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elger

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  1. Before going back to business first I'm happy to report that play I mentioned turned out a big success; four sold-out shows at the theatre at our campus. Each night almost 100 students (most aged around 20) not looking at their phones, but breathlessly at their peers putting on a very challenging English language production. When I was a student myself around 20 years ago being part of a theatre group was very valuable to me, and a year and a half ago I started a theatre group at the university where I've been working for over a decade now - and it has exceeded all my expectations. So the play was good: the audience was pleased and for the actors and crew it was a great experience - and then also something very strange happened on the final night. I had heard that a career actor who is known for many television and film productions has been living in the town where I work, and a former colleague brought us in touch, and I invited him to the play. He has been in very big things (movies and TV involving Michael Bay among others), but I've known him since the mid 1980s from a show in which he played a character - and this was my favourite television show when I was 8 or 9. And then two weeks ago this guy came to see my play - it was quite surreal. Not because I was star struck, but because a guy who literally played a childhood hero of mine attended a play I directed by a theatre group I had formed - which, to boot, I coincidentally named after a song on the sound track of that same 80s TV show that he was in. (Not mentioning who it is because he values his privacy). Chatted with him for a bit, before and after the show, and during the intermission, and he seemed to genuinely like the play (even though it was technically an amateur performance). The next day I received a friend request from him on Facebook - he posted about the play, again praising it, but what I wanted to share here was that he also liked photos of the Lancaster build I had posted there as well. If someone had told me at 8 years old that this would happen a bit over three decades later I would not have believed them Anyway, back to business: The interior is ready for paint. The HK kit is really nicely detailed, but I wanted to spice things up a bit. There is some Eduard PE and scratchbuilt items, but the jewel in the crown is the 3d printed seat from Resin2Detail. It looks beautiful and it's very easy to fit. The only real challenge with these 3d printed parts is figuring out what is part of the set and what isn't. Once things have been painted I'm going to be adding 3d decals from Quinta Studios - their website states that they're from Kazakhstan but if you order from them you will get mail from Russia. I did not plan for that to happen. I followed @CraigH's brilliant build of his Dambuster Lancaster, seen here: In his build on LSP he points out that prior to H2S being fitted the Gee instruments were fitted on the right hand side of the navigator's table, and that the boxes underneath the table had a slightly different configuration. Based on that, I modified things slightly in the 1/48 cockpit as well. And theoretically, it should be visible from the window. Theoretically. Anyway, thanks for looking!
  2. @Ozzy Mine are spaced a little differently. I remember I messed up the first version of the bomb bay and I bought another Eduard set, and with that I had enough bulkheads because they are spaced irregularly. But in any case, I ended up with 6 stations in each of the cells. I think you can tell in this photo:
  3. can't speak for others, but I love seeing this process. all too recognizable
  4. I'm away from all my stuff for a few days but I'll see if I can find the answer for you near the weekend
  5. famous last words but seriously, it's looking great and I love the progress that you're making here
  6. N1 is the ETC rack - for mounting bombs externally. IIRC, there was some order that all night fighters should also be able to carry out bombing missions, which is why there are photos of 110G night fighters fitted with them. I think these were detachable, and when flying night interception missions I would think that crews would prefer to not have these things fitted. It does look like they mixed up the numbers for the camouflage. It's the propellers of the aircraft that are RLM 70.
  7. With a few days off work this week I worked on painting the bomb load. In addition to various other references I found this photo on Twitter of 101 Squadron ground staff posing with the various bomb types loaded on their aircraft. What's noticeable is that there seems to be a plausible correlation between the small type SBCs being a lighter colour and the larger types being darker. These 3d printed items from Barracuda are absolutely wonderful - the only problem is that they're only the small type SBC whereas DV267 almost certainly had the larger types. If I had the technical means and/or desire for total accuracy, I could have bought two sets and very carefully split up two containers and glue them together to make one taller type, but I've gone for a more basic option: I've made (rather crude) attachment points with styrene on each, and the one container that's the small type is a little less tall, so hopefully that will create the optical illusion that it's a smaller one. Following the instructions in the Airfix RAF bomber support kit, I painted this one small type in Medium Sea Grey. Most of the other SBCs I painted a bronze green, and three I painted in Dark Green for some tonal variation. The photos also show that these containers were quite scuffed, so I added chips as well. The SBCs' exterior was finished with a wash of Nuln oil to bring out the shadows. The 4lb bombs were metallic rods with a red tip, making them appear like small matches (ironically?). The 30lb bombs were a dark red, described as the same shade as RAF fuselage code letters. I went with Dirty Red from AK. I'm sure I'm on some sort of watch list because of the amount of googling for 'bombs' I've done recently. The 'cookie' is from the kit, with Eduard PE fuse timers. Markings according to the Airfix 1/72 bomber supply set, and weathered with water colour pencils and enamel. While I was at it, I finished the wheels. These are the Eduard Brassin resin ones. The kit ones are really nice - but these have the threads and the manufacturer's name. As a complete aside, apart from model making my other particular and in most circumstances rather pointless skill is that I can make non-theatre students create almost professional theatre productions. Last year I started a theatre group for students at our Bachelor degree programme, which is called Creative Business. I was involved with student theatre myself in my early and mid-20s, but I was studying English surrounded by English language nerds - the type who can quote Blackadder and Monty Python at you ad nauseam. Now these are business students, most of them end up working in the creative/media industry, and our program attracts a lot of students from Baltic and Balkan countries (and German and Polish) and to be honest I was amazed at the talent and drive of these kids (most of them are around 20). The acting is as good as my old theatre group (be it with more Baltic and Balkan accents) but what sets them apart is that even as students they're pretty good at planning and organizing and two weeks before the premiere we have sold out all four shows we have scheduled and the production (set, costumes) is also done. They can take care of business So, the four shows of the are coming up next week and the week after - and as the director I couldn't be more excited and proud. This will be our second production. Last year we performed two short plays by the Polish absurdist writer Slawomir Mrozek, that was our first production, and this year we're doing How To Hold Your Breath by the Scottish playwright Zinnie Harris, really pushing these students to their limits. Can't wait for the rest of the students and my colleagues to see the play.
