Airfix Sea Fury FB.II

[Peterpools]

GETTING STARTED

When I first heard Airfix was going to release a Sea Fury in 48^th scale a number of years ago, I was ecstatic and bought the kit as soon as it was available. After my initial run through the box, reading a good number of online reviews and watching builds on You Tube, my enthusiasm hit the skids, as the kit easily reflected Airfix’s efforts of the time, just not very good. Over time while the Sea Fury resided in the stash, I purchased a good number of Barracudas resin upgrade sets and their brass landing gear detail set, as I hoped they would correct the major short comings that plagued the kit. Recently I purchased the Wolfpack decal sheet and was ready to dive in when the mojo called.

With Scott and Carl tackling the Hobbycraft 32^nd scale kit and all of us had already built the gorgeous Fisher kit, their Sea Fury builds charged up my enthusiasm to tackle the Airfix rendition. While waiting for my P-38 decals to arrive, I started to clean up the Sea Fury fuselage and front office.

The two exterior fuselage halves were a mess: there were battleship sized rivets on one half in places and on the other half, some of the corresponding rivets were there, some were missing and some in different locations all together. Panel lines on each half were not the same, where one side, some of the panel lines were deeper and wider then on the other side; something I haven’t seen before or since. Both halves were cleaned up and now looked presentable.

The front office was something completely something else. The separately molded upper wall details looked way too chunky, heavy handed for any type of scale appearance and of course, some nasty mold lines surrounded the parts. Time to break out the Barracuda cockpit set. Since so little will be seen once the fuselage is closed up, I decided to combine/replace a lot of the kit parts with the Barracuda detail parts, a few bits and pieces of my own, rather then go all Barracuda. All the side wall details, compass stand, compass and IP were Barracuda resin with the balance being re-worked kit parts. The harnesses and seatbelts are Eduard PE. In the end, the front office now looked pretty good.

It's been a long time since I built a front office without using either an Eduard PE set or a Quinta set but for the Sea Fury: 100% hand/brush painted – felt mighty good to go old school for a change. 

 

Starting to add the Barracuda resin sidewall details

The Office is complete and ready to be closed up.

 

 

   

[KevinM]

I like old school you did a Bang up Job on that front office your eyes are holding true.

[Peterpools]

Thanks Kev

So very much appreciated. At 75, seeing and working with such small parts is a trick unto itself now, let alone getting the paint brush to find the right spot 😉 

[GusMac]

Gosh, that's a blast from the past, that horrible pale blue Airfix plastic colour. Reminds me of the 3-colour Matchbox kits of my youth!

[Peterpools]

Gus

How right you are. Even though the kit only dates back to 2018, it inherited what was Airfix's negative characteristics. Soft blue plastic and lack of quality control adds to the 'joy' of the build. I started tinkering with the drop tanks and rockets, they are a total mess and most likely won't be used - just too much work to clean them up. The Sea Fury has folding wings, do I need to say more as I'm planning on building the Sea Fury with the wings extended.  

[Peterpools]

GETTING THINGS TOGETHER

ALONG WITH SOME UGLY WARPED PARTS

With the front office completed, the fuselage halves were glued together and the first of the warping issues showed their face; the fuselage halves weren’t flat, as each had an annoying twist from nose to tail. Maybe the fret was removed from the mold too soon, who knows? With the warp issue remedied, time to move on.

After the fuselage seams were cleaned up, careful inspection revealed that there were some panel line alignment issues, some ended abruptly short of where they should have reached and some not accurately located. I scribed the lost panel lines from sanding, corrected almost all of the offending miss matched and short panel lines as well, cleaning up what I could see needed attention and didn’t worry about the accuracy issues.     

The wing and lower fuselage center section were assembled and glued into place; there was a nice step at the rear portion where it glued up to the underside of the fuselage that would need to be dealt with.

