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Tom Cleaver
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D-Day Group build: 1/48 Monogram Hawker Typhoon IB

March 23, 2014 · in Aviation · · 16 · 1.9K

The is copyrighted 1967, though I don't remember seeing it before 1969. Whatever. It's old. Supposedly been completely replaced by the Hasegawa kits in 2000-2001. They go for US$45.00 or so. This goes for $16, and the LHS had a bunch of them for $9.95, which is why I took the stroll down memory lane, having not built one of these since around 1990 or so.

The canopy is a bit wide in planform, but replacing it with the Falcon/Squadron canopy does wonders, I just filled in the lowered area that was done to fit the kit canopy, and all looked much better.. The cockpit is simple, and you can add some detail as I did, but you're going to paint it black so you're not going to see much and if you close the canopy and preserve the external lines, you'll see even less. Interestingly this kit has the Tempest horizontal stabilizers and the 4-blade Tempest prop, which the Hasegawa kits do not have. I cut off the fins of the rockets, which are molded in the wrong position, and replaced them with rocket tails from an Airfix Seafire kit.

I painted the black stripes first, then masked them and shot the white, which has the result of making the white stripes look "temporary" as they should. Tamiya RAF Ocean Grey, RAF Dark Green and RAF Sea Grey Medium used.

The decals have never been great on this kit through its many re-releases, and the current re-release is no different. The National insignia works, but the "Sky" color of the ID letters is like no "Sky" I have seen.

Since Typhoon squadrons mostly overpainted everything with their D-Day stripes at first, that made this easy to do. Just picked some ID letters out of the decal dungeon, to do a 174 Squadron plane on D-Day.

Reader reactions:
8  Awesome

15 additional images. Click to enlarge.


16 responses

  1. Nicely Done Tom,
    I like the technique for painting White lines to look a bit wishy washy i.e. roughly and thinly applied white wash.
    Good Job Tom

  2. Nice job on an old girl. Good advice on the stripes.

  3. Nice build Tom, and a great bit of advice on painting the stripes.
    One thing though, did the Typhoon have a band of strengthening fish plates around the tail ? Something to do with vibration shaking the rear end off.

  4. Yes, and they're there, though perhaps not easily seen in the photos - they're on the line of Sky right behind the D-Day stripes on the fuselage.

  5. That's a nice job Tom, well done,can you take a quick look at the message I posted re the G/B,Cheers N.

  6. Nice job as always Tom. Liked your technique with the invasion stripes, I'm going to use it on my Wildcat V, wrong D-Day but I hate painting invasion stripes so I figured, if I gotta do them I'm putting them on something unusual.

    BTW I have a Hasegawa Typhoon and I picked up a Monogram kit to get the Tempest stabilizers and the four bladed prop. I over laid the Monogram parks with then Hasegawa parts and they were identical. Did Hasegawa retool there mold or am I missing something.
    Thanks
    Rick

    • Interesting - everyone has said for years that the Monogram kit has the Tempest stabilizers, but this is actually the first time I recall anyone testing it out.

  7. The Hasegawa Typhoons are very nice but nothing kicks arse the way a 1/48 Monogram kit does. Well done, Tom.

  8. Nice clean build, superior job on the wing stripes.

  9. Very well done. Cracking Tiffie.

  10. Big engine, Big prop, Thick wings Tiffie was a beast
    Nice job Tom
    This kit has stood the test of time to be one of the best Monogram kits from
    the Dark Ages of modeling.

  11. fine work on a fine kit

  12. Tom,
    Great job on this. I like how you have down it. I have built a number of the Monogram and the Hasagawa kits and I like both of them. You can't beat the Monogram though and I built one of these when it first came out.

  13. Tom, I really like your job on the Typhoon, one of my all time favorites. Nice in progress photos also. This is definitely one of the best Monogram kits from days of yore, and it keeps on being that! Many thanks for showing.

  14. Just looking through the archives Tom - great to see this old warhorse!

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