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1/48 Lysander Mk II - 1960's Hawk version: End of year... end of build.... it's FINISHED !!!


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I succumbed. :wall: yes I did. I didn't mean to... honest, but I did.

After finishing the Wessex (helicopterous beautifulious) I had fully intended to march on with the train. Unfortunately, until I get my hands on a lathe (... the wife's birthday gone snuck up on me and stole all my funds!) there are only a few small things I can be getting on with.

Over the last few visits down to the basement I had hit a bit of a brick wall with the train so I needed a minor diversion. Golly gosh... look what went and fell off the shelf !

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I know, I know... I said I wasn't going to do another aircraft :shrug:

Edited by hendie
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Another post ? so quickly ? - well my last few topics started with a humongous first post and it was a real pain to scroll down to find the end if I wanted to edit the title so I thought I'd start this one with a short 1st post to make my life a little bit easier.

Why did I choose a Lysander ? Well, as I stated in a few posts, I find it difficult to model anything I don't feel a connection with. I searched and searched for ideas and during my searches I spotted the Lysander. - It's kind of cute looking in an ugly sort of way, and I then found out that 28 Sqn flew the Mk II's for a couple of years back in the middle of WWII. It may be a tenuous connection at best, but it kept growing on me and I went into the darkest depths of ebay and won the 1/48 Hawk kit for the princely sum of $0.99 :D

Why the Hawk kit from the 1960's I hear you ask ? I could have had the Gavia kit or the Eduard kit in 1/48 - well, they are both the MkIII (I *think*), and 28 Sqn flew MkII's. There are a couple of reasons for that - 1/48 seems to be my chosen scale (more by default than choice), and there was something about the lack of detail in the 1960's kit that drew me towards it... plenty of scope for scratch building. :nerd:

I also liked the box the kit came in - it's recently been re-released by Round 2 - and I love that they retained the styling of the original packaging - I'm not getting fooled into thinking that this a "retooling/updated/with-added-super-accuracy" kit as some other manufacturers would have you believe with their rather dubious marketing ploys. This is a 1960's kit with all that entails.... actually in some ways, a lot better than I had anticipated.

The wings for example, have some nice detail in the positive rivets along the leading edges

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However, this "bit" I have my index finger located on is the instrument panel and that plus the 2 seats and the box thingy resting on the mat is the entirety of the interior detail - I can see I am going to have fun here

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and this is pretty much the full instruction sheet - just a small picture or so overleaf. Less is more so they say!

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I think this is going to progress into one of those long experimental projects - I have a few ideas I want to try out - oh, and I should mention that I know absolutely nothing about the Lysander - so I have lots of reading and research to do before I get too deep into this.

(PS - it won't be a quick build as I am still working on that darned train!)

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Cool! another Hendie build. Plenty of scope for super detailing with this kit, and it will all be seen.

Martin

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I picked up a second hand, part built, very dusty, and a part missing, example from Telford the other year. I just built it as it comes, and scratchbuilt the missing bit. I think it's a lovely kit.

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I will try and keep up with this if I can, your threads are always very detailed with lots of input for lots of people.... I was in a spin after the helicopter thread (😂 I'm here all week)

Big fans of the Lizzie and I am looking forward to what you add to this kit!

Rob

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"and back in the room"! We have another Hendie build. I'm in for the long run on this one, pulling up a chair and getting comfortable. A very nice choice I must say, although my knowledge of the Lizzie is probably not as in depth as your own! I did once have this in my stash but alas it was disposed of (via e*** I think.......hope!) so I will follow this with a keen eye to see what I missed out on.

So it just remains to say "Cracketh oneth young man!"

Bob

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Thanks John - I shall be using that for reference as the build progresses. I did actually consider scratching one some time ago and then discovered Fozzy's thread. He made such a great job of that one (as he always does) that I didn't think I could match that standard - so I chose instead to see how much detail I can cram into a 50 year old kit and hopefully make it shine. I like the challenge of scratch building and the kit is so basic it does provide some great opportunity to test one's skills.

...A very nice choice I must say, although my knowledge of the Lizzie is probably not as in depth as your own!

ha! My current knowledge of the Lysander is akin to my knowledge of how the "logic" portion of my wife's brain functions.... and I've been trying to fathom that one out for years! :shrug:

In a nutshell... my current knowledge of all things Lysander consists of - I know there were three marks, and two different engines. It looks like someone was trying to build a bi-plane from leftovers but fell short of a couple of wings. Period. It can only get better from here.