The rudder, ailerons, elevators were assembled where needed, cleaned up as the Rivet Monster had been hard at work adding all those ugly, oversized rivets; they were removed and a good deal of the panel lines needed to be restored. I decided from the start, I wasn’t going to rivet the Sea Fury and left it at that.

The upper inner left and right upper wing panels were glued into place after tweaking the wing fold cutouts. Of course, Airfix would have to offer the kit with folding wings, which is always a test of wills in most kits and my track record isn’t the best. Once dried, mini spars were glued into both sides of the center wing panels, allowing for the extended outer wing sections to be added; upper panels first and then the lower panels. The uppers wing sections went on with little fuss and as I was going to prepare the lower outer wing panels, I discovered both were warped badly by the wing fold area!!

I took my best shot trying to keep the Sea Fury from becoming a permanent resident of the SOD. Each wing panel was soaked in very hot water and I started to massage them back into a workable shape. The left-wing panel looked a lot better but not great and the right-wing panel just didn’t want to cooperated very much. First real cuss factor of the build (I use John B cuss factor system and it does work). Each panel was glued in place, tightly taped, clamped and left to dry for a good forty-eight hours. Thanks goodness it worked fairly well but far from perfect, as the procedure kept the build alive and moving forward.

Of course, once dried and somewhat cleaned up, the wing fold as well as the outer wing assembles needed sanding and a lot of cleanup … oh what fun; cuss factor number two!

Each outer wing section still had a slight warp and fitting the ailerons didn’t go very well as they were straight and true.

 

With the Airfix Sea Fury, I’ve pretty much broke with tradition when it comes to my choice of glue and a good 90% of the assembly work has been done using Revell Contacta Professional Glue rather then Tamiya Extra Thin, which was used were needed.

While the wings assemblies were drying, work began cleaning up the two Barracuda detail sets that completely replace the kits nose - cowling assembly, exhausts, spinner, back plate and the engine front. Great care was exercised in removing all the parts from the molding blocks. Parts were kept very wet with clean water to try and eliminate the resin dust as much as possible, the saw was constantly wiped clean and I wore a surgical mask to prevent any chance of breathing in the toxic and carotenogenic resin dust. As a cancer patient in full remission with a compromised immune system, I need to be extra vigilant and normally avoid using resin parts that need to be sawed off the molding plugs and sanded that creates dust of any kind.

Test fitting, some tweaking and the Barracuda parts fit very well together and replaced the poorly molded and badly fitting kit parts.

 Getting close to priming

 

 

 

 

[JohnB]

Looking real good Peter! Very nice work.

[CANicoll]

On 9/9/2023 at 11:12 AM, Peterpools said:

GETTING STARTED

When I first heard Airfix was going to release a Sea Fury in 48^th scale a number of years ago, I was ecstatic and bought the kit as soon as it was available. After my initial run through the box, reading a good number of online reviews and watching builds on You Tube, my enthusiasm hit the skids, as the kit easily reflected Airfix’s efforts of the time, just not very good. Over time while the Sea Fury resided in the stash, I purchased a good number of Barracudas resin upgrade sets and their brass landing gear detail set, as I hoped they would correct the major short comings that plagued the kit. Recently I purchased the Wolfpack decal sheet and was ready to dive in when the mojo called.

With Scott and Carl tackling the Hobbycraft 32^nd scale kit and all of us had already built the gorgeous Fisher kit, their Sea Fury builds charged up my enthusiasm to tackle the Airfix rendition. While waiting for my P-38 decals to arrive, I started to clean up the Sea Fury fuselage and front office.

The two exterior fuselage halves were a mess: there were battleship sized rivets on one half in places and on the other half, some of the corresponding rivets were there, some were missing and some in different locations all together. Panel lines on each half were not the same, where one side, some of the panel lines were deeper and wider then on the other side; something I haven’t seen before or since. Both halves were cleaned up and now looked presentable.

