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Matchbox / Airfix and Revell Halifax Lovechildren


woody37

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Mark (FZ6) is going down the route of modifying the kit parts in the new Revell Haifax, so to create another option, I'll run this thread in parallel rather than complicating his already excellent thread with two solutions.

The route I'm taking is a Matchbox wing graft onto the Revell fuselage and (hopefully) Revell u/c.

Tonyot is taking the same approach with the Airfix MkIII wings being grafted onto the Revell fuelage, so this is also contained in this thread.

Step 1:

Prepare the Matchbox wing for mating. To do this, the wing was dry fitted to the Matchbox fuselage. As it sits into a slot, I ran the knife around the wing where it protrudes from the slot giving a cutting guide. Then the razor saw came out and did it's thing. The edges cleaned up and the wings fitted nicely over the Revell spars with no modifications necessary. With this success, I'm confident that a MkIII is just as feasible using the Airfix wings so this will be a later project.

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The Matchbox wings need a good deal of scribing and the outer engines and upper rear fairings will need some work. I've not decided on the aircraft I intend to build yet, so I may need some Aeroclub radiators and John Aero has them available (Thanks John)

Edited by woody37
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Made some progress tonight (at the expense of domestic peace...ugghhhh !!)

Looking at drawings and photographs, the outer engines appear to be too high. The centre line of the prop should be slightly below centre line of the wing chord. This also causes the upper fairing behind the outers to be larger than what they should be. Pics of this can be seen in the earlier thread that's about 2000 pages long :lol:

So with the revell fuselage on the whole being pretty good, most of this work will focus on the wings of the Matchbox kit. I'll be honest, other than an outline plan, I'm making this up as I go along, so I'm sure problems will present themselves !!! Also, I'm not aiming to produce a model that is perfect, just something where I can use what modelling skills I have to improve things and get a fairly accurate Halibag.

I've made a start on lowering one of the engines. To do this, I cut two strips of plasticard and glued them to the edge of the outer nacelle with liquid poly (plastic weld) to pack it out.

DSCF0378.jpg

When dry, it was glued to the lower wing section so that everthing could be dry fitted. The radius on the upper cowling had to be groud larger to sit on the leading edge now that the engine had been lowered. I also had to cut the fairing away to get it to seat properley, so there's no going back now, I'm committed :o

So far, it's going to plan....

DSCF0380.jpg

You can see from the plan view how the cowling is now narrower at the top now. When I come to mould a new fairing from milliput, it should look more like the real thing. I've copied a pic that Mark (FZ6) took to compare a picture with the original parts, hope that's OK Mark ?

DSCF0381.jpg

HalibagWings.jpg

Next step will be to glue some plasticard to the underside of the top wing to close the gap. A layer of Miliput will then be added and sanded flush to blend with the wing before a new fairing can be moulded.

Edited by woody37
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The picture you borrowed is interesting- the answer seems to be "halfway in between"! I can't see that the Matchbox fairings are better than the Revell, though there seems quite a difference in the cowls themselves. Now, I admit I haven't read the other 2000 pages, but so far I'm not sure why it was necessary to swap out the whole wing. Nevertheless, this is just the sort of insane, kit butchering exercise I love, so carry on!

bob

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The picture you borrowed is interesting- the answer seems to be "halfway in between"! I can't see that the Matchbox fairings are better than the Revell, though there seems quite a difference in the cowls themselves. Now, I admit I haven't read the other 2000 pages, but so far I'm not sure why it was necessary to swap out the whole wing. Nevertheless, this is just the sort of insane, kit butchering exercise I love, so carry on!

bob

Bob as the Revell Nacelles are wider this also makes the undercarriage bay wider and you start to hit problems when trying to mate up a narrower nacelle with the wider bulkheads from the Undercarriage bay. Also the ailerons are incorrect on the revell wing and as the Matchbox wing only has the nacelle fairing to reprofile as well as some rescribing I think there is less work involved taking this route. I taken what I think is the more difficult path of narrowing the nacelles and bays as well as making the correction to the ailerons.

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Hi

Thanks for the post and pic's,I gather fom my LHS, there are revell halifaxes being checked by customs, and should be in soon, hopefully I will get my mitts on one soon.

cheers

Jerry

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.

Good old fashioned plastic butchering :)

Woody37 and FZ6 - I admire your efforts.

And I think it very fascianting in these days of abundance of all kind of good kits that there are still modellers working after the principles needed in the very beginning ...

In a way it's paying hommage to Alan Hall and company !

Good modelling and good luck, Rolf

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I am watching both of these threads with interest. Last summer I went on a fenzy one week when SWMBO was travelling and sorted through several large moving boxes of kits that have been stored in the garage since the move here 10 years ago (and including kits accumulated over the past 40+years) eventually filling two boxes with kits I determined 'surplus to requirements' because I knew I would never actually build them. Since Revell was going to be releasing a new, bound to be better, Halifax, I am reasonably sure the Matchbox Halifax I had ended up in the surplus pile. ^_^

Oh well, this remains an interesting thread

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If I read this thread correctly, most of the faults lie in the power units\ nacelles \ undercarriage. With the possible exception of the tail wheel, most of the others are ‘endurable’, easily corrected or only applicable to certain versions.

