1/72 Lancasters - Revell and Airfix - simultaneous builds

[Karl]

Hi Chaps,

I fancied adding a Lancaster to my collection of builds, so I'm going to attempt to simultaneously build two; an Airfix B.III Special 'Dambusters' Lancaster as ED932 AJ@G and a Revell B.I I'm going to convert in to the BBMF Lancaster PA474

I'm going to try and modernise the Airfix fit a bit by adding some scratch built interior detail based on the Revell kit plus come corrections to the upkeep mine and other details appropriate for this aircraft.

The Revell kit, whilst being more modern and better detailed also has some fairly well documented errors. I'll be trying to correct these as best as I can whilst thinking about how the kit differs from a standard B.I with me wanting to represent the BBMF Lancaster, including the Avro Lincoln rudders and undercarriage, Shackleton Mk.II wheels and the Airbus A340 tail wheel.

Whilst I'm going to attempt to get them 'right' I'm sure I'll make some mistakes along the way with something, so apologies in advance.

These are the two kits I'll be using:

I'll be using the kit's own decals where I can, plus others from the spares box. The roundels for the Airfix kit were out of register, a replacement set were kindly supplied by Airfix spares department, however with the kit being very old the first replacements were just as bad as mine, so they substituted them with a set of BBMF decals where I'll just be using the roundels.

Wish me luck!

Karl

[theplasticsurgeon]

Simultaneous Airfix and Revell builds is about what I did during the recent Battle of Third Reich GB.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/forum/424-the-battle-for-the-third-reich-group-build/

I converted the Revell kit using Paragon Manchester set,

and used AM decals and a lot of Revell interior parts to finish Airfix as the Hendon Lancaster.

Take a peruse at my build threads.

Best of luck for your builds.

[Karl]

Simultaneous Airfix and Revell builds is about what I did during the recent Battle of Third Reich GB.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/forum/424-the-battle-for-the-third-reich-group-build/

I converted the Revell kit using Paragon Manchester set,

and used AM decals and a lot of Revell interior parts to finish Airfix as the Hendon Lancaster.

Take a peruse at my build threads.

Best of luck for your builds.

I've got the old Contrail Manchester conversion; it's a bit basic but I'll be giving it a bash at some point.

Karl

[Karl]

I've been working on the interior. The Revell Lancaster has a fairly detailed interior, so I've based my scratch built parts on the Revell kit, although the pilots raised area in the Revell Lanc is too long I think so I've modified it to be more like the Airfix one and made it shorter.

The Airfix kit comes with only a basic seat, an undersized yoke, and an undersized control panel, so I have replaced all of these with scratch built items. I'm not going overboard as I'm not sure how much you will actually see inside - not much I guess..

Original Revell parts Left, my scratch built mods right with the Airfix yoke far right, as I'm building the BBMF Lancaster, I've scratch built a dual control yoke for that one and used the Revell yoke in the Airfix kit

Karl

Edited September 14, 2013 by Karl

[brianthemodeller]

Hmmm, this could be interesting.... out with the popcorn and beer!

[jaffa]

im nearly finished with the same revell lanc ill be interested to hear your thoughts on it?

ill keep an eye on this build..

[Karl]

The cockpit walls of the Airfix Lancaster were very sparse, so I added some details to the front fuselage and added the instrument panel's, hand rail and engineers fold down seat.

A well known flaw on the Revell Lancaster is the top hatch that is in the wrong place, so this has been moved, matched to the position on the Airfix Lanc

After looking at the BBMF Lancaster, it has no windows down the fuselage and no sign of them ever being there (even though I believe PA474 is a Mk.1) so I filled and sanded them flush.

Karl

Edited September 22, 2013 by Karl

[thomastmcc]

interesting .....

thomas

[Tartan11]

Regarding PA474's new tailwheel :-

This info is a bit over the top for a 1/72 model, but just for the record --- as I remember it the original proposal for the replacement tailwheel was to use A320 nosewheel (not A340) with tubeless Dunlop tyre DR 9624t. I presume that this has been fitted.

