Fisher Sea Fury

[BlrwestSiR]

Well, this has been in the stash long enough and watching @ScottsGT build his Hobbycraft version was enough impetus to start on mine. 

Forgot to take a box pic but imagine lots of white tissue with resin unobtainium inside. 

So like most aircraft builds, I started with the cockpit.

I did a base coat of NATO black and then added some RLM66 over top. 

 

[JohnB]

It's a very nice kit Carl and I'm sure you will enjoy the build. I built mine using the folded wings.

[BlrwestSiR]

Thanks John. I've taken it out of the box so many times and dry fitted bits that it just seemed time to build it.

I'll be doing mine with the wings unfolded. I had the folded wings but sent that one to Scott for his build. 

[JohnB]

20 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Thanks John. I've taken it out of the box so many times and dry fitted bits that it just seemed time to build it.

I'll be doing mine with the wings unfolded. I had the folded wings but sent that one to Scott for his build. 

I look forward to seeing it.

[BlrwestSiR]

Some weathering done on the cockpit tub. More to break up the shear uniformity of the black. 

[ScottsGT]

Oh man…..That cockpit is amazing compared to my Hobby Craft. 

[Peterpools]

Hi Carl

Glad you decided to dig into the Hobbycraft Sea Fury - front office is looking fantastic.

While I thank goodness don't have the Hobbycraft kit, I do have the pretty bad Airfix 1/48 kit with all it's poorly done molding and literally short comings and quality of the era. I also have a lot of the Barracuda update sets and am planning on merging both and starting the build right after the P-38. Not sure of the scheme yet but it will either be a Korean War Sea Fury or all the all gloss blue finish aircraft. 

 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

On 8/30/2023 at 9:30 PM, ScottsGT said:

Oh man…..That cockpit is amazing compared to my Hobby Craft. 

Definitely a night and day difference. 

[ScottsGT]

Don’t even get me started on that prop and spinner they provided. 💩🤮
 

I think back on the Fisher kit I passed up on now because “I have the Hobby Craft. Don’t really need the Fisher”.  Makes me sick to my stomach thinking I passed up that opportunity.  

[BlrwestSiR]

Well, a slight pause to work on other stuff. 

@ScottsGT, it's definitely in a different league from the Hobbycraft kit. 

One reason I sort of stopped was I lost the compass mount. It went off into the ether and my lap monster unfortunately wasn't around to catch it. 

A couple days ago while searching for a different part, I found both on the floor. So I thought best to get it glued in place before I lose it again. I glued the pedal assembly in at the same time. 

Next up, I started on all the little levers. 

So things are moving forward again. 

[ScottsGT]

WooHoo!  There’s a spot for this build over on the Fisher built kits thread. Keep it going. 

[BlrwestSiR]

The IP dials are printed on paper so I cut a piece of acetate for glass.

Then I glued them to the PE face and attached them to the IP.

To make things easier later on, I painted around the cockpit opening with Dark Sea Grey.

[BlrwestSiR]

1 minute ago, ScottsGT said:

WooHoo!  There’s a spot for this build over on the Fisher built kits thread. Keep it going. 

Cool! I thought that was for finished builds only. Otherwise if you can move this over there that would be awesome. 

[ScottsGT]

8 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Cool! I thought that was for finished builds only. Otherwise if you can move this over there that would be awesome. 

It is for built kits. I’m just anxious to see it there!

[BlrwestSiR]

1 hour ago, ScottsGT said:

It is for built kits. I’m just anxious to see it there!

Me too! Just need to get a Tomcat and Spitfire out of the way.

[Peterpools]

Carl

So glad lady Luck was on your side and rescued the 'lost' parts before the carpet monster had a chance to devour them. 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Peter,

That's definitely true that I was lucky to find both parts. 

[BlrwestSiR]

I was working on seatbelts for the Sea Fury. Turns out that HGW makes a set for the Vampire that match what Fisher gives you in PE. So I bought those. Unfortunately they were a big disappointment. Some of the belts were too wide to fit through the buckles. I had to narrow them before they would thread through. Then they started to come apart where they were embossed with the stitching. The embossing was too deep and went right through the belts so they were perforated rather than embossed. 

So back to the kit belts. I annealed them first and then bent them to shape. Hopefully they have a decent drape to them. 

I then started putting the cockpit together. 

Just need to add the side panels. 

[BlrwestSiR]

The cockpit is now done. 

Glued into the fuselage, it's just a small black hole. 

[Peterpools]

Carel

Some mighty nice work on the front office and the seatbelts look the part as well - getting PE belts to look natural is an art unto itself. Only suggestion would be a light wash on the belts and you're there for sure.

After building two Sea Fury's, the Fisher version (the cream of the crop) and the Airfix kit, you're so right in that so little can be seen when the fuselage is closed up, especially when the cockpit is all black. Almost another case of adding details that will nearly never be seen, but the 'office' is normally the only area I go the extra mile in detailing, as it's the one area everyone wants to look into and see what's going on.

. 

[BlrwestSiR]

Thanks Peter! I should have started this years ago but being an all resin kit, I found it a bit daunting. My  try at the Silver Wings Hawk didn't help things but one day I'll get back to that one. 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Small bit of progress to report. 

To strengthen the fuselage/wing joint, I drilled some holes and inserted some short metal pins in. 

Corresponding holes were then drilled in the wing.

Just the pins made a tight enough fit that the fuselage and wings held together. I then used some epoxy to make the joint permanent.

[Peterpools]

Carl

Just take your time and you will be amazed. My only fit issue was how the cowling fit the fuselage but other then that, the kit was a dream. I'm pretty sure I used CCA for the entire build.

 

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Thanks Peter! Your build was very informative. Unfortunately I've run into the same issue with the cowl that you did. 

So after the epoxy dried, I checked the fit of the cowl to the fuselage. One the actual plane, it's a very tight fit. The cowl and the fuselage are the same diameter. On my kit, the cowl is a fair bit bigger. 

At first I thought that it was going to be a pain to centre the cowl on the fuselage with and even spacing all the way around until I realized it's supposed to be the same diameter. 

I considered using the Special Hobby Tempest cowl as it's also Centaurus powered and a predecessor to the Sea Fury. Thanks to Peter's generosity, I was able to determine that it measured only slightly smaller than the Fisher cowl. 

So I decided to risk it and I carefully separated the wing and fuselage. Thankfully they came apart without anything breaking. 

I then mocked up some spacers between the wing and fuselage. 

This gave me the correct diameter to match the cowl. Or at least much closer than it had been before. 

So I've now glued some spacers onto the fuselage. Once the epoxy is dry, I'll do some shaping and then attach the wing a second time. 

[BlrwestSiR]

With the epoxy cured, I mixed up some Apoxie Sculpt to join the wing and fuselage and fill in the gap. 

I put a bead of it around the lower cowl/wing join as there was a sizable gap there now. While it was still soft, I removed the excess and smoothed it out with some tools moistened with water so the Apoxie wouldn't stick to it. 

The cowl now matches the fuselage in diameter and I have some smaller imperfections to fill in. So I'll chalk this up as a win.