The front office was something completely something else. The separately molded upper wall details looked way too chunky, heavy handed for any type of scale appearance and of course, some nasty mold lines surrounded the parts. Time to break out the Barracuda cockpit set. Since so little will be seen once the fuselage is closed up, I decided to combine/replace a lot of the kit parts with the Barracuda detail parts, a few bits and pieces of my own, rather then go all Barracuda. All the side wall details, compass stand, compass and IP were Barracuda resin with the balance being re-worked kit parts. The harnesses and seatbelts are Eduard PE. In the end, the front office now looked pretty good.

It's been a long time since I built a front office without using either an Eduard PE set or a Quinta set but for the Sea Fury: 100% hand/brush painted – felt mighty good to go old school for a change. 

 

Starting to add the Barracuda resin sidewall details

The Office is complete and ready to be closed up.

 

 

   

Peter, this looks amazing and so quick!!  Great start on the Sea Fury!

[CANicoll]

You are definitely working through this one pretty quickly, nice work!  Question for you - why the choice to use the Revell Contacta Professional Glue rather than Tamiya Extra Thin?  Just curious.

 

[DocRob]

You put yourself into some situation with this build Peter. Who would have thought, a relatively recent release could be so bad in so many aspects. Looking at the last pictures, I think you mastered the worst and that should give you reason for satisfaction. The cockpit looks super bueno and I really like the old school effort, like Kevin mentioned. You can be proud about your achievements.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Thanks John, much appreciated ...slow but surely.

 

[Peterpools]

Hi Chris, thanks you for the very kind words.

I actually started working on the Sea Fury while I was waiting for some of the P-38 assemblies to dry and while waiting for the Eduard decals to arrive. I was able to clean up the fuselage halves and installed the Barracuda cockpit parts during the on and off downtime on the P-38 build. Once I was working on the Sea Fury full time, it has surely been a grind, as Airfix QC was out to lunch most of the time and the Rivet Monster was hard at work. Seems light blue Airfix plastic and good clean molding are at the opposite ends of their spectrum and shouldn't be used in the same sentence when it came to my Sea Fury kit. 

I've been using Tamiya Extra Thin since coming back to the hobby about fifthteen years ago and it's been my go-to glue ever since. For the Sea Fury, I needed (wanted) a glue that would be super strong (in my humble opinion) and bite into the plastic right away and when thoroughly dry, give the confidence that the glued areas (especially the warped areas) had the best chances of staying together. I also felt that on the wider flat areas of the wings, Extra Thin didn't penetrate far enough along the flat areas, so I started to use the Revell Contacta Professional Glue there as well and really liked it. I still use Extra Thin but am starting to prefer the Revell Glue. For many years, the Revell glue was not available in the states, as with other products sold in Europe and the Asian markets.

 

  

[Peterpools]

Thanks Rob, so very much appreciated.

Completely agree and I never thought there would be so many issues to resolve up to this point. I bought a total of five Barracuda resin and brass sets right after purchasing the kit and it's all been in the stash that way since day one. I thought the Barracuda sets would rectify the ALL the kit's errors, but I was surprised to find there were a lot more 'fixes' needed then resin replacement parts could accomplish. 

Just glad I've been able to work my way through them and the results look OK. Seems Airfix is turning a new lease on life as their latest kits according to reviews and builds, have better QC, better fit, better molding and much better details.

These days I try to avoid resin as much as possible for health reasons and when I can't, I go the full route to be as careful as possible.  

  

[KevinM]

Nice Peter looking every bit the part.

[Peterpools]

Kev

Much appreciated. Night and day between an old Airfix kit and the latest from Tamiya. Hopefully by the weekend I'll be though priming and into the paint work.

 

[KUROK]

Great work so far and, if I may coin a phrase, "turning a sow's ear into a silk purse" is a great description.

I used to think kits like this were a fun challenge but .... I'm now willing to pay more for a quality kit from Tamiya or Eduard.

