Curtiss BF2C-1Hawk

Hasegawa Curtiss BF2C-1 US Navy Hawk by Pat Camp

As is usual, I kicked off with the cockpit. I have found very little reference material for this area of the BF2C-1, but have some good digital close-ups of its predecessor, the BFC-2. Now, the physical differences between the two versions are a lot bigger than the Type numbering suggests: the most notable being that the earlier version has fixed undercarriage and my one has retractable. Raising and lowering was by hand winding a chain drive, but I have no details as to what this arrangement looked like or where it was sited in the cockpit. There is (or rather, was) some crude internal detailing moulded into the fuselage walls, but this looked nothing like what was in the photos, so I cut it away with a rotary burr in my miniature electric drill and cleaned up with wet-and-dry paper (used wet, with the paper and model frequently flushed with water to remove debris).

Having done this, I also altered the profile of the raised fuselage behind the headrest using abrasive paper wrapped around a medium sized knife handle. I started with coarse (100 grit) paper to get the basic shape, and then went progressively smoother, finishing with 600 grit. The photo shows the modified fuselage half attached to its unaltered opposite. The plastic has been sanded quite thin in places. The cockpit hood slide rails were also cut away and I’ll fit scratch built replacements later on. Panel lines were re-cut using an Olfa-P cutter using thin brass strip (held in place with Blu-Tack) as a straight edge (very difficult to get right and it is a job I hate doing).

The photos of the real aircraft show some structural metalwork visible within the cockpit, but no stringers or fabric covering, so it looks as though these were covered by thin sheet metal panels. The panel work also encroaches into the cockpit area near the instrument panel and, possibly, the gun breeches and cocking mechanism would be visible, but these are not shown on the photos of the museum exhibit I am using and, from looking at photos of the BF2C-1, I think the guns are mounted further forward. I used paper templates to cut panels from a used soft drinks can. The templates were trimmed until they were a close fit to the kit parts. Much of the panel work is identical on the port and starboard sides, so just a single template was needed: mark one side P for Port and the other S for Starboard to help you make sure you make a left and right handed panel (I ended up making two starboard panels by mistake, but don’t tell anyone)!

When making each panel from aluminium, I first cut an over sized piece from the can to work on. Sometimes the curve of the can is useful and sometimes not. The curvature can be easily changed, or the piece made flat, by placing it onto some foam rubber and putting a roller over it: I use a medium sized X-Acto handle as my roller. You also need to decide whether to leave the paint / plastic coating in place or to sand it off. I normally leave it on and airbrush primer on to provide a key for paint. However, cyanoacrylate adhesive doesn’t bond well to the untreated surface so I do strip the coating off if I am making detail parts that need a strong adhesive bond. Incidentally, the vapour from the adhesive effects me badly for a day or two, so I try and do as much gluing in a single session as I can and dose myself up with anti-histamines beforehand. If you find yourself getting flu-like symptoms (seriously runny nose and fits of sneezing), you may also have the same allergy!

Folded seams were represented by strips of thin lead foil glued in place with Humbrol Clear Cote.

Details such as the throttle quadrant are made up from layers of plasticard. Levers are soft iron wire or plasticard. The knobs are some from “hundreds and thousands”, which means my having to indulge in eating children’s sweets to get valuable parts for my models (yes, I’m a martyr to the hobby)! Hopefully they won’t melt when the paint goes on. I think the details have ended up over-scale, giving the cockpit something of a “Wallace and Grommit” look, but it is not too bad. The crank and chain drive was located on the clear space on the starboard side (but I suspect it was probably on the opposite side so the pilot did not have to change hands on the stick between winding up the undercart and using the throttle).

Instrument Panel.

The kit supplied instrument panel looked nothing like that in my photos (but may nevertheless be correct for all I know) and would be a pig to paint up: so I discarded it. A card template was carefully trimmed to fit within the two fuselage halves. This time it was not symmetrical owing to differences in internal profile between the two halves. So it was marked up “front” and “back” and the centre of the two halves marked so it would line up correctly. This was put into the computer scanner and loaded into photo editing software. A digital photo of the BFC-2 was selected and stretched / rotated to (roughly) correct the photo angle. A copy of this was then shrunk down to fit the scanned-in template image, printed off and used to mark the centre position of each gauge on the plasticard replacement panel (in fact it was just the central, raised part of the instrument panel) and holes were drilled out (and countersunk) for each gauge. Do the drilling before cutting the panel from the sheet. This piece was painted very dark grey and set aside to dry.

