discussion My Little Harry Tate completed build blog

[rtfoe]

Hi, I have always been an Airfix fan till now even with its old tooled kits which I try to bring up to present standards. One such kit is the 1/72 RE8. I acquired this kit a while back and the tooling is even older than I am. I tackled it whenever the mojo suited and this build ebbed with the tide lasting three to four years...lost the blog in MM so can't remember. I will start with showing the completed build which I set in diorama and then work from the start...

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Firstly the number of parts to the kit gave me the impression that I could do this over the weekend but never guessed how wrong I was.:smiling6:

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I made sure the cockpit and turret openings aligned and cleaned them up with a motor tool.

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I anticipated filling the aircraft with spare Lewis gun magazines and made them from tube and rod. I then proceeded to add framing, dashboard and magazine holder to the interior.

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Seriously the kit cockpit was totally void of anything except for protrusions for the pilot figure to sit on so I made a seat with two part putty and mesh to simulate a wicker seat.

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I made a false floorboard for both the pilot and gunner. The pilots was slightly elevated.

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All these detail was basically eyeballed from reference pictures and were not accurate in scale and slightly exagerated.

View attachment 302476 Next comes the painting...

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Jon Heptonstall]

Really nice work Richard.The finished scene makes a lovely tableau.
Jon.

 

[rtfoe]

Hi, somehow when you're given an empty blank sheet of canvas, you just want to splash away with your brush. Lucky for me a friend lent me his Wingnut instruction sheet which had colour references to follow.

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If I ever was to do this again I would have painted a shade lighter.

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Once I glued the fuselage halves together I shored up the gunners position with a raised ring by bending plastic strip along the edge.

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More later...

Cheers,
Richard

 

[rtfoe]

Hi Jon, was posting at the same time. Thanks...I have to look up the word tableau. :smiling2:...it's another word for picture right?

Cheers,
Richard

 

[col68]

Nice work Richard.

 

[rtfoe]

Thanks Colin...:smiling2: noticed you're a well-knowned member...how do we get these headings?:thinking:

Cheers,
Richard

 

[yak face]

Superb stuff Richard , I love this type of build and am partial to doing up old kits in this way too. Im also a fan of the older airfix stuff too and have done a similar thing to this with a few of their ancient 1/72 kits (cac boomerang , westland whirlwind ,DH 88 comet) .like the re8 they had no real interior and scratching a cockpit in 1/72 is quite a challenge! The satisfaction of getting a good result at the end is great though, cheers tony

 

[rtfoe]

Hi, the plastic being old was brittle so cutting was a challenge. I had to cut out vision slots on the lower wing.

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Reference showed some chin extentions so I wittled sprue for these shapes and pasted them under the chin. I also added a nut and tubejust before the propeller housing.

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After sanding the bottom fuslage smooth I stuck on the undercarriage struts.

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I also detailed the tail skid and dropped the tail flaps and did the same for the wings

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While doing that the brittle plastic gave way for one of the flaps in three places. I just glued them back and sanded making sure I didn't loose any ribbing detail.

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More later...

Cheers,
Richard

 

[rtfoe]

Superb stuff Richard , I love this type of build and am partial to doing up old kits in this way too. Im also a fan of the older airfix stuff too and have done a similar thing to this with a few of their ancient 1/72 kits (cac boomerang , westland whirlwind ,DH 88 comet) .like the re8 they had no real interior and scratching a cockpit in 1/72 is quite a challenge! The satisfaction of getting a good result at the end is great though, cheers tony

Hi Tony, nice to have you here and glad we share the same love for this type of refurbishing as I like to call it. The Westland Whirlwind is a nice one but I do have a Classic Airframes 1/48 of that to do. I even have some Frog kits, the Vultee and Fairy Fulmar in 1/72 that cries for detailing...cool.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[yak face]

Hi Tony, nice to have you here and glad we share the same love for this type of refurbishing as I like to call it. The Westland Whirlwind is a nice one but I do have a Classic Airframes 1/48 of that to do. I even have some Frog kits, the Vultee and Fairy Fulmar in 1/72 that cries for detailing...cool.

Cheers,
Richard

Ive done the Vengeance richard and with a bit of added detail it turns out very nice http://www.scale-models.co.uk/threads/im-back-with-a-vengeance.13926/ , Ive also just got an old Novo (frog) blackburn skua and the Airwaves photo etched fret so that will be getting a makeover sometime too! cheers tony

 

[Guest]

Just superb. Very rich effects and so beyond the basic kit. That does intrigue to make a better Airfix. I had about 20 of them hanging from my ceiling as a kid. Took a few days to make each one as I recall. No stash back then. I could build faster than I could buy 'em.

 

[rtfoe]

Tony...that's a nice build of the Vengeance. I've got the Special Hobby Skua and she's a beaut.

Jim, thanks. The good old days where we could build faster than our pocket money could buy.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[rtfoe]

Hi, when I got to the propeller I turned my attention to building a Typhoon 1B having read about two Malaysian brothers who joined the RAF in WW2. One flew the Mustang and the other the Typhoon. I'll feature both blogs later. As for the propeller below I added a circular plate and bolts.

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After a year with rejuvenated mojo I had aspirations to further persue the enhancement of the kit .

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I glued the engine pistons which were surprisingly well molded and drilled the tyre shields. I plugged up the locating holes on the side walls for the up coming Vickers gun.

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Since the kit gun didn't resemble a Vickers I decided to scratch one with rod and stretched sprue.

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Comparing the kit part and the scratched Vickers clearly shows that it needed to be done.

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I made the Vickers cradle with its supports and later fashioned the trigger leaver rod connecting to the engine.

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Cheers,
Richard

 

[Snowman]

Excellent work!:thumb2:

 

[Andy Belsey]

Great to see this again. Wonderful detailing!!

 

[Guest]

Hi Richard I've just found this outstanding build, fantastic work on all the extra detailing :thumb2:
Pete.

 

[rtfoe]

Hi Gavin, Andrew and Peter, thanks for looking in.

This dio and build has been around for threes years and been to Shizuoka last year. I'm glad to be able to show it here.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[rtfoe]

The Lewis gun was also very crude so instead of making one I decided for a twin mounted assembly.

Actually my scratch was just as crude...the only difference was the addition of the handles, pistol grips, sights and barrel configuration.

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Plastic strip and wire were the material used.

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The final asseblies were painted flat black and dry brushed with steel...

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I picked out detail like the shell chute and handles with brass.

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Next will come the Lewis gun mount on the turret.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[Fernando N]

Very nice looking Richard, the things you can do with old 1/72 kits is amazing.:thumb2::hugging-face:
Hope to see the next installment soon.

Fernando

 

[Guest]

Well done Richard, you've been adding crisp detail sir.