My First in 20 Years - AMT 1/48 Hawker Tempest

[Wiggus]

Hello all. I have just re-entered the modeling world after a 20 year hiatus. And before that  it had probably been another 20 years to back when I first started as a kid. A guy I work with had also returned and is building armor again. That started me thinking. I recently found a stash of cheap AMT and Lindberg re-issued kits at a local discount store, so I dove back in.

I decided on the AMT 1/48 scale Hawker Tempest for my return kit. I was trepidacious to even buy the kit, because I can remember that as a kid, AMT kits gave me the hardest time...aside from one Lindberg kit that I doubt I even finished!


So you might be wondering, why I would pick a kit that I strongly suspect is going to be a pain in the butt to start with?
I'll give you five reasons...$$$ that is.


I got six kits for $40;
AMT: Tempest MkV, Gloster Meteor MkI, and JU88A-4.
Lindberg: Gloster Gladiator MkII, Curtiss Jenny, and F100D Super Sabre.

What better way to test all the new techniques I've read about? If I screw up really bady, I'm ony out a couple bucks. Plus I expect to be a putty-master by the time this is finished. The Sabre was the real wallet buster at $10.
I'll try to keep a diary so to speak of the build as it goes. I'm not looking for praise nor criticism, just wanted to pass on the problems and joys as it progresses.

[Wiggus]

The cockpit is about as bare bones as you can imagine. The instrument cluster has hardly any detail and the seat was more like a mausoleum slab. I decided to cut away the “seat” in the front to make it a little closer to the seat in the Eduard and Airfix models. When I cut that away, the middle of the floorboard is now open, which is actually more like the real plane.


I did some really basic scratch building to add sides to the seat, cut from .040 styrene sheets; edges rounded. I also trimmed down the enormous armor plate behind the pilots head. I’m not going too deep because I doubt much will be visible through the thick canopy.

I thought about at least adding a yoke, but the demure little pilot has his legs tightly together. I thought about cutting them apart, but what a hassle. I checked the pilot that came in the Gloster Meteor kit, and it has a lot more detail. Maybe a swap?


No, the Meteor pilot is much bigger and his head wouldn’t fit in the canopy! I began to wonder which figure was more to scale. After some quick measurements the Meteor piot is revealed to be 7’ tall at the 1/48 scale. This guy should be in the RAF basketball team…not a pilot.

[ElCapitan]

Should be interesting to see how you get on with this. I love seeing rare and vintage kits!

I couldn't help but laugh at the picture of the pilots. The smaller one looks like he's out for a trip with his dad and he's trying to be on his best behaviour!

[Wiggus]

HA! I thought the same thing.
"Someday son, all this plane will be yours."
"Dad...I have to use the bathroom."

[Avgas]

[Wiggus]

While I was shopping on UMM for a scribing tool (that I’m learning to use on this kit) I happened upon some $5 resin Tempest exhaust that are nicer looking than the bumps molded into the fuselage.


Well now I've done it; I just doubled the cost of this kit.

They cut apart fairly easily with a saw blade. I’m going to have to research resin. I’ve never used it before. I know that you need CA to glue it, but I just saw mention of needing to remove manufacturing residue before painting. Does it sand easily? So much to learn.

So now I had to cut out the old molded exhaust. Fortunately there were already raised panel lines for me to follow. I scribed lightly with a #11 blade and a straight edge to start the furrow. Once there was a cut to follow, I found that plowing with the outside edge of a standard razor blade worked much faster than trying to cut down through with the razor edge. I did this step a while ago and just came back last night to clean up the edges. I’ll put up a photo of that later.


Notice that the whole plane has raised panel lines. I don’t intend to let them stay. The only exception is these DEEP recessed lines on the top of both wings. Does anyone know the significance? It may be where the ordinance is loaded? I find it strange that they chose to emphasize these panels SO LOUDLY. THEY MUST BE SUPER IMPORTANT. Since they are accurate to drawing I’ve found, I can’t decide whether to fill them and re-scribe them or just let them go as is.

[Wiggus]

I also got going on glueing the wings together. The design is odd compared to any other kits I’ve built in the past. The bottom wing half nestles inside the top wing. There is a recessed ledge in the top wing for the bottom wing to glue to. I highlighted the bottom half for clarity.


The wheel wells are really shallow; there would be no way to fit a wheel in there. And you can see that wall nearest the fuselage cuts right across the wheel bay. Since I’ve already glued it up, there isn’t much I can do about it now, unless I want to go at it with a Dremel. Probably not.

