The Hamfisted Modeller: 1/48 Eduard Hawker Typhoon IB - Car Door

The Typhoon has always been been one of my favourite RAF aircraft from World War II, it's such a beast.
I built the Monogram kit as a teenager and when I got back into modelling in the early 2000's I quickly built the Hasegawa bubbletop. I thought it was OK at the time but looking at the photos noq it wasn't the best, hence why it had long been scrapped.

A mate suggested we do a mini group build of the Typhoon so I figured I'd tackle the car door version as I had a Eduard Limited Edition kit in the stash.

I decided on a early Car Door variant from 486 Sqn (NZ) RAF, There were a couple of reasons for this, firstly it was a Kiwi Sqn, secondly the night fighter scheme is quite unusual and finally it is an early aircraft with no reinforcing plates on the tail and the exposed cannon barrels, which you don't see often.

The reason for the night scheme was that 486 Sqn operated with the Turbinlite Bostons , firstly with Hurricane IIc's and then for short while with the Typhoon, before they switched back to day op's.

The Kit

Eduards "Tiffy" boxing, Kit No 1131 . This has the Hasegawa plastic with Eduard PE resin and cartograph decals.
The kit goes together OK, however it does have inserts around the cockpit area (so both the bubbletop and Car door can be built with fro the same basic parts) and these don't fit well.
There are two ways to tackle this, either you remove the chance of a step by making the inserts sit flush with the contour of the fuselage. Do this and you will have a gap along the centre line, and the clear parts won't fit over the "hump" on the spine.

Or you fit the inserts so they meet in the middle, meaning you have a large step between the inserts and the fuselage parts. But the clear parts fit without modification and there is only the usual seem to fill.

I chose option 1. But I didn't find out about the clear parts until I'd finished the paint. I did manage to fix this by shaving down the insides of the clear parts so they fit over the "hump". The front windscreen seemed to fit OK

If/when I build another one I will again choose to match the inserts to the fuselage but I'll reduce the the width of the hump so the clear parts fit without having to attack them.

If building the bubbletop you won't have the hump to deal with and if you decide to leave the canopy open you should have no real issues using option 1.

Aftermarket

Ultracast seat. Eduard supply a PE seat but it seems rather over scale. The Ultracast Seat looks more correct scale wise.

A lot of the other PE is a bit to fiddly for my taste. Next time I'll use the panel and that's it.

The Figure

The figure is from Plus Models. I really like the pose and he is quite nicely cast. He was painted with Vallejo Acrylics with a simple wash used to bring out the facial features.

Paint

Dark Green - Mr Color Dark Green C361 and Tamiya XF81. Darker and light shades from various Mr Color greens.
Ocean Grey - Tamiya AS 10. Darker and lighte shades from various Mr Color/Mr Hobby
Black underside - Gaianotes German Grey
Sky - Mr Color Sky
Yellow - Mr Hobby RLM yellow
Other various Mr Color/Mr Hobby greens and greys for weathering
Various Vallejo Acrylics for details