Tempest Mk 1b

[Gondor]

Modelling for me is not as organised as I sometimes wish it was. I have several builds that I should start or get on with for various reasons but the pull of yet another idea which could be fairly quick is too much

This build came about due to other threads on here involving some of Hawker's Tempest/Typhoon derivatives which lead me to think as I looked through the "Airframe & Miniatures" books by Valiant, and pondered what would have happened if one or two of them reached service. The sleek lines of the Tempest Mk1 drew my eye and with the original tail having been used on the development aircraft that lead me to wondering why not use the tail of the MkV? It was easy enough to get hold of a Heller MkV and I had a pair of leading edge radiators from one of the members here, I think it may have been Lee that gave them to me but it was a few years ago.

So a little bit of work was carried out last night

What the fuselage parts looked like to begin with



I cut the under nose radiator away from both parts and put some right angled stock inside the nose to ace as a base for the new underside of the nose.



The next steps are to paint the inside of the cockpit and to assemble the wings prior to cutting away the inner wing leading edge for the new resin radiators.

This should be fairly quick  who am I kidding, something will distract me or I won't feel like doing anything for a while.

Gondor

[dogsbody]

I have this Ventura conversion kit that I bought back in the late 80's or early 90's. It's been so long I forget just when.





Chris

[Gondor]

I have one of those in the stash which gave me the idea for this build. Mine will be a "production" version with just a few changes from the Heller kit rather than replacing the whole fuselage.

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

IIRC, when you cut the wings for the leading edge rads, they lose integrity.  You may well need a spar or at least a small strip of card under the fuselage/wing join to aid alignment and for additional strength.

May be worth dropping the curve for the new undercowl by about a mm or so for a Seafire 47/Mustang style scoop which was on the Sabre Fury, although it'll need a bit more blending in under the wing.

Looking forward to the results  I've one or three of these kicking about, although one will need paint, probably 2TAF.

[Gondor]

IIRC, when you cut the wings for the leading edge rads, they lose integrity.  You may well need a spar or at least a small strip of card under the fuselage/wing join to aid alignment and for additional strength.

May be worth dropping the curve for the new undercowl by about a mm or so for a Seafire 47/Mustang style scoop which was on the Sabre Fury, although it'll need a bit more blending in under the wing.

Looking forward to the results  I've one or three of these kicking about, although one will need paint, probably 2TAF.

Thanks for the advice over the wing spar idea and I also like the idea of the Seafire 47/Mustang style carburettor style scoop which I will be going with too 

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Nice work so far. Looks like a pretty straight forward conversion, but that's probably easier said than done 

[Gondor]

Nice work so far. Looks like a pretty straight forward conversion, but that's probably easier said than done 

Always easier said than done. Saying that some progress thanks to Lee



Not dome much else as I have been organising the repair of my car, oil sump requires replacement and the rear of the exhaust needs sorted as it rattles against the bodywork. Also been trying to get sorted out for a skills test tomorrow for a job I applied for this morning!  All go around here!

Gondor

[Tophe]

I cut the under nose radiator away from both parts and put some right angled stock inside the nose to ace as a base for the new underside of the nose.

Good piece of aesthetic surgery! Thanks for Beauty...

[Gondor]

Tophe I hope it will be quite close to the prototype that flew so that the punters will say that I have just put squadron marking on to a prototype to which I will answer "Are you sure?" which should follow with them having a closer look.

Gondor

[Gondor]

A touch more work, seatbelts are on. Scratch built from masking tape and a wash of Tamiya Smoke



Seat is now glued into the cockpit and in a bit I will be glueing the fuselage half's together and probably the wing uppers will get attached to the undersurface of the wings too.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Done a little work on this recently, the only modelling I have done in fact 

I have glued one of the leading edge radiators from my Ventura conversion set so I have a 3D guide for the work only to find out that the resin intakes I have are similar to but not the same as what I am needing. They will however form the basis or core for the final item although much puttying and sanding will have to take place first.

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

A wash of smoke eh ? Good tip !

[Gondor]

A wash of smoke eh ? Good tip !

It was an experiment to tone down the stark colour of plain masking tape. I used it first on my Indian TSR2 earlier this year and as I hardly used any of the tape I had painted I thought why not use it for this.

Gondor

[Gondor]

A couple of up to date progress pictures although not much has been done until I added the underside of the nost today, it does at least show where I have gotten with this build





Lots of filling to be done followed by tidying up, but you can see the basic idea already.

Gondor

EDIT: found out that I had posted the wrong picture so I have corrected the link

[DogfighterZen]

Both look very good!