I had to do considerable scraping of the recessed ledge out near the wing tips to get them to sit flush with each other. I also went kind of crazy with the glue. I need a better applicator than the brush in the bottle of Tamiya Extra Thin. That’s OK since there are lots of gaps to fill anyway. More sanding in my future.


The rear stabilizers are made the same way.


The vertical stabilizer was great though; no problems fitting it together. I forgot to take a photo of it.

[Plopper]

Dude for a first kit back after 20 years I wish you all the luck in the world as that looks like a beast!

I look forward to seeing what you can do with it.

May I suggest that if you are after ultimate precision with a Tamiya Extra Thin type liquid glue you should check out something like this.



And a bottle of Plastic Magic, you will be amazed how accurate you can be. There is another company that makes one similes but I can't remember the name, somebody will have to help me on that one!

[PropDuster]

Welcome back to modeling (and laughing, cussing, smiling, hitting your head with your hand).
Your start is doing fine. The inset type of wings were to "help" keep the edges to scale (?)- oh well. Todays manufacturing is light years better.
Get yourself comfortable with the modeling process, getting needed tools and equipment, BUT don't expend too much time on these old kits (I know, I did the same thing after my 40 year hiatus) but the cost of a new Tamiya that fits together with greater detail is so much more rewarding for your modeling time. Yes I still have a ton of old issue kits that I bought when I came back and they are cheaper, but the new ones are really fun to put together. Regardless, Welcome back a have Fun!

[Wiggus]

May I suggest that if you are after ultimate precision with a Tamiya Extra Thin type liquid glue you should check out something like this.

Thanks for the tip!
I'll have to see if I can find someone who sells it in the States.

[Wiggus]

the cost of a new Tamiya that fits together with greater detail is so much more rewarding for your modeling time. Yes I still have a ton of old issue kits that I bought when I came back and they are cheaper, but the new ones are really fun to put together. Regardless, Welcome back a have Fun!

I can still remember my first and only Tamiya kit. It was a Zero I bought in the late 80's, and even THEN it was amazing. A whole other world compared to the Monograms and Revell's I built then. When I came back in phase two, I was only building bi-planes. I forget which manufacturers I was building then; whatever I could find at the local stores.

I snatched up these cheap kits precisely to get my feet wet again and to test out new techniques.
In fact you will soon be witness to my very first airbrushing attempts.
But I am looking forward to building a Tamiya.

[Wiggus]

So what have I done in the mean time? I’ve continued to add some doo-dads and hicky-ma-jigs to the cockpit area. I glued some spars to the inside fuselage to suggest the airframe that should be visible. I added a little ribbing to the floor boards, even though NO ONE is going to see them. I wanted to add a little depth to the instrument cluster so I shaved down a recessed panel in the center and drilled out some divots to suggest the gauges. I added a small panel attached to the left side airframe where the throttle would go…if I had a throttle. And lastly I tried to scratch build a small frame in front of the instruments that would hold the artificial horizon.


I put the smallest tip I had into my soldering iron, and suspended the iron within the metal loops of the soldering stand. I was able to hold the tubing just above the point. It was just hot enough to facilitate bending without even feeling it on my fingers. I’ll get a picture up of all this good stuff later.

So now I have all the wings and elevators glued up. Time to fill the recesses where the halves meet and start etching some panel lines.


The raised panel line were pretty close to accurate, for the most part. I’m learning to use the UMM panel line tool, and I think in general I’ve gone deeper than I wanted to. I think next time I will prime before I cut to make it easier to see what I’m doing. You can see the cuts here because they are filled with sanding dust. I found a cheap eraser shield that works well as a flexible straight edge. I have the underside of both wings done, all the stabilizers and one side of the fuselage.

And I have to do something about this:


This is the air intake / oil cooler / what does this do? that sits inside the nose. I want to add some more interest to it…and I have an idea.

[Wiggus]

Been a little slow this week. I managed to muck my airbrush up with Model Master Grey acrylic primer. I think its all cleaned out now. Got the interiors painted and the figures almost done. Photos soon. I'm painting the exhaust today. Once that is done I can glue the fuselage together.

[Elve1984]

Welcome back into modeling, and good luck with the kit. I don't know how much you read about Resin already. but do some research before ya start on it. Resin Dust from sanding and sawing is bad for your health. Ya should use a respirator and try to prevent the dust to fly arround as much as possible. For example by putting a wet cloath or papertowel on your desk while sanding.

