God save the Queen!

[The Wooksta!]

"Put a ******* light on it, you daft ****!"


Gondor has started his Valom Buckingham and I've just wrestled a Magna Brigand together.  I'm getting itchy for something to throw together. I've already done the Magna Buckmaster and I'd found the Magna Buckingham in the loft a few days back, so why not finish the trio?

None of the Magna Bristol trio are particularly nice kits. I mean, the resin is okay - mine all seemed to be from before he moved to Spain and switched to a whitish stuff that was very soft and prone to warping - but the wheels on all three look like they've been carved from soap by a drunken blind man with a severe case of the shakes.  The canopies are as good as Magna ever got, which was mediocre but at least you got two, and the white metal is covered in flash.

I'd started this during lockdown, so the fearsome pouring lugs had been cut off and it was relatively clean.  The engines seemed to have vanished, IIRC I think one was misshapen, so I'd planned on moulding the good one and casting a pair so a look in the masters box in the shed yielded one.  The mould is now curing and I'll cast a pair later in the week along with a set of wheels - I'd moulded some modified Valom ones a few years back..  The canopies are slowly turning yellow, a fate that seems to befall most Magna ones.  Other than the cockpit, it's not going to be a problem.

So what to do with it?  Given the poor canopies and white metal, it's not going to be a bomber and I don't want to do a courier either, which leaves the proposed PR version.  There's no indication of where any cameras are likely to have gone, so I'm free to make it up.  Any armament goes, so no nose .303s (as much use as pea shooters by 1945 anyway) and no turret. I think the most logical places are a trio in the nose cone - one forward facing and two oblique - additional fuel in what was the bomb bay and another trio in the gondola, one forward facing and two vertical.  The two side windows are handy for another pair of optional oblique cameras.

It's going post war, so I have a choice of three schemes - overall PRU Blue with Type B roundels and markings for the Photographic Development Unit, overall Aluminium or Medium Sea Grey uppers with PRU Blue with a high demarcation and Type D roundels.  I'm minded with the latter for the coolness factor, although I don't know if they'd have lasted that long in the role - the Brigands in Aden and Malaya were withdrawn after they had a nasty habit of shedding wings due to wing spar issues and it's quite likely any PR Buckinghams may have been similarly afflicted.

Anyway, I have to get there first.

The fuselage interior got a coat of primer and then sprayed Interior green.  I added the instrument panel, which unlike the Brigand is actually too narrow.  I kind of centred it, but it's doubtful you can see anything through Magna's canopies.  The interior module was painted and I added some tape belts.  Again, too narrow for the fuselage and the shelf it goes onto isn't wide enough either, so I added some plastic card to widen it and again tried to centre the module.  It's a bit wonky, but I can live with it.

Fuselage went together okay, but it's a tad warped, so the front was done first, then I clamped it before clamping the back and adding superglue along all the joins, both to hold it and as a filler.  The nosecone went on next and I used baking soda with the superglue.  Everything was sanded back this afternoon before I fitted the tailplane.  Here's where the first mismatch appears, as the spine needs building up to the height.  Plastic card and out with the P.38.  It's not ideal, but certainly better than it was.

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The completed fuselage so far.  The 'ole where the turret goes has a clear piece which is typically Magna - it doesn't fit.  So I've cut it roughly to shape, superglued it in place and I'll fill over it with P.38 then sand it back.

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I borrowed the under fuselage gondola from the Valom kit as a core to assist cutting out the Magna one.  It's just dry fitted here, but I'll superglue it back in place later. Once that's in place, I can glue on the wings - the Buckingham didn't have the side intakes that the Brigand did, so I can leave the engines until later  Which is nice.  The last bit that'll go on is the tail fins, because they're likely to get knocked off during all the filling and sanding on the wing roots.

Oh, and THAT u/c - it only adds insult to injury to discover that I have three of one half and only one of the other.  Marvellous.  Just typical Magna...

[The Wooksta!]

"Don't be told what you want, don't be told what you need."

The upper glazing didn't fit, so the P38 was deployed.  Sanded back, it's not quite flush, but I'll wait until the first primer coat is on before doing anything drastic.

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Wings on, much superglue and on with the filler.  I've also cleaned up the tail fins, albeit from the Brigand (they're identical although the first prototype Buckinghams had smaller fins) and they're marked so's I know which is which at a glance.

[Gondor]

That pic with the wings on confirms what I suspected Lee. The intakes on the wing leading edges protruded. The Valom kit has them flush, so I will need to change that at some point.

[The Wooksta!]

"No future, no future, no future for you."

