The Little World

The quality of the Airfix Beaufighter is actually quite good when you get to the cut and glue stage. You must imagine the insides, but then you do that when you study anatomy as well and at least the kit doesn’t smell of formalin.

All seams fit well, though I suspect the silver plastic used back then was not quite as amenable to extra-thin cements as our later Airfix grey. After cementing the fuselage I noted some seams parting and elected to redo the bits with the thicker slow-setting cement. I shall do this for preference in future – trusting the thin stuff only to accessories and details. Let’s face it, if you are careful with the thick cement you can get it to work without blotching most of the time. And seams that are filled sand wonderfully.

Okay, time came for the paint coats and the bottom Azur Blue went on a treat. Then there was a need for the artist’s rubber worms, the masking tape, and the gap filling with the liquid mask. And I started to ponder if I was going to be able to spray effectively under the loom of the fuselage when it came to the Dark Earth.

At this point I turned to YouTube to see what other modellers did. In the case of most of the English tubers they just hold the model in their fingers and turn it round. The Americans buy complex perspex or wood jigs…and spend more time adjusting the framework than they do spraying the thing.

Being the flamboyantly expensive person I am, I headed for the scrap bin and rescued several cut blocks of foam-core board. This was laminated with double-sided tape and then three satay sticks stuck into it. The top of the satay sticks was covered with balls of artist’s gum.

Result? A jig that holds the model free of the turntable and is just sticky enough to stop the model from blowing off with the force of the gun.

The job in hand is quite the ugliest thing that has gone through the shop in years. But wait…