Gallery - Airfix 1/48 Spitfire PR Mk.XIX

PS887, No. 541 Squadron, RAF Benson, late 1945

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Build Review - Eduard 1/48 Bf108B "Taifun"

I've been wanting to produce one of these for a long time, and at last Eduard have provided a decent kit in my favourite scale. This aircraft has fascinated me for a long time. Although not immediately obvious, once you look at it for a short while you notice the forerunner of the rather more celebrated Bf109 in it's shape and features. It should also be a straightforward build without too many fiddly bits and pieces that plague the end stages of most builds.

The kit looks classic Eduard, nicely moulded parts in their usual olive brown plastic, and accompanied with a nice photo etch fret full of details and that most welcome of sights, a pre cut window mask set.

And so to business. The cockpit tub builds up nicely, incorporating the two pilot seats and a rear bench seat for passengers that scrubbed up well in leather brown and a little dry brushing to accentuate the shape. The control columns are well formed and with the addition of the etched seat belts the whole package looks really rather good for relatively little effort. That is, apart for the rather painful process (as usual) of gluing together Eduards overly complex seat belt arrangement from the tiniest parts.

Unlike most kits, the cockpit fits in after the fuselage halves go together, which is nice, because it allows you to get the body in one pieces and all sanded and de-seamed without worrying about damaging the cockpit details. A very slight warp in one half did cause a little fun getting everything lined up at this point but nothing too problematic. However when the cockpit tub is inserted it became clear that the shape of the fuselage was not quite right, being a little too tall to match the cockpit shape. Before glueing in place I test fitted the canopy part and this confirmed the problem. So some clamping was required whilst the cockpit glue cured to "squash" the fuselage vertically somewhat to ensure that a smooth result would be obtained once the canopy section was added.

Adding the wings also needed a little shaving underneath the cockpit to get a good fit, and even then a little filler is needed to properly close up the seams around the wing roots. The top sections of the wings also did not line up perfectly so a little sanding was needed to get them smooth as well. Next I masked up the canopy using the mask set. Once in place, there was still a slight ridge between the canopy piece and the fuselage body, so a bit of work was needed to get this smooth as well.

Painting started with a coat of Tamiya fine primer to get the surface smooth and consistent. This was followed by RLM76 on the underside. I masked this off, which is fortunately easy on this colour scheme, and applied RLM71 across the top. The splinter scheme was then masked and a final coat of RLM70 applied. However, once done, I suffered the problem that blights so many Luftwaffe modellers. RLM70/71 camouflage schemes are very common and very easy to get into difficulties with. The problem is that these colours, according to most references, are actually very similar (although for some reason the Eduard instructions represent RLM71 as a sort of dark brown, which is completely wrong) and the splinter pattern can be very difficult to distinguish visually. This never looks right to me, perhaps is a scale thing. So I lightened the RLM71 with some light grey and went back over it. This gave a much better contrast and looks more like the real thing to me as well.

After a coat of gloss, the decals went on with little fuss. Very little stencilling is provided, although not much is needed, but the size of the decals as shown on the instructions did not match up with the real thing in many instances so some creativity was needed. The remaining gloss, oil wash and matt finish was without incident. I topped her off with a little post shading and bleaching to break up the smoothness a bit.

I found the installation of the undercarriage a little tricky. The tail wheel strut is far too long and needed trimming, and the main wheels refused to line up properly without a lot of persuasion and fixing in place with tape whilst they dried. A couple of minor surface details later and she was done.

This is a good kit from Eduard, although one cant help the feeling that it was a little rushed on their part - there are some small inconsistencies between the instructions and the moulds, and as pointed out the shape of the fuselage needs a little squashing to get things right. But the end result is a nice representation of this important aircraft. I will not be in a hurry to do another one now I have finally built it - but I am glad I did.

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Build Review - Valom 1/48 Antonov AN-2T

This is my first Valom kit - they are an intriguing Czech outfit that is basically one guy who creates kits of good quality and with a lot of love and attention. His manufacturing budget does not run to the greatest moulding technology and it is a bit "short run" but otherwise looks to be a great kit that deserves a careful build. The customer wants the silver "Lufthansa" version which means cracking out the Alclad again...

The instructions are well presented on first inspection, with a detailed sprue and resin part map that is essential, since the sprues contain no part numbers. There is also a small etched fret containing seat belts and a few other parts.