Having cracked open the mould for the engine, it's useless.  The front didn't come out properly and the rubber didn't flow underneath properly either.  So I've another one curing now, along with another set of Mosquito Gee boxes (that's mould number 3 for those now) and one for Wyvern wheels.

That pic with the wings on confirms what I suspected Lee. The intakes on the wing leading edges protruded. The Valom kit has them flush, so I will need to change that at some point.

TBH, I wouldn't take Magna as 100% accurate.  Having said that, it's likely due to Valom using the same plastic where possible for all three kits.  There are subtle differences between Brigand and the other two, because Buckmaster is just a Buckingham with a new forward fuselage.

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Buckmaster, that wing intake looks proud.

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Brigand.  The inner one looks proud, where's the outer one is further out and flush.  Interestingly, there's a radio altimeter aerial under the tailplane.  Not noticed that before.

[PR19_Kit]

That Brigand's a pugnacious looking aeroplane, isn't it?

I can recall seeing a couple of them at Benson in the late 50s, maybe '57? They sure were LOUD!   

[The Wooksta!]

"'coz tourists are money!"

The fins are on, with the gaps filled.  Really changes the appearance.

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Looks like a sawn off Shattipuss from some angles.

I'll get filler sanded off tomorrow and a first coat of primer on.  Can't really do much more until I get the engines cast, as well as the wheels. I really don't want to even think about that u/c yet.

[PR19_Kit]

Looks like a sawn off Shattipuss from some angles.

So VERY true. It's all in the various proportions maybe?

[The Wooksta!]

"Do I give a ****?  Why the **** should I?"

It only took a week for the engine mould to cure and the resin I'm currently using takes an absolute age to cure.  My own fault really, for choosing something with a long pot life, but at least I'm not rushing to get curing resin into moulds. But it does mean I can only get an engine a day.

Anyway, the way I added the pouring lug meant there was minimal cleanup and the engines went on fairly quickly is I could get some primer on.  Bit of filler here and there, now sanded back, so it was time to sort out the canopy.

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Magna's canopies went from awful in 1993, to not really much better by the time he packed it in in the late 2000s.  Not sure when his Buckingham dated from, but my kit was obtained in 2001 I think.  This example is slowly going yellow, but I'll have to live with it.  I'll blame it on tropical sunshine.  The fit is somewhat meh, which again is typical of most Magna canopies.  Why he didn't outsource to someone more capable, like John Adams, is a mystery.  I'll use plenty of Krystal Kleer to bed it in, then paint the frames before backfilling with PPP.  It's also too narrow, so I've strategically sanded back the fuselage a little to try and hide it.

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As this is going photo recon, I've drilled out some camera ports in the nose (1 forward facing and two oblique) and added some to the ventral gondola. The  latter I've handled differently, based on photos of Mosquito PR34 camera ports. I've fixed some neat circles, actually Mosquito bomb tail rings, onto the gondola then sanded them back.  I may do the same to the two side windows in the rear fuselage - they fit over the squares cut out quite neatly.

Next task is going to be to get that canopy on, so then I can think about spraying this beast after another coat of primer.  I'll do the top first - Med Sea Grey - and then mask that for the PRU Bue elsewhere, because it's less work than the other way round.

[Old Wombat]

Looking very good! 

[The Wooksta!]

"Your future dream is a shopping scheme."

So after finally getting that awful canopy masked - I started with tape, it looked crap so switched to free handing Maskol in place - I gave it another coat of primer ready to spray the Med Sea Grey top coat.  Then on my way to the shed, noticed a few areas that needed a final sanding and some more rescribing.

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It's not brilliant and given the base kit is barely the right side of "Okay-ish", I'm going to go with it.  Med Sea Grey uppers, PRU Blue everywhere else with sexy Type D roundels and markings for 81 Sqn in Malaya, just before they get re-equipped with Hornet PR5s.

[Captain Canada]

That's looking raelly good ! Alot bigger than I would have thought. Really see the details coming out with the primer. Nice work.

[Joe CalPo]

That's a good looking airplane, reminds me of other designs.

[The Wooksta!]

"Just a pile of ****, coming to this."


So I gets the PRU Blue on, then has to give it a second coat as I really wasn't happy with it.  Left it overnight and after giving it a quick look in daylight, decided to take the masking off. 

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And yet again I'm hit with the same issue with the paint and primer lifting.  It's had a rub with some micro mesh and I'll give it a careful respray later.  There's a few areas which may need a bit of retouching with a hairy stick, but it's going about as well as I'd expected ie poorly.

Really not looking forward to sorting out the u/c...

[Rick Lowe]

Irritating when it does that... 
Smart looking scheme, though. 

[DeeBob]

That sure does make a handsome colour scheme! Perhaps you could claim it was an experimental fibreglass model and call it weathering...