Oh, and of course, I decided to model the least mentioned, least photographed version of the three, the MkII.

I know there's a lot of knowledgeable folks out there so if anyone wants to list differences between the MkII and the others I would be most appreciative.

I did find a book on 28 Sqn Lysanders in India so I'll need to grab a copy though I'm not sure how many photo's are included.

I have some ideas that I want to try out - with the usual caveat - that it may all go south rather quickly. For a 99¢ kit it's getting rather expensive - I bought the CMK kit for the Eduard version as it looked like it had a couple of usable parts. Then a 1/48 Perseus cost me $20, and I spotted another etch set that may come in handy.

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Good to see you back in the metaphorical saddle Hendie.

Looking forward to seeing you work your magic on this kit. It certainly lacks some small details, and needs the hendie touch.

I forsee small clip boards and coke cans in your future.

Matt

Edited by S5 modeller
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Not further excursions into the world of War Office clip boards circa 194- blank please

You do know they were rated secret, dodgy and "oh flippin' heck shurrrup!" don't you?

There could still be shenanigans over they even after 'all this time'

But as ever with a Hendiebuild I am along for the ride

My old dad (Bless'im) was in attendance with some South Coast based Lizzie squadron in the 40s and helped me no end with my first Airfix one

"I'm certain ours didny have those letters on the sides"

Did I mention that dad was an exile from Hamilton?

No probs, he said the best thing out of there in the thirties was the A74 :)

Hendie mate, you have another avid passenger, is that OK?

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well, bless my cotton socks - I never realized that this little foray into darkest twentieth century would generate such excitement among (amongst ?) the brethren. However, I'm glad yo have you all along for the tide. Pull up a sandbag and we'll continue....

When I say "continue" I don't mean in a racey, fast paced sort of way... more of an ambling, Sunday stroll, stop for a pint and a lump of cheese at the inn sort of way... in other words... I ain't done much - but I *have* made a start to the construction, which is more of a destruction but a necessity nonetheless. Can you guess what I am about to do here ?

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It's a suitably bodged way of ensuring that I have an even cut all the way around the front cowling, or more exactly, around the collector ring thingy. By careful and exacting measurement I found that 1 x strip of plywood + 1 x strip of thin styrene + 0.5 x Razor saw blade thickness = depth of collector ring from the front face. Now wasn't that a coincidence ?

The granite block provided a nice flat (and firm) surface and by rotating the cowling against the blade whilst holding it flat on the granite, I was able to get a very nice neat cut around the line of the collector ring, like so....

P5030002.JPG

Looks! see what I mean ? Now, whether I'll ever be able to glue it all back together as accurately as it needs to be remains the question. But the inquiring minds among you are wondering why the feck I decided to cut it off in the first place aren't you ?

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Well, I had an idea, yup, another one of those ideas - and the photo's I have examined of the collector ring area do not show it as a sharp edge - it's much more of a rounded lip (edit - no it's not I just checked!). So I thought I would try something out to see if it would work (or not!).

Out came the horrible modelling clay that passes for plasticine in these here parts, into which I pressed a brass tube to a depth of about half it's diameter - I had some resin which had turned horribly nasty and I was going to throw out but decided to use in order to test out my latest crazed idea.... that gave me this horrible looking half round resiny thingy

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Which then looks like this when pressed inside the collector ring - it looks like my theory will work - though I'll use a slightly smaller diameter tube for the real run (edit - and make sure I get the edge looking right!).

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sometimes crazy is just worth a try isn't it ?

Next up - a question for the knowledgeable folks ... I know there's a triangular removable panel on the starboard side of the Lysander, however, Hawk also depict this panel on the port side. All the photo's I can find of this bird show the port side as continuous fabric, with no removable panel. However, all I can find are photo's of Mk III's

Can someone please confirm that this panel did not exist on the port side ?

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Also, in this photograph (http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/bill_spidle5/lysander_mk_iii_v9312/images/lysander_mk_iii_v9312_27_of_29.jpg) on the fairing on the port undercarriage leg, there is what appears to be a radiator or cooling grill - was this also present on the MK II ?

more questions to come... probably hundreds of them

Edited by hendie
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hi Hendie

specific questions may get better answers in the WWII section.