Construction starts, as usual, with the cockpit. There is a beautifully moulded resin centre console that rewards careful painting, although check references carefully to get the colours right. But in putting the cockpit parts together I quickly discover the true nature of the kit that will plague the whole build. There are no distinct location points moulded in the plastic and what is more the instructions are very vague indeed about positioning. They are also not especially artistically accurate in their representation of the parts or assemblies and so plenty of test fitting, reference checking, and advance testing are required to get things right. In several areas throughout the build I ended up breaking things apart and re-positioning them to get everything to fit together.

There is a lovely diagram (section 7) showing the cockpit as seen through the cabin door from a passenger point of view that aims to help positioning but does not do so, unfortunately. It also represents a lot of detail in the cabin that is simply not there in the kit. I suppose it could be aimed at the super detailer, but the cabin interior is going to be almost invisible so I spent no extra effort there. I did, however, build in all the seats in the Lufthansa arrangement. However, the rear bulkhead is in completely the wrong location but I included it anyway to strengthen the fuselage.

Fitting the cockpit section inside the fuselage halves is not easy, if only because it is far from clear where it needs to go. So I had to dry fit and then test the fit of the wings and canopy parts (more on them later!) just to be sure I had the cockpit in the right place. This also involved removing and trimming the cockpit side wall detail panels just so everything would go in the right place. There are also two small panels that are supposed to mask the rear sections of the cockpit and there is absolutely no positive location for them and the instructions just show them floating in the air. I did my best. I eventually got the fuselage together - there are location pins although they are not especially effective and a fair but of sanding and filling was needed to get things smooth.

The wings and tail plane sections went together without much effort, although there is a slight size discrepancy between the upper and lower parts which needed sanding off. Also the upper wing de-icing boots are separate and do not fit very well at all - so I left them off until later. Likewise I left off the multitude of flap hinges until later as these were bound to "fall" off during the rest of the build.

Fitting the wings to the fuselage was very problematic. The lower wings and tail planes went on with only a little difficulty, although there are no fixing lugs so plenty of glue and patience was required. However, the upper wings employ a very odd arrangement involving two boxes that have to be glued to the top first and the wings fitted over them. Needless to say the wings refused to sit properly and much trimming was needed. It is also essential at this stage to check that the front of the wings line up correctly with the canopy (when it is in place) otherwise you will be in real trouble later.

The canopy is in three pieces, a main upper section and two "slivers" for the raked in lower canopy panels. I could see before even detaching them from the sprues that this was going to be difficult. Masking was relatively easy - there are many panels but they are all straight edged so it was just a little tedious but not too difficult. However fitting the canopy in place was not easy. The main top part went on easily mainly due to my diligence in dry fitting everything carefully beforehand, although I did need to fit a few slivers of plastic card to fill a small gap between the back of the canopy and the upper wing edge. However the lower raked canopy panels needed extensive re-shaping and ultimately filling (which I hate doing around canopies) to get an acceptable result.

The engine cowling section is separate and was put together next. The radial engine is represented (as is common in these models) by a moulded disc. It looked pretty good to my eye but after painting and dry brushing something seemed lacking. So I fashioned and added push rods from silver wire and things looked a lot better.

I left the undercarriage off until after main painting. I started by filling all gaps (and to be fair there were not many) and sanding down the whole body very carefully to avoid losing the really rather nice rivet detail. This was followed by a coat of Tamiya fine primer. Another rub down was followed by gloss black. After yet another rub over and polishing I sprayed the whole plane with Alclad aluminium, having masked off the glare panel in front of the cockpit which needed to stay black. This was followed by a gloss varnish.

The decals went on next. The customer wanted the "Deutsche Lufthansa" version. Unfortunately the decals do not include the blue flash down the side, so I had to improvise my own. I am not sure how accurate the blue with which the decals are printed is, it looks decidedly pale to my eye, but I had little choice but to match the colour and proceed. Otherwise the decals worked very well and settled down nicely with a little setting solution. After another coat of gloss I applied a black oil paint wash which brought out the rivets beautifully and gave it a nice "slightly worn" look. I finished things off which a semi-matt finish that is in line with the original aircraft.