A piece of clear plasticard was cut out to the shape of the card template and glued to the back of the painted panel. It produced both the “glass” for the gauges and the rear section of panel that would be glued into the fuselage. Johnsons Klear was brushed around the edges and into the instrument dials and, once dried, Mr Surfacer was applied around the outer edge of the raised panel. The outer parts of the panel were then painted very dark grey.

Each instrument was then printed out on photographic paper and attached to the rear of the panel using Humbrol Clear Cote. A layer of this was then applied over the rear face to seal it all up.

Cockpit Floor.

Guess what: I didn’t use this part from the kit either! I decided that the detailing was not quite where it should be, so I used it to mark out a replacement in plasticard. Details were added using fine copper wire and folded aluminium drinks can. Pieces of brass and plastic rod were used for the various shafts and push rods. One major thing I haven’t been able to decide upon is whether there were viewing windows in the fuselage underside: a photo of the prototype indicates there were windows, but the kit does not include these and they do not appear on drawings of the production units. If windows were fitted, then there would be no floor at all!

SeatThe kit part for this doesn’t look right at all. The seat pan was measured up and a plunge mould made from Milliput attached to a piece of wood. A female piece was cut from plywood to fit over the plunge mould, leaving sufficient clearance for the thickness of plasticard I was using. I attached the plasticard to the female mould with drawing pins and marked the edges of the opening on the plasticard so I could line it up with the plunge mould. I was uncertain how hot the plasticard had to get to become softened: I tried boiling water first of all (nowhere near hot enough, and the damp nearly ruined the female mould!) so tried the oven; also a waste of time. However, the very easy way of doing it is using a hot air gun. No problem!

The moulding was marked and cut to size. Plasticard detail was added at the back and sides.

The rear frame of the seat was bent from copper wire and glued into holes drilled into the floor plate. The height was set by trial fitting between the fuselage halves. The seat panel was cut from aluminium soft drinks can to fit the wire frame. Cut-outs and holes are added as per the reference photographs. The slots were made by first drilling holes and then using a fine rotary burr in a hand holder to cut the shape. Very fiddly and difficult to get both slots the same. The edges of the aluminium were filed sharp so they would not leave a step when attached to the wire frame. Once glued, the edges were treated with Mr Surfacer 500.

The rudder pedals were made from aluminium can, plasticard and brass wire. I am glad to be doing my bit to put used drinks cans to good use!

Although the kit shows its age, it is still very good. I made a rigging plan based on the kit instruction sheet and photos of the aircraft to use as a guide for marking out holes for drilling. The centres of the holes were indented with a scriber and the holes drilled out using a 0.35mm tungsten bit in a needle drill holder. Start by drilling the plastic square on and then work the drill round to the angle needed for the rigging to run straight from end to end: this minimises the chance of the drill slipping and scratching the surface. The thickness of the plastic along with the sometimes shallow drilling angle made this a slow and delicate process, and I snapped half a dozen drills before I was done!

I ended up using guitar string (probably around 28swg) for the rigging. In retrospect, I should have made the holes larger (but we’ll come to that in a later article).

Parts for the scratch-built cockpit described in Part 1, (see January’s issue of Update) were assembled to the fuselage halves, although the floor was left unglued for now. The fuselage mouldings had some distortion so were glued together in sections: the rear end first (with tube glue) and, once holding firm, the front end was bonded with liquid poly. Despite my best efforts, I still ended up with some misalignment between the halves (as usual)!

The cockpit floor was teased into position and, once square on, was set in place with liquid poly. The cabane (centre) struts are moulded to an upper deck and this was fitted after the rudder pedals had been superglued into place. (This arrangement subsequently made assembly and alignment of the top wing fairly easy and stronger than it would have been with separate struts – but we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit). The assembly was put aside to set completely and attention turned to the flying surfaces.