  8. Hi all - my question is essentially in the title of the post. Is there any information about which exact date in the spring of 1943 the infamous checkers were introduced on the cowls of JG 1 FW-190s? My understanding is that JG 1 went from having no particular markings in early 1943 to a solid (Staffel) colour on the cowl for a short period in the spring, and then the black checkers were applied at some point - probably around June 1943 but I'm not sure. Any specific information about this? I would like to avoid the discussion of whether red/yellow checkers were ever a thing, just the date of the changes.
  9. great question! I only used a different upper half of the nose, because the G-4 I built probably had machine guns fitted, rather than the cannons. I don't remember it exactly, but I think I recall running into the exact same problem as @Jabba - where to place the antennas is not indicated clearly anywhere at all. I think in the end I made the best possible estimation where the antennas should be fitted based on drawings, profiles, or photos and drilled small holes from the outside.
  10. This week I managed to do quite a bit of work on the business end of the Lancaster, the bomb bay. I got the Eduard set for it, but it's one of those Eduard sets that they kind of half-assed. It provides some nice parts that add surface detail, but it could have had a lot more details for cables and pipes - there's lots of those in a Lancaster's bomb bay. Their set for the 1/72 Airfix kit is much more comprehensive. I started by adding control cables that run across the ceiling of the bomb bay. This is a prominent detail. I used rigging wire from Uschi van der Rosten and cable connectors from Anyz in place for the cog wheels. The Eduard photoetch was next, and I added some cables only where they would be visible with the bomb load in place: Rear end: Thanks for looking!
  11. somehow I can hear and smell the real aircraft by looking at these photos
  12. I've started tinkering with the bomb bay. I realized I tend to get confused and a little bogged down in my builds if there's a section that's two-dimensional and/or both the interior and exterior of something. The bomb bay of the Lancaster is a good example -it's the floor of the interior but the roof of a prominent exterior feature (if you build the aircraft with the bomb bay doors open. As I may have mentioned, I downloaded the squadron's ORB and found out the aircraft's bomb load the night it was lost: It's a fairly unusual load compared to standard Lancaster ops, probably due to 101's Lancasters being restricted in the total load they could carry because of all the extra radio equipment they were equipped with. Most likely, the above load was distributed into 1x 4000lbs 7x 150x 4 lbs (large type SBC) 1x 90x 4 lbs (small type SBC) 5x 12x 30 lbs in SBC This would lead to a somewhat asymmetical but plausible way to load the aicraft like this: I bought some of the beautiful new 3d printed SBC sets from Barracuda. They only have the standard SBCs, not the larger ones, but they'll do: Not much of the top of the SBCs can be seen, so instead of bothering with adding bomb clips I'm just going to glue a piece of styrene to all the SBCs to attach them to the roof of the bomb bay when I fit them. First I'm going to be adding some details to the bomb bay roof, but since most of it will be obscured by the bomb load I won't worry about replicating every detail. Anyway, as always, thanks for looking and comments are always welcome.
  13. Murphy's law is at work with this one alright
  14. The wings and nacelles are pretty much done. I used my Silhouette cutter to cut out over a hundred teardrop shaped cowl fasteners that I applied along the panel lines. I hope the vinyl's adhesive is strong enough to withstand a bit of masking later. I could do some more work that's wing related, like the propellers, but I'm keen to start working on the fuselage so maybe I'll start on that next.
  15. Making the resin engines a tad wider you mean? I guess that might have worked, although I was trying to avoid sanding the resin rather than the plastic. And you're right - the exhaust shrouds aren't great, so I'll use the ones from the kit - all of them are much longer than the Belcher Bits parts so I'll figure out what the appropriate length should be. And I'm also using the little air scoops on top of the engine covers from the HK kit since they're hollow.
