Mr T
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Posts posted by Mr T
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Finished now and in the gallery. The overall finish is less shiny than I would have liked, particularly in poorer light, but gloss in 1/72nd never quite looks right to me, even for high gloss i go for a satin look ( That's my excuse and I am sticking to it).
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A bit more progress, the new tailcone and the blanking plate for the undercarriage well have ben added. The blanking plate is meant to be added before the fuselage halves are put together. guess who had to fiddle around after the fuselage halves were cemented together. Speaking of which, I ended up using more filler on the fuselage join lines than i expected, especially compared to the wings and tail that have not required any. i will put photos up when I have finished smoothing them in and when the nose goes on.
The nose looks as if it is going to be fun.the nose is cast in clear resin in one piece with some a floor, what can only de described as a sofa (but is accurate for the real thing) and a couple of other bits in grey resin. This fits in the nose OK, but the nose is a poor fit to the fuselage, being too deep top to bottom and too narrow side to side. I reckon there has been some distortion when it was cast and others might not have this issue. It is sortable and I have made a saw cut to reduce the depth and will get it on the fuselage to fair the rest in. this should be in the next update. Just to show I have documented what i am doing, here is a photo of the bits that go in the nose.
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I have set of the engines, I got from John years ago, but they are hard to find. They are earmarked for a Valom Albemarle, whose cowlings are not so good. I think Falcon also have Stirling transparencies in one of their sets. You are right about the need to add detail in the cockpit as it is quite bare. The exhausts are also bit spindly, that seems to a common fault on kits of the era.
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The engines and transparencies on the Airfix kit are not stunning and the riveter had a field day as well. It was a pretty impressive kit on release in 1967, but not so good now as later mouldings show signs of mould wear. It is a lot cheaper though.
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Not a problem, I am doing other bits to the Shackleton, eg engines, wings etc. My only issues so far have been the fit of the fuselage floor in one place near the aft end of the weapons bay, sorted with a bit of trimming and sorting out undercarriage bays where more care is needed than I took to ensure the front cross pieces are vertical and fit into the holes in the engine nacelle walls as well as the roof of the bay. With a lot of the parts there is zero tolerance on the fit and all paint and mould lines have to be cleaned up.
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Very nice. Lovely finish, and a good model of an unusual subject
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Very nice, I have the M1c version, very impressive.
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After the Group builds have been finished i though I would do a relaxing build, but no instead I have started work on a Shackleton MR1 using the Airfix kit and the Alley Cat conversion set in resin. I will concentrate on the conversion and only discuss the base kit when there are issues that I feel are worthwhile highlighting and that effect the build of the kit.
Although I suspect most members who will look at this section will be aware of the Shackleton, there might be some unfortunates who have never come across what was the last iteration of the line that started with the Avro Manchester just before WWII.
At the end of the war, it seemed clear that long range land based aircraft were a vital means of combating any hostile naval forces, especially submarines. The problem for coastal Command was that its long range aircraft were neither designed for the task (although still quite successful) and were American and provided under Lease-Lend. A new aircraft was needed and in the interim a number of Lancasters were converted as stop-gap MR aircraft. An obvious starting point was the Lincoln, which had been designed as a long range bomber for use in the Pacific. At first it was thought a minimum change Lincoln airframe could be used, but it was then realised that to produce an effective long range maritime patrol aircraft more power and space was needed. Thus although the Shackleton used a suitably strengthened Lincoln wing and undercarriage, the fuselage was widened and made deeper, larger fins and rudders were needed and the Merlins were replaced with new low altitude rated Griffon engines that had contra props to absorb the extra power and keep the engine spacing on the wing.
Originally the Shackleton was to have a rear turret with two 0.5 inch machine guns and two 20mm cannon in the nose , but these were not fitted to production aircraft. The MR1 also had a blunt nose with an undernose radar scanner. The MR1 entered service in 1951, and was used until the late 1950's. Some were converted to a trainer as the T.4 and these remained in service until 1968 (one makes a fleeting appearance in the Beatles ' Magical Mystery Tour' TV film shown in December 1967 and available on YouTube )
The contents of the conversion kit are shown below. note that the tailwheel and leg are ordinary resin and I have drilled the part out and added a brass rod as I not trust the resin not to buckle. The nose and radome are in clear resin, which cannot be easy to cast cleanly. Decals are provided for white and Medium Sea Grey airframes. The kit is also available with decals for aircraft in overall Dark Sea Grey
Most of the changes in the conversion are confined to the fuselage at the nose and tail end and the fuselage is shown ready to take the new nose and tail. Some of the windows will need to be blanked off. This varied from airframe to airframe over time.
This will be a longer project for me and I will add as and when, so it might not be terribly regular.
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It seems that by and large British military aircraft at that time usually had some form of surface coating to protect from corrosion etc and so the 'silver' undersides or overall finish on aircraft both pre and postwar was painted or sprayed with some notable exceptions like the Lightning.
