Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

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Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

I saw this and had to buy it, bought it blind with no research and was fairly surprised when it arrived, the kits a short run kit so not the best quality, but it comes with resin wheel well, exhausts and a few other parts, vac form canopy and decent instructions. The sprues aren't numbered though so that makes building a tad tedious.

My entry to the Homeland GB :thumb2:

After building so many shake and bake kits lately i wanted something to challenge me a tad and have a feeling this will do that lol

Ill get a review of it up as soon as possible.
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A fair bit of detail once all the components are assembled
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Primed, painted flat black and dry brushed grey
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Opapapa »

Nice! :th:

I've built few Special Hobby kits and enjoyed every one of them. They are definitely not shake and bake kits but with a little work you can get really nice models with good details. Their subjects are quite interesting too!

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Avgas »

Interesting subject. I don't know too much about drones of that era but why did they keep the instrument and control column fit?
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Goose »

I had the idea of buying this kit too but the one in 1/72nd scale. when i recently saw your update on facebook...GLUPS quite a lot of work to do.

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

So made a bit of progress on the over the last few days, not an easy kit it'll certainly test your modelling skills lol

Cockpits all done now, dry brushed detail painted and washed, there was a huge gap in a few of the bulkheads the worse being shown below, i fixed this by ungluing and moving the part upwards and adding some styrene sheet to the bottom to fill the gap there.

Fuselage actually buttoned up quite well even though theres no locating lugs with a lot of clamping lol and glue it should t need that much filler which is a surprise.

Wings where an even better fit needing just one tiny 1mm spot of filling, fit to the wing roots was more troublesome, needing the hollow wing sections packing with square section plastruct to lift the roots up to meet the fuselage.

Heres some pic of my progress

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The gap lol

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The gap "fixed"

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Got clamps

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Nige201980 »

Wow that a lot of clamps. It looking great mate brilliant job of closeing all those gaps and the cockpit is stunning.
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy-TGcs5u_ZXSZ9kObNfsPg


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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by patrickroos »

Just saw clamps! Was there a model in the pics!?
:lol:

Nice progress, really like the cockpit! :th:
looks like a kit that will need some TLC + patience
That said it also looks quite nice and detailed.
The paint scheme is really cool and will surely make it stand out.
Good work!

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

More progress, little bit more filler needed on the wing roots but overall its looking ok, now canopy masked and primed ready for paint.
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

So got this masked and base painted to day, took a while for all the masking and had to mix my own colours for the cream and red, but i got it close enough i think, had a little bit of bleed through here and there but I've sorted that now, also got al the other parts painted up too, prop, nose landing gear etc.
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Coen »

Damn those colours are nice!!!
Tamiya white?
That will be a hell of an eye catcher when she's done.
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Nev »

Looking awesome mate!!! I saw one of these fly a display at Biggin hill, the plane is an absolute beast!! :thumb2:
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

Coen wrote:Damn those colours are nice!!!
Tamiya white?
That will be a hell of an eye catcher when she's done.
Tamiya white mixed with grey i think, forgotten now lol
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Joesdad »

Lovely job Paul :th: makes a change from camo I'd bet
Yes.. It is supposed to look like that!

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

Yeah its a nice change from camo work :banana:

Got it all decaled up tonight, starting to come alive now :thumb2:

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by rwsmith14 »

She's looking good Paul !! :thumb2:
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Coen »

Yup! That's freaking cool!!!
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

Got the second clear coat on today after decaling, the decals were very delicate and tore easy so needed gentle placing into position.

I applied a Ultimate concrete wash onto it and once dry removed it and matt coated and then unmasked the canopy.

Unsure where to go with it now as all the pics i see show these as being clean and being target drones i doubt they survived long enough to get filthy, ill see what i think tomorrow.

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Danta2er »

A beautiful build of a cool plane Paul! A couple of questions if you don't mind...

1. How long did this build actually take?
2. I notice that after the concrete wash that the white panel lines were a nice grey that worked really well. The bottom of the wings showed up as a much lighter color. I saw the same in your Corsair build. While I know technically why the concrete is lighter against the red of the Firelfly and the blue of the Corsair, I'm not sure why you chose to make them light?

