Fairey Gannet AS Mk. 1/4

Made a start! 

Crew painted and holes drilled for PE lapbelts - not easy to see from this angle. 

Holes for lapbelts much easier to see from here. 

Getting on with PE. Shoulder belts setting on crew. 

Nearly ready to close up. Lead ballast glued in place between front wheel well and cockpit floor. Extra added in front of rudder pedals but still proved to be insufficient! At least there was still room to add some more. Its very tempting to extend the radar at the rear as a prop. 

Closed up and setting. Wings only there to check internal spar is correctly positioned. I'll paint the wings and horizontal stabilisers before fitting as it will make the masking much simpler. 

A view into the cockpits. The canopies are rather thick and can't be fitted open so the detail will not be so clear on the finished model. 

Application of Montex pre-cut canopy masks. I chose these for the very distinctive window cut-outs between the two front cockpits. I didn't realise that the front windscreen had a wiper cut-out. I'm applying the masks and fitting the transparencies one at a time using Revell transparency cement. This has a very weak bond until dry. 

Canopy masking and installation complete. The overlapping fingers on the sliding canopies made for a very neat looking job. Lets hope they work. I see a tendency to lift at the edges...  

The rear-facing observer is sitting a bit high and interfering with the canopy. I can't get him out as I had to cut him a hole under his 'desk' to get his legs in. I'll just have to live with a slightly higher canopy and fill the gap with Glue n' Glaze. Ho hum. Perhaps one day I'll make a model with no issues... 

A bit of black primer in case the internal frames are visible. 

This is a first for me - I'm using black masking putty to position the undercarriage doors for painting and to mask the bay. 

More lead ballast added through the hole in the front. I hope that this is enough now, but there is still some room in the front cowling which I will also hold in place with masking putty for now. I suppose the last resort would be the prop spinner... 

Wheels and masking putty also used to fill the wheel wells and position the doors in the wings. The radome housing is a tight fit both into the fuselage and for the extending radome itself. I put the radome in from the wrong end and used the housing as a mask to paint the end black. It seems strong enough to use as a handle during painting. 

Resplendant in Vallejo light grey primer. Wings and tailplanes only loosly fitted.  

Vallejo Sky applied to undersurfaces and fuselage. 

Wings and tailplanes removed for first coat of Vallejo 71.110 Dark Grey on upper surfaces. 

Masked with Tamiya tape, masking putty for the transition curve and kitchen paper to protect the rest of the fuselage. I cut a piece of vinyl from the Montex masking set to make the curve at the nose using the outer diameter of the main wheel mask. 

Looks OK. The blend curve before the tailfin crosses the fuselage/fin transition and looks OK/weird depending on the viewing angle. 

Masking putty is weird stuff! It has begun to automatically remove itself and make a bid for freedom under gravity. There was also a blob under the nose of the fuselage with 3 of the 4 nosewheel doors embedded in it!  

It worked well though. The bays and the doors remained aluminium on the inside and all the doors are now sky on the outside. 

The overlap of the dark grey on the wing leading edges has been masked and sprayed. Both this and the fuselage masking was much easier with the wings and tailplanes still unmounted. 

And still she sits on her tail! Front cowling is full of masking putty, which is holding it in place. Just 8 prop blades, spinner and nosewheel with doors to fit in front of the rear wheels v. 4 flaps and 2 exhausts just behind. 

I still haven't cemented the wings on but wanted to check the fit and do a balance test. 

With lead shot and Uschi nose weight putty filling the front cowling the nose leg now touches the ground. Let's hope that's enough! I checked the spinner and there's no room there at all.  

Wings, tailplanes and front cowl finally attached. Flaps also fitted and it still sits on all three u/c legs. 

Ready for varnish and decals. On the nice coloured painting scheme sheet the bulge around the exhaust is shown dark grey, rather than sky for all versions. However, all the photos/references I've found of this paint scheme (including aftermarket decals for the same aircraft at the same location and year and Trumpeter's own box art) show this bulge sky coloured. 

There's a worrying little rattle fom inside. Hopefully just a slightly loose lead weight and not some pe thats detached itself.... 

The rest of the parts are painted and ready to mount. 

Decals on and setting. Undercarriage fixed but wheels just on for show until decals are sealed. Transparencies on wings likewise. The tailhook is a bit vulnerable as it sticks way out back on its own. I managed to catch it and break it in the middle a few days ago. Its now back in place. 

I just noticed a weird depth-of-field effect in this photo. I'm basically looking straight on at the nose but the ends of the upper blades are all blurred, whereas the bottom ones in both rows are sharp! 

My habit of leaving features loose paid off again. The exhausts are a tricky fit and one fell into the fuselage. Trying to work it back through its own port looked like a study in frustration until I remembered that the rear radar assembly was still only push fitted in place. I removed it and the exhaust was really easy to recover through the much larger hole it left. 

Decals on and sealed. All detail parts are now in place too. 

Light lenses just fitted.  

Canopy masks are removed. There is some leakage around some edges but it is light grey and only present on the bulbous sliding canopies. I sprayed black primer for the frames, then light grey primer overall, then extra dark sea grey top coats. The black was sprayed immediately after masking and I noticed that some of the edges had lifted before I did the top coats and prompted me to roll a cotton bud around the edges before spraying. I have to say that the masking did a good job if I had paid more attention I am sure I would have kept the light grey coat.out too.