Airfix 1:72 Fouga Magister

[dr_gn]

This build thread is on behalf of the boy, who won this kit at Cosford for third place with his Matchbox Skyservant. Airfix donated the prizes for the junior class I think.

It's a pretty good kit, almost unbelievably good considering it's dated 1975; it looks much more modern despite the odd rivet and raised panel line. Plastic is the current Airfix soft grey stuff, decals by Cartograf are superb. As with most current Airfix kits, box design pretty much says "buy me and build me now", although in this case he had a paint by numbers Puffin and a wooden F1 car to finish first:



As with the Skyservant, I'm doing any scalpel work if required, the boy is doing the rest, although rather than me doing one part and him copying it, he's doing it all this time. First off, cockpit assembly:



...quickly followed by searching for his first lost microscopic part, ahhhh:



Then a spot of painting:





Pilots faces need dotting in and their visors painting, then the fuselage can be glued together permanently:



I think this thread will probably consist of a few main updates and some final images rather than much more detail TBH.

[dr_gn]

Eric Mc said:

Does he plan to do an Irish version?

In my opinion, some of Airfix's best stuff comes from that mid 1970s era.

No he wants to paint camo - in fact that all he wants to do, even before it's assembled.

[dr_gn]

perdu said:

Well G no matter how you plan to ration our helpings of his 'journey' I'm in to enjoy it

He shows lots of potential, I like his builds a lot


(and if I like the finished article I may buy one for myself)

It does build into a nice, delicate model albeit with a few overscale details which would be easily fixed. I have read that the Heller version is marginally better though overall. I'd be tempted to get one myself if I saw one at a show.

[dr_gn]

So the pilots are finished (flesh tone faces and hands, and black visors). If I put a blob of each colour on an onld credit card, he quite happily corrects any smudges as he goes. I then gave him some weathering powder to play with, which improved the look of the cockpit. I think the instant results of that simple process went down well. Pilots then secured with PVA:



He's now giving assembly advice to his sister, who is making impressive process with the Matchbox Gnat. The truth is she doesn't need any advice, having mastered cutting sprues, sanding and applying glue using a liquid cement dispenser within about an hour...

[dr_gn]

Tonight only child v2 rev.0 wanted to do a spot of work, so no progresss on the Magister. I assumed that a 5 year old would not have the dexterity to paint faces/helmets/boots to any degree of accuracy, but it seems I was wrong.





Luckily I've persuaded her to not bother with the wheels; I wanted her to build it all herself (or with the minimum of help), and I think the undercarriage might have been a step too far.

[dr_gn]

perdu said:

Fair dos to both of them

That Gnat makes up nicely if my memory serves me well

I have had a similar thing with my grand-daughter (6)

I gave her the Mk 1 Spitfire from my stash because she wanted to do what granddad does

She left it unfinished until her next visit in the school hols

Just wants wheels. prop and canopy to finish

She painted the camouflage before she left it for me to guard, so she felt she'd done a lot

And transfers on too so not far to go

If she gives her permission I'll pop it in here

Yes, like the Skyservant, the Gnat is pretty good for a beginner, although a couple of the main gear doors don't make an appearance in teh instructions, and I think one of the aerial fairings is positiond incorrectly. Not that it matters.

Would be good to see the equavelnt Spitfire is permission is forthcoming.

[dr_gn]

Ruddervator mass balance quadrants added - very tricky:



...but trickier still were the twin pitot tubes just in front of the windscreen (one for each cockpit). Also attached the dorsal antenna and some small intakes around the engine fairings. Next job is painting the undersides.

[dr_gn]

I assumed the undersides were light grey, but on closer examination, they are indicated as silver. Dammit. Since it's impossible to get a decent finish by brush painting, and since I had the airbrush out for the Spitfire paint repair, I thought I might as well give the boy a go at it. After fitting the mask to his face, and the masking tape to the cockpit, he soon got the hang of it:





Paint was Vallejo Air Aluminium, straight form the bottle.

[dr_gn]

Undercarriage fitted tonight. No real problems with fitting it, but following the instructions/orientation of parts still seems a bit of a struggle. Still, the instructions appear to be the originals from 1975, and to be fair they aren't too clear:

[dr_gn]

perdu said:

End of a short era, he'll not want to do all the rest of his modelling with hairy sticks now

Looks as if he's doing well enough too

Nice work young 'un


My granddaughter came across from Nottingham today and insisted on finishing her Spitfire

So I had to forgo watching F1 qually and hang around her in action

She didn't take much watching and soon got the little oddments in place and paint touched in

Then insisted on taking it home before I could take a picture

Oh well, it's hers after all

Ta Perdu, I think brush painting is the preferred method TBH; it's a process he can do pretty much unsupervised (brush cleaning can be a bit Russian roulette at the moment).

