Canberra PR.9 XH175 - Xtrakit 1/72

After some thought, I decided to show the navigator's cockpit open. He entered from the front, the hinged nose was swung to the side. The etched parts are actually intended for the Airfix kit, so they can only be used with adaptation work. 

Some details were scratchbuilt according to prototype photos. Lead wire (here from plusmodel) is very convenient to shape into the desired forms. 

The cockpit was painted in Model Color 70.862 Black Grey and received a black wash. Worn edges were simulated with the help of a metallic pencil. 

The navigators dashboard is included in Eduard's PE set. However, I decided not to try and bend the round viewfinder from a photo-etched part, but made it from some scrap plastic. 

In the meantime I had also painted the resin seats. On the right the MB.Mk. 4QS seat of the navigator, which looks a bit different from the pilot's seat. It comes from Pavla as the kit offers two examples of the same seat. 

I gave the Vallejo plastic putty a second chance and used it for a gap on the nose gear well. It's acrylic and cannot be wet sanded as it has the tendency to peel off. However, it can easily be wiped off when still wet. Some lead (fishing supply) was glued under the cockpit in order to prevent the model from being a tail sitter. 

The PE parts needed to be trimmed a bit as they are intended for the Airfix kit. But in the end they work for the Xtrakit cockpit, too - as long as you don't start to count every gauge. 

Xtrakit depicts a late PR.9 with a different camera layout than on my 80's jet. So I needed to fill the big camera window on the clear part that'll later go in the aft lower hull. 

As you can see, in the end I decided to glue the clear part for the aft camera windows in one of the fuselage halves prior to joining both fuselage halves. This allowed me to reinforce it with some clipped sprue. On the other hand a lot of dry fitting with both fuselage halves was necessary before I glued the clear part in the left half. Otherwise you would end up with a bad surprise later on when you try to assemble both fuselage halves. 

Time to close the fuselage. Step by step for proper alignement using extra thin and fast drying plastic cement. 

Some stretched sprue was glued on the seams. The glue practically melts the thin stretched sprue which can then be pressed in any gaps. Once the cement and the plastic has dried this can be easily sanded. At least that's the plan. At the same time you can adore your model with your signature finger print... 

The kit offers only a closed canopy. As I want to show it in an open position I'll need the cut the one-piece canopy in three parts: Windscreen, main canopy and the "bulge" behind the canopy that is part of the fuselage. This bulge will go to the right of the pencil. Here I am making a template to cut some plasticsheet in order to bolster up the area behind the cockpit. The kit part looks a bit too shallow in this area. 

Some plastic sheet has ben cut using the mentioned template and sanded to fit smoothly. 

Unfortunately, the CMK landing gear bays for the Airfix kit are shorter than the bays provided by Xtrakit. After giving it some thought and a lot of dry fitting I decided to stick with the original Xtrakit parts. Each of them has a nasty ejector pin that needs to be removed and filled. 

The ejector pin marks have been eliminated and I'm now adding some wiring to make it look "busy", loosely based on what's visible in the CMK parts and my reference pictures. 

Excursus: I'd like to try the "dissolved plastic putty" method which Thomas Kolb has described before (see discussion of this build thread). Therefore I've purchased a new bottle of Tamiya Extra Thin Cement and put my side cutter to good work. 

Moments after the sprue parts have been added to the bottle. Now I'll wait a few days. 

I'm now working on the jet exhausts. The tubes are assembled from two halves each and have to be sanded thinner to fit into each other and look realistic. I gave the Albion Alloys sanding needles another chance - I haven't been particulary happy with this product. I seems you cannot use them for wet sanding as the sanding material will then start to peel off the sticks. And you cannot use the tapered tip for sanding small holes as there are burrs on the sanding stick. For sanding the tubes from the inside the sticks worked okayish. But I still won't recommend them generally speaking. 

The jet exhausts are now assembled and have been painted with Alclad II. Some finishing touches were applied with "soot" from Tamiyas "weathering master B" set.  

The wing tips house the landing and position lights and need some extra attention. First I drilled some holes to simulate the wing's end spar. Then I drilled a hole big enough to insert a 1,5mm lense from modellingtools.co.uk. A pick and place tool was very handy for this task. Before the lense was added, I painted the wing tip area in AK455 True Metal Aluminium and polished it. 

Especially on the underside of the wings there are a lot of air scoops that look much better when drilled open. 

The engine nacelles needed some putty and sanding. 

The wings must be attached at a 90° angle to the fuselage. The best way to do this is to use a jig, like for example this one. 

A nasty gap shows on the top side of the fuselage-wing joints. I used Revell putty for this. The putty can be softened/moistened with some ultra thin plastic cement. For example you can put a few drops into the putty tube to prevent it from drying up. 

With the wings attached it was time to glue the horizontal stabilizers in place. Not so easy as the stabilizers need to be glued on in an angle and there are again no location pins. I had a look at reference photos and drawings. The jig played an importan role again, too, while the viscous slow bonding Revell Contacta plastic glue dried. 

While the glue cured on the horizontal stabilizers I turned to the one-piece canopy. As I'd like to show it in the opened position the canopy needs to be cut in three parts. Here I have already separated the windscreen. At the rear of the canopy you can see where the second cut needs to be placed. 

