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The decals provided in the kit cover two RN aircraft (one of which is Carmichael`s mount), an Australian Navy aircraft in overall dark blue, two Canadian aircraft and a Dutch marine version. They were all in register and beautifully detailed with good solid colours. I chose Carmichael`s `Mig killer` as my choice of aircraft as it just had that something about it. The decals all settled perfectly with a little application of Micro Set and Sol. Once again Klear was misted onto the whole model to seal in the decals and this was followed by Promodeller wash to highlight the panel lines. The guns also proved to be a challenge as they have no natural locating point in the wing. This was overcome by using white glue in the wing holes, letting it dry for a while so that it becomes sticky and then sitting the gun barrels in it. The whole airframe was now coated with several thin layers of Xtracrylix matt varnish to dull down the gloss Klear coatings.
As alluded to earlier I now realised my major mistake for this build. When I went to place the exhaust stacks in position they would not fit as they were too big to fit in the holes between the cowl and fuselage. The only way round this was to separate each stub from the stack and place it individually in position, very time consuming and fiddly but ultimately successful. Moral of this is to follow the instructions!!
The final phase for the airframe was now to weather it. This was kept to exhaust and gun cordite staining as photos of the real aircraft showed them to be kept in a reasonably clean condition. The actual staining was achieved by airbrushing very thin layers of Tamiya smoke along with black and light grey in the direction of the airflow.
All that was left now was to add the wing stores. The kit comes with drop tanks, rockets and bombs along with a separate ALPs decal sheet.
The finishing touch for the kit is a FAA pilot figure that is available separately. This figure is nicely moulded in resin and comes with a choice of heads, one wearing a helmet and one without. Figure painting, especially faces, is not one of my stronger areas of modelling but with a little patience and several repaints I managed to get a finish that was acceptable for a plane modeller!
With everything now painted the undercarriage and doors assemblies were attached along with the wing stores.
Afterthought…
It was now time to sit back and admire the finished product. As with any kit there are areas for improvement but in the case of this kit these areas were all down to my building skills. The kit itself is just amazing, a little pricey one might say but when you consider the cost of a good 32nd kit, add on the PE and resin parts and a good set of decals you are not far of the price of this kit and you don`t have to add anything else to finish it off. This has got to be one of my favourite builds and the finished kit ‘just looks right’. Next project is to save up for one of Fisher’s racing Fury subjects, Wow! A resin 32nd Sea Fury in bright red and yellow with flame stripes down the side just has to be done!!!
The kit can be ordered directly from Fisher Model and Pattern
Dave C.
Gallery
Below are a series of images of the completed model. Click on a thumbnail to see the enlarged image.