[dr_gn]

davepoth said:

dr_gn said:

Tonight only child v2 rev.0 wanted to do a spot of work, so no progresss on the Magister. I assumed that a 5 year old would not have the dexterity to paint faces/helmets/boots to any degree of accuracy, but it seems I was wrong.



Luckily I've persuaded her to not bother with the wheels; I wanted her to build it all herself (or with the minimum of help), and I think the undercarriage might have been a step too far.

I'm looking at the Airfix Gnat I have on my bookshelf, and frankly I feel a little ashamed.

Ha ha, TBH I'm amazed it looks as good as it does: 40 year old kit, 5 year old girl. I must admit, when she was painting the wings I wanted to grab the brush out of her hand, snap it in half and start again. when she said for the fifth time that she wasn't going to paint the fuselage because "it's already red" I wanted to cry a little bit, but I guess that wouldn't have been a good example to set.

[dr_gn]

Camo in progress, just the dark green to add. I gave him a Zoukei Mura brush to try - I'd forgotten how much difference a decent brush makes vs. a Hobbycraft special. I mixed the paints for him using Vallejo Model Colour plus thinners plus Retarder medium to give him a fighting chance of getting a level-ish finish before it dried:



It looks pretty good so far. I'll be interested to see how the wavy demarcation turns out after cutting the masking tape with dressmaking scissors.

Daughter's Gnat is finished:


I helped her mostly with decal placement and fitting the pitot tube. I also PVA'd the stand socket into the fuselage.

[dr_gn]

So he's done the dark green today - Two coats of Vallejo Air Black Green, again with retarder:



...and the wheels:



Moment of truth for the dressmaking masking:



Not bad result:



Still undecided about how to paint the canopy. I'm thinking freehand, or painted Tamiya tape.

[dr_gn]

perdu said:

You're giving him such a good basic grounding it seems right to me for you to get him using canopy painted/taped lines

That is a great basic measure after all

The tape edging is great

b

Ta Perdu - I actually meant paint strips of tape, then stick them onto the canopy rather than mask the canopy. We can try masking for nothing, but I don't want frustration to set in if it doesn't work, especially since he's put in a pretty big and sustained amount of concentration to get this far with it. The Skyservant was a bit different because it was just two straight lines to mask, and no external framing.

[dr_gn]

johnS2000 said:

dr_gn said:

Ta Perdu - I actually meant paint strips of tape, then stick them onto the canopy rather than mask the canopy. We can try masking for nothing, but I don't want frustration to set in if it doesn't work, especially since he's put in a pretty big and sustained amount of concentration to get this far with it. The Skyservant was a bit different because it was just two straight lines to mask, and no external framing.

I know the feeling well as a confirmed canopy ruin-er Got a 1/72 A6M Zero nearing completion apart from the canopy that still needs doing .

I've got the Tamiya Zero which will get started in a couple of weeks hopefully. I got a set of Eduard canopy masks for it. I just tried some Eduard masks on the Mosquito (see other thread); they aren't all perfect, but not a disaster. Definitely worth a try.

[dr_gn]

perdu said:

That was what I thought and meant

Basic 'tape as framing' has to be a good useful skill, including deciding how wide it needs to be for each part of the frame

I expected 'taping as masking' to be a later addition to his lexicon

This lad can go far in this hobby if he tries, the skills are coming along nicely

I see. Yup, will probably let him tape the frames and dip in Klear to seal them on.

[dr_gn]

Fitted the wheels:



painted and fitted the periscope:





masked and painted the intake edges red. Old hand at masking these days...



and got half the decals on:





Just the other decals to go, then the dreaded canopy frames; we tried freehand painting them...not good. Not good at all So I sliced some masking tape strips up and he painted them in the three camo colours. I tried one and it looks OK, so we'll see how the rest goes.

I've got some spare "little lenses" so I think they would improve the nose light and maybe the tip tank lamps too. then that'll be it finished.

[dr_gn]

Final decals on - I suggested only using the main ones, but he wanted to do the whole lot. Took several sessions but he got there:



Ended up using painted Tamiya tape for the canopy, which worked well enough. Then after spraying with Humbrol Matt, I found a clear "little Lens" for the nose light; maybe a bit big, but effective enough:

[dr_gn]

Now complete. I donated the grass base:













So thats model No.5 complete. No.6 will be a Matchbox Zero.

[dr_gn]

perdu said:

Good looking model Master N

Zero next

Hmm are we going to work on salt weathering next?

He has a very neat approach to the task, good chap G

Ta Perdu - I'll tell him...

I think the Zero will be more of the same, should be pretty much leave him to it apart from maybe mixing the paints again. The Zero has far fewer and larger parts; figuring out instructions/orientations of small parts is something he still needs a bit of help with.

Must admit, after a coat of Humbrol Matt, the Vallejo colour paints on this thing look awesome, especially bearing in mind he's not fully got the hang of application/distribution yet. Even the imperfect lumpy/streaked bits of paint aren't that noticable.