The Hamfisted Modeller: March 2017

Saturday 18 March 2017

1/48 Kinetic BAe Sea Harrier FRS.1 No 800 NAS HMS Hermes 1982

Another one for my cold war RAF/RN Collection. I remember the Falklands war as a kid in school, and was always fascinated by the "Jump Jets" on the TV.

So I was pretty happy when Kinetic released a Sea Harrier, noting that the only other options in 48 were the horrible Airfix and Tamiya kits. I'm also looking forward to Kinetics Harrier Gr.3.

I've chosen to do XZ457 - "14" of No 800 Naval Air Squadron onboard HMS Hermes in the South Atlantic in 1982. XZ457 was the highest scoring Sea Harrier with 2 IAI Daggers and 1 A-4Q Skyhawk. accredited to her. As I've chosen to depict her on in the Hermes during the conflict the kill markings have been left off.

The Kit

1/48 Kinetic Sea Harrier FRS.1

You do need to take a bit of time with this kit as many of the pieces needed a little clean up / dry fitting etc. But if you do that it will build up into a nice model. I've gone for a lighter shade Extra Dark Sea Grey to try and get a more scale looking colour, this meant I ended up with a bit to much paint on the model, which filled some of the nice recessed detail. The kit has some nice weapons, so much so I didn't bother with arfermarket weapons.

Aftermarket Used

Eduard Big Ed Set which has an interior PE set, exterior PE set and a Mask set.
Dr Pepper AIM-9 Seaker head covers.
Eduard PE RBF tags
Fantasy Printshop Paper RBF tags
Aerobouns Sea Harrier pilot
J's Modelworks Carrier base (I know it's not accurate for a RN carrier but it'll do)

I didn't use the Pavla seat as it didn't fit the kit being to large.

Decals

Kit decals. Probably the best kit decals I've used. Printed by Carotgragh and it seams you can do pretty much every Falklands Sea Harrier. These are better than any aftermarket options I've seen.

Paints

Mr Color Lacquers - adjusted to TLAR for the Extra Dark Sea Grey. I tried to lighten the lower fuselage as this was over-painted white by brush on the way down to the Falklands and darken the areas on the tail where the squadron markings and "Royal Navy" were over painted. I didn't totally pull this off.
Various Tamiya Colours
Vallejo Acrylics for details .

Clear Coats

Testors Glosscoate, which was over coated with Gaianotes gloss lacquer as the testors stayed tacky,
Testors Dullcoate and Tamiya Flat.

Weathered with

Oil paints for a wash an filters
Pastels, pigments and coloured pencils

Build Threads

The photos

1/48 Classic Airframes Boulton Paul Defiant Mk 1 - 141 Sqn RAF 1940

This aircraft was shot down near Dover July 19 1940

One from 2015 I'd had this in the stash for years and decided to give it a go.

I've always had a soft spot for this aircraft, despite it being an abject failure as a day fighter, and barely much better as a night fighter.

Who'd have thought that a year later Airfix would bring out a really nice model of this aircraft, and then in 2017 Trumpeter would, as usual, bring out a hosed up version. Whilst the Classic Airframes kit does build up OK it's certainly been retired by the Airfix offering.