Airfix 1/72 Blenheim Mk.1 57 Sqn. 1938 Evergreen owns me.

[Blastvader]

Hello all!

Well, my Mk.A Whippet is all done so now it's time to move on to me' Blenheim.

I'll be modelling this as L1145 from No. 57 Sqn, RAF Upper Hayford 1938. This is fully and completely in thanks to Chris (bigbadbadge) who very kindly donated the decals. Though this represents an aircraft of the pre-war 57 Sqn. they in fact continued to use them until 1940 where they were replaced by Blenheim IVs and then Wellingtons within the same year.

Here's my starting point:

And the kit contents:

I'm not planning to do a huge amount to the kit, for one thing I lack the skill, so this will mostly be an OOB build. With maybe a bit of detail added to the wheel wells and cockpit/turret.

Cheers,

Paul

Edited October 27, 2014 by Blastvader

[PlaStix]

Should be an interesting project - I will get the popcorn!

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Fella

Good to see you on here, good luck with the build, so far the kit seems to go together well.

All the best
Chris

[Blastvader]

Cheers Chris,

I'm watching your build with keen interest, if nothing else I want to see how your resin wheel wells fit together so I can scratch build some poor facsimiles

As for build updates, apart from skimming the instructions I've done nowt. I've mostly been trying to find colour matches for the RAF paints of the era. Vallejo's Dark Earth and Dark Green both look a bit wrong to me. But apparently out of the paints I have available GWs Catachan Green and Graveyard Earth are good matches. And I must say that they do look a bit better. Vallejo's were too dark and too grey respectively for me, and I should know about the Dark Green as I've used it on the last two models I've built.

I was also struggling to come up with an interior colour. I have Vallejo's Interior Green but it looks a bit American to me, apparently GWs Camo Green is OK, but it just looks like a lighter shade of the Vallejo. Still it does look a lot like the cockpit of the restored Blenheim Mk 1 which has a much less grey-ish hue to it than you see in many other RAF aircraft. So we'll see how it goes.

Now I've just got to find a suitable black for the undersides. I was hoping I would have a pot of whatever GW used to call their black, that I would be able to add a dollop of grey to and create a half decent NATO black. But it would seem that I'm out of luck on that front so I'll have to work something out.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Blastvader

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Fella

I use Humbrol enamels, I like the way they paint on (I brush paint). I have never has any success with acrylic paints myself. With regard the black undersides I usually add interior green to the mix in varying quantities which gives a good night colour.

Hope it helps

All the best
Chris

[Blastvader]

I'm not a huge fan of enamels (apart from the smell, I do like that for some reason) so I tend to stick to acrylics. They dry faster and are easy to work with.

I'll try your trick with the black though (oh, GWs black was called CHAOS black, just came to me now).

[Blastvader]

I've made a bit of a start. No pictures yet but I've started scratch building the undercarriage detail...but made a bit of a hash of it. So, once again, Chris here has come to the rescue and is sending me the instructions for the Pavla set so I can copy them.

Unfortunately I'm off to Hull tomorrow to look at puppies and then out of the house on business all week (1450 miles all up, the peril of sales) so I might not get much of a chance to do owt until next weekend.

And my Wellington's turned up in the post from China. Nice kit, i don't think the zoom set was actually necessary on this one as the kit detail's very good on its own. Apart from the geodetic detail on the wings...the reviews weren't lying about it being a bit heavy. It's goingto need a good bit of sanding to tone it down .

Cheers,

Paul

[stevej60]

Looking forward to this build Paul,I love the "Munich crisis" period of RAF markings and I use Tamiya Rubber black for undersides it dries

lovely after spraying and has a nice faded look,be interesting to see how it goes together I keep seeing complaints about the fit of the nose.

Best of luck.

[Chris Jephcott]

I really need to get one of these. The kit looks incredible.

Watching with great interest.

[Deacon]

Looking forward to this mate.

[Blastvader]

Well, here it is. A month's worth of progress. I build some undercarriage well, and all he associated other fiddlies and then discarded them and decided just the wells would do. I'm waing on the glue drying on the rest of them now and then I'm going to slap some paint on tomorrow.

After that I'll start on adding a little detail to the cockpit. Incidentally, there's no bulkhead at the rear of the cockpit is there (unless I'm missing something)? Shouldn't there be a little shelf with what I assume is the radio equipment behind the pilot?

TTFN all!

[Procopius]

BV, have I mentioned how much I enjoy your writing style?

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Fella

Great work so far, once done the U/C bays look the business and will be worth it. You get a bulkhead of sorts but it only goes up so far, I have not seen what goes on the top side of that at the mo.

Keep up the good work

All the best
Chris

[Blastvader]

BV, have I mentioned how much I enjoy your writing style?

Well, cheers for that Procopious. Very nice of you.

Hi Fella

Great work so far, once done the U/C bays look the business and will be worth it. You get a bulkhead of sorts but it only goes up so far, I have not seen what goes on the top side of that at the mo.

Keep up the good work

All the best

Chris

Cheers Chris. I'm still not sure about the area behind the ockpit. The only picturs I can find are of the 1F and it's a model. Not really the perfect source. As we're on the subject...

What's this? Toilet or summat?

Anyway, enough of that. On to building and stuff. I've finished off the undercarriage bays, no where near as good as those lovely resin ones that they are poor fascimilies of. Many thanks to Chris for sending me the instructions for the Pavla set by the way, couldn't have done what I have with out them. So, a round of a applause for bigbadbadge...thank you.

