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I have finished my group builds in the P-38 and Sci-Fi, albeit about a week after each was due. (Planning and execution is everything!) I have decided to do something different. I have seen many fine people with far better building skills than I tackle modifications of kits and turn out breath taking models. I am still trying to just become adequate at making a kit look like a decent model out of the box. But, I figure if I ever want to expand my horizons, I need to get outside of my comfort zone and do something different. So, here is my hair-brained scheme. I have the 1/48 Hawk Lysander kit that was initially released in 1968. And from one of my strange aircraft reference books I have this wonderfully odd picture. That there is a Westland P.12. It is a modified Lysander that was to be used to strafe beaches and landing craft should the Nazi invasion occur. Now, for some reason, I think I can convert this Hawk kit to a P-12 and scratch all the conversion parts. Pretty optimistic huh? All it is going to take is a new rear fuselage, two baby wings at the rear, 2 rudders and a gun turret. How hard can that be? I guess I will find out. The kit is very simplistic, with a sparse interior. There are not many parts. Might as well plunge in before I lose my nerve. I don’t really have a great plan of how to do this, so most of the conversion will be worked out about 5 minutes before I start building it. I choose as my first step to build the wheels. Not a really good reason why the wheels, but it is as good a place to start as any. Each lower wheel spat is built. And some work will have to be done on them. First, at the front of each spat I will have to drill a hole and construct some sort of search light. But before I do that, I need to eliminate the attachment points for the mini-wings that fit on the spats and where the 20 lb. bombs go. On the first spat, I get a little too enthused with the sanding process and break through the plastic just a smidgeon. Milliput will have to come to the rescue. On the other spat, I am a bit more careful. While the glue and milliput dry on the wheel spats, I get the fuselage halves ready to glue. There are a couple of injection towers to eliminate. Once the injection towers are sorted a one piece section that will house the pilot and observer seats is placed in the starboard fuselage half and the port half is joined to it. I thought it might be easier for me to glue the fuselage halves together and then construct the new rear fuselage than to try and do a right half and left half modification. While the fuselage dries prior to me hacking on it, I construct the wings and attach them to a center canopy section Next up I tackle a very simple but quite nice little engine. By this time, the fuselage is dry enough to try to figure out where to cut it in two. After studying the very limited amount of photos for this plane, it looks like the modified fuselage section was added where the rear gunner would sit in a regular Lysander. Taking my marker, I place where the cut should be . . . And then hack away with my saw and I am now committed to this project. From looking at photos, the rear fuselage plug looks to be a one size portion with the same shape from the canopy back to the gun turret. In my simple head, I think a one size internal support can be duplicated and then some plasticard will be used to skin around the supports. Sounds easy-peasy in my head. Now let’s see how reality works. I take some light plasticard stock and trace the outline of the fuselage section that I have left. I cut that out and then make a half plug. This half plug is then traced on some paper card stock so I have a somewhat symmetrical internal support. The card stock pattern is then checked against the fuselage to see if I am somewhat close. Using the card stock pattern, I cut out 4 plasticard supports, put them together and then sand them to match each other. I then tape them together as I have the slightly mad idea that four pieces of wire could be used to provide stable support system so that skinning the internal structure won’t be too much of a headache. Holes are drilled and wire is inserted. This might work. First problem though is the skin on the Lysander is not smooth. I have to match a rib pattern. RATS!!! Now how it that going to work. The only thing I can come up with is to score one side of the plasticard with some sort of semi sharp object so the opposite side looks like the Lysander skin. I experiment with different knives and scalpel blades and noting is coming close. I then look at my trusty screwdriver that I use to open Humbrol tins of paint and hmmmmm. . . . I get these results I think if I make the scores closer together this will work. My next step is to work out how long the rear section is to be and then make a bunch of scores with the same pressure. What could possibly go wrong with this plan? But, it is late and my hands are not the most steady right now. So I will end here and maybe go look at the 1/72 stash to find some donor wings for the rear fin assembly. As always, all comments are welcome.