I may be crazy to pick this one up again. Lots of work ahead and definitely the last proposed build I will take on for now. The complexity of it defeated me about 12 years ago, but I have more skills and quite a few kits built now. Building it as a single color nightfighter will get me over the hump of finishing it. Someone please warn me if there will be a new 32nd scale Beaufighter any time soon so I can avoid this - ha ha. 🙂 Not to sound too negative, I love the Beaufighter in this scale. Revell's basic airframe is also very accurate in outline. It's appealingly massive and a large, forgiving canvas for detail work in my favorite scale. At the same time, I want to avoid going too crazy on the interior and other details since it could take forever and much will be hidden in shadow in the fuselage. I will emphasize the cockpit and finish the basic ribbing and bits for the cabin. I won't do interior LED lighting or anything. When I was working on this before, the key focus for me (as usual) was the transparencies. The Revell kit has the early production windscreen with more ribbing. Most production Beaufighters had simplified canopy framing, which is more attractive to me. I got the Lodela reboxing of the Revell kit because it had a vac formed later style canopy. This is pretty good but based more closely than I liked on the kit canopy. it also has molding flaws. I got tired in the process of planning how to paint and fit it as the shape is challenging in various ways. I began to modify the kit canopy (I have two for two kits) to see if I could make it look just as good or better (maybe by heat smashing my own vac form the modified styrene). The way I see it now, I can always replace the canopy at a later date if the results don't please me. Having an all black color scheme will make it easy to pop the canopy off and replace it without violence to the rest of the build. So, in these pics, you see the ribbing I started on the interior/cabin. I will finish this back to the navigator's position. I also have a partially built cockpit as well but not handy just now (must dig it out). I am ready to do some work on this again but slowly for this GB. I want a big Beaufighter in my collection and it is worth the effort now, I think. This will be a slow process (especially with my other projects taking a front seat) but it will be satisfying to get this large model finished - especially after all the planning I had originally put into it.

Thanks, Spiros. Nice job on your Beau. Sure looks big on the billiard table.

I just found some other stuff from the Lodela/Revell kit which will speed things up in the interior detailing.

No need to scratch build everything - the main panel would be particularly challenging in this scale so a ready-made is great. Will have to do the radar scope, though. I also found some good references buried deep in my shelves. The SAM book may well slow things down to the same degree that the photo-etch speeds them up! It has incredibly detailed shots of the cockpit and its complex structure. Osprey gives me the background and inspiration to do a particular aircraft. I will have to assemble/paint the codes myself.

There are other things this kit needs - most particularly an accurate "hedgehog" exhaust. Aires makes these in resin for this kit.

If you sand down the windshield of the canopy to get the ribs out, and then work back with increasingly fine wet 'r' dry and polishing pads, then finish off by polishing it then dipping it in Future, you can get a nice shiny canopy that's right - and likely better than any vacuform - doing a heat/smash this size almost never works.

HTH

Thanks, Tom. I am at the point of purchasing the Quick Boost version of the exhausts. The problem is I can't figure out which one I need - "short" or "long". It seems that for a IF (early model) I would need a "short" but my references are not clear on that at all (nor are most profiles and photos, which usually show the wrong side with no exhaust visible. Do you know the particulars? BTW, the Osprey book does have a few profiles from stbd that show shorter porcupine exhausts on lCs and lFs, but these are just artworks not clear period photos.

I've only ever seen the "Long", which is the one I would get. However, as an Osprey author who has done some of the "small" books, the profiles are as accurate as people can get them and most of the profile artists are quite knowledgeable. Given so many photos are the "wrong" side, you probably can't go wrong following the profile art.

Colin, @coling
This is a wonderful build journal. I have the 1/32 scale desert version, and my plastic is molded in a tan color. I bought mine many years ago when it was a new release. After reading your article, I dug mine out of the pile, to take a look at it.

This is a BIG model... and just as you mentioned, not much is present in either crew compartment. I think by adding the additional plastic strips to represent the fuselage stringers, yours will look better.

As far as sanding on the clear plastic parts, you really can't place too much pressure on the part, for fear of creating a stress induced crack into the plastic. It might not be visible at all angles. I recently had a problem with the windscreen in a 1/48 scale Tamiya Corsair, and I was able to make a replacement using the "heat and mash" method. I ended up using the original part as a template to make some spares for some of the remaining Corsairs in my stash... when the original part melted after 3 or 4 were completed. The original part would best be used to cast a more durable form out of heat resistant materials should you want to make more.

The canopy work you have done so far looks good. I have been able to remove molded in frames by lightly wet sanding and using the back side of a clothes pin as a sanding block. This will keep things nice and flat and also help not to remove too much material. These wooden sticks you have should do the trick as well. Use wet or dry sand paper, sanding the clear plastic while the paper is wet. It also pays to change out your water as you go to increasingly finer grits, as the coarser grit plastic sediment can actually cause scratches in the plastic.

I use an automotive plastic polish made by Meguiars. It's simply called "Plastic polish" and is available in most of the better paint and body supply stores. However, I have heard that Novus works well too, I just have never tried it personally.

Once you have sanded it to where all of the frame is removed, I would consider simply polishing it using a plain old cotton T-shirt in between the changing to finer grit paper. This will show you just how bad or deep the remaining scratches are.

It acts as a test and will show you just how much more work you have to do. Then finally, after it is all done to your satisfaction, you can dip the clear plastic canopy into some Future, Pledge or whatever they are calling the clear floor acrylic nowadays...

If this one is going to be anything like your other large scale builds, we are in for a treat ! Thanks for posting it. I will definitely be looking for updates.

Hi my friends!

This is a wonderful approach to the canopy, @coling! It sure looks perfect!

I also agree with our friend's @lgardner comments about plastic micro cracks: they do appear if you put more pressure than required (go figure! 🙂 ) and are very annoying...

@tcinla, that's a great detail set, absolutely magnificent looking!

Oh, my! Almost at double the kit price! 🙂