The mating faces of the wing halves were sanded flat on a sheet of wet-and-dry (used wet). Some filing was also needed to get the trailing edges nice and sharp. The top wing halves are quite sizable and had also banana’d. I cut a spar from 2mm plasticard and glued this along the span of the lower wing half, holding the wing flat whilst the glue cured overnight. The top edge of the spar was ground down using a Dremel bit until the top wing fitted without leaving any gaps. Having done this, the wing was still curving upwards from the centre and so the whole exercise was repeated with a second spar. Talk about tedious!

The ailerons, elevators and rudder were cut away from the mouldings for repositioning. Cutting was done using an Olfa-P cutter, starting from the outside face before turning the part over for cutting from the inside faces. The position for the inside cuts were marked by holding the moulding up to a strong light so you could see through to where the cuts had been made on the outside.

The upper and lower halves were glued together, and a right “pig’s ear” was made of it! One problem was the glue: I used tube glue which was quite thick, and it refused to spread across the wide surfaces of the trailing edge, so leaving an uneven gap. Worst still, the upper wing had been clamped flat and left to set overnight. The clamping pressure had been too great and the trailing edges had splayed open. No, I was not a happy bunny.

Now, an aside. Gluing two bits of polystyrene together is pretty fundamental to our hobby. My first preference is liquid poly and I use this every time the parts can be held together between finger and thumb and the joint is accessible: just brush glue along the join, wait a moment, then gently squeeze together to get a strong join. If a bit of molten plastic comes out, great. Leave it all to set thoroughly and then trim this away to get an invisible join.

One problem with liquid poly is that you can’t apply it to one piece and then put the parts together: the stuff evaporates too fast. Another is that if you use it by brushing from the outside (as I did for the wings of the Shiden model), the stuff tends to run along panel lines in search of your thumb and finger. Okay if you want a Zimmerit finish, but not otherwise. So in these instances I’ve used tube glue and it’s okay so long as the contact area is not too large (as it typically is along trailing edges), preventing it from spreading. Following my embarrassing attempts at gluing wings together and the resulting feeling of inadequacy, my closest friends had a quiet word and recommended Revell Contacta adhesive. It is a liquid poly, applied by brush, that can be put on the parts much like tube adhesive, but is much thinner. Life never seemed so good!

Back to the plot. Surfaces were filled (I prefer to use Magic-Sculp) and sanded smooth. Panel lines were re-cut using a piece of brass strip, Blu-Tacked in place as a guide for the Olfa-P cutter. Made a mess of some of that too, but I can’t carry on admitting to all these failings! The wings and tail were dry fitted to the fuselage and trimmed as necessary to get a close fit. They would be painted separately and assembled later.

Colouring In.

The fuselage, wings and tail were painted separately and assembled afterwards. The fuselage was clamped to a handling fixture as I try to minimise touching the surfaces during painting. The cockpit was masked off using moistened tissue paper and, once in place, a little PVA glue was added to stiffen it up. The mask was removed at the very end of painting by moistening before pulling out with tweezers.

Metal surfaces are painted a very light grey and the fabric surfaces are aluminium doped, apart from the upward face of the wing which is yellow and the tail which is “willow green”. I like to use light and dark colours to highlight and shade (that’s my way of painting, but that doesn’t mean it is the right way!) and I started with the grey panelling and sketched out a plan of where I was going to paint light and dark shades. The base shade was White Ensign Models (WEM) Colourcoats RN03 light grey. The very lightest tone of Humbrol 196 was sprayed along the top of the fuselage and the two paints were mixed to give an intermediate highlight colour. Humbrol 165 was used to shade the shadow cast on the fuselage from the upper wing and tail surfaces, with Humbrol 140 added for the undersurfaces (including the panels on the underside of the wings). A loose mask cut from card was used to give a soft transition between the areas.

Once the grey had dried, it was masked off and the aluminium doped surfaces sprayed: lighter areas in Metalcoat 27002 with 27004 added for shade. A loose mask was used once again, with the edge placed along the stringer and the airbrush lightly applied shade beneath. Start from the bottom of the fuselage and work upwards to avoid the mask contacting wet paint. Also, clean or replace the loose mask from time to time to stop paint building up. I found a problem that the Metalcoat 27004 paint lifted off with subsequent masking, so will use something else next time. In fact, I used neat 27004 for the dark metallic grey painted on the rear faces of the propeller blade and it looked superb until I masked it to do the tips: the tape pulled off a good part of the paint.

