The Sound and the Fury - The Ultimate Hawker prop fighter

[Gondor]

That is looking good for the first go Lee. I can see where you are going, and the basic shape is there. You are certainly a fast builder.

[The Wooksta!]

"Embarassment! It's an embarassment!"

Having decided to fill the cowling, I simply went with the superglue/baking soda method.  Simply for speed.  I know what I can and can't do with it, having used quite successfully over the years, not least with my Hawker P.1067 Demon.  There was a lot of it used in the fuselage master.  The fuselage was also done at the same time and both are now resplendent in a new coat of primer, curing on the back stairs.

As I'm thinking of moulding the cowling - on the reasonable grounds that it may still need tweaking and if I bugger it, all the work is gone but if I make a mould and clone it, then I can always cast another if I break the first - I spent some time making a pouring lug to fit the fuselage.  Simply remove from mould, remove a small web underneath the lug and fit.  Simples.  I've done the same with the Sabre cowling for the Fury FB.1.  No point reinventing the wheel.

That is looking good for the first go Lee. I can see where you are going, and the basic shape is there. You are certainly a fast builder.

Thanks.  I enjoy the gluing and the sanding, it's the masking and decalling that bore the hell out of me.  When I get to the post primed stage...thats I get itchy and want to start something else.  I'm already looking past P.1030 and thinking about either the early Wyvern with the nose cockpit and the early radiator design (round), a RR Clyde engined Wyvern (I cannot remember seeing one done, ever, and I can use the same fuselage mould) and I really must get the Bristol Buccaneer done, because that's at a stage where the airframe can be together in a day.  Although the wing roots need a great deal of filling.

[The Wooksta!]

"It's incredible, isn't it Mike? That although one goes to bed, apparently free of grit, when you get up in the morning, your bed's always full of bits!"

So, the primer is cured and there's still a load of holes to fix, largely on the engine cowling, but also the fuselage.  I've done hopefully the last round of sg/bs.

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So I couldn't help but tape up the fuselage to see where we are.  Really happy with this so far.  Compare with yesterday afternoon:

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Once I've got the engine cowling moulded and a cast or two out, I can get the fuselage glued together.  Aiming for Sunday.  Then I can start with the wing.

[The Wooksta!]

"Well, you might as well try the other one!"

Well, the fuselage is about 75% there and I've a good idea about the wing, so perhaps I should take another look at the tailplanes.

Originally, I'd thought that they were just Fury ones, but with an additional strip at the root that tapers towards the tip, but it's not quite that simple.

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The hinge line for the elevator is further forward to, so it's got bigger elevators.  How do I get round this? 

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The larger tailplanes from the two seat SH Fury kit.  The hinge line is in the right place but they're longer, so it's either rebuild the leading edge of the Fury ones then fill and describe the hinge line or reshape the longer ones.  The latter could be less work, but I don't have enough of these, so mould and use the clones?

Again, what looks to be relatively straightforward turns about to be larger than I thought.

[The Wooksta!]

"Yes, but Mike..."

The fuselage is largely tidied up and the last of the filler - hopefully - is on the engine cowling. I've got a mould box done and the rubber has arrived, so I really can't go any further there for now.  The tail is being left until later.  I'm unsure if I should go with the plan - with the wider but shorter fin - or go with the kit Sea Fury fin that's thinner in chord but taller. P art of me wants to go with the latter and use the longer T-Bird tailplanes and justify it by saying the late Harpies were built on the same production line as the Sea Fury T-birds and they got the tail surfaces from those.Or I may just keep the taller fin shape but widen it.  Everything else seems to be bloody larger, why not the fin?

So with all that in mind, I've decided to make a tentative start on the wings.  These are make or break and I'm already rethinking everything, because nothing about the plan is simple. I'm going to ignore the Justo Miranda drawings, because whilst they are very pretty, they don't tie up with the enlarged Brooklands drawing. He's under the misapprehension that it's a larger Tempest when the Brooklands drawings indicates that it's a bigger Fury, with a wider but shorter fin (and the fin on the first prototype Fury was shorter and only height later after carrier landing trials indicated it needed it) and the section between the wheel well bays reinstated (removed from the Tempest wing for Fury).

What is confusing me is the gun position.  They seem to have been moved back relative to the position in Tempest/Fury. Which means the upper bulges move and it's something I can't get my head around at the minute, because part of me wants to keep the nice detail of the upper wings.  But I'll come to that in a bit.

So let's get the central core done.

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Port wing.  Same method as the fuselage.

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And starboard.

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So we've got these.  They need a cut out to go around the wheel well bay somewhat, but no one is going to see it, fewer will know and even fewer will care. 