Having watched the ‘build’ of the engines, I am hoping that they are not handed! Even if they aren’t, few of us would have the patience to work through all four; that’s supposing we could find a Matchbox kit.

Would it be possible to share your efforts and issue a rework ‘Correction Set’? A2Zee would be the obvious partner. Since the Matchbox kit is now out of production, it would have to stay with the Revell wings. However the ‘areas of error’ appear all to be contained within scribed panel lines, even the fairing of the cowlings into the wings. Incidentally, comparable surgery would be required to produce Radial Versions.

As an aside, Cobra Resins still list a ‘PB4Y-2 Privateer detail Set’ for the Matchbox kit! In view of Revell’s apparent policy of re-tooling their Heavies, I’ve been holding on to mine in the hope that a new tool Privateer (the only one outstanding) would be next. They declined to be drawn on this at Telford. But now, more worryingly, the only Merlin Halifax is readily accessible at Hendon (even lying on its belly to make nacelle measurement easier) while the few remaining Privateers are a) in the USA b)Many have been re-engined c) Staging would be required to reach the engines. Ah, but there are Scale Plans…..

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If I read this thread correctly, most of the faults lie in the power units\ nacelles \ undercarriage. With the possible exception of the tail wheel, most of the others are ‘endurable’, easily corrected or only applicable to certain versions.

Having watched the ‘build’ of the engines, I am hoping that they are not handed! Even if they aren’t, few of us would have the patience to work through all four; that’s supposing we could find a Matchbox kit.

Would it be possible to share your efforts and issue a rework ‘Correction Set’? A2Zee would be the obvious partner. Since the Matchbox kit is now out of production, it would have to stay with the Revell wings. However the ‘areas of error’ appear all to be contained within scribed panel lines, even the fairing of the cowlings into the wings. Incidentally, comparable surgery would be required to produce Radial Versions.

As an aside, Cobra Resins still list a ‘PB4Y-2 Privateer detail Set’ for the Matchbox kit! In view of Revell’s apparent policy of re-tooling their Heavies, I’ve been holding on to mine in the hope that a new tool Privateer (the only one outstanding) would be next. They declined to be drawn on this at Telford. But now, more worryingly, the only Merlin Halifax is readily accessible at Hendon (even lying on its belly to make nacelle measurement easier) while the few remaining Privateers are a) in the USA b)Many have been re-engined c) Staging would be required to reach the engines. Ah, but there are Scale Plans…..

I guess there is a lot of opinion on the new Halifax, there's probably hundreds of innacuracies, depending to what level you choose to work too. I'm not a rivet counter, as long as it's reasonably accurate then it's good on my shelf gathering dust ! IMO, the engines are the only bit I'm not happy with, however the benefit of using a Matchbox kit is I've also got the wheels to choose from and may well use them.

Would it be possible to share my work ? Having never worked with a resin caster, I wouldn't have a clue where to start. I'm using Matchbox wings here, to mate some accurate engines to a Revell wing is a different ball game and Mark (FZ6) is far more qualified to answer this. I suspect to get correct resin engines on the Revell will require complete sections that would be cut out of the wing around the existing areas and a resin replacement dropped in. That's alot of resin. Certainly not impossible, however the balance of profit for the manufacturer and the cost to the buyer may not sit evenly to generate sales. Again, I'm no expert, someone else would have to weight that one up.

Something to bear in mind, I suspect the cost of resin mods to do a MkIII would be comparable to buying an Airfix kit, so why not get one of them and rob the wings. To see a MkIII conversion from this kit would be another great thread to have running. Never enough Halifax build threads :)

Edited by woody37
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In case anybody is interested I`ve just sawn the wings off an old Airfix Halifax Mk.III and will be fitting them to the Revell fuselage. Although I wobbled with the saw in places they do fit against the Revell fuselage really well and the spar sections from the Revell kit fit inside the Airfix wings too, so happy days. I`ll be using the excellent Xtradecal Halifax decal sheet to pick an option to build it as.

Sorry for hijacking your thread Woody, I`m watching your Matchbox wing transplant with interest, especially after the excellent Airfix Mk.III that you built before Crimbo,

Cheers

Tony O

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Tony, that is excellent news. I'll have to track down an airfix Mk.III and do something similar after I've done my MK.II

Woody,

I've had a quick look at what would be needed anda couple of options are cutting out sections of the wings and have drop in inserts similar to the Nimrod intake set that A2zee models do. Or just nacelles similar to the kit parts with a replacement drop in undercarriage bay and the fairings could be sanded flat and resin ones glued on top. I don't know enough about resin casting to know which option would be best.

I've never cast in Resin before but I've been interested in giving it a go myself and think once I have a radiatior I'm happy with I will try casting one in resin as making four identical ones will be tricky.