The yellow wing was painted in WEM Colourcoats ACUS11 yellow, but came out with a green (rather than orange) tint possibly because of the grey plastic beneath. Yellow is notoriously difficult to coat over other colours, and I should have undercoated with white. As it was, I added a little Humbrol 82 orange lining to the yellow and sprayed this on. Violet oil paint was added to the mix for shade, along with a little chrome orange for deeper shade.

The willow green was Humbrol acrylic 5002 with a darker shade mixed from Permanent Light Green, Monestial Green, yellow ochre and Light Red oil paints sprayed over.

The red band around the fuselage, chevron on the top wing and engine cowling (Townend ring) were undercoated with a mix of Revell SM301 red with orange lining 82. Alizarin crimson was added for shading. The masking was inadequate and some red misting was seen on the fuselage after the masking was removed.

Once fully dry, the model was given a spray of Johnson’s Klear before the decals were applied. These went on fairly well, although the white is a bit see-through. This was a particular problem with the lettering on the red band around the fuselage. I painted this over with white later. The decal sheet also had the lettering pre-printed onto a red stripe to use as an alternative option and, in retrospect, I should have trimmed this out so I had a double thickness of white decal.

Panel lines are engraved as deep as troughs on the old tooling, and it was possible to paint them in using an oil paint mix of ivory black, Paynes grey and titanium white. Those on the green tail were a mix of Monestial Green and Scarlet Lake (basically dark green made darker by adding red). The yellow was shaded using Rowney Gold Ochre mixed with violet.

This was done using an E-String (no, not a G-String). I blagged myself a bag of used guitar strings from a shop in Winchester and they needed just a little cleaning up with fine wet-and-dry before use. The length of each wire was gauged using a pair of dividers and the wire cut to this length plus 10mm. Make sure you use cutters suitable for piano wire, otherwise you will ruin them. You may need three other wires of the same length, so do them all in one go.

The wire had a slight curve and needed straightening out before it could be used. I found it easiest to bend the tip of one end through 90 degrees. Then put this into the jaws of the pliers for holding and the bend stops the wire from turning as you try to straighten it. Cut the bend off once done.

The holes for the rigging were supposed to have been drilled at the correct angle into the plastic. Mine rarely were! One end of the guitar string has a brass ferrule and I cut the string about 40mm away. This was used to poke into the hole to gauge how out of line the hole is: the ferrule gave you something to grab to pull it out again.

Use the pliers to set the end of the rigging wire the correct amount so that it points in the right direction when you put it in the hole. Now repeat the process at the other end. A lot of trial fitting was needed to get each wire to fit correctly, and it is a nuisance when the wire falls out and you don’t know which end goes into which hole when you try again. It would have been easier had the holes been larger.

I found it best to do one side at a time, otherwise you forget whether the wire you have in your hand goes in the port or starboard side!

Once the wire is neatly in place, glue one end of it to the airframe. Leave the other end able to slide in and out of its hole as the wires will need tweaking when the braces are fitted.

There are some braces that were made from brass wire. Notches were filed into the brass to match with the rigging wires. This was very fiddly to do and gluing them in position so they were parallel with the fuselage was a nightmare. The handling jig proved to be very helpful as I was able to tilt the aircraft at an angle and balance some strips on the wires to keep them lined up whilst the glue on the brace was setting.

Display Base.

I like to place my models onto a display base to add interest, give context, a sense of scale/size and bring in the human element (which is an important factor for me). On the other hand, as soon as I complete one model I want to get on with another (or, more usually, have not been able to wait and have already started!). So you want an interesting display but don’t want to spend too much time on it: tricky! This time I completely miscalculated and, quite literally, went overboard!

Mind you, it was fun to do and the final result draws attention, so was worth the effort.

The starting point was this photo from the Squadron book on the Boeing F4B, showing an -4 version on an outrigger fitted to CV-4 USS Ranger. My Curtiss is finished as an aircraft from this carrier so this photo was a valuable reference. I looked through my various books for any further information and could only conclude that the design of outrigger varied with each class of ship, as they all looked different. Indeed, I even came across a photo purported to be of an outrigger on the starboard side of Ranger and this looked completely different from the one on the port side!

