Matchbox / Airfix and Revell Halifax Lovechildren

[woody37]

One wheel bay done, not a mega amount in there, but as it's black, you don't see a great deal anyway. Thanks again to Elgar, I've used his build using the WEM stuff to copy.

Onto the other wing next, should be a bit faster now I have figured out the route I'm taking. This is how it's looking so far:

Edited January 12, 2012 by woody37

[FZ6]

Looking good so far.

I like the scratchbuilding you've done on the undercarriage bay it looks much better. Will be doing something similar on my Matchbox wing.

[tonyot]

I hope you don`t mind me adding an update here Woody, but here is the latest on my Revell Halifax with the Airfix wings which is slowly beginning to look the part;

The fuselage is now finished after quite a bit of sanding and the tailplanes are attached, although the wings are still only dry fitted. Thinned black paint has been applied to check the seams on the filled in nose glazing and rear fuselage portholes which are specific only to earlier versions, plus more thinned paint has been applied to check out the seamlines along the top and bottom of the fuselage.

I`ve got some Aeroclub propellers (Set PO13) and air intakes to add to the Aeroclub exhausts which are already in place and the next job is to have a go at adding the Revell wheel well and undercarriage legs to the Airfix wings, whilst retaining the option of sticking with the Airfix parts.

All the best

Tony O

[woody37]

If you have problems, using the WEM exterior kit would be good, it fits beautifully into the Airfix bays once you've trimmed the wing inside. Looking forwards to more pics Tony

Here's a close up of the second outer Merlin nacelle with packing fitted to lower it slightly. It's been rough sanded to tidy the join before fitting to the wing.

Humbrol Liquid Poly is a gem for doing stuff like this. Once the second wing is to the same level as the first, they will get the milliput treatment, trenches filled and then a bloody good rescribe

[brewerjerry]

I hope you don`t mind me adding an update here Woody, but here is the latest on my Revell Halifax with the Airfix wings which is slowly beginning to look the part;

The fuselage is now finished after quite a bit of sanding and the tailplanes are attached, although the wings are still only dry fitted. Thinned black paint has been applied to check the seams on the filled in nose glazing and rear fuselage portholes which are specific only to earlier versions, plus more thinned paint has been applied to check out the seamlines along the top and bottom of the fuselage.

I`ve got some Aeroclub propellers (Set PO13) and air intakes to add to the Aeroclub exhausts which are already in place and the next job is to have a go at adding the Revell wheel well and undercarriage legs to the Airfix wings, whilst retaining the option of sticking with the Airfix parts.

All the best

Tony O

Hi

Looking good.

cheers

Jerry

[gingerbob]

Tony, It almost looks like a Coastal Command scheme as is, but I think you've over-weathered the upper wing roundels a tad!

Woody, if I might suggest, I personally think it is great having the two "re-winged" birds on one thread, so if you approve, as you appear to, perhaps you could change the thread title to reflect it, for the benefit of those yet to come?

And by the way, thanks (whomever) for answering my questions a while back- I've now looked at more Halifax threads, so understand the situation a bit better. Someday I may find an FM 1/48th one at a price I can't refuse, but I'm not sure I'm eager for that day!

bob

Edited January 14, 2012 by gingerbob

[tonyot]

Woody, I`ll gladly delete my posts if you like as I`d hate you to think that I`m hijacking your thread, but I do agree with gingerbob that our re winging efforts do seem to compliment each other, although yours is a much more professional effort whilst I`m making mine up as I go along! I didn`t intend to post my efforts but you did ask me for a piccy and a few people seem to be interested in my progress!

