elger

Thanks for your comment - I thought I was done, but you made me reconsider and I gave it another filter coat misted on and now it looks more subtle.

I did not see those records before - most fascinating, thank you! "Luevorden" undoubtedly refers to Leeuwarden (which is actually a pretty close approximation of how that's pronounced, phonetically) - which today is about an hour's travel away from where the crash landing occurred.

blue and black filters on, followed by a clear coat:

Legend! Good luck with this build!

Painting has begun! Started with black Mig One Shot Primer, followed by a thin white marble coat. Up next: a dark blue grey filter, and a little bit of black along the panel lines.

thanks all - the more I look at the photos the more I'm convinced too

The following three (yellowish) images are photos of the wreck of Lancaster W4308 UV-C of 460 Squadron (RAAF) lost during the night of 23/24 January 1943: My connection with W4308 is that according to stories that were told, when the wreckage was removed from the field next to my old home village the crash landing was made it was temporarily stored in the parking lot behind the house where I grew up. Now, yesterday I came across some photos in a PDF version of The Defense of the Reich: Hitler's Nightfighter Planes and Pilots by Holger Nauroth and Werner Held (translated from Die deutsche Nagdjagd) from 1982. One close up of the aircraft's bomb markings indicates, according to the caption, that the aircraft in question ("of an Australian squadron") was lost during an operation to Mannheim. W4308 was lost on a mission to Dusseldorf. The other two kangaroos are marked "Stuttgart" and "Turin"; this sequence followed by "Mannheim" follows the first three operations of 460 Squadron performed immediately after converting to Lancasters in November 1942 (http://www.gordonstooke.com/460squadron/operations.htm). But, 460 only lost a Lancaster on the first mission to Stuttgart (none on the operations to Turin or Mannheim immediately after). In fact, according to http://www.adf-serials.com.au/lancaster.htm no RAAF Lancasters were lost on the Mannheim operation. So, I think that the photos in The Defense of the Reich are of W4308. What are your thoughts on this, if you compare the photos below to the yellowish ones above? Then another question: where do these photos in The Defense of the Reich: Hitler's Nightfighter Planes and Pilots by Nauroth and Held come from? Do better versions exist? I would love to see them!

In my opinion the issues surrounding the old Eduard 190As are exaggerated - in my experience they build just fine. The only thing you have to make sure is that the wing spar is installed correctly. Otherwise the kit's complexity is only proportional to the level of detail (open gun bays etc).

Getting ready for paint. I had bought an Eduard mask set before hearing that it's incomplete, but I found that well, technically it's incomplete but only in minor ways. The only things that are missing from the mask set are the round windows (the little round window behind the cockpit, and the two little round windows in the back of the rear turret. All the other windows are covered, but they're not on the instruction sheet. Also the windows on the side of the bombardier's window don't quite fit but that was a really minor issue. Other than that I was pretty pleased with the Eduard masks. In the mean time, I painted the wheels and tires. Went with Mig products and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out: Speaking of Mig Ammo products, my wife and I are having our first baby and given the pregnancy my wife has been a little paranoid about some of the paint smells (even though I have a vent hood that takes care of the fumes and I'm very careful with everything) but I've agreed to phase out MRP and anything with Leveling Thinner for the time being. Seems like a minor sacrifice to make on my part. So I've been trying Mig Ammo paints this week, since they're advertised as non-toxic (and yes I know if you thin them there's still fumes from that). There was quite a learning curve coming back from MRP, but after hours of experimentation I have the feeling I'm beginning to figure it out and making it work. I started by trying to spray the paint straight from the bottle which it's supposed to be able to do but I found I couldn't do any fine work that way. I quickly found that Mig's own thinner doesn't really work for me: I got a lot of dry tip and it was difficult to get a fine spray with that either. Kind of a breakthrough for me came today when I discovered that Mr Hobby Aqueous Hobby Color Thinner 110 works really really well with Mig Ammo paints for me. Tamiya X20a works fine too (unlike what you read in places on the internet) but the Aqueous thinner gives me the most control. Haven't quite been able to do a proper "marble" finish yet but mottling I've got down I think. Here's a 1/32 Mosquito nacelle painted with a Luftwaffe inspired mottle; Mig's RLM 76 thinned with Mr Hobby Aqueous Hobby Color Thinner 110 base coat sprayed at about 18 PSI and then mottled with Mig's RLM 75 thinned with Mr Hobby Aqueous Hobby Color Thinner 110 sprayed at 22-24 PSI, followed by a filter of Mig's RLM 76 thinned with alcohol: Rather a learning curve with these acrylics but I think I'm beginning to make it work. I will really miss the ease and perfect look MRP - but I have to say, the lack of smell and the ease which which it cleans up is a bigger advantage than I expected - it actually makes painting a much more fun experience. I had been planning to paint the Whitley with black Mr Surfacer (thinned with Level Thinner) and Gunze and Tamiya acrylics, but based on my experience with the Mig stuff I'm going to use those paints on the Whitley too, starting with black One Shot Primer which I have also successfully experimented with. More to come in the next few weeks!

I feel exactly the same - the main reason I haven't built it is that those panel lines are very off-putting. Even though I know objectively that Revell's surface detail is inaccurate, it just looks so much better. But that kit has a lot of other inaccuracies which are found in the wings / engine nacelles, but this has made me consider buying a Revell lancaster and just using the fuselage parts mating it with the Airfix wings (and reducing the panel lines on the Airfix wings somehow).

oh I like that!

I finished the interior and it looks like I can start assembling the main parts now. Airfix' detail is lovely but I added some aftermarket. Some Eduard PE and the Vickers machine gun is from Miniworld. I ended up removing the gun sight before I painted and installed it into the front turret. There was only one really big problem with the Eduard set and that is that the interior green of the pre-painted parts is very blue (almost the colour of Soviet jets). I repainted these components as well as I could with Tamiya XF71. I painted the interior back of the cockpit aluminium, like Stirlings and other early British heavy bombers. The navigator's table is folded against the side wall, revealing the two parachutes stored underneath. The way Airfix designed the kit is unusual but very satisfying. I've attempted adding rivets to the model. Wings are okay but they're not exactly straight on the fuselage. The wheel bays I painted black (dark grey with highlights and shadows). Thanks for looking!

Matchbox may not have been 100% accurate, but a hell of a lot closer than what Revell managed some 30 years later!

It is astonishing how wrong those blades are. At least they got the pitch right... You could try to sculpt a more accurate shape out of the existing blades. It looks like that at least there's too much blade - it would be possible to carve or sand away material and end up with something resembling what it's supposed to be. I know this has been discussed before, but that type of Halifax propeller should look a lot like the blades found on late mark Hurricanes - are they the same? You could mistake Revell's representation for a P-51 propeller.

It does look like you've had a particularly bad set. I've had good and bad experiences with Aires - but nothing as bad as this.