I drilled the exhausts open the best I could and painted them with a mix of Reddish Brown, Black and Steel. What I noticed is that there’s a small intake at the front end of the exhausts which is missing in this kit (see arrow) …
The intake is slightly visible on this photo of the RAN Firefly, which Russell took recently I have to see what I can do here. Maybe Evergreen can help me out … The exhausts are more or less the final parts to attach to the build.
The underside has also got some paint. Paints used here are Revell Aluminium 99 for the wheel wells and Vallejo 71302 Sky. Under my bench lamp the colour looks different than in the bottle
Coming along beautifully Torsten. I love the aircraft, obsolete as a fighter as intended, but useful as a ground attack aircraft in the Korean War. Australia had them and used them in Korea too.
Thanks Peter and Russell! The aircraft looks interesting indeed and was quite heavily armed to give a hard punch.
As I said, masking the underside would take me a few days and today I finally finished it. Again I masked more than I probably need … As always there are also some probematic zones like at the front with all the intakes. Let’s hope the masking is sufficient.
Have been quite productive in the past few days, especially over the weekend. Beside making some new candles I finished most of the painting on the Firefly. After that masking orgy first upper camo was Extra Dark Sea Grey 71110 from Vallejo in 2 sessions …
… the other upper camo was Dark Slate Grey 71309, also from Vallejo. Though I also planned 2 sessions, it went so well that everything was done in 1 pass …
After the corrections I can carry on with assembling the rest of the parts. All are already painted, except the rockets. The rails are airbrushed with Sky but too difficult to mask, so I’ll brush paint the rockets. Let’s see how far I am next weekend with the build …
As mentioned above I also added that small intake in front of the exhausts with 0,50 mm Evergreen. Looks better. But I have to go over the stacks again! Macro kills …
The underside is finished except for the rocket rails. They might disturb decaling. I had to work on all parts of the landing gear to make them fit right. As said before, this kit is chinese crap, not worth the money …
Some minor works to do, like painting the antenna and the muzzles of the 20 mm Hispanos, but other than that, the build is ready for the decals. I think, I can apply Bodenglänzer tomorrow.
Okay guys, this is the final update of my last build in 2024. If I haven’t forgotten anything I call this build done.
Fairey Firefly Mk. I No. 1771 Sqn., FAA aboard HMS Implacable Summer 1945, Pacific
Kit: Trumpeter 1/48
used paints:
Vallejo 71110 Extra Dark Sea Grey
Vallejo 71302 Sky
Vallejo 71305 Interior Grey Green
Vallejo 71309 Dark Slate Grey
Revell 09 Anthracite
Revell 15 Yellow
Revell 42 Yellow Olive
Revell 46 NATO Olive
Revell 83 Reddish Brown (mixed with Black and Steel)
Revell 91 Steel (mixed with Black)
Revell 99 Aluminium
Revell 302 Black
This kit is one of the worst I’ve built so far. The overall look is nice and the model is good enough to go to some shows next year, but the fitting in general is bad and I’m no high end builder to correct all flaws. The cockpit parts need some extra work and so do the canopies. The fitting is so tight that I had to sand a bit to make the parts fit well. Same on the transition between fuselage and wings. Also the points for the landing gear and rockets needed refinishing before everything looked okay. The cockpits are rudimentary and the wheel bays look more or less empty. For a kit from 2018 with a price of over 40 Euros Trumpeter could have done better. Eduard would have … I bought it because I got a 25 % discount at my LHS. So, I can’t recommend this kit. If you want to build a quarterscale Firefly you better choose Special Hobby. It’s also cheaper and made in CZ.
Or to cut a long story short …
But I hope you’ve enjoyed follwing this build more than I building it. Thanks again a lot for all your support, comments and likes. A very special thanks goes to Russell for sending me the photos of the RAN Firefly. The photos helped me a lot. Thanks a lot, mate!
Hopefully my next build will be better though it’s an oldie from the 1990’s, I think and it doesn’t really fit it the time frame of this thread. But I don’t care and I hope you don’t mind. Will start the build in January after a few days vacations.
Wishing you all a great and peaceful christmas time and a good start into the new modelling year 2025!
Great job Torsten. Sounds like you are happy the build is over, but it looks sensational to me.
Just booked my return flight to Australia. I bought a car to use in my travels but a French deer decided the front end of my car needed remodelling…… so now I have no car to drive. Brought forward my return date as it was more financially appropriate. So I’ll be more present here in a month or so.
Thanks for all your replies, guys! I’m away from home, so just this short note for now. Have a nice start into the New Year and safe travels, Peter. No more deers!
Greetings from rainy Dublin!
Torsten
It has been a sensational trip. It will have been in 24 countries in 10 months, most of it road tripping. This is only the countries that I actually stayed in and saw stuff, not just travelled through. Everyone needs to see what the world has to offer, but also live and eat like the locals, not like you would at home.
No, no more deers. But now I have to work out how to legally offload a UK registered car in Milan, Italy. It is not financially viable to repair a 2012 Mazda 3 as I’d have to get it back to the UK to do so. There are so few Mazda here there are no parts I can get, and that the local car scrappers have not been interested to take it so far.
Can’t help you with an advice here, Peter. I guess it’s difficult enough to get rid off a car from another country within the EU. It might be quite a challenge though to get rid off a Non-EU registrated car in a EU country. Good luck with it and let us know how you solved this problem. Maybe it’s easier than we guess now.
I have to see what I can do here. Maybe Evergreen can help me out … 
The exhausts are more or less the final parts to attach to the build.
That will take me a few days before I can take care of the upper side. Stay tuned!
As always there are also some probematic zones like at the front with all the intakes. Let’s hope the masking is sufficient.
Here you can also see the misfit of the rear canopy … 
Stencils? Not one! Don’t let that hear Eduard! 
