Tamiya 1/48 Beaufighter in black. Trim tabs done (finally!)

[Max Headroom]

Mrs H and I were walking around Chester's Rows yesterday. Quite by accident and without any contrivance, we came across the Chester Model Centre. 

 

Being allowed in, I went to the aircraft kits in the corner of the ground level. I came out with this....

 

 

Big box, big problem. I can't exactly hide it can I? Herself was guarding the front door.

 

"How much?"

 

.....er £25......"

 

"That's not bad value", she says.

 

Jaw picked up off floor, I mutter something about buying her one of her favourite jigsaws as recompense. I rationalise it this way. She models in two dimensions, whilst I specialise in 3D!

 

Anyhoo, the pics for you dear reader.....

 

 

I assume that the long tailed fin is separate? If so, that's the missing bit from making this a true multi variant kit.

 

Two of these.........

 

 

and one each of these.....

 

 

 

All beautifully rendered in 3D, I have an infinite capacity to muck up. We shall see

 

Basic cockpit assemblage.....

 

 

For some reason Tamiya state not to glue the heat tube (?) along the right hand side of the fuselage.

 

Looking at various photos, it's evident that the Tamiya cockpit is somewhat utilitarian. Trying to set out the differences is almost impossible. Someone said that the Blackburn Buccaneer's cockpit was 'an ergonomic slum'. I think this view can also apply here too.

 

So based on nothing more than pix on the web I put it together like this

 

 

 

Adding just enough detail to stop 'the pit' being bare and again by reference to pictures 

 

 

 

That's about it for now. All I've done since is to rattlecan some primer over the interior.

 

More soon!

 

Trevor

 

 

[Thom216]

A handsome plane, and quite attractive in it's way. Progress is looking good on it.

 

Loved this part,

29 minutes ago, Max Headroom said:

Herself was guarding the front door.

Gold. Just gold!

[stever219]

The fin with dorsal fillet is only included in the TF. X kit, along with the RP blast plates and torpedo which also appear in the Mk. VI boxing.  AFAIK the TF. X boxing doesn't include the (very) late production tailplanes and elevators (which Airfix include in their nice new 1/72th scale kit).

 

Alley Cat produce an early version conversion with the "flat" tailplane but I'm not 100% certain that they've reproduced the very earliest form (narrow chord elevators without horn balances).

 

I like your cockpit mods; I rather fear that I'll be plagiarising them when I get round to my next pair of Tamiya Beaus.

[Max Headroom]

Thanks for the background info Steve. Plagiarise away, however as said above I'm not professing true fidelity. Two notable omissions from the kit are the red grab rail by the pilot and the somewhat awkwardly positioned trim wheels behind (?) the pilot's left elbow. The handle has been added (should there be one on the other side? Some drawings have them), but the trim wheels are a bit more problematic. May need to mock something up with fuse wire.

 

More soon!

 

Trevor 

 

 

[Max Headroom]

Hello

 

A little light painting was in order tonight.

 

First problem was the actual colour of the cockpit itself. 

 

If if you believe restoration pictures then the majority of the pit would seem to be Interior Grey Green or whatever it's called. A bit like this:

 

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2020/2223477667_469efe3933_b.jpg

 

However an unrestored one (?) looks more like this

 

http://www.ausairpower.net/AARG/DAP-Beaufighter-Mk.21-A8-328-2012-3.jpg

 

....and I have it in my mind that early/mid war cockpits were Night in colour.

 

So that's how I've done mine! The back end though is grey/green.

 

Now then at this point I was hoping to share some photos with you. However Flickr is doing a stupid and I'll need to work on it and will post later. 

 

Trevor

 

 

[The Spadgent]

Great start. I'll tag along if you don't mind. I have an all black kit coming up. I'm interested in how you're going to paint this baby.  

 

John.

[Max Headroom]

8 minutes ago, The Spadgent said:

 I'm interested in how you're going to paint this baby.  

So am I mate. So am I........

 

A  rattlecan of black is involved, but beyond that, I need to to somehow break up the mono block colour.

