tomprobert

Afternoon all, A bit more progress to report... the vortex generators have now been added to the upper wing surfaces. I added some Tamiya tape to use as a guide and marked this with the position for each individual piece of photoetch and slowly worked my way along each wing: Pretty tedious stuff and took a couple of evenings, but once the tape was removed it was well worth the effort: Now to do the same for the stabilisers... both upper and lower surfaces. I might be a while! Until next time, Tom

I don't think my dad had any issues with the majority of the kit, but his fuselage was seriously warped and just couldn't be sorted enough to get it together - hence he used the Airfix fuselage. However, I am not complaining as it means the unused parts got passed on to me! We can keep our fingers crossed... I got the lower wings attached last night and some filler applied to blend them in - I'll give them a good sand and polish and take some piccies when done. Tom

Good question! I suppose the main parts of the fuselage and its interior would transfer across OK, and the longer span tails of course. However, the wing, engines and bomb doors would need new parts, as well as the shorter span tails should they wish to, so quite a bit of new plastic.

Muy Bien! A lovely job all round, Kev - quite the eye catching model and detailed and finished to a very high standard. Gorgeous!

Welcome along, Pat! I’ve added some black to the u/c bays tonight and whilst that’s drying I’ve made a start on the Vultures. These are the Paragon parts and… wow. Beautifully molded and once I’d removed the casting blocks (I think I’ve discovered the most tedious job in scale modelling - ever) with a fine-toothed saw the front and rear parts were secured with CA glue and will now be allowed to set for 24hrs. The fit is exquisite - Neil of Paragon was certainly a man at the top of his game!

Cheers, James! I rarely work with resin so this is a bit of a learning curve for me - so far so good but it’s early days and there’s plenty of time for things to go off the rails! Thanks, Cliff… hopefully it’ll make it to the finish line. Hi Pete. The Planet parts I am going to use are the shorter span tail and central fin, the smaller wheels and Manchester bomb doors which weren’t as bulged as the Lancaster’s. The parts were given to me by my dad who bought the Planet kit but the fuselage was so badly warped he eventually used an old Airfix fuselage and longer span tail set up on the MkIA so he gave me the left-overs. I can’t for the life of me remember where I got the Paragon bits from, but it too was incomplete so from the two, I can hopefully make a complete Manchester. There aren’t many around indeed - it’s a shame a mainstream manufacturer doesn’t give us a modern tooling of this important aircraft - c’mon Airfix! As I said above I rarely build resin kits so am learning as I go.

For this kit, yes.

Greetings all, I've been looking for an excuse to have a go at this conversion, and here it is! I was given a mixed conversion set for the Manchester which contains parts from both Paragon and the Planet sets/kits and whilst I am going to have to cobble together some decals and a few of the detail parts I think I am going to have enough to make a go of this: I am going to use the Paragon outer wings and engines which, although designed for the older version of the Airfix 1:72nd Lancaster, I think I can make fit the more recent issue: So it was out with the razor saw and the outer Lancaster wing sections were removed and sized up against the Paragon parts: This looks like it might work! I have since added the upper wing sections to the Airfix parts using a strip of plastic to reinforce the join and help set the dihedral correctly, and have added the Airfix wheel bays to their position on the upper inner wing surfaces. These will now need a quick squirt of black when the weather plays ball: Two things of note: 1) the Paragon wings are approx. 2mm narrower in chord at the join to the inner wings which will need addressing and 2) I have removed to the wheel bay sections from the spars to ease construction. The wings can now remain separate whilst I paint everything which will ease the process and hopefully be slid on at the end! More when there's more... Tom

Ha - if only I could stay at home on a 'Baker Day' and do some modelling. Sadly, I'm in school!!!! Fear not, Jason - a steady hand will be needed and thus too much of the good stuff may lead to things going awry. I spent last night measuring out and marking the position of each vortex generator, and that was tedious in itself. Actually adding them will be worse still, so add some alcohol into the mix and I'd probably doze off...

Count me in.

It’s hard to find a definitive colour but as @Chuck1945 suggests, they do appear a light grey.

I have 6 tins of Xtracolor paint ready, and I'm preparing myself for multiple sessions with the airbrush... I'll have to do them in short bursts, I think, otherwise I'll lose the will to live. There's 35 on the upper and lower surfaces of each stabiliser, and another 50 on the top of each wing... whether I have the patience to fit all of them to exactly the required number remains to be seen!

It doesn’t have any colour, so to speak. It was an optically flat panel for which the bombsight was aimed through. The plexiglass nose blister had an appropriately shaped cut out, with the separate clear panel attached to it with a series of bolts, with no actual framing. There was a darker rubber gasket to seal the separate pieces, and this looks like a frame so it’s easy to make such an error. I hope this useful! Tom

Love that! The reason being is the B-52 likes to show off by taking off nose down!! Steady would be one way of describing this build! I started it back in 2018! Put it this way Simon… it takes a lot of giggery-pokery to get it in and out of the loft…

The wing walk way markings on my kit were supplied but they didn’t have any white beneath and thus completely disappeared when I applied them! My experience of the Sanger decals was not the most positive on this kit. I ended up buying some yellow stripes from Hannants which did the trick nicely. https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/XPS5?result-token=fbL15

Lovely… just lovely.

