Airfix 1/48 Hurricane Mk I

I've added some more details to the cockpit, I just need to add the rudder pedals and I can get it painted. Although Eduard supply seatbelts in the Zoom set I've ordered some from HGW as these are actually made of fabric and will conform to the seat better, etch belts are too stiff (unless you anneal them over an open flame first);

I could go wild with the detail but for what you will be able to see I think there's enough in there. I did want to keep the floor and cockpit sides separate for painting but due to the way Airfix have designed it I had to glue it all together.

Airfix 1/48 Hurricane Mk I

With the Leopard drying out after a bath, I had an empty bench;

This will not do so after being inspired by my flight alongside a Hawker Hurricane a couple of weeks ago I decided to make a start on the new tool Airfix 1/48 kit. Now I know I say this all the time but I shall try and keep the amount of detailing to a minimum with this kit, just concentrating on the cockpit as this is always the focus of attention on any aircraft model. Etch will be confined to an Eduard Zoom set and I have Eduard Brassin wheels and exhausts AND THAT'S IT! :o)
Assembly starts with the cockpit and to give Airfix their due it's quite good although the zoom set will add to it, especially the instrument panel. The kit seat has been replaced with the etched one and this was soldered together rather than glued;

In the interior of the landing lights Airfix had moulded the end of one rib on the end of the wing spar but after consulting my references there should be two rib ends in each. Using sheet styrene I made new ribs and hollowed out the ends as per the real aircraft;

I also extended the wing spar. As to whether you will actually see this is another matter but I know it's there :o)
By the way I mentioned that I flew alongside a Hurricane;

That was a very special day and one that will stay with me for a long time.

Takom Leopard C2

I've finally finished the build of this one so it will get a wash down and when dry it's off to the paint shop.

The Leopard I want to depict didn't have the turret mounted MG fitted so the mount and ammo box holder were scratch-built from thin styrene sheet, the white thing on the turret basket is to represent the bag that is attached underneath, the tow cables are from RMG and just needed shortening by 20mm to fit and will be removed before painting.
This was my first Takom kit and it wasn't that bad really, as you can see I have tweaked the model in places but that is nothing unusual with me. I keep trying to build stuff straight out of the box but I just can't help myself!
One thing I did keep to was the use of the etch supplied in the kit only, other brass bits you see are made from sheets of brass I have in stock. Essential things you need to get for this kit are the resin exhausts, tow cables, aerials, mantlet plugs and smoke dischargers which are all available from Leopard Club here;

Leopard Club

The barrel is an item from Orange Hobby (the fiddly etch was covered in an earlier post) and although I did get the Leopard Club barrel for the 1A5, in the end I just used the boresight mirror for the end of the barrel as some of the resin parts were not concentric. The Orange Hobby item I got is actually for a Leopard 1A3 and apparently they do a barrel for the 1A5 but at the time it was not available.
The model will be washed in warm soapy water to get all the dust and crap off it, when thoroughly dry it will be primed and painted.

Takom Leopard C2

After knocking off the jerry can racks I decided to make new ones using brass completely instead of plastic as the others just fell apart. Superglue was pretty useless in the first place due to the very small mating areas so this time I thought I would have a go at soldering.
Brass sheet was cut to size for the bases (10m x 5mm) with the corners rounded off and the strip around them (1mm). Using Blu-Tak to hold things in place some flux was applied to the areas to be soldered;

I had trouble getting the solder off the coil onto my soldering iron but after a suggestion by my good modelling buddy Markus Lack I flattened out some solder and cut it into small strips for greater control (which worked beautifully);

The parts were cleaned up using a fibre glass pen and some wet and dry paper then glued to the back of the turret;

Hopefully these will look better under a coat of paint.
I suppose I should have done this in the first place as superglue never really works that well with brass and plastic, especially when you have such small areas to work with. With a bit of luck I won't knock these off again :o)

Takom Leopard C2

I've stuck on a few more parts, YAY! On the vehicle I want to model the jerrycan holders on the rear of the turret basket are empty so I attempted to make new ones from scratch using styrene strip and thin brass sheet;

They didn't look too bad until today when I broke them off. I'll rework them but use brass for the bases instead of plastic and instead of using cyano I'll solder the sides on for strength.
The barrel is now ready to fit and although I purchased a Leopard Club item I found the separate resin pieces that make up the barrel were not concentric so I'm sticking with the Orange Hobby item I bought originally. I did use the bore sight mirror and mount from the Leopard Club barrel and stuck it to the end of the Orange Hobby one as it saved me making one from scratch;

The tie down loops on the turret basket are moulded solid in the kit so these were removed and new ones made using thin copper wire;

15amp fuse wire was used for the top and bottom rails on the platforms either side of the turret basket. I *was* going to use the kit parts but I managed to break a couple when removing them from the sprue, the same for the grab handles on the turret sides.

Takom Leopard C2

I was going to use the kit barrel and add some detail to it but decided on using an aftermarket item instead from Orange Hobby that I had got for my Meng Leopard 1A5, also there is no rifling inside the kit barrel ;

As you can see it comes with two small frets of etch metal....omfg it is TINY! After the best part of 1 1/2 hours I managed to put the first two straps around the barrel;

Very frustrating! After a good couple of hours I managed to get the rest of the etch on, the four clamps proving verrrrrry tricky as the folds required were small and very awkward to do, luckily there are two etch sheets as it was very easy to lose some parts to the carpet monster;

Regarding the four clamps I replaced the rods that connect each end with sprue as the etch is obviously flat. The Orange Hobby barrel is actually for a Leopard 1A3 so I need to make the boresight mirror and mount for the end of the barrel from scratch, I would have used the kit one but it's too small.

Takom Leopard C2

In their infinite wisdom Takom moulded all the mounts for the turret spaced armour separately and although the bigger ones were OK the small ones are very fiddly. You get 34 on the sprue and you need 16 per side so after pinging three to feed the carpet monster I could see which way this was heading so ended up making a load of new ones using 1.5mm and 1mm styrene rod;

To get the alignment for these mounts I taped the side armour to the turret then used a pencil to mark where they go (don't bother using the Takom instructions for this as they useless). I had already glued two of the larger ones in place as these had locating pegs;

After a couple of days away from the bench I looked at the mounts I had made and after deciding they were crap I cut the kit ones off the sprues and after cleaning them up a different way (I didn't use tweezers this time) I managed to avoid pinging any more into the ether. I only had to use one of the home-made ones and this was put in the middle where nobody would see it.
Because I had coated the turret previously I had to use superglue to attach the parts;

The spaced armour was then glued into place and the turret has been set aside to dry.
I don't really have much more to do now so hopefully the build will be completed soon.