A funny thing is that the outrigger I have chosen to model appears to be the only one fitted to this side of the ship (see photo). As the idea of these things is to create space for aircraft it hardly seems worth the effort of putting just the one of them in place. Maybe it’s a prototype for evaluation.

Outrigger, panted and ready for fitting.

I also posted requests for information on the web and got some returns, but the photo in the Squadron book remains key. I started by transferring the information in the photo onto a scaled drawing. Scaling was decided by measuring the distance from the front wheel to the tail wheel of the Boeing in the photo and comparing it to the measurement of a 1/32 scale Boeing F4B (as I happen to have a -3 version in my “to do” pile!). This gave me a scaling factor to apply to the measurements taken from the photo for putting onto the drawing. The depth of the catwalks beneath flight deck level was gauged from the crew members in the background of the photo: the deck is at about chest level. The shape of the catwalk was estimated from the two photos you see, everything else was “Imagineering”, either taking features typical of other ships (inspired guesswork) or just plain (uninspired!) guesswork. In hindsight, I think I should have raised the catwalk and made it narrower by 5mm or so.

The structure supporting the flight deck is from Plastruct sections: I-beams, tees, angles & channels. These costed around £12 altogether (from Mainly Trains & Planes, but you can get larger quantities cheaper from EMS: see me if you want to look at their catalogue). A series of identical frames were made up and then linked together. It is important that pieces are carefully trimmed to length and squared off so the frames are identical with one another.

Basic structure of base ready for painting.

The outrigger itself was fashioned from from plasticard. I always drill and file the various internal holes and cut-outs before cutting the outside shape: this reduces the chances of cracking or distorting the material. Two strips were glued together at their ends and a copy of the drawing pasted on one face with PVA glue. Hole centres were indented through the drawing and into the plastic by using a pointy tool before drilling. Once this was completed and the openings shaped with a file, the shapes were cut from the strips using an Olfa-P cutter and the edges cleaned up by filing. Various internal details (such as pulleys for the cable which drags the aircraft by its tail wheel) and spacers were added before the inside faces were painted dark grey and then glued together.

The important tools for the job are a flat surface (I use a piece of thick glass), set square and steel rule to make sure everything goes together neat and square.

With flight deck in position.

The catwalk is perforated plate, and I used electrical circuit board (Vero board) for this as it is already drilled with a suitable pattern of holes. The board was cut to size using a junior hack saw and the edges cleaned up with a file. Photos of CV-8 USS Wasp outrigger shows some foot plates to be solid, so I did this for my model as well by using sticard sheet in one or two places.

Stanchions were scratch built from two sizes of polystyrene tubing, were fiddly and took a long time to make.

There is a cable reel just visible in the first photo, and this was made from scratch using plasticard and bits & bobs from the spares box. A loop of copper wire was added to each reel rim as reinforcing. The hose itself was wound on from bell wire.

The flight deck comprises of a number of layers. The top layer is wood veneer (I used mahogany) and this was cut into strips ¼” wide to represent the real planks which were 8″x3″ at this time (they were 6″ wide on later carriers). These were glued nine at a time onto a strip of thin plywood using PVA glue. Threads of black cord were laid between each “plank” to represent the tarred caulking used to seal the gaps on the real deck. These were weighted down on a flat surface whilst the glue set.

Each set of 9 planks was then cut from the plywood and epoxied to a piece of circuit board-like sheet (thanks for this stuff Joe!) cut to the size required for the flight deck. Each set of blanks was placed apart to allow a photo-etched section of tie-down rail (supplied by Tom’s Modelwork’s in the US) to be positioned between them. The photo-etch was undercoated with brown Humbrol enamel 119 before gluing flush with the top of the deck, leaving a well visible through the tie-down cut-outs which gave some depth. At this time, the flight decks were finished in a mahogany stain and the metal tie-down rails were also brown, either through painting or by rust, it is not obvious which from looking at the photograph taken of the flight deck of USS Enterprise.