[Peterpools]

Kurok

Thank you for the very kind words and I completely agree, the extra money for a quality kit, just makes the building experience so much more enjoyable.

[JohnB]

2 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Kurok

Thank you for the very kind words and I completely agree, the extra money for a quality kit, just makes the building experience so much more enjoyable.

I second that remark Peter!!

[Peterpools]

Thanks John, much appreciated.

Hoping to have the invasion stripes done in a few days and then an update for the build thread.  

[Peterpools]

THE PAINT BOOTH

and

MASKING MANY NIGHTS AWAY

With the last major assembly requiring some tweaking and sanding with the front nose clip being a bit too wide, the assembly was glued into place with Flexy 5K CA Black CCA, an awesome slow drying glue, leaving loads of time to correctly locate the cowling and then left overnight to dry. 

The glass was masked off with a masking set that came with the Wolfpack decal set, a nice surprise and good thing I looked inside the pack when I did. The front windscreen fit was fair but geez, I wish manufacturers would follow Tamiya’s style on treating the front windscreen as a part of the fuselage and not a separate piece of glass, eliminating a lot of delicate work in trying to achieve a good fit.

The Sea Fury was primed with MRP Gray Primer, which revealed more then a few sanding marks that needed attention. MRP Light Gray Primer, my all-time favorite is a great example of why fix and change something that isn’t broken; new bottle and no longer available in light gray, just gray.

After the sanding mark repairs and re-priming, I discovered two more small sanding marks that were in hiding, were dealt with and onto the air brushing the MRP Sky portion of the color scheme. Even for lacquer paints, I let the paint dry for days, as it hadn’t stopped raining for what seemed like weeks here in the northeast, bringing record rainfall and flooding throughout the northeast corridor.  

With the AC off, there was no way to control the humidity in the house, curtailing any notion of continuing with the air brush work. During this period, I devoted an inordinate amount of time masking for the hard-edge, RN Extra Dark Sea Gray.  Finally with a break in the weather, the air brushing was underway and when done, I couldn’t believe it but I found more sanding marks, especially all around the wing fold areas. Back to more wet sanding and polishing, priming and the cleanup color coats. The basic color scheme was now done.

RN INVASTION STRIPES

RN Korean War Sea Fury’s wore “invasion” stripes for identification purposes and determining both the location and band width was no easy task for me.   

A good number of work sessions were needed to accomplish all the masking and air brushing, which was done in stages. The fuselage invasion stripes were especially frustrating due to a conglomerate of compound curves in this area of the fuselage.

While waiting out the weather, the prop, spinner, landing gear, drop tanks and tailhook were assembled masked and painted when the weather allowed.

The invasion stripes are far from perfect, I gave them my best but there are some mistakes that I need to live with, as I already did a few touch ups and I'm worn thin with all the air brushing redos.    

Next up: clear gloss and the decal work.

 

 

[Martinnfb]

Precise, clean and meticulous work as always Peter. 

[Peterpools]

Thanks Martin, very much appreciated.

Airfix did their best to create a kit that certainly has been a test of wills. Throw in the worst weather we have had here in the northeast and all the redo's and from update to update, took what seemed like forever. Glossing and decaling is up next.

 

[JohnB]

Really looking good Peter. Excellent paint work (as always). Sure will be a beauty when completed!

[Peterpools]

Thanks for the very kind words.

Of course, the Sea Fury has been a complete PITA from step one and loves to eat loads of dollars in AM and especially Tamiya tape. Hoping the gear goes on with not much fuss and then it shouldn't be much longer before she crosses the line and I'm onto the Kotare Spit build.   

[JohnB]

24 minutes ago, Peterpools said:

Thanks for the very kind words.

Of course, the Sea Fury has been a complete PITA from step one and loves to eat loads of dollars in AM and especially Tamiya tape. Hoping the gear goes on with not much fuss and then it shouldn't be much longer before she crosses the line and I'm onto the Kotare Spit build.   

Fingers crossed!