down" with some tricky painting to look a bit more acceptable.

DSC_3256c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr
A few more additions and the fuselage halves can be joined.

DSC_3257c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

[NigelR]

Masking transparencies? Nightmare! That's why I'll stick to WWI subjects.....

Nice job on toning down the instrument panel, it looks good in situ.

[bobs_buckles]

This will be a fun watch.
 

BB

[RAGIII]

Terrific Progress!
RAGIII

[lone modeller]

That is a super detailed kit. I agree with Nigel - masking canopies is not something that I would enjoy, so I will also stick with open cockpits.

Stephen.

[gedmundson]

Thanks for the encouragement, gentlemen! After attempting a few more of the masks with the templates provided, things worked out better for the majority of the glass sections. I see now Eduard has a set of masks for this model - figures! After adding the last of the internal detail, the fuselage halves could be put together. I did have to add a bit of Tamiya putty to some small gaps, and taped off the areas to minimize the mess. The glazings in the nose do line up together nicely, after a bit of faff. And I broke off the barrel of the rear MG while fiddling with the fuselage halves. Found it on the floor after my chair had rolled over it unfortunately. Good thing I had a spare.

One of the noteworthy ideas presented in one of the build videos I had seen was the use of UV resin to glue together glazing sections. I ended up trying it on the two-part sliding canopy, which the kit provided with a curved template to get the shape correctly set. I didn't want to risk having Tamiya Extra Thin cement "wick" onto this template, and so the UV rein worked well here. I just dabbed a small amount onto the joint, shone the little UV torch on it for about 20 seconds and presto - solid bond.

I chose not to add the optional MG in the nose, and had everything glued together before realizing the Ammo canisters probably wouldn't have been mounted up front in that case. Oh well....

Cheers!

DSC_3259c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

DSC_3260c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

DSC_3262c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

DSC_3263c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

DSC_3267c_01 by Gary Edmundson, on Flickr

[KiwiZac]

I'm still progressively working on finding the best way (for me) to attach clear bits and this looks promising. Great work, Gary!

[NigelR]

This is looking really nice, don't worry about the ammo canisters though, only an absolute nitpicker would notice that......

I am making more use of UV resin. I mainly use it to represent glass in instrument dials for which it is fantastic, but it clearly has many uses.