The completed flight deck was epoxied to the structure and a plisticard channel glued along the edge (this is the channel that the aircrafts wheels will rest in – see the first photo). Another strip of circuit-board was epoxied to the back face of the structure and this has some features added so the flight deck section will attach to a base stand so it will be a foot or so above the table, with the aircraft hanging precariously over the side just like the real thing. With the aid of a discarded “in-tray”, plywood and black paint, that was achieved.

little human touch….

Flight deck base attached to stand.

My attention then turned to adding some human interest. 54mm figurines are 1/32 scale and after some searching on the internet I asked for help on the www.planetfigure.com forum where the suggestion was made that I should convert the Airfix “US Marines” multipose figures, and this has worked out well.

I started by selecting appropriate body parts that would suit the stance I wanted my figure to have: casual, holding the rail and with one foot on the chain link safety line. After a little filing and trial fitting, webbing detail was removed and the bloused trouser legs carved away ready for epoxy putty to be added once the parts were glued together. I rolled out some Magic-Sculp having dusted some talc onto the roller and board. I usually allow the putty to sit for five or ten minutes before doing the rolling and cutting strips for wrapping around each of the sailor’s leg to create new trouser leg bottoms. This was carefully teased into place against the polystyrene and shaped using rounded off cocktail stick (dusted in talc). I also added a “Dixie Cup” sailor’s hat to the (bald) head using a disc of putty for the centre and a strip around the periphery. I left this to harden off and gave another application of putty to add small detailed folds in the fabric and some hair: pressing it into shape and then adding strands with a scalpel blade.

The USN crewman takes shape.

The figure was now ready for painting (see photo). I always put the figure onto a handle for this to avoid the need to touch the surfaces, so a small hole was drilled into the sailor’s foot to accept this and the figure given a thorough scrub using washing up water and a toothbrush to remove mould release agent and finger marks. I used white Tamiya primer aerosol spray, but this turned out to be too smooth, lacking the “tooth” to take the paint, so I gave the surfaces a spray with Humbrol Matt Coat from an airbrush followed by a 50:50 mix of Humbrol Flesh 61 and white 34 over the face, hands and arms.

The flesh tone was mixed from blue and orange oil paint, lightened with white for highlights and burnt umber for shade. (Different blues and oranges give differing results, so it pays to experiment and record your findings). After drying overnight, deep shade was added from a mix of ultramarine and orange/red oil paints.

The shirt was painted using a mix of cobalt blue + orange + titanium white, with violet and Payne’s grey added for deeper shade. Aim to have five or so tones of the colour on the pallet, ranging from highlight to deep shade. I started by painting in the highlight colour to upward facing surfaces (such as the top of the shoulders and along the top edges of fabric folds where they would be open to daylight), then add the next tone to surfaces which are angled mid way upward. Don’t worry about blending into the first highlight. The third tone (which should be the base colour you want the shirt to be) is done next, followed by the fourth tone on angled down surfaces and the fifth tone for deep shade, such as the armpits, deep folds, etc. Apply the paint thinly and avoid putting “wet on wet” if you can. Once you have completed these stages, you may want to start blending. Use a dry brush for this (without any trace of turpentine or white spirit on it) and either use a fine brush and “dab” gently along the blend line or, as I did, take a big, soft brush and lightly stroke it over the shirt. Don’t do as everybody else does which is to overdo it and loose all your highlights and shade into one bland block of colour: work slowly and carefully, pause frequently to closely examine your work and stop before you go too far!

The same approach was taken with the trousers, this time with a mix of ultramarine and orange/red with titanium white to lighten. Once dried, the figure was given another spray of Matt Coat to remove the sheen that accompanies the use of blue oil paints.

Hair was blocked in with a mix of Van Dyke brown + Payne’s grey and highlighted with yellow ochre + titanium white added to the mix. The “Dixie Cup” hat is shaded white. This is one of the most difficult “colours” to shade. I like to use a violet-grey and used Payne’s grey + orange + white for the hat and socks. A final highlight of white was applied after this had dried.

The painted crewman in place on the catwalk.

Shoes and leather belt were blocked in with Humbrol grey 66 and shaded with Ivory black + Payne’s grey oil paint. I like to apply a strip of the shade colour along the centre of belts, leaving the lighter colour visible at the edges. Belt loops and a buckle were added once the shade colour had dried. The figure was epoxied in place on the catwalk.

Job Done !