 

 

Trevor

[Max Headroom]

Let's try again

 

 

Bingo!

 

The heat pipe is a non descript grey that's supposed to be asbestos. It'll need at least another coat of something to look better.

 

 

The grab rail is a grubby red. I didn't want something that was too in your face.

 

 

The highlights were done in the same drybrushed grey.

 

 

And of course once it's buttoned up, very little is visible anyway 

 

Why do we beat ourselves up this way?!

 

Trevor

[Blitz23]

Looking good so far!

[Thom216]

Liking the progress!

[TonyTiger66]

One of my favourite aeroplanes of all time Trevor. 

 

1/48 is too big for our little home, a shame because when I got back into the hobby it's the scale in which I bought the first batch of kits.

 

I can, however, enjoy watching you build a nice big, purposeful looking black Beaufighter 

 

The cockpit detail looks great. I have a FROG beaufighter (yup, really!) on long term build; I'm afraid I may have to copy some of your detailing ideas for the cockpit !

 

Best regards

TonyT

[Max Headroom]

Thanks for the kind words everybody! I'll do more fettling maybe this evening.

 

Tony. I'm still recovering from my NOVO Beaufighter build of a few years ago....

 

 

Loved the offset pilot detailing. Notice he was also flying using only the power of thought!

 

Trevor

[Biggles87]

It's a nice kit, which I true Tamiya fashion ' falls together ' as far as I remember. I built the night fighter version some years ago and still have an unbuilt one somewhere.

 

Looking forward to more.

 

John

PS. When I was a small boy, my mother worked as a nurse in Chester, and I often wondered why those covered shopping areas were called ' The Rose '.

[Max Headroom]

Hi John. She must have worked in the Countess of Chester?

 

Dont know why The Rows are unique, but they do give Chester a rather quirky feel. Plenty of little nooks and crannies to explore, not least the Chester Model Centre.

 

Trevor

[stringbag]

16 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

Hi John. She must have worked in the Countess of Chester?

Trevor

Might have been the Royal Infirmary.  Just saying. 

 

Chris.

[TonyTiger66]

19 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

Loved the offset pilot detailing. Notice he was also flying using only the power of thought!

 

I was wrong Trevor, my kit is actually the NOVO boxing !!!

 

In addition to the usual challenges posed, it also has a mis-moulded cockpit/canopy area. The whole port upper area of the forward fuselage is a nice big gap; just where the canopy joins the fuselage  

 

I'll try not to think about it and get therapy by watching your build here, to calm the nerves !

 

Best regards

TonyT

[Biggles87]

Sorry, didn't see the replies 'til now, she did in fact work at the Countess of Chester, which was known as the Deva in those days.

 

John

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On ‎21‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 10:19 PM, stever219 said:

The fin with dorsal fillet is only included in the TF. X kit, along with the RP blast plates and torpedo which also appear in the Mk. VI boxing.  AFAIK the TF. X boxing doesn't include the (very) late production tailplanes and elevators (which Airfix include in their nice new 1/72th scale kit).

 

Alley Cat produce an early version conversion with the "flat" tailplane but I'm not 100% certain that they've reproduced the very earliest form (narrow chord elevators without horn balances).

 

I like your cockpit mods; I rather fear that I'll be plagiarising them when I get round to my next pair of Tamiya Beaus.

 

That's right Steve. My late production tailplanes and elevators have moved on a lot since this pic and will soon be off to the caster:

 

 

Unfortunately the kit doesn't actually include mid-production tailplanes and elevators either - they are a bit of both. They're most easily corrected to suit the late type as above. What Tamiya have done is used the broad chord of the late production elevators and narrow chord of the late production tailplanes, then added extended aerodynamic balance horns again making the Tamiya elevators big and powerful enough to keep an Extra 300 pilot happy. Of course, looking at the hinges of the above image it's clear that the late production elevators had a full-span aerodynamic balance ahead of the hinge line. The mid-production tailplanes were boxed in inboard of outer hinges and the elevator balance horns were just the same outboard portions as per the above.