[Wiggus]

Thanks for the tip!

[Wiggus]

Update is imminent!
The holiday season really slowed progress, but I'm back at it.

[Wiggus]

Well, I got sidetracked. Attempting to save time by priming two kits at once, and starting an engine while parts of the Tempest were drying, I am now completely embroiled in a Lindberg Dodge 330 (Polara). I decided I was going to give it to my brother for his birthday. So after the Dodge is finished I'll get back to the Tempest.

[Wiggus]

It's been even longer than I thought. I became enamored with an Eduard 1/72 Fokker DR.1, and I got distracted while building it. It is nearly done, but I've still been working on the Tempest too. And I'm glad I took it slow because I came up with a fantasy Tempest I wanted to try.

I had watched the short documentary about Spitfire 944 on YouTube, and I became interested in the Spitfires used for photo recon in their slate blue paint scheme. I had been thinking more about the shortcomings of this kit; a major one being no guns or cannons. The wings were already put together so that ruled out aftermarket guns. I wondered if there were any Tempests that had been converted to PR planes? I couldn't find any info that said there had been, but in my imagination there could have been.

I hatched a scenario. At a USAAF base in southern England (maybe even Mount Farm) there was a need for another PR Spitfire, but none were available. There was a P-38 there, but its turbocharger had frozen and it was down for repairs. But there did happen to be a Tempest V there in functioning condition. The guns were removed so that it could carry extra fuel in the wings. It was hastily painted blue, so hastily that the belly wasn't painted except to paint over the British roundels, nor was there time to mask the cockpit. US markings were applied to the top and one bottom wing. And away it flew... never to be seen again.

Here is the start of the belly. I got a nice mottled finish going.





Invasion stripes painted. Some paint tore off on the rear stripes. That's OK; I'll turn that into some damage. At this point I was still trying to get the roundel decals to sit down. These were the stock decals from the AMT kit, and they were thick and stubborn.


Close up of the stripes. All the panel lines and rivets were done by hand; there were raised panels in the stock kit. Some weathering done.


The RAF markings sprayed over with PRU Blue, then US marking put on over top. I was stuck for a while trying to find US marking that didn't cost and arm and leg. I got the new decals from an Eduard 1/48 Spitfire IX kit that was on sale for about the same price as a single aftermarket decal sheet. The kit has five different paint schemes so I'll build one of the other four. I feel like I got a free Spitfire kit out of the deal.


Next up... topside.

[DrSprue]

Wow that is looking really nice. (need to google more posts on this site) almost missed this thread. For a kit that is a re-pop of amt's release in the early 80's, its not looking bad at all. but, then again, thats why we are modelers! To make the old ones look cool. Really looks great so far Wiggus!

(now that I looked at your above posts again, with the Invasion stripes and such).... dangg... quite awesome!

[Wiggus]

I certainly overdid the panel lines!
It was my first attempt scribing. Thanks.

[Wiggus]

Here is the topside of my fantasy Photo Recon Tempest V.
I used Vallejo PRU Blue. The photos are darker than the real paint, which is lighter and greyer.


Some closeups of the weathering.

[Wiggus]

I'm going to let this rest for a while. I like it so much that I am going to spring for some resin wheels when I get an order together.
Any suggestions on what to buy? I thought the Barracuda wheels looked pretty nice.

[Wiggus]

I think it is finally finished. I got a set of 1/48 Tempest wheels from Squadron.
Honestly, I bought them to pad an order on Amazon, and they were the only ones for sale there.
I was pleasantly surprised by their quality; the molding was crisp and smooth, and they are weighted.
Pay no attention to my rough primer coat. Oops. The wheels are wonderful.

[Wiggus]

In my narrative, the plane was so hastily painted that they didn't take the time to mask and paint the canopy.
So it is still in the standard RAF camo colors. They even missed painting the tip of the tail and the border between the topside and bottom side.

[Wiggus]

...and in here, there is a 'lil guy... who came unglued after the canopy was finished.
So you have to shake it till he sits down sometimes.
The canopy is so thick that you can't see how little detail he has. So it balances out.



I made plenty of mistakes on this kit and learned a lot, but that's what a $5 kit is for.
This was a palette for my first attempts at scribing, filling, riveting, airbrushing, salting and weathering.
I'm glad I made it and didn't just use it as a paint mule.