Andi's 1/144 Zvezda Hurricane Mk.I

[vizenz]

Hello,
I came across this kit yesterday while cleaning/searching. I have no idea how it got into my stash. I don't remember buying it. But it must have been in my basement for at least 11 years. I probably wouldn't have noticed it in my chaos if I hadn't seen so many Hurricanes here in the last few days.
I think it's some kind of "wink of fate" and I should build the mini plane for the group build. Even I should be able to do it by July!
Best regards,
Andreas

PS: I hope it's not a problem that @Papa695 has already built the same kit?

 

[vizenz]

Ok, somehow I'm motivated to do something with this thing.
First check - a Hurricane in 1/144 is small!


Second look - The kit is made of the soft plastic that the Zvezda figures are made of. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do with normal plastic glue. A flight stand is included with the kit. But somehow I like the idea of putting the plane on his own feet better. After all, there are two pairs of landing gear - one closed and one extended.
The clear part is nice and transparent - but unfortunately it's a complete block. The thing is supposed to be plugged into a pin on the airplane. Somehow I don't like that because you can always see the pin.
I tried making my own cockpit canopy using a piece of packing material and a candle. It took a few tries and isn't perfect, but I think this could be an alternative.

 

[papa 695]

Great start Andreas.

 

[Waspie]

The size scares me. But love your canopy. If you don’t try these thing you never know. Excellent.

 

[vizenz]

Great start Andreas.

Thank you very much. Ian, I'm glad to have you here. Your little Hurricane was the impetus that made me dare to take part here.

The size scares me. But love your canopy. If you don’t try these thing you never know. Excellent.

It was actually the first time I tried this deep-draw method. This is probably useless for larger scales, but I think the detailing is enough for this mini canopy.


The bad thing is, I think I've opened Pandora's Box...
Now with the thin canopy you can see very clearly that there is nothing underneath. So I started milling out the fuselage...
The plastic is really difficult to work with. It starts to melt as soon as it gets warm and you can't really sand it.

 

[HAWKERHUNTER]

Great start Andreas. The size of this model just blows my mind. Following with interest.

 

[vizenz]

Great start Andreas. The size of this model just blows my mind. Following with interest.

Thank you Steve. I'm happy if you like it. I hardly know anything about airplane models and just tinker around haphazardly.

Next I drilled out the air intakes. First pre-drilled with the drill and then widened with the knife. Finally, I glued a small piece of paper in the middle of the large opening as a divider.




Then I started building a cockpit. This doesn't have much to do with a real Hurricane cockpit, I just wanted some details to be visible through the canopy. I glued a few drawn sprues to the sides, otherwise there was a seat, a few pedals, a control stick and an instrument panel (all from superglue hardened paper).

 

[vizenz]

Hello everyone.
Today I was “allowed” to get up very early. While the ladies of the house are getting pretty (not that they need it), I used the time to fill and sand a few sinkholes (and the hole for the flight base).

In addition, in photos the Hurricanes almost always had the elevator down when they were on the ground. So I separated the control surfaces and glued them back on at a slight angle.
The tiny thing is slowly starting to look like an airplane.

 

[vizenz]

And on we go.
I looked through all my decals to see if I had any suitable capital letters to mark a Hurricane other than the one specified by the kit maker. Unfortunately not - so the kit decals will have to suffice.
I searched the Internet for the "JX-B" and found that it was the aircraft of A.V.Clowes, No.1 Squadron. In the original photo the control surfaces of the wings are folded down - so I do that too.



Finally, I refined and glued the landing gear a little and we are ready to paint. First I rubbed the entire model with isopropanol to remove my fingerprints and the last of the sanding dust. Then I sprayed it white with a can of primer.
Now it is no longer a land or sea hurricane, but a snow hurricane!


Best regards,
Andi

 

[vizenz]

For a very brief moment I thought I will turn on the compressor...
No! Masking in 1/144 is certainly not one of my talents!
The brush will have to suffice.


Best regards,
Andi

 

[Ian M]

Just had a catch up with this tiny little build.
What can I say. Amazing. Like the canopy trick.

 

[The Smythe Meister]

Excellent stuff on something this tiny Andi,and like Ian said,the canopy idea is great

 

[Jim R]

You're doing a fine job on this tiny model. The canopy has worked well. Working with the soft plastic is a problem but you seem to be coping with it.

 

[adt70hk]

Coming on very nicely!!

 

[Tworrs]

Looking good Andy, nice bit of scratchery there

 

[papa 695]

Great work so far Andreas, really liking the work on the cockpit.

 

[vizenz]

Just had a catch up with this tiny little build.
What can I say. Amazing. Like the canopy trick.

Excellent stuff on something this tiny Andi,and like Ian said,the canopy idea is great

You're doing a fine job on this tiny model. The canopy has worked well. Working with the soft plastic is a problem but you seem to be coping with it.

Coming on very nicely!!

Looking good Andy, nice bit of scratchery there

Great work so far Andreas, really liking the work on the cockpit.

Thank you all!
This is something completely different than usual. There is usually a lot of research that goes into each of my models.
Here I just tinker around and do whatever comes to mind.



After a few days break, we're finally moving on. I painted a few details. I really have a lot of colors - but unfortunately nothing that looks anything like the underside of British Fighter Aircraft. So I tried to mix something myself. I think I was a bit lucky and the color doesn't look too bad. After drying, I will need a second layer so that you can no longer see the brush strokes, and then I can continue...

 

[The Smythe Meister]

Very nice indeed.....
.... and that colour looks spot on to me,well done.

 

[vizenz]

Very nice indeed.....
.... and that colour looks spot on to me,well done.

Thank you Andy! Yes, I'm very happy with this colour. In the past if I tried to mix something it looked bad, but here I had a lot of luck I guess.

It's decal time!
I looked at a few photos of the original aircraft and a color profile of it and noticed that the aircraft number P3395 and a small hornet below the exhaust were missing! Shame on you Zvezda!
So I drew the missing badges with MS Paint and printed them out on decal paper. Not perfect but better than nothing. The roundels are all a bit too big in my opinion. But I guess I have to live with that.

 

[HAWKERHUNTER]

Crickey Andreas. That is some micro scale work especially on the decals. Great job