Sword 1/72 Fairey Gannet AEW 3

[RangerNeil]

Whilst work on the Airfix Nakajima is on hold pending paint we move to the next one in order in the stash, the Sword release of the Fairey Gannet in AEW guide. Never built a Sword kit before so a new experience. Opening the box all looks good - no visible ejector marks and only a little micro flash around major components so fingets crossed!!

Instructions














Decals


There are a LOT of barely visible stencils on there.....

Sprues






PE and Film


Resin


The build
First step is the main instrument panel. Instructions call for the actual panel to be painted "Interior black". A bit of web research turned Tamiya XF85 "Rubber Black" as being very close so I used that. The actual panels were just black whilst the film pieces were required to have their rear face painted white
The film was then cut out once dry and stuck to the panel using Ultra. Once that had dried the PE panels were added using CA.


The rest followed usual construction methods.
The rear, operators, section was made up from the resin pieces after they had been painted. Probably not a good place for anyone suffering from claustrophobia


These were then test-fitted into the fuselage. At this point that little Dspiae rotary sander came into its own as the fuselage halves wouldn't close around the interior pod. A little bit of careful re-profiling using that sander solved the problem.

[digger303]

Those little machines can be a great help.

[RangerNeil]

Progress continues......






So far this is all the filler required.....

Wings going on - root joint appears to be excellent.


Prop and wing pods done.


Undercarriage bays.


The undercarriage assembly is where things go a little pear shaped. In the instructions there is an axle fitting into a hole in the wheel thus:


The reality is an indent on the inner wheel face and a raised surface on the leg where the axle should be!! I am thinking this will not be a very strong joint even if I use CA.






Finally all together ready for priming & painting


I suddenly rembered I had a Wyvern in the stash so I thought as I'm building a contra-prop I might as well do two so I dug it out. Bought in an auction, marked "believed complete" - open the box and the first thing I see is a note saying "fuselage side missing"!!
Unlike the TR4 I can't fabricate a Wyvern fuselage side.....

[RangerNeil]

One thing I forgot - this beast is tail heavy so I need to add weight to the nose. Thinking I will have to drill a hole where the props butt against the fuselage and squeeze some CA in followed by Liquid Gravity then some more CA.

[RangerNeil]

Underside and sides are painted in Sky Type S - and the airbrush started spattering again!! Grrrr..... Got a bit of light sanding to do tomorrow once its dried and then touching in.

[digger303]

There's always something. I've yet to have a perfect run of luck.

[Tomcat64]

That's another one that's come together nicely - but man that thing looks gravid!

I've heard mixed reviews about Sword kits but aside from the underdanglage this one looks to be decent.

Is it worth creating your own "axle" for the main gear to give it a bit more strength - even if it's just a bit of narrow brass rod to pin all the way through?

[RangerNeil]

Decals went on tonight - and to say it was an unmitigated disaster wouldn't even come close!!








Decal film was incredibly thin - moulded to the contours immediately BUT:
* Larger items stretched and tore coming off the carrier - I even soaked them till they started to seperate in the water bowl. Still happened. The "Royal Navy" logos snapped whilst they were being positioned and the tension was such each side pinged back and wrapped irretrievably.

* The carrier was too thick for the decal film. Trying to slide the small stencils off and into position was soul destroying as they wrapped under and rolled rather than slide into place.

* Tail fin decals should have wrapped over - they don't. Not a problem as a dab of thin gloss black will solve this but its just one more thing.....

After every thing else this week I really could have done without this.......

I suppose I'll have to scrape the Royal Navy off and try to find a replacement , same for the letter "R" on the rudder. Not motivated to do it at the moment though......

The kit was pleasant to build although the main undercarriage is decidedly flimsy - had they included a stand I'd have built it configured for flight. The decals though..... they provide some lovely stencilling data for a 1/72 scale model but these are let down by the decal film actually being too thin and the carrier paper too thick.

[digger303]

Wow shame about the decals cause they do look good when they work.

[RangerNeil]

So - got a set of decals on order from Air Graphics that cover machines deployed on HMS Eagle:
Firefly
Avenger
Scimitar
Gannet AEW3
Wyvern

So - the question now is:
Whats the best way of getting the damaged decals off without damaging the undamaged ones???

[digger303]

So - got a set of decals on order from Air Graphics that cover machines deployed on HMS Eagle:
Firefly
Avenger
Scimitar
Gannet AEW3
Wyvern

So - the question now is:
Whats the best way of getting the damaged decals off without damaging the undamaged ones???

I have heard
1.masking tape can work if they aren't stuck to hard.
2. Wash cloth with hot water. To me this sounds the best.
3. Microsol and lift decals around the edges with a sharp knife and wet sand. If you ask me that's likely to cause some damage.

[RangerNeil]

Cheers Digger - a variant of #3 worked wonders. Soaked the damaged one in whichever the red bottle of Microset/Microsol is and then picked up the remnants with tweezers.




The Air Graphics set came today so I snipped out the "ROYAL NAVY" and tail fin letters from the Gannet section and applied them.




Now being left to dry overnight ready for clear coat tomorrow.

[digger303]

All fixed , lovely.

[Kevthemodeller]

Got a soft spot for these ugly ducklings, huge aircraft. It's all coming together very nicely Neil

[RangerNeil]

This one is now 99% done. All that remains is rigging the aerial lines and fabricating a stand to support the tail (there's 15g of weight in the nose and its STILL a tail-sitter!). All the glazing is now on together with the underwing pods and twin props.












And the other Fleet Air Arm contra-prop of the era - just to keep the Gannet company: