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1/48 Classic Airframes
Hawker Hurricane Mk 1 (Fabric Wing)
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This the Classic Airframes
Fabric Wing Mk-1 Hurricane. This boxing has markings for several non RAF users.
Some of the options are quite attractive.. However I wanted the kit not the
decals.
Unlike the Hasegawa hurricane Cockpit this one is average at best. It has really soft plastic and heaps and heaps of flash. The first 2 pictures show the flash typical on the Classic Airframes bits, the 2nd 2 pictures show the Hasegawa bits. A lot of time (but not enough) was spent cleaning this flash up. This is time well spent because it's a real pain to have to clean that off when you are bout to paint it. Trust me know, |
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When I built my
Hurricane IIC I used a resin
cockpit. I used the IIC's cockpit for this one. All the instruments where
punched out with my Waldron Punch set and attached individually. I like this
technique as it gives a much better panel than I could ever hope to paint.
The kit went together without to many issues although it needed a fair bit of dry fitting (to be expected). I cut off the wing tips and fitted some clear sprue for the wing tips. This was sanded to fit. |
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Here's the aircraft with the paint on. I used the blu-tac sausage method for the
camouflage. Usually I free hand all my camouflage and I tried that first with
this kit. But after I was so impressed with the results of the blu-tac sausage
method on my Hurricane IID I re-painted this one using the same technique.
As is becoming my custom I used model master enamels for the upper surfaces.
this aircraft had an usual paint scheme in that the underside had white and
black wings (ok, not so unusual) and aluminum dope for the forward and aft under
fuselage. Fort he underside I used model masters metaliser aluminum, Tamiya
white and scale black. Scale black was a 50/50 mixture of Tamiya Red Brown and
Flat Black, this idea stolen form Brett Green at
Hyperscale. In my opinion scale black
looks appropriate for the scale of kit. As usual though I had heaps of trouble
painting the white. One day I master white paint
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After a coat of Polly Scale Gloss the markings Aeromaster Decal sheet (Early hurricane Aces of WW II) were applied. These went down well with no real problems. All except for the tail flash. They were to big (designed for a Hasegawa kit) and had some large lumps to conform to. I decided to paint the rudder. I removed it from the model and painted it gloss white. I used Xtracolour post office red for the red. For the blue I originally used RAF roundel blue. But this was way to light, especially over a white undercoat. I then mixed a batch of about 2/3's Xtracolour roundel blue to 1/3 Humbrol Gloss black. This looked better to my eyes so on it went. Another coat of Polly scale gloss then a wash of Flory Models Weathering Sludge Wash. This was sealed with Gunze Flat and then some chalks were sued for some weathering. Paint chipping was done with a silver pencil and mud was dry brushed Humbrol 117. At this stage I busted the canopy off. When I tried to remove the masking tape all the paint came off, including the bits I didn't want to come off. I had a spare so I masked it out, also masked out the rear canopy. This really is a pain, al those small windows and it a vacu form canopy as well. I hate vacu form canopies. Finally I removed the landing light covers, in the process I stuffed one of those, to the point where I had to scratch build a replacement. This turned out better the original IMHO. A few touch ups and a final coat of Gunze flat in certain spots and its done. Classic Airframes kits
are for experienced modelers and they have a rather fanatical bunch of fans. In
fact to criticise them is seen as heresy by some. IMHO this kit was
nowhere near as good as the Hasegawa offering, if it wasn't for the fact it was
a rag wing I wouldn't have bothered with it. The reviews I read on the net
which praised this kit were not reflected in what I found. It wasn't that hard
to build but I found the instructions vague at times and as mentioned
earlier the amount of flash was extreme. I reckon if this was a Trumpeter kit it
would have been classified as unbuildable by some
On the plus side the rendition of the fabric on the wings is very nice, the fuselage fabric is good as well. Some consider the fuselage fabric superior to the Hasegawa kit but to me it's much of a muchness. The Hasegawa kit is more forgiving if like me you can be heavy handed with the sanding stick and paint. The little detailed parts are nicer (and there's more of them) on the Hasegawa kit. The CA kit doesn't have the annoying join at the rear of the wing like the Hasegawa kit does, that certainly is a plus for the CA kit. Still it turned out OK
and they do some great subjects. I have other Classic Airframes kits and
intend to get a few more. |
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Photography These where taken with a Panasonic FZ-30 camera, with aperture at F11, the shutter speed was manually set. Lighting was 4 white energy savers with a white card as background. Images were resized with paintshop pro XI with some minor brightness and sharpening adjustments. |
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The Pictures Click on the thumbnail for a better look
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