More Bang for your Bucc

When last I posted on this project, I was getting through a very difficult phase of its construction. A lot of filler and rubbing down later, and the build was beginning to come together. To illustrate this, here are some photos of it at this complex stage.


Part of the brief was a nice selection of Airwaves photo-etched parts, and a pair of Heritage resin jet intakes. These additional parts have made an important difference to the final finish, I feel.

Royal Navy aircraft are always kept in pretty clean condition so I was loathe to add too much weathering. I opted for a paint discolouration, to take away from that die-cast metal model look.

At first sight, the Airfix decals closely resemble postage stamps. They turned out to be a little tricky to fit because they are so thin - which came as some surprise! But, treated properly they went down without problem and pick up the surface detail remarkably well. Over the decals went a round of varnishes and washes and then I applied the last coat, a satin varnish.


Adding the folding wings was more straightforward than I thought. The photo etched wing folds were an excellent fit - though it would help to have three hands....


It's not a flawless kit - the fuselage is very tough to bring together, some parts are overly thick, and the decals were a challenge - but it was unexpectedly rewarding on the whole. I'd do it again just for that reason.

Size isn't everything?

The trend for miniaturisation does not seem to extend into modelling. I have a soft spot for the larger model - the large the better at times - so you won't find too many teeny tiny kits in my modelling room.

New houses are similarly miniaturised, but ours was built in the 1800's and so the room I use to work in is spacious and high-ceilinged. This gives me room to stack kits as high as I can reach - useful when two of them are a 2'6" PT boat and a 4' Gato sub, and I'm just about to add a 2'6" destroyer!

It's all very well manufacturers tempting us with these bigger kits, but where are people to display them? I've just seen the test shots for Trumpeter's new 1/32 scale Swordfish. It's beautiful, but very large and quite delicate. In a 'modern' semi, the only spare space might be in the loft.

Where do you display your large scale models?

Just when you thought it was safe....

In an earlier posting, you may have seen me blathering on about the rewards of building an older kit, the silk purse and the sow's ear etc. Well, I may have met my match here.

I recently took on a custom build in the form of the Airfix Buccaneer in 1/48 scale. It was one of their earlier releases in this scale that was to save the company from going under back in the nineties. I believe the original tooling was by Occidental of Spain. They were notable for a Texan/Harvard and a Spitfire Mk.IX, in pink plastic! A nice novelty. Anyway, the Airfix-Occidental union went on to spawn the Buccaneer and history was made.

The fuselage parts with integral engines fairings are a horizontal split, which is a good thing, but not easy to get together. After some pushing, shoving, shaving, bending and cursing, it was done. And this is just the beginning! Rinse, lather, repeat with the jet intakes, the exhausts, the cockpit tub and the tail fin.


And this is where I am up to. The photos log the travails all modellers will recognise. I'm getting there and it's going to be a lovely model, but it's a slow process. More on this project as it comes together. There's only one winner - I just hope it will be me!

Elco PT Boat - now with people

At long last, after weeks of working on 'priority jobs', the crew of the PT boat has come out of the box they've been living in.


I'd put off finishing them for no better reason than that I don't really enjoy painting figures. There, I've said it. I find figures rather tedious, especially in large numbers. But now that I've done them and added them to the boat, they seem to make all the difference, giving it a context and some scale and action.


So, with the boat now fully complete, it's time to let it go. If I had a suitable cabinet or display case where I could light it, I might be tempted to keep it. When I get such an enjoyable build as this, I want to put in a lot of extra effort and time, really push the boat out, as it were.

It wasn't a straightforward build - the references are conflicting in places and since authenticity is important to me, it was hard to make some colour decisions. For example, the torpedoes; the box art shows them as orange, but various sources mention red, black or white. Photos of the boat in service are all in monochrome, of course, so they didn't support any one colour conclusively. I mixed what I felt was the closest shade, a sort of off-white. The same with the life ring - some feel it should be grey and the box art gives bright orange. In the end I chose what gave the best artistic effect - it's my boat and I want it to look good. I often think that if you gave the same kit to any two builders to put together, you would get two quite different interpretations of the same model. Remember, this is a blog, feel free to comment here if you feel strongly!


All building issues aside, I am enjoying it for what it is, and I hope you do too: an attractive scale model which is representative of the real boat, and which captures the spirit of the time in which they fought.