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Back to the beginning - Airfix Wellington III


Andy G

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Well I've been lurking on here for nearly three years only occasionally sticking my head above the parapet, so it's high time I contributed a bit more.

 

For my first WIP I'm going back forty years or so to the first kit I built with Dad's help, or was I hindering him building it?  Said kit was the venerable Airfix Wellington.  I've no idea what happened to that model, nor another Wellington I made on my own a couple of years later.  

For most of the intervening years I've pottered around in the model railway world not really achieving that much.  Three years ago though I fell off my bike and broke the top of my leg.  Unable to direct my wife to the railway kits and bits in the shed down the garden I remembered how good a friend had said the new Airfix Spitfire was.  Well it wasn't just the one Spitfire that was liberated from the LHS and my wallet has felt feint ever since.

Coming up to date I purchased from an auction site a Wellington of similar vintage to the original one and with the upcoming release of a new version I thought it about time I got cracking with it.  The intention is not to build a super realistic Wellington but hopefully have a reasonably competent bash at assembling the kit well.

 

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Opening the box showed that the plastic bag was still intact which was very pleasing to find. So with a bit of a James May moment I slashed my way into it.

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And it's still got its stand :-)

 

That's where the initial joy ended.

There are sink marks and flash all over the place.  A degree of fettling will be required to get bits to fit, but that's part of the fun.  The two biggest problems are probably going to be that the upper part of the port flap is slightly short shot and the port fuselage just in front of the bomb aimer's window is also.

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I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the ribbing yet.  It's a quite pronounced but vague in where it's going.  Hopefully the sink mark remedial work won't obliterate it and I'll be to gently calm it down.  I've seen some builds where it appears the ribbing has been removed and it doesn't look right.

 

Airfix have provided some crew, though I'm not sure that Tie fighter pilots were acting as gunners during WWII

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The crew have all been cleaned up and had spears shoved up their ... ready for painting

 

Much of the work over the last couple of days has been cleaning up the fuselage, turrets and glazing and then carrying out dry fits.  The cockpit fitted relatively well and only needed lifting a bit on one side (it'll need plenty of filler though!).  The bomb aimer's window and the front turret were both a bit wide so strips of plasticard have been added on one fuselage edge.

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I've also assembled the cockpit such as it is.  Starting with this horror

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Thanks Airfix!  And there's only one of them.  Wimpey's seem to have been dual control.

Cleaned up and looking a bit more like the real thing.  With the jam jar glass of the cockpit not a lot will be visible anyway.

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And assembled

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The pilots and cockpit glass will hopefully hide much of the seat horror, though I must dust the filings off before taking future photos.

 

Thanks for looking, comments are welcome - are the photos too large?

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I'm midway through a similar nostalgia "Dad and I" build - Monogram's 1/48 Huey Hog chopper - but Dad also built a more recent version of this kit for me too, so seeing these parts is bringing back all sorts of memories! Thanks for sharing!

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Thanks for all the positive responses people, much appreciated.  The kit certainly isn't anywhere near modern standards but I think the end result should be reasonable.  As for opening up the bomb bay, I'll leave that for the new kit.  Is there a link to that build or rfi, @Mancunian airman?

Just a quick update tonight as we're off out to the pub shortly.  The office has been attached to one fuselage half and the IP to the other.  I've been splashing a bit of colour around the insides today between jobs.

 

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I started with the UMP version of Stynlrez primer and then used Mr.Paint Aqua for the interior grey green, Mr.Hobby flat black for the turret areas and a home brew mix of Mr.Hobby reds for the waist gunner areas.  The top of the yoke and the IP will get picked out in black before I try a wash of grey/brown oil paint.  I'll also tack the side windows in and use the framing on those as a guide for masking the geodesic framing and then spray it a silver/aluminium colour.  I'm not sure how visible it will be and whether I'll regret not having done more work to get rid of the part numbers and ejector marks.

It's the first time I've used the Mr.Paint aqua.  Straight from the bottle it was very thin and I had to drop the pressure to about 10psi to stop it spidering.  It covers pretty well and dries to a satin finish.  I'm no expert so can't comment on the accuracy of the colour.

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I've been working on the waist gunner area this evening.  As I've got some thin masking tape (0.7mm) I realised that it was going to be easier to spray the aluminium first and then mask that off rather than masking the red.  So out with the Alclad and then the masking tape.  I put the windows in temporarily to give some guidance as to the direction and spacing of the ribbing.

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Then on with another home brew red concoction and off with the masking tape.

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It seems a bit bright, but when the fuselage is closed up it is just visible through the openings.  I may make a representation of the board walk to disguise the fact that the ribbing doesn't meet properly at the bottom.

 

I'm off on a big bike ride tomorrow so this is it until Sunday at least.

 

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On 15/02/2018 at 04:41, magwitch said:

 

Roy Cross art from the Airfix 'Type 4B' box era (1972-1975). Just fantastic...

I just love these older Airfix boxes, they put me right back as wide eyed 10 year old......

 

Good luck with the build mate, this was one of the few Airfix kits I never made.  

Edited by Kev The Modeller
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Evening folks,

 

perdu - It's still there :-), though I've been toning it down a bit today.

Tony - welcome along

pzrgren - I'm not sure spoilt is the right word, but you certainly learn more from putting these older or not so 'good' models together, or modifying the new ones to something else.

