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Minerva's Wimpy (1/72 100 Group Wellington)


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Nice to see the Trumpeter Wellington on the go. I built the much-reviled MPM Wellington 1C and bought a Revell repop Mk2 for the stash because I liked it so much! I learned several things about Wellingtons:

* The MPM kit isn't too bad once you swap front and rear turrets around (although two small turrets would be more scale-like 'coz the front one had a huge gap all around it)

* The MPM kit needs a shim to get the fuselage wide enough to match the canopy (amazingly I caught this before sticking the fuselage together, for a change)

* Even with the Mahoosive side windows of the 1C you can still see naff all inside the fuselage, which meant that my scratch build nav station, flare chute and Elsan were all in vain. So cheerfully consign all the internal details to the spares box!

* Neither of the kits have wheel wells that would fit proper size wheels. Trumpeter does narrow wheels (shades of the original Airfix Mosquito?) and MPM has wheels that just don't fit

 

I'm looking forward to yours - I think the fabric effect will be fine as long as you don't do a super-dark wash and dry-brush highlights all over it!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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On ‎14‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 4:02 AM, HomerJ_757 said:

Hi Chris,

 

Are you referring to the reduction gear as the domed bit?  Takes the drive from the crankcase and reduces the propeller speed to prevent overspeeding.  If you want to see how a radial engine works there is a guy called Ian Jimmerson on YouTube who has made a wooden radial engine to show the basic principles, 'tis a thing of beauty!

 

Cheers, 

 

Ian

 

Yes, that is what I am referring to. I have seen Ian's video. Nice.

Have you seen this Hercules sleeve-valve video?

 

 

 

 

Chris

 

Edited by dogsbody
Double posting
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That's ... protopsychedelic.

 

I was working from this as a guide (yes, I know it's not a Hercules engine, but a general guide): https://chriswauchop.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/tamf4ueng1web.jpg?w=774&h=749 

Which I think may be your site, Chris?

 

 

New camera on the way, hopefully image quality will improve (or, at least, I shall have to find different excuses)!

 

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And, suddenly, there was an airframe...

 

9b4dda96-c662-4ba0-bc51-67733b152335.jpg

 

a9ddf1de-b919-4bf1-8ad8-b0146547a633.jpg

 

Virtually no filler required thus far, though I fully expect the primer to reveal some seams, especially along the fuselage halves. The slight misalignment on the port elevator is my doing; I only noticed it when I came to attach it, and by then I felt it was too late to rectify. 

The wing construction works pretty well but anyone that wants to adjust the aileron will need to make some changes as they are fixed into position by five parts:

dfd104a9-fd02-4498-acf5-e5e32b3ad71c.jpg

 

I did have some slight problems with the fit of the u/c bays on both wings. I couldn't quite clamp everything together on the first wing, but some slight surgery on the second made the fit far better.

 

Not too far away from primer; I need to attach the engines, the bomb-bay doors (closed), and mask the windscreen and side windows. I'm not going to get it done before the Floatplane GB starts, though.

 

 

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It's going well Chris :thumbsup2: 

All'of a sudden we have a Wimpy!

 

The way the structure looks on the wings reminds me of the Matchbox Wellesley. I quite like it :).

 

A nice steady build; it looks like it will just tick away at the side of the floatplane.

 

:goodjob: 

 

TonyT

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Incidentally, those pictures are from the tablet camera. I'd like to congratulate Canon on taking an Apple approach and making a wifi-capable camera that requires proprietary software to transfer photos to another device, which in turn requires that you register with their cloud photo service, even if you never intend to use it, and then insists that devices are paired using a one-time code (I say one-time, but in fact they just generate the word Camera followed by two digits, so the security this provides is fantastic). After which, the camera tells you it's waiting, until it runs out of power. That's a lot of effort to transfer a jpg.

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Great stuff Chris, she's really coming together now. I like that structural detail, really shows off the unusual construction. I've an urge to build another Wimpy now :) 

 

I share your frustration with 'WiFi connected' cameras. My Nikon CoolPix has a similar feature but it takes ages to 'negotiate' a connection and then you're tied to the app. I just plug it in, much easier!

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I'm not sure if it works with everything, but there's a useful fast photo-transfer function on the iPhone: Airdrop.

 

Just take a pic, then airdrop it to a nearby computer, wife's/daughter's phone/tablet etc. 

 

I'm surprised by how easily it works, in fact, that it works at all, but it's useful.

 

I realise that I'm providing probably completely useless information.,. It's just that until recently I thought this was a mysterious and tricky dark art :dunce: .

 

I'm increasingly using the computer to back up photos after the PhotoMuppet debarcle. External hard drives too, even DVD back ups of the most important ones. Becoming a bit paranoid about photos :mellow:.

