1/72 PM ModelsHawker Sea Fury

by John Green

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As a member of the IPMS(UK) Aerobatic Display Teams SIG, I seem to have had my horizons broadened somewhat over the last couple of years & seem to end up building things for the SIG display at the UK  Nationals (no, I can't get used to calling it Scale Modelworld either) which I'd either never even thought of building, or in totally different markings to what I'd originally planned.  This Sea Fury was one of the latter - I'd intended to build it as Peter Carmichael's MiG-killer (I know, 0 out of 10 for imagination!!), but eventually built it as an aircraft of the 801 Sqn aerobatic team at the time of the Festival of Britain in 1951 for the 2005 display theme of Naval teams.
 I'd had the PM kit in my stash for many years , so decided I'd build that.  Obviously, any sane person would have built the Special Hobby kit, but I already had the PM version, so natural meanness took over.  When I opened the kit, I found that I'd also got in stock the Airwaves etched brass set & white metal undercarriage & an Aeroclub vacform canopy.  I noticed whilst perusing Aeroclub's website, that as well as selling the canopy on its own, they also do it in a set with a white metal casting for the rear cockpit decking, headrest & canopy guide rail, so I invested in one of them too.

I remember when I first bought the kit, some time in the early 1990s, that I thought it was quite reasonable, which I suppose it was back then compared to the old Frog kit which was its only competition, but looking at it again the best part of 15 years later my opinion was rather different.  It was fairly cleanly moulded with recessed panel lines, but the engraving was rather heavy & the entire surface had a rather rough texture as if the mould hadn't been polished.  The detail parts are also sadly lacking - the cockpit detail consisted of a floor, bulkhead & a totally useless seat, the one-piece canopy was ghastly,  the gear doors were the thickness of armour plate & totally undetailed, the undercarriage itself fit only for the bin & the wheelwells, though at least boxed in, were distinctly shallow with limited detail.  Fortunately, most of this was unlikely to be a problem - my normal build technique involves much spraying of aerosol primer & rubbing down of defects, which would fix the rough surface & heavy panel lines & the various aftermarket goodies would deal with most of the rest.  The wheelwells I decided to leave as they were, since they weren't THAT noticeable.
I built up the cockpit using the kit floor & bulkhead, the latter cut down to clear the new rear decking, the Airwaves brass & an Aeroclub white metal bucket seat & stick.  Once painted, it all looked great but, being all black & with a very small cockpit opening, I'm sure you can guess how much of it was actually visible - ah well, I know it's all there!!   Once the fuselage was assembled, I realised that the kit had no exhaust detail, so I trimmed away the solid wall at the front of the exhaust channels on both sides of the fuselage & thinned down the rear edge of the cowling to give room to fit a set of exhausts after painting, these being made from 9 pieces of plastic rod glued side by side & then cut into lengths once set.

The next "challenge"  concerned the wings - they looked ok on the sprue but, once joined, the massive thickness of the trailing edges & wingtips became glaringly apparent.  This required considerable use of files & sanding sticks & rescribing of the control surfaces.
 The final task prior to painting was to fit the windscreen, which was a far from smooth operation.   I managed to ruin both the Aeroclub vacforms, which is a common enough problem for me, being hopeless with anything vacformed, which left me casting round for an alternative.  Eventually I found an Academy Typhoon in the stash & stole the screen & canopy from that - the screen wasn't a perfect fit, but a little fiddling with it got it in place & a skim of filler faired it in neatly.  As an aside at this point, Toyway, the UK Academy importer, sold me a replacement Typhoon clear sprue at very reasonable cost.
 Unlike the build so far, painting & decaling went smoothly.  First I sprayed the stainless steel area aft of the exhausts with Alclad, masked it up & sprayed the main colours in Humbrol, glossed it up , applied the decals, which were from an assortment of Xtradecal & Modeldecal generic sheets, washed the airframe once it was dry & then brushed on a coat of clear gloss to seal the decals.
 The final problems to be overcome concerned the undercarriage.  First off, the Airwaves undercarriage legs were fine, but I was less than impressed with the wheels & so had to cast around for an alternative, which turned out to be an Aeromaster Tempest (the Heller kit reboxed by Aeromaster with some resin & photoetch & a new decal sheet.  I thought I'd be able to "borrow" the kit wheels & then get a set of resin one for the Tempest, but when I opened the box I realised that the kit came with both plastic & resin wheels, which solved the problem nicely & at no expense.  The other problem was the undercarriage doors - all the kit doors were, as mentioned above, grossly over-thick & under-detailed & the etched set came with a set of main doors which were nicely detailed on their inner faces, but much too thin.  Consequently, I superglued the etched doors to a piece of 10 thou plasticard & then trimmed the card to size.  The inner doors & the tailwheel doors , which the Airwaves set didn't supply, were vigorously rubbed down to reduce their thickness.  Once the various detail parts were painted, they were all fitted in place, a final coat of satin varnish applied & the canopy demasked.  In spite of the shortcomings of the base kit, this was a generally enjoyable project which produced a model with which I am happy.  Next time I want a Sea Fury though, I'll be steering well clear of the PM kit in favour of the vastly superior Special Hobby version, or possibly waiting for the promised Trumpeter offering.
John

Photos and text © by John Green