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A mould taken of the upper gun blisters and hatches.  A two part silicone stuff that works a bit like Milliput but somewhat more flexible.  Had it for years and wanted to try it.  I may not need it, because looking at the Airfix wing, I think I know where to do the cuts...

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I'll carefully cut down the black line along the upper wing.  There's a panel line here on the Tempest which moves a bit on the Fury.  I'm keeping the leading edge, because that's going to get built up using part of the leading edge of a Cat.E Academy Tempest wing and also because I need something to glue the core to, as the lower wing is going to get cut in a similar manner, as the flaps are similar and I need to keep the gun hatches underneath in the same position relative to the upper wing.  Am I making any sense? 

I did think of cutting the leading edge off and moving it, but the shape didn't match the plan, although the trailing edge does, so there's a plug in the middle on the "real" thing.

I'm going for a lie down, because right now I'm more confused than I ever want to be...

[The Wooksta!]

"You can't clean the toilet, Neil. It'll lose all its character."

The engine cowling is about as close as I can get it.  I'm not entirely happy but perfect is the enemy of good enough, so I gave it one final coat of primer, superglued it into the mould box and poured the rubber.  And now we play the waiting game.  Sod that, let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Having some semblance of a plan now with regards to the wing, I took a brave pill and cut out the areas for the leading edge radiators.  I can use resin ones, but this time, I'm going to try scratching them from sheet plastic card and sanding. If it doesn't work, then I'll deploy the resin.  I want a back up plan.

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And that's about as far as I'm going for now.

[Gondor]

I think I understand what you are doing with the wings. The work so far in your last post with the cutouts in the Tempest wings is exactly what I did for my P.1027.

[kitbasher]

This is really very good blow-by-blow stuff, Lee - thanks for sharing.

As for my own P.1030 plans - yes templates are absolutely a must!  As for the Revell Tempest, it's so old it's only good for chopping up.  However I've noted your comments about the P.1030 wing perhaps being Sea Fury-based, so if I'm chopping up an SH Sea Fury fuselage I may as well consider utilising the wings as well.  The cannon breech fairings on the SH Sea Fury are much better than the Revell Tempest's.

Staying with the wings, I matched up the Revell Tempest items against various P.1030 plan data and the kit wing shape is such that at the mo I'm satisfied it's there to be reprofiled.  As far as the wheel wells are concerned, I'll either use the 'Cat 5' Academy Tempest wheel bays or adapt the SH resin wheel bays.  Although the latter could be used in a PM Sea Fury quick whif I have in mind, especially as the Academy Tempest wing leading edges are set aside for the P.1030 (so if they're getting a good chopping up they may as well offer up the wheel bays too).

As for the propellor, yes a Wyvern unit looks to be the best way forward.  Definitely got two Aeroclub items but they're set aside for other projects.  I may have another one somewhere, I think I know where.  As an aside, I got to look again at the drawings I sent you and the glaring boo-boo in the Miranda drawings is a six-bladed prop, when an 8-blader is very clearly shown (and mentioned) in the Hawker drawings.

Oh, btw, I don't have a Baghdad SH Fury, just the regular FAA FB.11 boxing, plus a PM FB.11.

[The Wooksta!]

"Do you want to bet on it? I'll put down a fiver."

Having slept on it, quaffed a vast quantity of tea and taken a slew of brave pills, it's time to tackle the epic saga that will be the wings.

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Top and bottom, plus the wheel well insert.  Why would I need this, when all I'm doing is the cuts?  I need it to know what to avoid when adding the tabs onto which the cut wings will fit.

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Let's start taping it up.  The edge of the tape is handy to run the scalpel along, provided you're careful and don't use too much pressure.  I've used a panel line on the outboard panel and another on the inboard.  Handily, the intersection is a good mm further forward that both of the gun hatches, so with luck I can keep the detail.  Let's see how that pans out in practice...

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One down, one to go.

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Well, if it weren't knacked before, it certainly is now.  The section in the middle, with the lower section of the cockpit, will be removed once the wing is actually glued together.  Right now, it's providing structural strength and keeps everything aligned.

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There's about 2mm to go into this gap.  There's some thin plastic card attached to the forward section, with a reinforcement strip inboard underneath it.  I'm planning on using built up thin strips of plastic card to fill the gaps, possibly with superglue as the top coat.

Having don't the top, we have to tackle the lower wing.  This is a good deal trickier, due to the indented sections for the wheel well bay, so any cuts have to miss this area and where the cut outs for the radiators have been done, there's sod all structural strength. There's also the fact that it's one piece continuous, so I have to cut out the flaps too.  Three cut lines.  So I started with both flap lines that run parallel with the fuselage before I marked up the starboard wing and did the cuts. 

