1/72 Revell Hurricane IIb

by John Green 

--------------------

 

This is my 1/72 Revell Hawker Hurricane IIb, finished as an aircraft of 274 Squadron RAF, based in the Middle East I built the kit virtually straight from the box adding etched seatbelts, & filing down the spine so the canopy would fit over it in the open position,
in the same way as I did with my previous Revell Hurricane.  The kit built nicely, though needed filler round the tropical filter & in the underwing joints between centre section & outer wing panels.   For the first time, I tried the Colourcoats enamels from White Ensign Models & was pretty impressed with them , though I was a little puzzled to find that the Azure Blue dried matt , the Dark Earth satin & the Middle Stone virtually gloss.
The Mid Stone also took a good couple of days to dry , though the other two colours dried within a day.   It's possible I'd over-thinned the Mid Stone, since it didn't cover very well either.  I was very happy with the appearance of the model though, the colours looking very authentic to my eye, so the wait for the Mid Stone to dry was definitely worth it.   I'll certainly be using Colourcoats again & will try with less thinning next time.
Decals were primarily Superscale & unusually, were slightly problematical.   Most of the decals went on flawlessly as expected, but for some reason the separate red  centre spots for the fuselage & underwing roundels were incredibly flimsy & began to break up as soon as I tried to slide them off the backing sheet .  Having ruined several , I then coated the remaining red spots with Microscale Liquid Decal Film, which cured the problem, but like a fool I'd already ruined enough of them that I didn't have enough to
complete the model , needing two for the underwing roundels.   My first thought  was to use a pair from an Xtradecal sheet and dragged the sheet from my stash but , to my horror, found the whole sheet was out of register.   My next thought was to try the kit decals, but they were for a pair of earlier aircraft with the early A Type underwing roundels, so I then found the kit sheet from the Sea Hurricane IIc.  Sorted!!!  The sheet had separate red spots of the right size & colour , which went on perfectly.
Whilst looking at the two kit sheets, I realized that both contained full sets of stencils, so I used one set on this model, then proceeded to kick myself round the workshop because I'd finished my IIc without stencils, having failed to realize the kit sheet contained them.  Idiot !!!!
Having got through the catalogue of disaster which was the decaling process, the rest of the build went smoothly.   I'm not really a fan of weathering, but I reckoned a Desert Air Force aircraft would be highly unlikely to be pristine, so I dirtied it up a little using various shades of brown pastels, then added some exhaust & gun staining with black pastel.  Hope you like the finished product. 

John

Photos and text © by John Green