I was quite busy last night and removed the Airfix undercarriage with the intention of using the Revell parts, which will be mounted upon a length of plastic that is fitted between the original Airfix locartion points. I`ve also built the turrets and test fitted them along with the glazing, however the ring of the mid upper turret was altered to allow the guns to traverse upwards, by simply cutting the rear inside edge back to allow the rear of the guns to fit inside as otherwise they can only sit above and parallel to the ring itself. The H2S blister has also been fitted, although I may replace it with a Matchbox item as the Revell one seems to be rather `pinched' at the rear and the original Airfix air intakes have been removed from the engines and the Aeroclub white metal items (set V 136?) have been dry fitted in their place for now, whilst the Aeroclub white metal exhausts have also been removed where needed as my original Airfix model was a Mk.III but because I`m intending on building this model as a Mk.VII, the exhausts need to be moved around and I`ll ilustrate this later. The kit props have also been removed ready to be replaced with Aeroclub white metal props (PO33) but the engines need to be drilled out first and possibly given extra detail? With the glazing in place this is certainly looking like a Halibag now and for all of their failings Revell have certainly done a good job with the fuselage and their nose is spot on.

All the best

Tony O

[tonyot]

I`ve been playing with my left over Halibag Mk.II/V wings and think that I may have found the main gaff by Revell which has led to other mistakes with the cowlings? I`m not too bothered by the width of the engine nacelles and could probably have lived with that, possibly by sanding them down a little, but when compared to photos oft the real thing and the Matchbox nacelle seen in the photo below, the main fault I believe lies in the top of the nacelles which do not have enough of a downward slope on them, which has led to oversized spinners and a tiny intake above the inner engine. Unfortunately the Matchbox parts are too narrow to be used as direct replacements, but if some cottage industry manufacturer could release a set of replacement upper cowlings and spinners with the correct propellers, I think it would be a cheap way of correcting this kit? There is a line drawing of the Merlin 22 engine nacelle on page 33 of the Sqn/Sig Halifax in Action book which looks totally wrong yet does resemble the Revell effort, could this be a possible cause for this monumental cock up by the contractors which Revell hired to to the CAD design on their Halifax?

For those who can live with the nacelles but not the props, the kit props can be altered to resemble the real thing, see below;

Why is it that Revell can get American aircraft like the B-17 spot on yet British types have stupid flaws, look at the 48th Mossie with its short undercarriage and bulged spinners and of course this Halifax, both of which would have been superb had they been done correctly, or altered! Could it be Basil Fawlty`s fault?

Right I`ll leave the Merlin side of things to Woody now, who seems to have things safely in hand with his excellent use of the Matchbox wings,

Cheers

Tony O

[woody37]

Great stuff Tony, I'm going to change the thread name to reflect wing grafts for both the Airfix and Matchbox,

Cheers

Neil

[tonyot]

Great stuff Tony, I'm going to change the thread name to reflect wing grafts for both the Airfix and Matchbox,

Cheers

Neil

Cheers Neil,

Thanks for letting me deface your thread with my blithering! I`ll keep it to a minimum,

All the best

Tony O

[woody37]

Tony,

Those Aeroclub coolers on top look the biz, wish I had known they existed (and had in my possession !!) when doing my build recently.

Following Graham Boaks advice, I wrapped some thin platicard strip around the inside ring of the engines to give it a 'lip' as well as adding the WEM engine front details, which tart the engines up quite nicely:

[Vulcanicity]

Some super work going on here. I might hold off getting one until there's a correction set, I can't really hope to match the brave surgery here!

Speaking of correction sets, would it be impossible for someone (I'm thinking of the fine company '3D Kits' here) to do an injection set of nacelles/props/wheels to fit the Revell kit? It might be a stupid question, because I don't really know how the process works, but it seems to me that if they could do those fine Hurricane and Spit conversion sets, then it wouldn't be outside the realms of possibility to do an injection correction set if someone sent them some accurized nacelles?

Just a thought...

[MilneBay]

This is excellent stuff and I am following it closely. The two modelers working through their changes to the kit have nicely mirrored what I was thinking I would do. It is very handy to see the experiments being done and I applaud both their efforts.

[tonyot]

Thanks for the reminder about the lip of plastic added to your Hercules engines Neil, I`ll have a look to see if I have any plasticard thin enough! I cannot really afford the WEM update set but I`m thinking about doing something similar with plastic strip!