Chris, feel free to pinch it.  The forum's all about sharing ideas, I've pinched plenty over the last few years and hope I can repay those with a few of my own.  The tape is 0.7mm wide and I got it from Valiant Wings

Kev, thanks

Benedict, thanks for posting that.  It's a cracking picture and I've never seen it as bright and clear as that.

wombat, the bay is staying firmly closed on this.  Airfix are about to make it very easy so I'm going to take the lazy route.

 

Onto today's efforts.  I've largely been putting clear on the side windows and weathering the interior paint.

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I've used a couple of washes/filters mixed up from Winsor & Newton oils and white spirit.  The cockpit and waste gunner areas received a mix of raw umber and paynes grey.  On the upper fuselage the waist area hasn't dried enough for it to be taken off properly yet and on the lower the cockpit needs more work doing on it once it has dried a bit more.  The turret areas have received a mix of paynes grey and white, probably too much white and I might go back with an almost pure paynes grey mix.

 

The waist window has been PVA'd into the lower fuselage, after it was masked on the outside.

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They are going to need filler applied around them, so I thought it would be easier to mask them before gluing them in.  I'll also do the filling and cleaning up before I seal up the fuselage, just in case.

I've started applying filler (Mr.Surfacer 500) to the port wing and the airlerons

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Guess where the ejector pin was.  'Pin' makes it sound as though it would be small

The ailerons are a bad fit to the wing so there is zero chance that the pins will survive and just about guaranteed that the Plastikard store will be raided.  At least the ejector pin marks can be arranged to be on the lower surface and therefore less noticeable

Unlike this horror

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And this won't be easy to clean up without removing the surrounding details

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In anticipation of our brief summer and so I don't miss it I've been preparing mint lollies

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It's actually a bulkhead to go behind the pilots.  Even with the bottle glass cockpit there was a very obvious gaping cavern behind the crew.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some of the raw umber / paynes grey mix onto this tonight and clean it up in the morning.  It will sit between the lump of white tack and the seats in the first photo.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that the IP has also made a bid for freedom.  Don't worry it didn't escape the bench, never mind the carpet monster.

 

Andy

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Hello Andy, Nice work on that and thanks, that you like the old Roy Cross art (It's a wallpaper after a delayed double click).

One little suggestion from me to you: Please do the likes for the past posts. So your visitors get a notification for their last posts here. Otherwise this thread could get lost somewhere and this woud be a shame at all. Cheers Benedikt

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Just found this, I hope you don't  mind if I tag along.

I never built this one as a kid for some reason, but it still brings back memories: the fit, the flash, the poor crew...... I'm fighting my way through the Fairey Battle at the mo and trying to bring it shouting and screaming into the 21st century.

 

Ian

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A seat near the front at last! I don't have this in my stash, but I do have the equally venerable Airfix Halifax Mk.III, so looking for pointers for older kits.

 

Nice work so far!

 

DennisTheBear

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Ian, feel free to tag along.  I've been dipping into your Battle every so often - wow!  Almost taking the kit as a good place to start a scratchbuild from.

Dennis, welcome, plenty of space here.  The main points I'm finding with these older models are

  1. Find one or more filler that you like.
  2. Get a good supply of abrasives and files
  3. Plasticard is your friend.
  4. Check how the glazing fits - too wide or too narrow, it's easier to sort out early on rather than later,
  5. Remember to laugh at how bad they are

I've just done a Lightning F3 as a prop to go on my trade stand.  It's a good job it is only a prop otherwise it would have ended up in the bin as the nose cone ring and the front fuselage were completely different shapes.  Strange as another kit of the same, bought at the same time doesn't show the same issue.

 

Progress over the last couple of days has been a bit slow as I'm getting ready for the South Cheshire Show on Sunday and have my wife's birthday and then wedding anniversary over the next few days.  But progress has been made and a disaster hopefully averted.

 

Pushing the windows into the fuselage showed that they stood proud of the outside so 10 thou evergreen strip has been stuck to them before they were glued in properly.  The one that was glued in popped out with a bit of persuasion.  They've now been Mekpak'd in and are fairly solid.  Point of note is that MekPak is pretty good at removing Mr.Hobby paint.

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They've also had some Mr.Dissolved Putty applied to the gaps on the outside.  This has also been smoothed out with a damp cotton bud and IPA thinners.  The bulk head has been fitted behind the office.

 

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A minor disaster has sort of been averted on the wings.  I'd applied Mr.Surfacer 500 to the sink marks and thought I was using IPA to smooth it out and hopefully preserve the ribbing marks, unfortunately it was Cellulose thinners which was doing a really good job of smoothing out the filler until I realised it was also attacking the plastic.  Thankfully I realised the mistake before too much damage was done, but I'm not sure the ribbing will make it to the end of the build now, unless I can find a way of reinstating the damaged bits.

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I've now started closing the fuselage up gluing the wings together.  I think I've managed to take the warp out of the port wing by gluing the fuselage end and letting it dry and then doing the wing tip and forcing it upwards whilst it dried before going back and gluing the middle bits.

 

Well that's probably it for a few days and then it will be on to trying to sort all the gaps and sink marks on the fuselage.

 

Edited by Andy G
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