Sea Gnat

[rickshaw]

Just cut them from 30 thou plasticard, use some sandpaper on the leading and trailing edges.  You could then scribe some panel/elevon lines on them and bang's your uncle... 

[JayBee]

A little more slow progress.
The tail feathers. With a small amount of modification both to the F1's fuselage and the Trainer's tailplanes they can fit very nicely.
A little bit of trimming to the F1's fuselage top and with the trainer's fin just cut off, a straight butt joint is possible.


The fuselage before trimming.





...and after trimming.





Now the tailplanes. The modified one is on the left.





...and the tail feathers in place.
I have given the tailplanes a reduced angle of attack, this was found necessary to maintain controllability at low speeds for deck landings.

[NARSES2]

She's getting there Jim

[JayBee]

Next comes the ejection seat, and the F1 kit gives four parts to build the Folland/SAAB seat that was fitted to the F1.
It also gives five parts to make the Martin-Baker Mk4GF seat that was fitted to the Ajeet and T1.
Unfortunately the instruction sheet does not show how these extra parts go together but it is not difficult to work out.
Given those extra parts and others in the kit it is pretty obvious that Special Hobby plan to issue the kit as an IAF Gnat/Ajeet. (The IAF operated more Gnats than Ajeets!)


The seat built but with the seat cushion left off.





At this point it has become obvious that that seat is too tall, and something will have to be done about that. You would get away with the kit offering if you were doing the canopy open, but I am not. Aircraft just do not look real with bits hanging open!








My plan is to just cut off the whole base/seat pan to reduce the height and this will make fitting the pilot easier.

[DogfighterZen]

Looking good!

[KiwiZac]

I'd totally missed this one. Boy oh boy, this is shaping up to be a gnifty little machine!

[JayBee]

Arrestor hook has now been fitted. I do not know what the donor kit was, might have been an A-4 going by the original length.
In this case glue it (the forward fixing point) on to the fuselage, when that is dry cut of the hook part, shorten it and glue it back on. Simples!






Then it is on to the undercarriage. The main U/C will remain kit standard but the nose has to be changed. I wanted a longer nose leg with two wheels. So having done something like this before (more of that shortly) I used the nose leg from and Airfix Hawk that had succumbed to the dreaded " I am a crap painter" syndrome.
Of course the Hawk has a single nose wheel so changes have to be made.

The Airfix nose leg and wheel are, thankfully, moulded as one. So the first thing to do is drill through where the axle is, then glue in a piece of plastic rod/stretched spure of the correct diameter.
When that is thoroughly dried cut away the unwanted nose wheel, and tidy the whole thing up.
This is what you will end up with, yours should be a bit tidier than my efforts.







Having said earlier in this post about an earlier something...... well, many years ago I built a Sea Gnat T-3M, and here she is.





Now this was built many years ago (more than 25 !) and is based on the old Matchbox kit. I can put that time line on it by the fact that we moved hear (Prestwick) 25 years ago and this was built before then when I was Branch Secretary for the Central Scotland IPMS Branch. We used to have every month two competitions, general and themed.
One month the themed one was "It might have been!". You only get one guess as to who pushed that idea through !!!!  Definitely "What If" but a bit more aligned to "Project Cancelled". One requirement was that you had to provide proof that it really might have  been.
Looking at the photo above you can see how I gave her a single nose wheel, never thought of a twin one.
And looking at the underside the arrestor hook has a fixing point much further forward.
You can also see how wrong Matchbox were with the main U/C doors.

[JayBee]

Well, having failed to finish this on time for the GB, I have recently got some Mojo back again and here she is now, almost ready for painting.

[JayBee]

The first bit to do is mask the canopy, and for this I used the Gnat F1 mask set from Montex.





It is not easy to see what you get as the mask sheet is black plastic, but as the accompanying drawing shows you actually get enough parts (two sets for the main canopy, three windscreens, and full sets of both wheels and tyres) to do two models.
This has proven most fortuitous.

The first problem was that you get flat parts for the two halves of the main canopy, which is a whole lot of complex curves. I had hoped that the mask material would be flexible enough to conform to the shape but it was not to be.
So I decided to remove them, cut away the inner portion leaving just an outline of the canopy, re-apply these and fill in the middle with masking fluid.
ARGH!
When I removed the masks they left a horrible sticky mess on the canopy surface.
This did clean off using de-mineralised methelated spirits, but it did not look good for future progress.
Then I had the idea of using the spare set of masks as templates for cutting the required shapes out of Tamiya yellow tape.
I reasoned that even if I had to leave the black Montex parts on the Tamiya tape they would still be flexible enough to do the job. In the end the Gods smiled on me (for once) and when I tried removing the black bits no sticky gunge was left on the Tamiya tape.

Here is the model with the tape in place.





Now with the masking fluid on.





Now painted with the interior colour for the canopy frames.





IMPORTANT TIP !!!!!

When using rubber latex masking fluid (I use Humbrol Maskol) you are told to remove it within three days. They do not tell you why but the reason is that after that time it dries so hard that it sticks to the masked parts.
I found out the hard way some years ago when I left a model's canopy masked for some time longer than that, and I confess that it was a matter of several months. When I came to remove the mask it was stuck on hard and I had to resort to sanding and polishing it until it was OK again.
However I was surprised to found that wher the freshly dried masking fluid had been painted over, it had not dried hard, and came away easily.
So my tip is :
After applying masking fluid and it has dried to touch dryness, give it a a coat of paint to stop it drying any further and thus saving you from any grief later on.
I have only done this with enamel paints, so I do not know if it will work with Acrylics.

Jim

[Captain Canada]

Looking sharp. And thanks for the tip !

[JayBee]

The Sea Gnat, and she is now known as an FB3 progresses.
In these photos she (and the other one  ) are both in grey primer which makes them look slightly like CAD models, but it is just to let you see the difference in the shape and size of the flying surfaces.









Jim

[NARSES2]

Look good in grey Jim

[Captain Canada]

Those look so right. Great stuff !

[JayBee]

Folland Sea Gnat FB3

In the 1950's The Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm selected the Folland Sea Gnat as it's standard day fighter. The F1 was the initial production version, the F2 was an improved version both these versions being pure fighters. The next step in the evolution of the design was to introduce a ground attack capability and so the FB3 was born and it became the first version in widespread use with the Fleet Air Arm and also achieved considerable export success.

In the late 1950's the Fleet Air Arm's 738 (Training) Squadron, equipped with FB3s, decided to form an aerobatic team, flying a formation of 7 aircraft. To make them even more spectacular the aircraft were painted overall red.
The team only remained in existence for one season but in that year they did perform at the Farnborough Air Show.
While no records survive as to the individual airframe identities study of photographs suggest that one aircraft may have been WM999.

[NARSES2]

Come out really well mate