A study of the Scale Model World walkaround on the Duxford-based Gannet further inspired and more research yielded valuable information at:
http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/faireygannetcloseupch_1.htm
Thunder & Lightnings – Fairey Gannet – Walkaround Photos – AS/T/COD/ECM variants (thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk)
Tuesday was spent trying to add depth to the coal hole of an interior and bomb bay/nose wheel housing. This was achieved by adding instrument/radar decals that all went on very well using Micro Set and a drop of PVA to represent the instrument glass. Some detail painting/dry brushing followed with a few red and silver dots on the raised switches and edges.
Very little info on seatbelts was found on the Internet, so artistic licence here with some Airwaves WW2 RAF Sutton harnesses that I had were “navalised” (by painting them Tamiya flat blue!) and added to the crew seats! I am reasonably pleased with the effect that they offered as I had chosen not to fit the included three crew members.
I managed to close up the fuselage halves and added the radome housing to ensure there was no misalignment later, as well as adding the engine intake/prop driver to see how much ‘church roof’ (lead metal) I needed to ensure it doesn’t become a tail sitter! In this case, I filled the ballast box on the cockpit subframe with DeLuxe Material Liquid Gravity and secured in place with thin Rocket cyano.
The only issue that I found was the short fuselage lower joint between the bomb bay and radome section which proved difficult to close up and could have been improved by slight reshaping of the bomb bay rear bulkhead profile so the fuselage halves would join without a gap. Wasn’t a big issue as it was dealt with using thick cyano and talc filler, sanded so the joint disappeared. The remainder of the fuselage joint was inspected and polished using a buffer and revealed a slight ghost seam on the upper nose and the upper spine between the observer and radar operator positions. Again dealt with the cyano/talc filler and polish method. Any panel line loss was dealt with by using a razor saw to reinstate the cross-fuselage panel lines.
Nik Frost says
Absolutely fantastic, well done!