The undercarriage parts were painted up to match the rest of the model. Placement of these is vague as with so many areas of the instructions, no pre drilled holes are provided, and so much reference checking and trial fitting was needed. I also placed the various aerials but needed references to get them in the right place, and also they needed some modification to make them more accurate. The instructions include directions for scratch building some elements as well, which is a little annoying, but fortunately nothing outside the capability of a reasonably experienced modeller.

The exhaust arrangement is provided in resin, although it needs modifying for this version. This was painted up using Alclad steel stained with Alclad "Exhaust Manifold" to give it a little burnishing and attached to the port side of the fuselage. I then added the rigging using guitar strings and careful references. That sentence makes it sound easy, it never is, but it is worth doing because biplanes never look right without it.

That left the propeller arrangement. The kit provides no fewer than sixteen propeller blades of various styles for different versions of the AN-2, so be careful to use the right ones. However they needed to be "flat glued" to the centre spinner which was a hairy experience, and then the tiny resin regulators attached to them individually. A tricky part of the build, but it held up well. After painting up, the prop was pushed into place and the model was complete.

In summary, I find it hard to criticize this kit too harshly, although it presents a seemingly endless series of challenges to the modeller. The instructions are poor, the location of parts is vague, there is a fair bit of scratch building to be done and the canopy fit is woeful. But that said, the end result is spectacular. The detail  in the cockpit and on the exterior is exquisite and if you are prepared to put the effort in, you will end up with a beautiful model. It is largely very accurate, with a handful of minor exceptions that are easily dealt with. I also have sympathy with Valom since Hobby Boss have just released their AN-2 in 1/48 and although I have not yet seen the kit, I am sure it is a much easier build and will probably steal a lot of the market.

But in the end, this is a good kit, but only for the experienced modeller. A novice will fall foul of it very quickly and would be better off going for something a little more "shake and bake". For my part, although it drove me a little crazy at times, it certainly made me put the work in and feel like a true artist. And that, ultimately, is what this game is all about.

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Build Review - Classic Airframes 1/48 Avro Anson Mk.I

In this world of modelling the sleek and sexy lines of Spitfires and Phantoms, it is very rewarding every now and then to get to grips with something a little more traditional. The Avro Anson is a pre war design that wins no beauty contests, but was a spectacularly successful aircraft in its class. More were built over its lifetime than were Lancasters. It also oozes charm as a model. So it was with some excitement that I accepted a commission to build one.

To build one in 1/48 scale, there is only one choice, the Classic Airframes kit. I have had a love/hate relationship with C.A. for many years. They are very often the only choice for specific aircraft but the kits are for experienced modellers only. This one is no exception. The large pieces are moulded in "limited run" style soft plastic and all other components are in resin. I am not a great fan of resin used in this way. It is always good for detailing kits with cockpits, seats and such as an "add on" but the majority of the resin parts in this kit could have been perfectly well moulded in plastic with no loss of detail. Also without the hassle of detaching them from mould plugs and their incredibly brittle nature (which would haunt me in this build). But that aside. the plastic exhibits a good level of detail on the fuselage and wings and dry fitting showed that the fit would be pretty good.

So I started with the cockpit which in this aircraft is quite an undertaking. The internal details are quite extensive and will be very visible so need taking time over. The plastic floor piece was sprayed interior green and I proceeded to add the side walls, seats, tables, and other details. The instrument panels are provided as photo etch parts over film dials which work very well. However the instructions are very vague and a bit of educated guesswork and trial and error is needed to get everything together correctly. A number of the spars (which are provided as resin) promptly broke when being detached from their plugs and had to be replaced with styrene rods (which they should have been in the first place IMHO). Seat belts are also provided as etch pieces which is a nice (and often overlooked) touch. A bit of dry brushing and an oil wash brought out the details nicely.

The framework around the interior (which is a very important part of the look of this plane) is provided as a highly delicate resin structure. I managed to detach the side pieces successfully without breakage and clean them up but the top structure was missing from the kit altogether. This has not happened to be since the old Airfix days! I rebuilt it using styrene rods which was probably a good thing.

The whole structure fitted rather well into the fuselage although I had to shave the front part of the floor on both sides to get the fuselage to close up correctly. After a few more etch and resin panels the fuselage went together. There are some locating pins but they are very primitive and almost useless so I added some lugs to help ensure a clean fit. Eventually everything lines up and the fuselage went together, and I taped it up securely and left it to dry thoroughly. A fair bit of filler was needed to get things smooth.