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Some real blasts from the past there and remember building some in my 'golden age of modelling' in the eighties (no kids, no taking work home and some spare cash) for Branch displays etc. Washes etc are still something I cannot get excited about. It takes me enough time to finish models.
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Just checked my copy of 'Bombing Colours 1937-1973' by Michael J F Bowyer. It has the camouflage pattern with a roundel on the port wing only and apparently is based on the manufacturers drawings. When I was doing my 'A' levels, the Vulcan B.2 was still in full squadron service and a relatively common sight for me as my Grandparents lived in Lincolnshire near Heckington and they used to around Nottingham where I lived.
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All the photos I have seen of camouflaged Vulcans and Victors show one roundel only until the low viz roundels came along when both wings had roundels. Of course by then the B.1 was long gone.
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This will be the last entry before the Swift goes into the Gallery, a couple of photos taken before the top coat of varnish was sprayed on. The varnish went on today as good natural light which i find always better for spraying clear. Will leave it to harden and take masking of canopy etc tomorrow all being well.
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Was just going to look for my Magna one in the stash. The canopy had yellowed which put me off a bit (but I had moulded a new one for the Marathon, so know I can do it). Might not bother now as the Valom kit might be better, that was certainly the case with the Buckmaster.
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There are quite a few rolling stock kits around. Peco now own the Parkside range and Cambrian do some interesting kits. Dapol do some LMS coaches as CKD. Ratio also some rolling stock kits.
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I think the Sea Hawk was from 1959 rather than 1969. Not a real clue as to what Airfix might be doing, but would put money on an RAF Buccaneer and possibly a Wellington II, although considering how late in the year the VIII is coming out, it might be 2021. I still think a 1/72nd Venom would be nice.
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Not posted or put pics up for a few days, but progress has been made, but I have forgotten to photograph it! Decals went on OK, a mixture of Airfix, Freightdog and Xtrakit roundels. Undercarriage attached, the inner doors were tricky as tolerances in the kit are nil. The kit pitot was discarded in favour of one made up from Albion Alloy tubing. Now it is up on its own legs, I have to say the conversion looks pretty good.
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On 9/24/2019 at 7:11 PM, CliffB said:
It looks fabuolous in the Gallery MrT. Congratulations!
I have to ask, did you buy it Woolies? It's where I used to buy all my Novo kits, back in the day
Cliff
Redgates in Sheffield, used to sell a lot of Novo stuff, half price in the end, I think that cost me about 20p at the time, which even then was cheap (cue 'Four Yorkshireman' sketch).
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Now that we are are in the final hours I would like to thank Jockney and Rabbit Leader for their work in leading this Group Build. Although I only did two models (as I have not that many Frog kits left, most have been replaced by newer models), it has been good fun updating kits that came out about the same time Mrs T was born. Some great models, showing that Frog had some imagination in choosing subjects.
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Looks very promising and I hope it will be at Telford. The prop issue I suspect is not uncommon due to the tight tolerances with CAD/CAM these days
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I am sufficiently interested in model railways to do bits of collecting/modelling and I think that a lot of railway modellers look at their hobby with different eyes and a loco that actually does something seems to be the thing, even with lights and sound, which is much easier with a small scale loco than a plane. My guess would be that if you a building a well detailed model of a loco with valve gear etc, you might as well have it running. One of the reasons that railway modellers built kits as that the standard Hornby efforts were pretty dreadful and in the UK it was the coming of Airfix and Mainline that upped the standard of RTR.
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Having built the kit (which was produced by MPM for Hannants and then they used the moulds as a basis for all their single seat versions), there was no etch in the original. The undercarriage was fiddly and the wings needed work as the trailing edges are quite thick and the leading edge is blunt. Butt joint city and at least looks like the F.8 when finished. Some versions have the outer wing panels as separate parts just to add to the model building experience.
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Really impressive work on a kit that appeared not long after the real thing (who would have thought that the moulds would be in use 55 years on) and reflects what you have got in the plastic bag with paper header.
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Many years ago when the Sheffield branch did a Korean War theme for the UK IPMS Nationals, I built a couple and remember them being very nice kits. The surface detail was good for the period and the kit went together well.
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In The Year I Was Born Gallery
in In The Year I Was Born GB
Posted
Swift F.2 from the Airfix FR5 kit and the Freightdog conversion. The Swift fighter entered service with 56 Sqn nine days after I was born on 20th February 1954, the F.2 as depicted here followed in August 1954. All the fighters were withdrawn in March 1955, when it became clear that the Swift was incapable of performing its role as a interceptor fighter due to lack of altitude performance and some questionable handling qualities. However, the Swift was robust and with some changes was an effective low altitude performer and had a reasonably successful, if fairly brief career with two fighter reconnaissance squadrons with RAF Germany.
The conversion kit was reasonably straightforward, but requires careful cutting and it surprising how much plastic is replaced by new resin. i enjoyed this group build having the F.2 the hard way from a Pegasus kit in the late 1980's (a big advantage of that kit was the thickness of the plastic)
Build thread is here