Also the shimmy damper (from Lincoln ?) has been on the aircraft for a long time.

Don't forget the Lincoln style rudders. Resin items available from "AlleyCat" AC72004C.

On looking at photos the mainwheels do appear to be Shackleton MR2 type - never noticed that before !

Are there suitable resin replacement ones available ? If not then make a pair of the fabric wheel covers.

There's a nice decal sheet by Xtradecal X72098 which includes PA474 "Phantom of the Ruhr". The old tailwheel would be OK for this c/s.

Ref the thread on radiator intakes --- PA474 is a B Mk1 (FE) and therefore has the deep radiator intakes.

Both the Revell (04300) & new Airfix (A09007) kits seem to have the shallow intakes.

Oh for the innocence of just building a model in a couple of days and being happy with it !

Edited December 20, 2013 by Tartan11

[Hamden]

Just found this build and as I have both in the stash I shall follow this with interest.

Aeroclub did Shackleton Mk2 wheels at one time - don't know if these are still available and Magna Models did Lincoln style resin fin/rudders again don't know if these are still available.

Roger

[Karl]

Hi chaps, thanks for your input!

I had a bit of a hiatus whilst I was in the middle of quite a few (non model related) distractions.

I have been steadily working on them when I can and I have been keeping a photographic record so I'll update this thread whilst I'm off over Christmas. I completed the interior and have joined the fuselage together and also built the wings. the rudders for PA474 have been converted to Lincoln standard and have recently been working on modifying the engine nacelles.

The wheels are going to be a bit of a problem as I don't like the fabric covers so I'll need to do something a bit more creative...

Karl

Edited December 23, 2013 by Karl

[Karl]

Hi chaps,

I've finally decided to complete this work in progress article. To be honest, I wasn't going to bother finishing this article at all, however I have completed both kits and I did keep documenting my work ( and I think they have turned out ok) so I'll get on with it.

As previously mentioned, I had completed some of the scratch built interior and after a couple of dry runs was happy how it all fitted together:

I then painted the interiors - they are almost identical (after scratch building the inside of the Airfix kit) apart from the hand rail in the BBMF Lancaster is yellow and the B.III Special is black. You can't see it but I also put a couple of tiny maps of Germany in the B.III and a miniaturised Haynes Lancaster repair manual in the BBMF!!

Karl

[Karl]

I modified the rudders to Lincoln standard by using the same method Ted Taylor gave in one of his Lancaster build articles. I chopped out the lower rear quarter of the rudder and replaced it with a roughly shaped part as required. Using appropriate reference material as a guide, I filed and sanded the new part of the rudder in to shape and then added the trim tabs. I also took the opportunity to slightly reshape the mid upper turret fairing as I believe it's a bit out of shape on the Revell kit.

And completed, with turret fairing:

Karl

[Karl]

Wings - again using the method described by Ted Taylor, I modified the Revell Lancaster's wing dihedral as it's too shallow. Basically, the method requires you to cut the lower wing in half just outboard of the landing gear bay and a a cut in the upper wing to just past the curvature of the leading edge, stopping when you get to the flatter area of the upper wing.

You can then assemble the wing and in the slot that has been created, insert a plastic shim; this will have the affect of pushing the wing up and creating a greater dihedral. I can't remember how thick the shim was, but all I did was match the dihedral (rightly or wrongly) to the dimensions of the Airfix Lancaster's wing.

I found this method really good - worked perfectly for me

Karl

[Karl]

Once the wings had been modified and assembled as required, I built up the engine nacelles. I didn't modify these too much apart from cutting the solid flame dampers from the exhausts of the Airfix kit and replacing them with the hollow ones from the Revell kit as they look nicer. I also modified the Revell nacelles so that I didn't have to use the little engines in the kit and just blanked the exhaust areas so I could glue the exhaust pipes directly to the nacelles. These were then attached to the wings.

The following shows the results of my production line; fuselages, wings and tail planes all lined up just like an Avro factory... well may be...