The Mk II has a different engine to the I and III, so a different cowling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_Lysander#Variants

Lysander Mk.I

Powered by one 890 hp (664 kW) Bristol Mercury XII radial piston engine.
Lysander Mk II
Powered by one 905 hp (675 kW) Bristol Perseus XII sleeve valve radial piston engine.

regarding the Lysander in 1/48th

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/thread/1416106038

re the Hawk kit

It used Wylam's drawings as well but had much clunkier mouldings, thick trailing edges and all the other downsides to being an older kit. There is no way to build an accurate model of a Lysander in 1/48 without a lot of scratch building.

The only accurate Lysander kit is the very old 1/32 Matchbox offering which, at least, gives a basis for producing a good model but at the expense of a lot of hours of work at refining the mouldings, scratch building a complete new interior and so on.

this is a build of both 1/48 kits linked

http://www.rollmodels.net/nreviews/airplanes/lizzie/lizzie.php

note the Mk III has a different canopy, and the above mentions the Hawk kit has a Mk III canopy.

you might want to track down the 4+ book as this has plans and detail

http://www.4pluspublications.com/en/publications/9-westland-lysander

looks to be OOP, but given it's age I bet scans are floating about the net ;)

finally, there is walkround up here!

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/76579-westland-lysander-mkiii-r9125/

it's a Mk III, but I think many of the details are relevant.

HTH

T

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thanks for the links folks. I've been scouring t'interwebby for more photo's and also downloaded two books from Amazon, one on 28 Sqn Lysanders, and another on Lysanders in India during WWII - both pretty interesting but the few photo's that are included are (as can be expected) not of great quality.

As per Troy's suggestion, I think I'll be heading up to the WWII forum and asking some questions up there.

As indicated above, after much hours of scouring the ether and scrunching my eyes up to try and connect the photographic grains, I came to the conclusion that the MkII did have that cooling grill thingy on the port undercarriage. It appears that it is a hinged mechanism so can be either opened or closed - of course I chose open! of course I did!

I only took a few photo's of the process so bear with me.

On the Hawk kit, the two halves of the leg are molded solid with no space in between the halves, so that necessitated filing out a portion of the leg to accommodate the grill. I then took some 0.005" brass sheet, scored that with a blade and folded it up to make the duct. My second attempt at the duct came out pretty reasonable.

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I then had to hack out a corresponding void in the top half of the undercarriage - this is my *ahem* second attempt - as I hacked out the starboard leg by mistake on my first go around :banghead: I've now marked the inside of the center portion so I know which way it faces.

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a slightly better photo of the same thing.... - yup, I'll end up cutting out the lights as well (and all those rivets will come off... eventually)

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I then searched around my stock of scrap, spares, and general doobries, and thankfully I had ordered a range of brass mesh sizes during the Dauphin build to make the intake grills - that mesh now came into good use. The finest mesh I had looked about right, and I found that by simply folding it over a knife blade, it gave me the right thickness to insert into the duct.

P5040005.JPG

Which, when all fitted together, looks passable. The big question is, that with mesh so fine - will I be able to paint it without clogging the mesh up. Ah, that's probably a year or so away so I'll worry about it then.

P5040006.JPG

Now I must go and put these little trinkets in a safe place. :pray: :pray: :pray:

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The big question is, that with mesh so fine - will I be able to paint it without clogging the mesh up.

Thinner will be your best friend. :)

I like what you're doing here - bringing old kits up to today's "standard" is a lot of fun. Enjoy! And if you ever figure out the logic circuits in your wife's brain, let me know. I could use that knowledge myself!

Cheers,

Bill

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I built this kit 3 or 4 times now.

40 years ago.

This Lizzy kit was one of my first paint jobs.... with permanent markers.

It was AWESOME! :whistle:

I think there is still one in my kit heap

Anyway, I am a big fan of both the kit and the bird and I am looking forward to seeing you do her justice sir!

:photo:

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I think I'll be heading up to the WWII forum and asking some questions up there.

As indicated above, after much hours of scouring the ether and scrunching my eyes up to try and connect the photographic grains, I came to the conclusion that the MkII did have that cooling grill thingy on the port undercarriage. It appears that it is a hinged mechanism so can be either opened or closed - of course I chose open! of course I did!

HI Hendie

you may find this discussion about the Lysander II cowling worth perusing, which has just come up

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235002021-lysander-mk-ii-cowling-question/

Be a good place to ask questions as well as some very knowledgeable members are posting in this.

HTH

T

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