 

Best regards

TonyT

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Google pretty much works automatically - every picture taken on our tablet is uploaded to Google Photos when there's a wifi network available. At home, that means it's done before you can navigate to the upload function. From there I download them to my computer and then upload them to Village Photo.

 

I had an iPhone back in 2010 and didn't get on with it at all. However, I'm not sure that I like the new generation of Android phones much better. Too much of what the UI designers deemed as intuitive is not intuitive to me in the slightest, and since they seem not to provide alternate methods (or any instructions), that's enormously frustrating. One of the things I've come to like about Microsoft products is that there's usually several ways to take an action, but I'm not sure whether that's the case for their phone OS.

 

Anyway, I now have a USB connector for the camera. But it doesn't charge the battery (as far as I can tell), so I'm still waiting for the charger to arrive. Sigh.

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Ravver loverly to catch up with this Chris. Having recently acquired one of these Trumperys it's most pleasing to be able to sit back and watch how this develops as a build - the very best of luck with it.

 

I too was a little agog at the depth of surface relief for the geodesics on this kit. Doing some picture research some time ago on the IWM archive  revealed this rather delicious shot of an early mark showing surface detail thrown up along the wings by a low sun-angle in relation to the aircraft:

2017-08-21_06-30-25

'Quilted' I think is the phrase best describes it...:D

Tony

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4 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Ravver loverly to catch up with this Chris. Having recently acquired one of these Trumperys it's most pleasing to be able to sit back and watch how this develops as a build - the very best of luck with it.

 

I too was a little agog at the depth of surface relief for the geodesics on this kit. Doing some picture research some time ago on the IWM archive  revealed this rather delicious shot of an early mark showing surface detail thrown up along the wings by a low sun-angle in relation to the aircraft:

2017-08-21_06-30-25

'Quilted' I think is the phrase best describes it...:D

Tony

 

A nice picture but I think you would only get that pillowing effect while in-flight, as the lesser air pressure over the upper surface causes this. While sitting on the ground, it would be far less noticeable.

 

 

Chris

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8 hours ago, dogsbody said:

 

A nice picture but I think you would only get that pillowing effect while in-flight, as the lesser air pressure over the upper surface causes this. While sitting on the ground, it would be far less noticeable.

 

 

Chris

That would be my understanding also Chris, given the absence of patterning that intense on static aircraft. Iirc something similar is mentioned in one of Chas Bowyer's books on the Wellington.

Tony

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Work, combined with an imminent brief holiday, means that progress is about to be suspended. But I can now extract pictures from the camera, albeit by putting the SD card in a reader. Here's one I took of the fit problems I had with the u/c bay:

 

resized_a947c2b9-5982-4b0c-8989-9809a684

 

I found that by thinning down some of the plastic at the bottom of the bay enclosure (the top in the picture, of course), the fit improved; it appears to be more about the pins that hold it in place than the overall size of the bay. This also shows the large attachment points that Trumpeter has placed on the leading edge of the wing (repeated on the elevators), which was not particularly friendly of them.

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The Wellington X depicted on the excellent DK Decals sheet is LP345. It was delivered to 48MU 20/3/44 then 192 Sqn 30/3/44. It had a heavy landing after engine problems on take-off 16/8/44 - burst tyres and fire. SOC 5/9/44. Replaced as DT-G by NA724.

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It's getting there Chris :thumbsup2: 

 

Not much wiggle room for the undercarriage bay but it looks like you've got it fitted nicely :)

 

Tony's photograph is very nice, I would be quite happy with a huge print of that on my office wall :D.

 

Have a great mini-holiday!

Best regards 

TonyT

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Yes indeed, you have answered your own question correctly. My understanding is that aircraft may carry any combination including the full fit-out. Unfortunately the pictures in that book are poor-quality thumbnails which make determining aerial fits impossible. Given the secrecy attached to 100 Group, there are a surprising number of them though and a lot of nose-art. I imagine that somewhere there are good quality versions but I have never seen them.

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Watching this with great interest, Chris. I have a 1/48 Trumpeter Mk Ic Welly in the collection, awaiting a rainy day (rare as hens' teeth around here lately :(). 

 

I would expect that the fabric on the undersides would be pushed up into the airframe (i.e., in the same dierction as that billowing up on the upper surfaces.

 

Great photo via @The Baron :).

 

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- not an airframe covering

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  • 2 weeks later...

Where's the Welly? Did it suddenly turn into the well-known floatplane version? >snigger<

 

Looking forward to its eventual return in its less-well-known wheeled version.

 

Cheers,

Alex. :sheep: <-- not a floatplane - or a Wellibomber...

 

 

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Sorry, Alex. Holiday plus work plus a failure to take a decision about how to set about all those aerials, means that the Wimpey sits unfinished. I have very few building materials except for those that I can scavenge from my wife's jewellery materials, but I'm planning to go to the St Ives modelling show in a fortnight, so that might be the place I need.

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