This is looking fantastic! My advice would be to attach the wings before paint - I know from experience you’ll have a far from perfect join and lots of remedial work will be needed after paint. And good luck with those yellow wing walks… Tom

Evening all, I thought I’d dig this beast out of long term storage and do a bit to it… it’s been lingering in the loft for too long so felt it deserved some attention after what’s been getting on for… three years! I’ve had some custom made photo-etch vortex generators made and these will save a ton of work - I was going to have the make the 120+ pieces from Evergreen… I’ve also detailed the gear door interiors: And made the tail warning radars by sacrificing the noses of some bombs from the spares stash: There’s not actually that much left to do before I can begin splashing some paint… I need to get my a**e in gear and get this finished! More when there’s more! Tom

Another absolute stunner emerging from the Woody production line!

Looks good at first glance - a lot more rivet detail than the 1/32 kit which is welcome. Engines look a bit basic but certainly not a deal breaker for me - not a lot is seen inside the cowls anyway and no doubt after-market engines will soon be available should one be so inclined. Shame about the turret seams, but hey ho. At least the top turret is without the framing seen on the 1/32 kit. Ths has definitely confirmed one of these will be heading my way!

Cheers, Peter - the wings folded option is well worth considering for the space-constrained and it'll take up a lot less room that way! Ha - yes indeed. I had a few days with the kids at school and the wife at work so got busy with this. And yes, I did have dinner ready each evening to ensure I remained in the good books! Thanks, Neil - I thought this scheme a bit different from the rest. Whilst the kit supplied options are good (I was very tempted with the French version) I felt this would certainly be something unusual, especially with the night fighter fit. Tom

This is excellent news! Can’t wait to get my hands on this - well done, Airfix!

Thanks, Alan - as I said when you were building yours, your build was my inspiration behind getting the conversion as it is certainly eye-catching. I couldn't determine whether this particular airframe had the 20mm cannons fitted - some did and others not. Later on, I read that many of the cannons were removed and the .50s reinstalled as they were prone to jams. As you say, the detail in the bays is no nice it would have been a shame to close them up so I didn't use the barrels in the Aerocraft set in the end . And in regard to the finish, they were indeed a very high gloss but I felt a satin sheen gave the best in-scale result. It is actually more glossy than the photos suggest in real life - you get some lovely reflections from the stressed skin when the light catches it right.

Greetings all - and all the best for coming year. Airfix 1/24th Hellcat II NF (F6F-5N), KD127, 892 NAS, Drem, Scotland, mid-1945. Here's my first completion of 2024 which nearly made 2023 but the cold, wet weather was against me for the final varnish coat! The Airfix 1/24th Hellcat is well known and documented so I'll save the background information but suffice to say it's one of the most enjoyable builds I've ever done - it's an absolute beauty of a kit and I loved building it. Whist there are some nice marking options in the box, I decided to go off-piste a little and do something different, hence buying the excellent Aerocraft set to make this into a Royal Navy night-fighter variant: The level of detail is sublime out of the box, and it went together beautifully with virtually no fit issues whatsoever. What I will say though, is tolerances are very tight indeed and the parts benefit from having their mating surfaces sanded slightly to cater for the thickness of the paint. The gun bays, for example, have a lot of the wing structure to add and thus very careful test-fitting was required to get that satisfying 'click' as it all goes together. The engine is a small model in itself - it took a total of three weeks to get it together and painted. Airfix give you a very detailed construction guide and this enables the builder to add the mass of wiring associated with the ignition harness - I used some aftermarket braided wiring and the effort was well worth it. The surface detailing is some of the best I've ever seen and gives a wonderful 3D effect - when you catch the right light it looks so realistic: Considering this was built OOB with the only additions being the seatbelts (I felt the kit examples were a little over-scaled), the ignition wiring and conversion set, it's exceptional value and quite a presence on the modelling desk. Paints were all Xtracolor enamels and I kept weathering effects to virtually none - these were, in reality, high gloss Dark Sea Blue and pretty clean. The stressed skin effect does most of the work for you to be fair, and other than some light exhaust staining I kept this in line with period photos of late-war Royal Navy Hellcats. To anyone considering building this, a few observations of the build process which may come in useful: As mentioned above, tolerances are very tight - gentle sanding of gluing surfaces and test-fits are a must and it will be very easy for things to become misaligned, especially in the gun bays; If you can, build the engine and main airframe as separate parts and bring them together after painting. I installed the engine as a completed unit prior to the main airframe being painted and this resulted in some very complex masking around the exhausts! The main canopy was quite a bit wider/flared at the base than the runners it is supposed to sit on. I had to coat the inside of the canopy with some Future (to avoid 'fogging') and then attach it with CA glue; The wing tip light lenses are slightly too large for the apertures they sit in - in hindsight I should have test-fitted these earlier in the build and not after painting! Be really careful when following the instructions as to whether you are doing wings folded or extended - the build sequence is very different between the two! Anyway, that's enough waffle from me! All the best, Tom

Wow you do not hang about! Exemplary work thus far. Tom