Karl

[Karl]

I modified the gun turrets so that they could be installed after the models were finished - I didn't need them to rotate. I had purchased some rather nice Quick Boost gun barrels for my Lancaster - and that was the problem; I could only find one set. So I thought I'd save them and make some out of brass rod as they were so small (and the QB barrels looked so flimsy they wouldn't have lasted five minutes anyway) I cut some appropriate lengths of brass and filed the flash hider cone in to the end of each barrel - fourteen in total. The turrets were then modified to take the new barrels.

I didn't like the look of the Upkeep mine in the Airfix kit much but fortunately I had one from what I think is very old Revell Dambusters Lancaster kit and I liked the look of that one very much. I did need to narrow it down slightly to fit between the Airfix brackets on the fuselage.

This is a comparison of the parts before assembly: the white are Airfix parts, black the old Revell parts. The difference in width looks massive, but when you put the ends on the Airfix mine it's only slightly narrower than the Revell mine - this difference is what I shaved off

Karl

Edited April 16, 2014 by Karl

[Karl]

The last major modification were the wheels for the Revell kit as that one was going to be my BBMF Lancaster. PA474 uses wheels that (appear) to be thae same as the wheels from an Avro Shackleton MR.2; vented wheel hubs and tredded tyres.

Apparently the tyres from the Revell kit are far too big, however they don't appear much different to the Airfix wheels in width or diameter and the hubs were perfect for conversion in to Shackleton type wheel hubs.

I assembled the wheels and when dry, I cut a groove around the middle of the hub and glued in some plastic segments to look like the brake vents. As for the tyre treads I marked them out and then cut these in to the wheel by hand using a razor saw to rough our the grooves and then finished them off with a couple of different files. It's a bit of an approximation but I think it looks ok at first glance.

Karl

[woody37]

Great work on those wheels

[Hamden]

Stunning work I like this a lot

Roger

[chaddy]

Thanks for continuing this, its very interesting. I love the work on those tyres.

[Karl]

Thank you all for your kind comments chaps, really appreciate it.

Karl

[Karl]

I'm missing a couple of pictures from the assembly stage, however this was simply bringing all of the modified component parts together; wings, tail planes and bomb doors were attached to their respective fuselages.

All of the propellers were assembled at this stage also; the thin props for the B.III and the wider 'paddle' props for PA474.

After masking the open cockpits and turret openings, I gave everything a spray coat of Halfords grey primer. Any blemishes or other surface issues/mistakes were corrected at this point. When dry the upper wing and fuselage surfaces were airbrushed with Humbrol H29 Dark Earth.

To enable me to more easily mark out the camouflage pattern, I scanned the painting guide from one of the kits and scaled it up to match the wingspan of the model.

I did two sets; one I cut up and used as templates for the camo pattern and one I kept to be used later to mask the upper surface when I sprayed the black underside. The camo was marked out lightly in pencil, then using nicely thinned H163 Dark Green, brush painted the green, employing about four coats to build it up. When dry I masked off the upper surface and sprayed the black.

After leaving everything for a few days I unmasked it all and, after touching the odd bit here and there, I brush painted a couple of coats of Klear to give me a glossy surface to apply the decals.

Karl

[Karl]

Decaling - The decals were all kit decals, using a mixture of both Airfix and Revell decals on both kits, depending on what I did and didn't like.

When all decals were applied I did the usual thing of airbrushing a couple of coats of Humbrol satin cote to make it all even.

After that, it was simply a matter of bringing all of the ancillary parts such as the turrets, landing gear and wheels together.

And bingo, a pair of reasonably passable Lancaster's. One thing I didn't do (on purpose) was to try and mark on the exhaust staining; I'm not very good at such things and would have only made a mess of it, so my Lancs are both brand new out of the factory / just had a good wash - delete as applicable.

Pictures of the completed models are here in the RFI section: 1/72 Lancasters - Airfix B.III Special & Revell B.I as PA474

thanks for looking.

Karl

Edited April 18, 2014 by Karl