This is a conversion of one of the clear sprues of Sweet's Mk I Hurri which has been altered to represent the later long-nosed Mk II series. Originally it started out with me musing over the differences of the Mk I and II, rather similar to the way I began the Griffon Spitfire project described in a previous thread. Regarding the clear version of Sweet's finest as somewhat expendable and armed with a second glass of Barossa Valley red, I chopped the nose off for "a bit of a look"
The Mk II had a longer cowling to accommodate the latest version of the Merlin engine, so a cut line was made that would hopefully do the least damage to the surface detail on the fuselage. This runs diagonally from the middle of the centreline fuel tank, to the lower cowling just ahead of the leading edge of the wing root. A spacer of about 2mm was inserted and the nose glued back into place with careful reference to the drawings to make sure things lined up correctly. I also took the opportunity to thin down the cockpit walls and add the missing portion of the pilots back armour/headrest, as I hoped to do a canopy-open version if possible.
I also filled the gun bay paned lines with a milk moustache of Tamiya white putty that was thinned down with their lacquer thinners and applied with a brush. Love that stuff.
Things kind of slowed to a halt after that. The prospect of scratchbuilding the cannon seemed too much like hard work, and the project made way for some other builds. However, in the accordance with the rather haphazard and circuitous way that I tend to do things, I ended up muddling back around to the old Hurri again.
The next bit was the correction of the windscreen. Sweet's Hurricane has a few small errors. Chief among them is the width if the front facing glazed panel, which is much too wide at the bottom (strangely however, the fabric wing version has a revised version which is much more accurate). I didn't find this out until later though, and had to shave a portion of the windscreen of on both sides to get the right shape. While I was at it I scraped and sanded the insides so the glazing was as thin as I dared, and polished everything smooth.
I also made a latter style pair of fishtail exhausts in the same manner that I did for a Defiant last year and fitted these temporarily in place. The revised gun panels were scribed too and the upper wing bulges made from blobs of 5 minute epoxy. I did a bunch of these on a on stick surface, and chose the best two to transfer to the model. The landing lights were filled in, as these seem to have been uncommon on the IID. Perhaps the cannons blew the bulbs when they fired? The nav lights were still there though, so I turned the clear wings to my advantage by polishing the ends and masking them off.
Things pretty much went into high gear after that. The Mrs is away for 4 weeks and the kitchen table has become a factory. The cannons were made from two pieces each of 1mm sheet styrene that was dowelled together so I could separate them after carving. I shaped and sanded each one, then took them apart and put a piece of 0.1mm plastic between them, shaping it to represent the prominent flange which runs down the centre of each pod. It seemed the most efficient way.
I made some cannon barrels from evergreen plastic rod, but they were rubbish. In the end I switched to Albion alloys brass tube and got a much better result. That was a good day.
I also modified the kit radiator, which needs to be much deeper in the Mk II. I added some shims of styrene and angled it slightly so that it didn't taper so abruptly to the rear. Doing this with clear components as a perfect bastard, I don't mind telling you.
Which brings me to the weekend. I had both days off, which rarely happens. So I set to with a will!
I ordered some Gunze RAF Azure blue and it arrived in good time from a local hobbyist. This was lightened with off white and sprayed an a patchy manner over the undersides. I washed down the model and scrubbed as if for surgery before doing this, as I didn't want any paint lifting later. I'd need to use both lacquers and acrylics and I was very worried about paint lifting on me.
I was very much inspired by Cowleyi's recent P-40 build, so I tried a bit of preshading to the upper surfaces before I added the top coat of Middle stone. In retrospect I should have done more, but I was pretty hesitant being my first go.
The Mid-stone is Gunze lacquer thinned and lightened slightly. It went on pretty well and the careful prep was well worth it.
I still had a few hours of daylight up my sleeve, so I decided to go for broke and try to get the Dark Earth layer masked up and painted too. Various internet oracles seem to agree that the aqueous Hobby Color H72 is the best match out of the jar, so I went with that. I did add some white however to give things a more faded appearance and dashed out to the balcony to get a coat on in the last few minutes of the day. Sorry there's no photos of the masking. As it was I only just made it before I ran out of natural light...
Retreating back inside, I unmasked immediately (important) and started wondering about decals. These were cobbled together from the remains of an MYK Tempest sheet and went on really well. They are pretty bright though, so I had to figure out what to do about that.
Today I was blessed with another day of work, so I made the most of it. It will be a couple of weeks before I see another though...
I masked up the sliding portion of the canopy and painted this. Then did the spinner in Humbrol 60. The cannons were sprayed with a coat of clear metal primer, to which I added a few drops of black so I could see if I had reached everything. They then got a coat of grey-black as a base coat. The exhausts were painted gun metal and will be weathered later.
The big win of the day was the exhaust staining. I never tried his before and practiced on a spare Hurricane fuselage. It wasn't as hard as I expected and worked out rather well with paint that was very well thinned, a high air pressure and a small aperture setting on the airbrush.
Here's where it's at now. The airframe was sprayed with a coat of flat matt, with two drops of white added. Particular care was paid to the decals to try and age them and tone them down to match everything else. The walkways were masked and sprayed with tyre black and an overspray of dusty grey. Next up is prop blades, seat and undercarriage etc. Can't wait to give the panel lines a bit of a wash too. I'm very happy with how it has come along so far.
I'm glad I'm out in my shipping container office 'shed' away from everyone so they don't hear the bad bad language when I routinely drop something.
