Sunday 26 December 2010

1/72 scale Airfix Bf-110 - part 1

 

As part of  'Aircraft Month' I decided that I'd better build a proper kit!  In the box of old kits I picked up at Warboot recently was an old Airfix Bf-110C/D, and it is this which now joins the random selection of 1/32 Napoleonics, 1/76 Japanese tanks and a 1/144 P-40 on the modelling table. 
Why, you ask am I building in a scale I don't use for wargaming?  Well, aside from the thrill of the inter-continental arms race that is Aircraft Month, the kit is unboxed - exposing it to damage amid my boxes of unbuilt kits.  The clincher though, is that the '110 has the dubious distinction of being the first model I ever painted.  I received it as a present on my 11th birthday (in 1976), together with my first three tins of Airfix-branded enamel paint - a dark green (upper surfaces), pale blue (undersides) and brown (exhausts, wheels, gun barrels).  It was built straight from the box and with the markings applied looked pretty good.  I remember using bits of it to build (well, bodge) a Ba-349 'Natter', probably in the late '70s.
Airfix originally released the '110 in 1959(!).  Clearly the kit has retained a following, as they have recently released a new tooling - nice to see they still believe in dramatic box art.

My '110 build is progressing at a sedate pace, and I have yet to decide on a colour scheme.  Further progress will be reported as it happens.

4 comments:

Paul said...

Huzzah! Good to rebuild a kit from the past, and even better to get it off the shelves.

Tim Gow said...

Paul
Progress is being made. I'm sure the original build was rather faster! Maybe the glue just dried quicker in the glorious summer of '76.
Tim

west1871 said...

I share you love of this kit mate.
Childhood memories of this one.

Tim Gow said...

west1871
Nice to have so much company as I wallow in nostalgia!
Tim