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Outboard is fine, following a panel line, but the inboard one was a bit trickier although I did miss that wheel bay cut out. Phew!

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Repeated and this is what you get.  A cut lower wing.

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With all the destruction done, it's time to start putting it all back together.  The wheel bay insert is now in, giving some structural strength, I've drilled out the hard points for the drop tanks, even though I don't know if the finished model will actually get them.  Finally, I've added some tabs onto which the rear sections will fit onto.

Thus ends the first part of the saga.

This is really very good blow-by-blow stuff, Lee - thanks for sharing.

As for my own P.1030 plans - yes templates are absolutely a must!  As for the Revell Tempest, it's so old it's only good for chopping up.  However I've noted your comments about the P.1030 wing perhaps being Sea Fury-based, so if I'm chopping up an SH Sea Fury fuselage I may as well consider utilising the wings as well.  The cannon breech fairings on the SH Sea Fury are much better than the Revell Tempest's.

Staying with the wings, I matched up the Revell Tempest items against various P.1030 plan data and the kit wing shape is such that at the mo I'm satisfied it's there to be reprofiled.  As far as the wheel wells are concerned, I'll either use the 'Cat 5' Academy Tempest wheel bays or adapt the SH resin wheel bays.  Although the latter could be used in a PM Sea Fury quick whif I have in mind, especially as the Academy Tempest wing leading edges are set aside for the P.1030 (so if they're getting a good chopping up they may as well offer up the wheel bays too).

As for the propellor, yes a Wyvern unit looks to be the best way forward.  Definitely got two Aeroclub items but they're set aside for other projects.  I may have another one somewhere, I think I know where.  As an aside, I got to look again at the drawings I sent you and the glaring boo-boo in the Miranda drawings is a six-bladed prop, when an 8-blader is very clearly shown (and mentioned) in the Hawker drawings.

Oh, btw, I don't have a Baghdad SH Fury, just the regular FAA FB.11 boxing, plus a PM FB.11.

Go with your initial plan re the Revell Tempest wing, because span wise it's almost there, a Sea Fury one isn't.  As I've done the mould for the breech covers, I'll cast some up when I cast the engine cowling for mine as there's bound to be some excess resin left over.  I'm assuming you'll want an engine cowling too?  The mould for the Sabre VII and Firebrand TF.II cowling are curing now, as is a mould for the Wyvern spinner (my back up plan, using a CMR one as a master) and the SH Sea Fury cockpit.  The latter could come in useful to upgrade the PM kit.

[The Wooksta!]

"Six? No, it would be six if you killed him, Michael. Let's call it two."

On to part the second.  And I've had a bit of a rethink...

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Top wing glued to the extension tabs.  As you can see, there's a reinforcement strip on the starboard, the one on the port wing is yet to go in.

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The templated core now fitted to the lower wing.  It was at this point I had a bit of a rethink after some test fitting. The Airfix trailing edge is somewhat on the thick side - the Heller is really thin, so you get away with it there - so I removed a good chunk at the back.  Too much on the starboard side trailing edge wingtip, but I can fix that later.

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Top and bottom halves are now together.  I glued the wheel well to the top wing first, using it to align and glued the leading edge in.

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The lower trailing edges were carefully lined up with the top - I'd removed all of the locating pins, unfortunately - and taped in place then glued.  I added a section of plastic card to assist in aligning the inner flap root, which will likely be removed later.

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And I've started filling the gaping maws on the top wings, largely with that very thin card I'd used for the templates as it was going spare.  I'll use something thicker for the lower wing when I tackle it tomorrow.

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And I couldn't resist mocking it up, although the engine is the stunt one used earlier as the mould for the one I will be using is still curing.  Compare with the Meerkats shown in earlier posts.

[PR19_Kit]

A veritable tour-de-force of kitbashing there Lee. 

[The Wooksta!]

Thanks.  Been a while since I've done anything this serious and there's a few techniques that I've not tried before.

[Gondor]

That is showing promise Lee. Looks good.

[Rick Lowe]

Thanks.  Been a while since I've done anything this serious and there's a few techniques that I've not tried before.

It's nice to try something new and have it work out - adds to the techniques that can be used again.  And the confidence level.

[The Wooksta!]

Well, what have you brought me this time?

I've decided to use the longer tailplanes from the Sea Fury T-Bird and cut them down, before moulding and casting them.  Not just for me, as I know Dave is gathering bits so he'd have more of a head start. I'm kind of thinking of a potential second one, using a Heller wing.  The upper cuts would be easier as I don't have to worry about the wheel bay roof. Underneath.... Need to look at that wing again.