A different Hunter T12

Captain Canada · December 01, 2014, 01:06:09 PM

Looking good ! Reminds me of a lightweight Thunderchief.

PR19_Kit · December 03, 2014, 07:59:31 AM

Still making progress on the T12 between driving myself nuts with tiny bits of PE on G-VTOL.

I'm on the third iteration of PPSR by now (that's Prime-Putty-Sand-Repeat.......) and I still had some strange lumps, bumps and flats alongside the cockpit and where I'd glued the wings on. I think I've filed down the wing bumps by now but the flats needed some drastic surgery. The original tandem 2 seater nose has two 'flats' either side so OGL and Rickshaw's work exactly repeated the problem, so it wasn't down to them. I added some 10 thou packing sheets either side and puttied the devil out of the edges before mucho sanding and priming etc.

Hopefully I'll be able to post pics of the fully primed (4 coats....) airframe later this evening.

Thorvic · December 03, 2014, 10:04:03 AM

Going to use a pair of Eduard Hunter F6 PE sets to detail the cockpits and seats?

Only kidding, looking forward to seeing it primed once everythings been blended together

PR19_Kit · December 03, 2014, 11:43:34 AM

Quote from: Thorvic on December 03, 2014, 10:04:03 AM
Going to use a pair of Eduard Hunter F6 PE sets to detail the cockpits and seats?

Only kidding, looking forward to seeing it primed once everythings been blended together

NO WAY!

I've got a couple of Pavla resin seats to go in there and they've already got their mould blocks sawn off and painted semi-matt black. I just need to find the single bristle brush now......

PR19_Kit · December 03, 2014, 03:19:46 PM

Doesn't look too bad in primer, the flat sides are nicely rounded off and all the excess superglue has smoothed down nicely. Now I can see the reheat nozzle properly I can see what a super job the Freightdog team made of it, it looks really neat.

With that long pointed nose it looks just as if someone grafted the nose of a Tornado F3 onto a Hunter.

Next step is to do the cockpit interior, just a paint job, paint the seats and install them and to give it an underside colour coat.

rickshaw · December 03, 2014, 07:16:32 PM

Mmm, I'd assumed that the fuselage sides would be flattened which seem to fit in well with the sparse drawings I had. I agree it looks a lot like a Tornado F.3 nose on the front there. It's coming along well, Kit.

PR19_Kit · December 04, 2014, 02:15:54 PM

I think I used the wrong word there, I should have said 'waisted'.

The nose tapers inwards toward the intakes alongside the cockpit when viewed from above, and I agree the sides should be flattened. The taper looks all wrong so I added the styrene sheet pieces to reduce that while keeping the flats on the side. It seems to have done the trick and I'll take a pic of the original Maintrack nose showing the taper and my modified version on the T12 from above.

As mentioned in the G-VTOL thread I've done painting the resin Pavla seats and they're ready to be installed once I've done a bit of instrument panel painting inside the cockpit.

PR19_Kit · December 05, 2014, 03:35:18 AM

Here's the comparison pic of the two noses I mentioned. You can see where the original nose tapers outward right alongside the divider between the two cockpit halves, and it was even more noticeable with the long nose. But it isn't any more.

nighthunter · December 05, 2014, 10:20:26 AM

Personal opinion, the blunter nose looks better.

PR19_Kit · December 05, 2014, 12:16:28 PM

Quote from: nighthunter on December 05, 2014, 10:20:26 AM
Personal opinion, the blunter nose looks better.

It does from the side view too, but the T12 was intended to be a TSR2 trainer so my T12 has a TSR2 radar nose, thus the point. I may build a tandem T7 later on with the 'standard' nose, once I've got through the current batch of Hawker stuff.

PR19_Kit · December 11, 2014, 03:53:54 AM

As mentioned elsewhere I've trimmed the canopy to suit and did the 'Dip in Klear' bit which made it look pretty darn good. Then it was glued in place with some clear glue, not Kristal Klear as I find that just doesn't stick well enough these days. It needs a bit of cleaning up around the edges and may need a slight bit of puttying but it's not too bad. I'm surprised how much the addition of the canopy changes the look of the aircraft, it's nowhere near as 'Needle Nosed' as it was before.

I've painted the underside with two coats of Light Aircraft Grey, from my last tin of the late lamented Humbrol HX series of paints, and I'll give that a coat or two of Klear before doing the top side. I've started work on the wheels and landing gear and a right drama that is! The main gear anti-shimmy links are short moulded I'm sad to say and look NOTHING like they should do except from the front. A good thing they're hidden underneath!

kerick · December 11, 2014, 05:14:47 AM

Wow that really looks different! Very cool.

rickshaw · December 12, 2014, 05:49:55 PM

Interesting. Will the demarcation between the upper and lower colours remain that untidy? Not terribly RAF old chap!

McColm · December 12, 2014, 08:04:20 PM

Wow, good work!

PR19_Kit · December 13, 2014, 01:47:30 AM

Quote from: rickshaw on December 12, 2014, 05:49:55 PM
Interesting. Will the demarcation between the upper and lower colours remain that untidy? Not terribly RAF old chap!

Noooooo!

I've only painted the underside so far, just because I could in the general build time scale. Once the canopy is faired in (and what a pain THAT is!) I'll mask it up and paint the upper surfaces. I may get onto that tomorrow with luck.