While drying, I masked up the extensive canopy sections using the Eduard mask set. This is not the sort of model that you want to have to mask up without some assistance so I do not apologise for that. The canopy sections then fitted to the fuselage remarkably well with just a smear of filler to blend them in. At this stage I also attached the tail pieces. These took some care as there is no locating slot or lug, just the parts butting up against the fuselage. The final fuselage section is the turret base, which has an optional blank version, but the customer definitely wanted the turret so the details therein were painted and installed.

Next I put the wings together. The top and bottom halves of the wings do not line up perfectly, and a lot of sanding was needed to get seamless leading and trailing edges. Also, the instructions are very vague as to the lining up of the interior of the wheel bays, and a lot of trial fitting was needed to get it right. But eventually I had a pair of nicely finished wings. But fitting them to the fuselage was problematic. The fit is actually very good, but as with the tail there is no location engineering, just the edges of the wing parts against a flat area of the fuselage. This requires some gymnastics in gluing and setting. Also, I found that the starboard wing ended up at completely the wrong angle. The dihedral of the Anson is almost flat (only a couple of degrees) but the starboard wing was raised by about ten degrees which as a) wrong and b) completely out of kilter with the other wing. So I padded the top half of the wing with some strips of styrene sheet which gave the correct dihedral but needed some extensive filling afterwards. This is a shame because the "default" fit was actually spot on.

The engines are provided in resin, and are nice representations of the rotaries which turned out nicely with a little dry brushing. The engine shrouds are also resin. This gives them a nice realistic thin edge but it took a long time and not a few shredded nerves in getting them detached from their plugs and cleaned up. And in fact one of them did crack but fortunately it did not need a repair as the crack was invisible under paint. They were also tricky to install over the engines, which had to have their cylinder tops trimmed to get them on, although fortunately the trimming is not visible under the shroud.

I started the painting by spraying the masked cockpit and glass areas with interior green. This was followed by an overall coat of primer. I am not usually a big fan of pre-shading, but I did so on this plane because it has that distinctive lattice structure on the wings that would need to be highlighted. I started then by spraying the underside with Alclad aluminium to represent the silver painted underside of all early Ansons. I masked off and picked out the metal panels with dark aluminium to provide some contrast. I also applied a little weathering at this stage rather than later as I find this works better on Alclad. A little black oil was used to accentuate the lattice and ribs and give some streaks.

The underside was masked off and the whole upper surface sprayed with my own mix of Tamiya acrylics to represent RAF dark earth. This is a notoriously difficult colour to get right. The only paint I know that gets it completely correct is Humbrol 29, but I really don't get on with Humbrol Acrylics and I am not about to start converting to enamels at this stage. I then Blu Tack masked the camouflage pattern and sprayed over the RAF green. The whole plane got a couple of coats of Klear ready for decaling.

The customer has asked for a specific plane, MW-F from 321 (Dutch) squadron. No suitable decal set is available for this one so I made my own for the lettering and orange triangle, although I used the kit decals for insignia as far as is possible. The kit provides no stencils, but the Anson had very few anyway so I forgave it that one.

After more varnish, I then gave the whole plane an oil wash to bring out the few panel lines that exist, and manually applied subtle oil streaks elsewhere. After a couple of matt varnish coats I then applied a little panel bleaching using light grey to further highlight the lattice work and main panels. After removing the masks on the canopy and turret a little cleaning up was required where some primer had bled under the masks. This was partly my fault for not sealing the masks properly but in my defence, this is very tricky on curved canopy surfaces!

I was worried that fixing the undercarriage would be tricky since there are no real positive locators for the legs and there is a lot of weight to support. However to be fair the parts went into place very well but I made sure plenty of glue and drying time was applied and it all held up well.

With some more weathering, the final addition of the aerials, exhausts and a few other superstructure bits she was all done.

So in conclusion, this is a tough kit to build. It is quite capable of producing a stunning result, but is not for the faint hearted or anyone who is not used to working with resin. I am extremely pleased with the finished model, as is the customer (which is what matters, after all!) but it was not all smooth sailing. Unfortunately, the kit attempts to substitute plastic components for resin where it is just not necessary or practical, and this does cause some grief. But the end result is what matters, and an Anson in 1/48 scale is hard to beat as a showcase model.

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