Scale aviation modeller international

knobs were concerned. I had left

the port sidewall off to facilitate

painting, and over the aluminium

base coat I now airbrushed a coat

of darkened Colourcoats Interior

Green ACRN28. Once dry, I then

dry-brushed the Interior Green

straight from the tin over the

darkened colour, and subsequent

lighter shades of the same colour

to highlight the wonderful detail.

I washed some of the green

enamel from the cockpit framing

and levers to reveal the silver

coat beneath, mainly in areas

that I thought would attract the

most wear on the real aircraft.

I did prevaricate as to whether

or not I should expose the metal

framing entirely, but photographs

of the real aircraft suggested

that it was painted green.

(For those of you not acquainted

with the Alclad range of metallic

lacquers, and who are perhaps a

little intimidated by metallic paint

in general, don’t be. Alclad metallic

lacquers couldn’t be simpler to

use and can be applied by airbrush

straight from the bottle. They

touch-dry in minutes, and once

thoroughly dry can be polished

using wet sanding cloths, and can

be further buffed to a high gloss.

Alclad lacquers can even be

overpainted, and as they are

impervious to white spirit once

dry, any unwanted enamel paint

can simply be washed or wiped

off before it hardens. Acrylics too

can be used in conjunction with

Alclad lacquers, but I have never

used them so cannot say for sure

how one reacts with the other.)

The Aires instrument panel

comes in four parts: the resin back

panel, with integrally moulded

gun sight; the main panel face,

in metal; a small central panel

section, also in metal; and the

printed acetate instrument faces.

The main components were

airbrushed in black enamel and

once dry, a slightly lighter brown/

black shade was dry-brushed over

them to pick out the raised detail.

Also provided in the Aires set is a

separately moulded resin compass,

with its own metal housing, which

attaches to the bottom of the

instrument panel. This too was

painted black, and the housing

picked out in Interior Green.

After the separate pieces had

been allowed to dry thoroughly, the

centre section of the instrument

panel was airbrushed in white.

This allows the transparent

clock faces on the printed acetate

sheet to stand out once it had

been sandwiched between the

main components of the panel.

Each of the

finished cockpit

assemblies were

now given a coat of

matt varnish to seal in the painted

detail and set aside to dry while

I closed up the fuselage halves.

The completed cockpit tub

slipped effortlessly into the

fuselage; the shaped plastic fillets

that I had added to the tub’s outer

edges fit the internal profile

of the fuselage sides perfectly.

I could now attach the wings

to the lower fuselage and seal

the cockpit in for good. Firstly

though, I took the precaution of

constructing a cardboard tent

over the exposed cockpit area to

protect the protruding head armour

from damage during handling.

With the wings cemented

firmly in place, there remained

a considerable gap at the front

fuselage joint, which needed

filling with a plastic card

shim; Milliput was again

required to tidy up the

wing joints all round. The

tailplanes too were a sloppy fit, and

plastic card shims were cemented

to the tabs so that they filled the

overly large slots. Milliput was

once again used to fill the joints

22 • APRIL 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

018-25-FEAT-Hurricane-0418.indd 22 09/03/2018 15:59