I feel kind of awkward asking you that last question, but I'm trying to understand. :oops:

Thank you for all of your awesome posts and tutorials!! :bow:: :bow:: :bow::
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by OliveDrab »

Very Nice Paul :th: :th: The red and white paint scheme really stands out compared to a camo scheme as you noted.
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by mperegrinefalcon »

nice work paul, as always :th: :clap: :D

definetely an interesting subject.
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

Danta2er wrote:A beautiful build of a cool plane Paul! A couple of questions if you don't mind...

1. How long did this build actually take? 10 days to get to this point :cheers2:
2. I notice that after the concrete wash that the white panel lines were a nice grey that worked really well. The bottom of the wings showed up as a much lighter color. I saw the same in your Corsair build. While I know technically why the concrete is lighter against the red of the Firelfly and the blue of the Corsair, I'm not sure why you chose to make them light?
Its ok I've no problem you asking, the cream colour needed a light wash and i thought i would try it ou ton the red and see what it looked like and i liked the effect, i could of given it a dark dirt was on the red, but i like the subtle look of the grey on red :banana:
I feel kind of awkward asking you that last question, but I'm trying to understand. :oops:

Thank you for all of your awesome posts and tutorials!! :bow:: :bow:: :bow::

Cheers :thumb2:
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Danta2er »

I was thinking much more about this before I read your reply (thanks for replying so quickly) and I came to the conclusion that this hobby is for me, and if I want to paint the blasted thing pink, I can :tongue: It's really tough to remember that little tidbit, when one sees all of the beautiful artwork on here, that it is artwork, and the artist is expressing his or herself :cheers2:
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Joesdad »

Gorjus :jd: :D
Yes.. It is supposed to look like that!

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by patrickroos »

Very nice!! :th:
Awesome color combo, really makes it stand out.
Was thinking about the red also and what wash would work, good choice.
The light grey feels "natural" to look at and looks great.


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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

So i added some light weathering to it today and the final reveal can be found here
http://www.intscalemodeller.com/viewtop ... 45&t=13312 :banana: :banana:
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by kiwigav »

Sweet looking build Paul :th:
Cheers Gav

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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by DrSprue »

I know this is very late with this post, but I watched your entire video with this drone, read and looked at all of your photo's and WOW, such an awesome build and paining. I mean the red/white, weathering. even tho one that will not last long is just amazing! Thanks Paul, you give me hope to maybe try something like this... eventually! Yes I do agree, not for a beginner like me, but one that is so cool and this plane is just..... sweet!
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

Saturn5tony wrote: Sat May 13, 2017 4:16 pm I know this is very late with this post, but I watched your entire video with this drone, read and looked at all of your photo's and WOW, such an awesome build and paining. I mean the red/white, weathering. even tho one that will not last long is just amazing! Thanks Paul, you give me hope to maybe try something like this... eventually! Yes I do agree, not for a beginner like me, but one that is so cool and this plane is just..... sweet!
Thanks for the kind comments Tony, was an interesting build. Ive just started a new special hobby kit which is just as interesting.
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by DrSprue »

Paul wrote: Sat May 13, 2017 7:29 pm
Saturn5tony wrote: Sat May 13, 2017 4:16 pm I know this is very late with this post, but I watched your entire video with this drone, read and looked at all of your photo's and WOW, such an awesome build and paining. I mean the red/white, weathering. even tho one that will not last long is just amazing! Thanks Paul, you give me hope to maybe try something like this... eventually! Yes I do agree, not for a beginner like me, but one that is so cool and this plane is just..... sweet!
Thanks for the kind comments Tony, was an interesting build. Ive just started a new special hobby kit which is just as interesting.
Oh cool! Is it the Spec Hobby Hawker Tempest V or the Yak-3? Wow looked at your video this weekend on the Tempest and my God what an amazing kit from them and being a 1st run as well. It was cool to see barely ANY ejector pin marks for a 1st run. For 90 bucks here in the US, and for all the resin, PE etc for so many sprues! what a great deal. Like you said tho not a Tamiya, but with such little flash and awesome rivets it was quite an amazing 1/32 kit. Im gonna put some bucks away slowly and maybe someday Ill see it on ebay, LOL if Im lucky for a low 3 digit price by then :wall: , I will do quite a few low end kits tho, improve my skills as best I can before I even attempting that beast. Thanks for sharing Paul. Your reviews are so informative.
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Re: Special hobby 1/48 Fairey Firefly U Mk8 "drone"

Post by Paul »

Its a 1/32 airacobra I've already built the tempest here viewtopic.php?f=34&t=19528 and here viewtopic.php?f=45&t=20416, great kit :banana: :banana:
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