woody37

I'm still thinking about the exhausts. Whilst the Halifax in Canada has the same or very similar dampers to the Tamiya Beaufighter kit, most Mk.III's have them that look more like the parts that come in the FM kit so I'm thinking of cutting the shroud out of the nacelle to fit the FM exhaust now. These engines are getting rather complicated! Rather than reduce the height of the turret, I'll probably just sit it lower in the fuselage. I've seen some B24's with a Halifax rear turret but never seen a Halifax with a B24 turret TBH. I'll pop over and have a look, this is a great education in to the kit and the aircraft Just come across this great piece of inspiration: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/hyperscale/fonderie-miniatures-halifax-complete-t41388.html

Hi Phil, You are a braver man than I, I'm leaving the nacelles as they are. Why can't you simply turn the APU nacelle round? I know there's a drain or something at the bottom but I was just going to fill that in for that one. I can't see any difference otherwise? I got my first Beaufighter kit today so been having a play around. The nacelle behind the power egg should taper off but it doesn't in the kit so there are some compromises to make as life is far too short. With this in mind, the open flaps look better than the closed ones that come with the Beaufighter engines so I'm going to use the FM flaps with the Beaufighter engines. Firstly, a dry fit of the flaps. not too bad, but some fettling to get a good even fit Plasticard over the front of the nacelles to extend the outers and provide a slight curve once covered in P38 although no where near how they should look Dry fit of a Defiant turret as suggested by @Cees Broere at Telford. The turret fairing needs to be opened out or replaced as it's a tad too small in diameter to allow the turret to slide in Dry fit of a Beaufighter engine with FM cowl flaps Cheers

Some items say due in stock soon, others just 'not in stock'. I'll drop them a mail, thanks Yes, I'd much rather buy from UK if possible, I didn't know they did paypal, it mentions cheque when I checked their site so will have another look if its the only option

Does anyone know where to get their stuff from? Myself and @general melchett was speaking to him at Telford but his website links to 4 UK suppliers, only 1 of which now exists - Relish models, this has the biggest list of things that aren't in stock that I've ever come across! I wouldn't mind getting hold of some of the SBC's in 1/48 & 1/72 but buying from them isn't easy. If I'd of known this at Telford, I would of given him this feedback there. Thanks Neil

Me too. Good to meet you on Saturday Glen

Lovely progress. I had similar issues with my build but I'm sure you'll get them sorted. Lovely paintwork on the seats too

Hi Phil, The bomb racks are largely home made out of plasticard but I used the bomb cradles and perforated surface from the Eduard set. I tried to use the Eduard set as they come but I couldn't get them to fold correctly!

Thanks Colin, The approach on the clear parts is the main area of concern / exploration at the moment, hopefully everything else is more predictable. I've only just noticed these posts on the thread, it does appear that the Mk.III only had two bays. Certainly the restoration in Canada did and PN365 being a late '44 build, I assumed that would too. Big thanks to @Cees Broere for helping me out with a rear gear leg as I've lost mine so that's one less thing to make Having been inspired by Telford yesterday, I got a bit of modelling done this afternoon so nearly finished detailing the wing bomb bays... Also, the aileron trim tab protrudes out slightly from what I've seen so this was dealt with too Next job is preparing the mating surfaces for the engines. The outer engine nacelle appears to not extend forwards enough so I've added a circular piece of 80 thou card. Each engine has also got a slightly smaller diameter piece glued to the front and P38 filler will be used to round the profile off where they taper under the cooling gills. I'll get some photo's in the week to explain what I mean. I've deliberated over the best way forwards on the engines and went for the high cost, low effort route of getting two Tamiya Beaufighters for a reasonable price off Ebay. Once they arrive, I'll do some final fettling to get everything nicely lined up and that's the wings pretty much done except for the rest of the riveting. Cheers

I went with the intention of buying one but chose not too. The nose looked more like a trident, the engines and tail area didn't look right too but I'm not an expert. The resin prototype parts from Alan of Icelandic Fine Art look much better shaped. He is looking to abandon it due to the Mach2 kit release but I believe there's enough room in the market for both if there's enough interest. From what he told us. if he can get 10 buyers, he will probably do it, I'm one of them. The cost was quite reasonable too for such an amount of resin.

Cheers mate, see you ate the weekend Hi Colin, I use Flickr now and for a reasonable cost, it works brilliantly. That said, the price went up quite a bit this year so we'll see if that becomes a trend. Look forwards to seeing some more progress when you're not out on your African travels There's a bit more detail to go in the bomb cells now but one wing is pretty much there. They are very simplistic compared to real ones but they will be underneath and painted black and with a bomb fitted, very little detail will be seen anyway And the riveter @tonyot was asking about... Cheers

yes, it's a tiny spinning wheel, I'll get a pic next time I'm doing some. Lol, I'm taking one for the team, I do hope so!! Cheers I draw the rivet line with a pencil and the edge of a flexible sanding stick then run the riveter over the line freehand. If you look closely, some of my lines aren't completely straight! Look forwards to seeing how you tackle yours...just don't interrupt the big Manchester too much though!! Cheers

I told you to keep quiet about that She’s wearing better than me, must be all this super glue I sniff at the bench I was having a look through your build yesterday Phil but I’m not a member there so never left any comments. I can see one wing is more angled than the other. Can you ‘force’ the wing into a better profile with some internal bracing? I had to do the inner sleeves for the spar differently on each wing due to one wing sitting lower. One has more packing on the top of the wing to push it upwards against the spar. The riveting tool is the SBS one if I remember with a very small wheel. I find the ones with bigger wheels tend to wonder. These were all marked out with a pencil then done freehand over the line. Being a small wheel, it gets right up to corners too. i dont know about the engine angle, I tend to go off ‘it looks right’ on dry fitting and if it doesn’t, play around until it does! cheers neil

I've seen stranger there mate That's the dining room clock mate! Cheers

It's been a busy week preparing...and recovering from the missus 50th birthday party. We went for a 60's theme as she scraped into that decade, me being a toy boy, I've got a couple of years to go yet until it's my celebrations!! Meanwhile, the workbench has been brought back out after a temporary clean up and I carried on working on the wings. I've started to detail the wing bomb cells and rivet the wing surfaces. I'm not going for complete accuracy, just a general layout as I don't want to get lost in stuff that detracts from keeping the build fun. This isn't finished yet, there's more stuff to go in Cheers Neil

You've hidden the battles well, it looks superb, can't wait to see it in person next weekend. All the more fitting that it's a tribute to someone that you knew