Airfix 1/48 Tiger Moth: ZK-BFH

Almost time for the final assembly. Getting those big wing decals on was a bit nerve-wracking but turned out not to be as much trouble as I expected. Good old Micro-Set and Mr Mark Softer...

Making progress. Some yellow paint and decals at last :-)  

It's been a while, but some progress... Cockpit interior   The main components assembled and some painting started   Currently doing the wing-walks. I used Tamiya putty roughed up with a sponge. It doesn't look too bad and will be better when painted I hope

And welcome back to another edition of Pedant Corner... Some of the pieces on this kit have small marks to indicate where the rigging should attach, but this wasn't done for the cables going to the elevators. To get a decent estimate, I made some measurements off some reference photos and got approximate positions and marked them on some masking tape on the fuselage. Then I got a bit OCD and decided to check... I held up the model (lower wing and tail taped on) to an almost side-on reference photo and took a photo of that. I then took another photo with the model out of the way. Then, in photoshop I loaded those two images as layers and aligned one on top of the other, then tweaked the photo of the model so it lined up a bit better with the reference image. Putting the model photo on top and lowering the opacity, I then marked the actual positions where the cables enter the fuselage. I gave this a couple of tries with two different reference photos and both showed similar results (...

A bit of an update... The seats need cushions. It looks like there are sheepskin covers in the back and leather in the front. I covered the empty seats in tape as a sort-of mould and grabbed the Milliput:      Still some fiddling and painting to go on these but I think they'll turn out OK. The joysticks in this version don't have prominent collars on the shaft, so I trimmed them. Before:   After: The tail needs some adjustment too. There were a few extra bits on the kit version that aren't on ZK-BFH:     Masking done ready for painting the interior (which was a bit of a palaver):   The seatbelts on this one look different to those in the Eduard Tiger Moth PE kit, so I decided to make my own. However, I just couldn't get the results I wanted and it was taking ages: These prototypes all look a bit too rough and ready. So I gave up and got the Eduard Seatbelts France WWII PE instead. They're pretty close and a lick of paint should get them l...

Getting on with the cockpit PE but I’m also working on the upper wing, because that’s going on at the end. In the March 2020 edition of Airfix Model World, there’s an article by Chris Jones describing a build of this kit. The fit between the struts and upper wing isn’t great (see p 66 of that issue), and there would be a seam between the wing and the connecting blocks. So I decided to emulate Chris and separate the connecting blocks, put them in and fill the gaps. I’ve also been using reference photos and good old masking tape to work out where to put those discs…  Below is a picture of one of those connecting blocks glued in, filled and sanded. I’ve also pre-drilled the holes for rigging. I noticed that the leading edge of the outer wing has a bolted (riveted?) panel on top and there are small veins (?) on the bottom surface as well as what I assume are navigation lights on the tips. The reference photos for the version I’m building have none of these, so I’ve removed the bo...

Earlier this year we were on holiday in New Zealand and visited the  Croydon Aviation Heritage Centre.  We took a ride in a Tiger Moth (ZK-BFH), did some aerobatics and had a great time. So I thought it would be fun to make a model of the plane we flew in.    Fortunately, Airfix recently released a new Tiger Moth kit  in 1/48 scale. Even better, it so happens that decals are available for this particular plane and there are photo-etch parts available to provide some more detail: PE from Eduard  (491073) Decals from Xtradeca l (X48206) For the paint I'm using Tamiya TS47 for the yellow, the Tamiya gloss white for the wings and Mr Metal Color MC218 for the fuel tank. Variations to Airfix's instructions. I've noticed there are a few differences between the Tiger Moth I'm building and the one you'd get if you followed Airfix's instructions. Both of the Airfix schemes call for a tail section with anti-spin strakes but ZK-BFH doesn't have them. ...