Last night I had a further play around with the Revell Merlin nacelles on my spare set of wings and after viewing a number of photos I began by tacking some Matchbox Halifax propeller spinners onto the Revell nacelles, as these spinners do seem to look about right (please excuse the poor flash photography, it was dark when I got to this point, but I hope that you can get the gist?);

Then I sanded the Revell nacelles down to meet the spinners, using photos as a guide and this is what I ended up with;

I also sanded the sides of the Revell cowlings to narrow them down when looking at them from the front and I`m quite happy with the result, although they still need to be tidied up a little. It may not be 100% accurate but it looks much better than what was there before, matches most photos and does at least make the basic kit parts workable with the only expenditure being a bit of elbow grease and four Matchbox spinners from the spares box! I`ll be using these wings on my second Halifax kit with a set of Aeroclub propellers.

All the best

Tony O

Edited January 15, 2012 by tonyot

[woody37]

Tony, you and FZ6 are brave men !

Great to see these Revell power eggs being battered into submission !!!!

[lancfan]

With surving Halifax Bombers in the UK and Canada is does seem strange that they made so many gaffes on this although they arte to be applauded for the work they have done properly. we can only hope that they retool the offending sprues to correct the issues.

David.

[Test Graham]

Given the chaotic organisation of the sprues, with "adjacent" parts spread over several sprues rather than being grouped together (e.g. engine parts on one sprue, Mk.I Series 1a parts together....), they would have to retool almost every sprue in the kit. I think we can rule it out. The best we can hope for here is that the (eventual) Hercules variant will avoid most of the errors, although I suspect the rear of the nacelle is unfixable without mods to the undercarriage bay parts.

[miduppergunner]

Given the chaotic organisation of the sprues, with "adjacent" parts spread over several sprues rather than being grouped together (e.g. engine parts on one sprue, Mk.I Series 1a parts together....), they would have to retool almost every sprue in the kit. I think we can rule it out. The best we can hope for here is that the (eventual) Hercules variant will avoid most of the errors, although I suspect the rear of the nacelle is unfixable without mods to the undercarriage bay parts.

Yes - I did wonder at that but not being "skilled" at the engineering of sprues was prepared to assume that there may be a "technical" reason. But it is another valid point. It does lead one to suspect that if a Hercules variant is planned it will receive no more consideration that the one presently before us. Why should it?? As has been agreed - it will sell.

[elger]

I have to say that the new Revell fuselage does look very good in tonyot's build. It works very well with the Airfix wings!

[woody37]

I have an idea regarding the wheels. Has anyone tried wrapping a wheel with some plasticard around the circumfrance then miliputting around it to blend it all in ? This would give the better hub with a correct tyre size.

Opinions / experience sought !!

[The wooksta V2.0]

It's been tried with some good results in another thread here on BM, but was more about cars/vehicles than wingy things. Certainly about a model of something from The Italian Job. IIRC, the poster used the resultant wheel as a master and cast several.

[Scott Hemsley]

I have an idea regarding the wheels. Has anyone tried wrapping a wheel with some plasticard around the circumfrance then miliputting around it to blend it all in ? This would give the better hub with a correct tyre size.

Opinions / experience sought !!

Or...

Since the build involves both the Matchbox/Airfix and Revell kits, how about taking larger the Matchbox/Airfix wheels and (partially) drill out the holes in the hubs where the kit parts have incorrectly molded them?

Scott

Edited January 16, 2012 by Scott Hemsley

[woody37]

Whilst that's an option Scott, the moulding on the Revell hubs looks much better IMO, also the Revell hubs fit the Revell gear on width solving that problem too.

Cheers

Neil

[tonyot]

Whilst that's an option Scott, the moulding on the Revell hubs looks much better IMO, also the Revell hubs fit the Revell gear on width solving that problem too.

Cheers

Neil

Sounds like a cracking idea Neil and I`ll probably try that one out, although my resin moulding skills are nil, despite Wooksta`s best efforts at teaching me!!

All the best

Tony O

[Scott Hemsley]

Whilst that's an option Scott, the moulding on the Revell hubs looks much better IMO, also the Revell hubs fit the Revell gear on width solving that problem too.

Cheers

Neil

Fair 'nuff. I'm still waiting for my kit to arrive, so this thread is of vital interest to me. Please do continue!

Scott