 

Tamiya's outline of the elevators and tailplanes isn't quite right in planform either - with both misshapen roots (see lots of blended Milliput above) and semi-circular tips. The tips' focal point was further forward such that the forward half of the tip curvature was tighter than the aft half. This is easy to fix with a bit of plastic or Milliput round the forward half of the tip and a bit of time sanding.

 

Lastly, the Tamiya kit balance tab linkages on the elevators are mid-production type (big / fully external) but in the late production position (above the elevator). For mid-production tail with they are fully external but were fitted below the elevator - otherwise they'd work backwards and be anti-balance tabs making the elevators heavier to use, not lighter. This error in the kit is most likely attributed to the RAF Museum as their late TF.X had a mishmash of different elevator parts (incorrectly) fitted for years.

 

[stever219]

Thanks Jamie.  Looks like I won't be starting my next Tamiya late production TF. X ' til your new tail feathers are available (I'm presently contemplating something with an RD-or SR serial) and my poor representation of NT950(?) is going to need a gnat's worth of remedial work.

[Max Headroom]

.........soooo I'm guessing that my VIf has really inaccurate tailplanes?

 

Bottom line, what do I need to hack/add/hack/ignore/hack?

 

Trevor

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

If you want to do nothing about it, you're good.

 

The easiest change to implement is to cut off the balance tab linkages (they're crap anyway) and add new horns underneath and add new pushrods (from the tailplane trailing edge to the horn) from wire/brass rod/stretchef sprue.

 

The next simplest thing to do is reprofile the outline of them. Even if you ignore the extra meat up front, knocking the corners off the trailing edge of the elevator tips will help the look a bit.

 

If you want to fix it fully, it's a bit of a chore and when I make masters for resin corrections (after the above late ones are done) I will again be cutting up the kit parts. The line where the elevator meets tailplane on the kit parts is pretty much the right shape, but it's about 5mm too far forward.

 

Tamiya seems to have measured the chord of the biggest elevators and narrowest tailplanes (which is the configuration the RAF Museum late build TF.X has) and used those dimensions for the early/mid type.

[Max Headroom]

^^^^ I think I get you. So using the Mk.1 eyeball I'll follow your outline above, chop off the linkages and replace with whatever and I'm good to go?!

 

Many thankings.

 

Trevor 

[franky boy]

Nice work Trevor, will be watching with interest.

 

The interior green colour that you you just see in the corners of the photo of that Aussie Mk21 is quite different from any other I've seen. Different manufacturers i suppose?

 

James

[Max Headroom]

6 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

 

⬆️ Yours

 

⬇️ Mine

 

 

 

 

Note to self; black plastic is awful to photograph. I had to do all sorts of jiggery-pockey to get that one done.

 

I'll get filling and scribing then.

 

Trevor

[Max Headroom]

11 minutes ago, franky boy said:

Nice work Trevor, will be watching with interest.

 

The interior green colour that you you just see in the corners of the photo of that Aussie Mk21 is quite different from any other I've seen. Different manufacturers i suppose?

 

James

Hi James!

 

No idea about the interior of the nose section. I used google-fu to capture it. Maybe it's the Duxford hybrid that's been on a slow burner for most of this century. I'm guessing that that pukka Oz examples used locally manufactured paint, but have absolutely no clue as to what spec was used. Thankfully that's a can of worms that I don't need to dip a toe into (mixing my metaphors so to speak). However if anyone  (hello.....?) is reading this and has a vector to RAAF paint specs, please feel free to add the info, as this may be of use to someone doing a Mk. XXI.

 

No actual whittling tonight, as I am investigating wing armament and debating whether the plastic represents a VIf. Surfing the interwebby suggests that Tamiya used a preserved MK.XXI as their muse and even went as far as to unknowingly duplicate flak damage repairs on the wings. Now I know the RAAF regunned/built theirs to take .50 Brownings instead of the British spec .303. I need therefore to figure out what the kit depicts and what, if anything, I need to do to in order to depict an RAF nightfigher. My guess at the moment is guns and lots of them. Of course if anyone knows differently........

 

Trevor