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In case anybody is interested I`ve just sawn the wings off an old Airfix Halifax Mk.III and will be fitting them to the Revell fuselage. Although I wobbled with the saw in places they do fit against the Revell fuselage really well and the spar sections from the Revell kit fit inside the Airfix wings too, so happy days. I`ll be using the excellent Xtradecal Halifax decal sheet to pick an option to build it as.

Sorry for hijacking your thread Woody, I`m watching your Matchbox wing transplant with interest, especially after the excellent Airfix Mk.III that you built before Crimbo,

Cheers

Tony O

Hi

Awesome, just need to get my hands on a revell kit then, I have some aeroclub and falcon bits, so it will be interesting to see how/if they fit as well.

Cheers

Jerry

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Would nacelle (and other) replacements need to be resin? Maybe vacform could be used? (For some of the parts, if not all of them?) If so would be a lot cheaper, I would think.

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So many positive waves (said in an Oddball Accent :lol: )

Tony, Would realyl like to see an Airfix lovechild :please:

If we can get some resin bit's made, I'd at least get one set, I reckon with some, this would be a pleasant build.

There again, what's the chance of Revell correcting their own mistakes, instead of letting their customers pay for it ?

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I guess there is a lot of opinion on the new Halifax, there's probably hundreds of innacuracies, depending to what level you choose to work too. I'm not a rivet counter, as long as it's reasonably accurate then it's good on my shelf gathering dust ! IMO, the engines are the only bit I'm not happy with, however the benefit of using a Matchbox kit is I've also got the wheels to choose from and may well use them.

Would it be possible to share my work ? Having never worked with a resin caster, I wouldn't have a clue where to start. I'm using Matchbox wings here, to mate some accurate engines to a Revell wing is a different ball game and Mark (FZ6) is far more qualified to answer this. I suspect to get correct resin engines on the Revell will require complete sections that would be cut out of the wing around the existing areas and a resin replacement dropped in. That's alot of resin. Certainly not impossible, however the balance of profit for the manufacturer and the cost to the buyer may not sit evenly to generate sales. Again, I'm no expert, someone else would have to weight that one up.

Something to bear in mind, I suspect the cost of resin mods to do a MkIII would be comparable to buying an Airfix kit, so why not get one of them and rob the wings. To see a MkIII conversion from this kit would be another great thread to have running. Never enough Halifax build threads :)

Firstly, I have only minimal knowledge of resin casting so don’t speak from experience.

That said, I don’t see the size of nacelles as a problem: the radome under the A2Zee Gannet is a single piece/lump larger that any nacelle! If you unsure of casting etc, why not contact them (A2Zee): quite recently they were looking for suggestions. Being an established concern, they will have experience in Costs, Marketting etc and indeed whether it would be a viable proposition. Also, as I understand it, some of their work is sub-contracted, so you would be treading an established path.

Yes: the conversion may well cost more than the kit,: the Cobra Detail set is listed at $58 vs £24 for the base kit from Aviation Hobby Shop. Also, as recall some years ago 1/48th Privateer conversions at $250 (I think) went in a matter of weeks

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[Tony, Would realyl like to see an Airfix lovechild :please:

Hiya Woody,

Here are some pics of my Revell Halibag with a set of Airfix Mk.III wings dry fitted onto the wing spars, which have the Aeroclub extended wingtips in place. These were removed from an old model (hence the camouflage) using a razor saw and they fit the contours of the Revell fuselage really well, despite my wanderings with the saw, hence the filler at the wing roots!!

halibag1.jpg

halibag2.jpg

Since taking these pics I`ve sanded the rivet detail on the wings down but not removed it altogether and the panel lines have been re scribed. I`m going to have a go at fitting the Revell undercarriage bay interior inside the Airfix nacelle and also fit the Revell undercarriage legs. I cannot decide whether to build this one as a bomber using one of the colourful options on the Xtradecal sheet or as a Post War A.Mk.VII based in Palestine....???

All the best

Tony O

Edited by tonyot
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For the uninitiated why graft Airfix wings onto a Revell fuselage? Would it be easier to swap fuselages forward of the wing?

Trevor

(inspirational work everyone)

Edited by Max Headroom
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Actually, I think this solution is quite elegant. Cutting the vertical edges of the wing root is very easy - just run a knife along the inside angle several times - and it removes a challenging join in the fuselage that may need sanding, filling, wedging etc.

It's almost as if Revell designed it for this purpose... :D

I'll get my :coat:

Edited by mhaselden
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Not made much progress, but some is better than nothing !

Lined the unprofessionally cut hole in the top wing with some plasticard ready to lay some Miliput. This will be done in two stages, the first to level the wing off, the second to mould a new fairing. Doing it this way should give me better control over accuracy....famous last words !!!

DSCF0384.jpg

Also cut a suitable sized hole out in the wing where the new Revell u/c will sit and started to line it. A bit of scratch building will be necessary to recreate the frame work on which the u/c sits as the Revell part is too wide

DSCF0382.jpg

I've filed the thickness of the plasticard down since the pic was taken as it's a bit thick. The wing spar fouls the plasticard, so a couple of mm will need taking off the end of the spar to cure it.

Edited by woody37
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