  16. I'll post some pictures later this week. There's a difference between the inner and outer nacelles. The basic problem with the HK kit having different size radiator intakes is that the inner nacelles are wider, probably to accomodate the landing gear. The resin parts for the inner nacelles fit almost perfectly in height, but the nacelles need a lot of sanding on the sides because the resin parts are narrower, to the point where the plastic is almost translucent in places. Although I'm not unhappy with how it looks, there is a bit of a visible step if you look at the nacelles straight from below as they widen a bit towards where the wheel bays are. The outer nacelles fit the resin parts almost perfectly in width, but I had to sand down the height of the nacelles at the bottom - also to the point where the plastic was almost translucent.
  17. I had the flu last week - a nasty one that lingers. Still some progress: I've attached the Belcher Bits engines to the HK nacelles and this morning I sanded the joints. I should scribe the panel lines next: Thanks for looking!
  18. I think this might be it. Still a while until I have to decide to do something about it or not
  19. I managed to paint the undercarriage this week: The red things on the left are bits of styrene sheet cut to size and painted red to function as the fuel tanks. For painting I used AK Third Gen acrylics - except the red for the oil tanks and fuel tanks which was Blood Red from Ammo, and the base colour of the metal components was Vallejo Dark Aluminium. I gave the landing gear legs a wash of Games Workshop Seraphim Sepia, and I added shades in the black areas with Ammo's Night Black. After coating everyhing with a clear flat I brushed on some Molotov liquid chrome in certain areas. Thanks for looking!
  20. if Border's 1/35 190 kit is a scaled down version of these 1/32 ones, I'm interested. (Not unthinkable because Border's upcoming 1/35 Spitfire is a version of the Trumpeter 1/24 and/or Hobbyboss 1/32 Spitfires).
  21. Okay let's have a look at the undercarriage. Essentially HK scaled down their 1/32 Lancaster to 1/48 but left out a few details from the undercarriage bays. These are the instructions in 1/32. Parts K29 and K30 are not there in 1/48 - although the equivalent of part K9 does provide space for them (and Tamiya does provide these): Parts E26 and E27 making up the oil tank aren't there in 1/48, let alone R13: Parts K20 (which I've called 'the plank') are not there in 1/48: Now in the real thing whatever K20 in 1/32 represents features a lot of details. Also HK provide a set of crossbars there, part R18 in 1/32, but in the photos I've seen of preserved Lancasters depending on the side of the aircraft there's only one of these bars - so I removed one of each of these in the 1/48 part. In the 1/32 as well as the 1/48 scale kit HK adds an additional support bar that shouldn't be there - so at the risk of reducing structural strength I removed it. Apart from representing the parts K29 and K30, there is one thing that the old Tamiya kit does slightly better than HK, which is reproducing a detail on the retraction mechanism of the landing gear: Long story short - some of these issues are addressed by the Eduard PE exterior set, but even then a lot of details are still not there so I scratchbuilt those: I scratchbuilt the oil tank: I added the eduard photoetch to the kit parts and added a lot of wiring, approximating what I could see in the photos of the preserved examples. I added the detail of the retraction mechanism by first removing most of the molded detail and then adding bits of stretched sprue. Including the rear wall: One final detail I added/changed was to drill out and flip the 'tow ring' horizontally at the bottom of the legs (these are molded vertically by HK). Christmas break is over now - but hopefully I will be able to get some paint on these parts soon. I've always painted the landing gear wells of Lancasters entirely black, but based on the photos of these preserved examples, it seems like the front section is actually interior green. Thoughts?
  22. The Belcher Bits engines fix three issues with the Tamiya engines: 1) the parts from the original box fit notoriously poorly. This was addressed in more recent boxings (2009) by Tamiya - they have new parts for the sides which should fit a bit better. This box also gives you options for needle blade propellers. See here: https://www.hyperscale.com/2012/reviews/kits/tamiya61111reviewbg_1.htm 2) the radiator front of the Belcher Bits is a little deeper, and 3) most importantly, the Tamiya parts are missing the rear opening of the radiator entirely. Here's an image posted by another modeler who addressed this problem by scratch building this over on Aeroscale a long time ago; they've indicated it with pencil: About the HK kit - the radiator fronts, the inner and outer radiator intakes should be the same, but the parts for the outer ones (50 and 53) are smaller than the inner ones (51 and 52): But honestly, this difference in width is very difficult to see on completed kits and as I said from certain angles I think the HK radiator intakes look better than the Belcher bits ones. A similar thing happens with the exhaust covers - the ones on the outer nacelles are every so slightly shorter than the ones on the inner nacelles while they should be the same. Still, while it still baffles me why the HK canopy looks so odd when it's not too low overall (and the Tamiya one is too high) - when it comes to the question which is the better kit - the HK kit wins easily, and they sell for about the same price. Oh there is one detail of the landing gear Tamiya got a little bit better than HK but I'll try to show that later today.
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