Martian

Its the 1/48 kit re-issued with a limited edition decal sheet. About as wrong as it is possible to get! Its a good job I had you sussed a long time ago! First of all, what's with the Brandy? Have you undergone some sort of change in the last two weeks? When I the work suffices, I could have gone completely overboard but as these are not meant to be show models, they are good enough for what I want. As to damage, there is nothing that I did not expect and that a few hours tidying up won't put right. I had to do something when there was no Britmodeller. Martian

I am sure that with help from the Usual Suspects, we will soon put that right! Martian

Right, back on the job, the next step was to continue to add stiffening bulkheads tot eh fuselage. As always, the better the fit of these is, the stronger your model will be. I tend to judge this by continually dry fitting the fuselage halves together and pressing them together to see if there is any flex left in the assembly. When there is not, you have the fuselage sufficiently strong. This goes for models with wings and tail surfaces that require ribs and spars. I have to detail the cockpits next and although each of you will have your own methods and tastes in interior details and I do not wish to teach my Granny to suck eggs. I will post pictures of what I do for the sake of completeness. One tip I will pass on is that to get a 100% accurate fit of an instrument panel, I cut a notch in the fuselage where it needs to be located with a razor saw and then clean the cut out with my scalpel. I then drop a slice of plastic card into the cut and cement this into place on one fuselage half. When this is set, I dry fit the the other half and tape the two together. This done I trim and sand the card showing on the exterior of the fuselage until it is completely flush. The result? One perfectly fitting IP that also adds strength to the completed fuselage. Thanks for looking Martian

Seeing as how this thread originated with an appeal for information on the Cold War forum, I thought it was about time that we took a look at the Airfix B(I)8/12 kit. The cockpit and cabin interior was provided by Airfix is pretty weak in both detail and on fit and a great deal of fettling and letting in of plastic stock has been going on in order to get things to fit properly. The main floor and rear bulkhead part on my kit was very badly warped on my kit and needed a lot of gentle and not so gentle bending to restore it's fit. There is still some way to go with this process but at least I am now happy with how the work is going. I still have to sort out some of the navigator's instrument panels but once I have done this fine detailing can commence. I may or not use the Eduard instrument parts I have as I think the painted on detail is so subtle that it will not be seen. The Eduard set does not provide parts for the navigator's instruments, so for the sake of continuity I may well scratch build all the instrumentation. I sometimes think we rely to heavily on aftermarket parts and I for one have got a bit lazy in this respect. I know how to make the parts I want and how I want them so it is about time I gave myself a good kick up the backside, rolled up my sleeves and got on with some good old fashioned modelling. Thanks for looking Martian

The bomb bay was the next item on the agenda. The detail provided by Airfix is rather anemic so the first thing to do was to remove it. Once this was done, the position of the frames was marked out and a jig was constructed to ensure that I could make exact duplicates of the many frames needed. Once the frames had been fitted, it was time to add the stringers to the roof of the bay. I then used some channel section plastic strip to construct the bomb beam and added brackets for cables, wiring and pipes. These will be fitted during the next session on the T4, along with some circular access plates that appear on the bomb it will bay roof. I am aware that this is not the greatest bay that can be made but it will suffice for my purposes. Martian

Right, if we can be sensible for a minute or two, I shall bring you up to date as to what has been occurring during my enforced absence. It is quite surprising what can be achieved when one has nothing do occupy one's mind other than modelling. I have been working on both the cabin and the bomb bay of the T4 and given that a lot of progress has been made in both areas, I propose to cover these as separate posts to make things clearer. Similarly, as a start has been made on the B(I) 8/12 kit, I shall be doing separate posts for updates covering this build. All make sense? Good, then I shall begin. I began detailing the the cabin of the T4 by adding frames and longerons and this was followed by fitting the stringers from 0.10 x 0.20 'thou plastic stock. Fishplates were added at the junctions of the longerons and frames. This done, the next important thing to do was to fit the large beam that supports the ejector seat rails. It was crucial here to get the measurements right and it was very much a case of "measure a dozen times and, all tentacles crossed, drill once". Next up was to drill out some plastic strip and to cut this to length to represent the ejector seat rails; once again taking great care to ensure that each one was square. When all this was fully cured, I constructed the framework that supports the navigator's desk and fitted half of the desk. On the real aircraft, the desk folds up at an angle and the folding part of the desk will be fitted towards the end of the construction and painting of the cabin interior. Martian

Strangely enough, I never once expected to be disappointed, not for one nanosecond! Martian

You have clearly been reading far too much of that King and Country rag that Melchett peddles. Do we really have to answer that? Martian

Business as usual I see! Unsurprised of Mars

Sarah-Jane says she is looking forward to it: sort of. Don't be disgusting Darling! Message from Sarah-Jane. She says your van will have to catch her first. You are a poet Sir, a dreamer of beautiful dreams. (Mr Valentine. The Titfield Thunderbolt) Thanks to the General for letting people know what has been happening. I was worried that people might think I had been ignoring their comments. I have a lot of sorting out of things to do but I should be able to get some updates up very soon. Martian

Special thanks to @general melchett for standing in for me during my enforced absence as I was worried that people who had started vacforms on the back of this thread might think I had given up on the thread. Well, Dell finally got the parts to my computer engineer but not, as you will have gathered very speedily. As this machine is about three weeks over the end of it's one year guarantee, you will not be surprised to learn that Dell customer services will be joining the staff of the Cirius Cybernetics Corporation in being put up against a wall and shot when the revolution comes. I will be getting another installment up later today. Martian

After two weeks without a computer, I am now operational again. My inbox is inundated with messages from BM, the point that it will take me some while to catch up with everyone's builds. So, if I have not commented or posted a like on a thread of yours that I am following, I am not ignoring you and will get round to catching up with your builds as soon as I can. Martian

Thanks Tony. No, there are a limited numbers of Canberras I want to build and a stack of other interesting projects to tackle as well. If I do turn into a carbon copy of CC, I shall be blaming you lot for not having called the vet in ages before. The Naughty Corner isn't big enough for the both of us, and to misquote Sparks, "and it ain't CC who's going to leave". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ztSKDbDRXc Martian

Thanks Pete, Mk3 seats it shall be. Luckily, I quite enjoy scratch building ejector seats, although it might be possible to convert the kit seats. I shall have a look at my Martin Baker reference file. Martian

Wonderful job Kev; even without the seagulls or cricket match! Martian