On the underside, some details of the camera system must be backdated. This includes scribing some new camera hatches. 

The Xtrakit wing tip lights depict those of late PR.9 machines. For my 70's/80's bird I needed the early all clear version. Some sanding and polishing with Tamyia polishing compounds took care of it. 

Some scratch and PE detail was added around the cockpit opening before painting it black. 

First I sprayed some black, followed by highlighting with a slightly lighter shade of black. Any prominent details were then highlighted with a grey pencil. 

I treated myself to a turned metal pitot tube from Master. It's only 4mm long but as it was not included in the kit the purchase of the Master part made all the more sense - and it was only about 3 € - ok, that's almost one Euro per Millimeter... 

Ready for some primer! The model has been cleaned with some alcohol to remove any grease. 

I used Vallejo's grey surface primer, diluted with some drops of the same brand's airbrush thinner and a few drops water. 

The first "real" colour has been sprayed on! Xtracrylix' "RAF Light Aircraft Grey" for the belly of this not so small jet. 

Some serious masking work has taken place. Next I'll spray the Dark Sea Grey. 

Before the Dark Sey Grey went on I sprayed some Future along the lines of the masking tape. I hope this will fill any small gabs where the masking tape does not sit properly on the model surface and help to achieve more or less flawless demarcation lines with no Dark Sey Grey getting under the masking tape. We'll see... After the Dark Sey Grey was on I sprayed some more Future. This time covering all non-masked areas. 

I spent several hours masking the "disruptive camouflage" pattern. Different aircraft show slightly different patterns. And even one and the same aircraft can be seen with different patterns on different photos. I tried to get as close to "reality" for my XH175 airframe as possible - but I'm sure there's more than one mistake. The white paper circle matches the size of the wing's RAF roundel. Like this I was able to check the relative position of the grey and green camouflage to the roundel. 

Photos suggest that only the Light Aircraft Grey and the Dark Sea Grey sport a crisp demarcation line. The Dark Green on the other hand looks a bit scraggy with overspray here and there. I tried to replicate this look using small sausages of UHU patafix. Germans will notice from the price tag that my package of patafix is already some years old. But it still works. 

Well, the patafix trick was only partially successfull. The Dark Green should have even softer transitions. Perhaps I'll try some very slight sanding with very fine grit. 

With the main paint job completed it was time to do the detail paint work. For example there are no decals for the fuel tank nozzles. I masked those squared and painted them aluminium first. Then I masked a circle and painted the remaining area black. Before and in between I applied coats of future to prevent the aluminium and black colours from creeping under the masking tape. 

Detail painting is no more or less complete. Time to start the decal work. This was when it occured to me that neither the Model Alliance sheet I'm using for XH175 nore the Xtrakit decal sheet offer the 70's/80's style stencils 🙁. 

The Model Alliance decals went on like a charm and needed only very little decal softener. Now if I only had one of the decal sheets from the Revell re-box of the Matchbox kit or from the new Airfix kit to source those stencils from... 

Boy there are lots of stencils! I was able to find a Revell re-box and can now use that decal sheet - plus an old Modeldecal sheet which offers also some PR.9 stencils. For the latter I'm using Mark Fit Super Strong as they are very thick. 

After another coat of Future one of my favourite parts of modelling started: giving the model a wash with diluted grey oil paint in order to make the surface come to live. No need for any fancy oilbrushers here. Just a home made mix from black and white oil paints diluted with Humbrol enamel thinner. I keep the mixture in a jar in order to be able to use it again. 

The finished underside. Okay, I ended up using one oilbrusher for a different shafe for some selected panels. 

Compared to picture #39 this looks already much more like it. 

After all the painting was done I removed the canopy again and added two little hinges that will later support the canopy in an open position. 

There are some air scoops missing in the kit that need to be scatch built. Here one of them is already waiting on the tip of my pick & place tool while I'm scraping away the paint where the part needs to go. Always a bit scary to employ the scalpel on a finished model surface... 

The underside is nearing completion. All of the landing gear parts including the wheels are in place. 

And...it's a tailsitter! Despite the weight that has been put in as you can see in photo 6. Well, nothing to do about that anymore. I could still add some weight to the nose cone, but I doubt it would suffize. And the nose mustn't be too heavy as I'll display it hinged in an open position. 

There's always something left to do: when I had the nose attached I noted that a quite prominent hinged bar was still missing. So I built one from parts from the spares box. 

Eduard's PE fret offers static dischargers that I happily fell back on. The number of dischargers seems to have grown during the operating time of the Canberra. My 80's bird seems to have had less than the PR.9s in Hemp camouflage. 

It is done! Now I'll turn to the display base. 

The ladder is a 3D-printed item from ebay UK, look for seller jscotterill. 

An important note for the navigator! 

As my Canberra is a tailsitter I thought of a way to keep the model on all three legs on the display base: I bent a piece of brass wire into a hook. This grips around the nose gear from above and thus keeps the Canberra in balance. 

I bought a set of PJ production figures (721119 RAF pilots standing 90's) to give a reference and hint to the size of the Canberra jet. I'm not sure though if the figures are wearing the correct suits and gear for a PR.9 ride. Perhaps they are only walking by to another aircraft or the officers' mess...  

The passers-by are painted and the matching frame was added. The only thing still missing is a metal name plate which should arrive in the next few days.