I also added some ribs to the inside of the nescelles because why not? You can't see them much but they break up the big open nothingness.

Whilst various bits were drying I added some small amount of detail to the rear of the control panel..thing. Honestly someone help me out here, I can never remember the name of the thing. Dashboard? Dial-filled flat bit? Whatever, it's some bits of plastic rod. I'll add wires and stuff to it later.

So, next thing is to paint the inside of the nescelles. Once I've decided what colour to do them in. I have three options; Vallejo MA Green Zinc Chromate (which looks a lot like GW's old Snot Green to me, so that's probably not on the cards) and Interior Green or GW's Camo Green. Or maybe they were black. I really don't know.

Help?

TTFN all!

[tonyot]

`INSTRUMENT PANEL`!!!!!

Nice to know I`m not the only one to get brain block! This is coming on really well Paul and I hope it comes out better than mine did on RFI,..... whatever you do be careful with that canopy!

Cheers

Tony

[Blastvader]

`INSTRUMENT PANEL`!!!!!

Nice to know I`m not the only one to get brain block! This is coming on really well Paul and I hope it comes out better than mine did on RFI,..... whatever you do be careful with that canopy!

Cheers

Tony

That's the chap! Good show Tony.

As for the canopy, I've done a bit to help alleviate any forthcoming issues I hope. I've added some extra internal ribbing (ooh dirty) to the cockpit that, at least on the starboard side, seems to have made sure that the fit is is pretty damn perfect...on that side at least. But I shall bear the warnings of yourself and others in mind. Though I must say that your example is looking really rather spiffy.

[bigbadbadge]

_{Hi Fella}

_{Great work, keep it up, what you are doing here is what modelling is all about, great stuff. I have done some searching on Google for cockpit interiors and there is not much out there at all. I saw one or two images really one is a black and white image that looks down into the cockpit from the space behind the cockpit, if you do a search on images it is not that far down, also some nice models how up, if you have a look on 72 Aircraft forum there is a cracking cockpit build on there and this is where I found the best shots to assist.}

_{Hope this helps}

_Chris

[Blastvader]

Yeah I've seen the B&W image you mentioned. It's just what's behind the cockpit I'm not sure of. I've seen a couple of models of the 1F that had a bulkhead to the rear and what I assume is the radio but I don't know if that's specific to the fighter variant. And I'm still none the wiser as to what that tub in the wing centre section is. As you know it has a small amount of detailing in it but for what reason I have no idea.

[tonyot]

I think that the tub in the wing centre section is just a lightening hole within the main box section main spar which would also make emergency access between the front and rear compartments slightly easier. Somewhere to keep the crews butties too and other stuff like kitbags etc when moving location?

The radios were fitted in the rear fuselage by the turret and just in front of the turret was a small wireless operators position with a camera hatch in the floor. When operating away from base one or two groundcrew could be carried here and in the book that I`m reading now about Blenheims in Greece they carried nine people with no problems while retreating towards Crete! There was mention of carrying people in the bomb bay too,.......but that must have been very dodgy??

Keep up the great work,

Tony

Edit,....nice people replaced by `nine people',...doh!

Edited October 25, 2014 by tonyot

[Blastvader]

Cheers for the info Tony. Much appreciated. I mght look in to that book. Though I've recentl pre-ordered a book by Valiant Wings on the Blenheim but I'm pretty sure it will arrive too late to be of much use. Still, I like twins (naughty) in as much as I don't have subject I do love a twin, German, British, American, Japanese...if it's a twin Im drawn to it, so I'm sure I'll be building another soon.

This is the image I was using as a reference by the way. It's of the Classic Airframes kit:

EDIT:

Would seem that this cutaway of the Mk IV proves exactly what you said Tony. Though there should be what is apparently a parachute storage box behind the pilot's seat. So I'll have to add that.

Edited October 25, 2014 by Blastvader

[tonyot]

I hope that these pics help?;

Cockpit;

Mid Upper turret and radios behind looking towards the rear of the aircraft, note the spare ammo pans on the right hand side;

Radios behind the turret, note the trailing antenna winder handle on the right, this antennas was a wire within a long bead of lead weights, like a string of pearls;

You cannot see anything inside the rear fuselage section through the turret but here is the info in case you want it. The Classic Airframes kit is incorrect to show a bulkhead between the forward and rear fuselage secions as it was possible to crawl through or look through at each other. The Observer had two round seats in the cockpit, one next to the pilot and one further forward alongside the instrument panel for a better view downwards, especially when using the bombsight.

All the best

Tony

Edited October 25, 2014 by tonyot

[Blastvader]

Thanks for those Tony. Very helpful.

As it happens I've just caught Classic British Aircraft on Quest just now and as luck would have it the Blenheim was featured. All jolly good stuff until I realised that they've painted the interior of their Frankenstein's monster machine that very bright zinc chromate green I'd turned my nose up at previously. I've closed the wings up now so it's a bit late for the u/c bays and the flaps would look silly if I changed their colour now but I should be able to save the interior colour.

[tonyot]

No worries, about the old pics,but I wouldn`t paint your model interior the same colour as the restored one inside because they seem to use the same horrible greenish colour for most flying warbirds nowadays,....it isn`t accurate!

Cheers

Tony

Edit- ps- note how the canopy framework appears to be painted black on the inside in the old cockpit photo,...quite a common thing on British wartime aircraft which is often missed. Apparently it helps the eyes to focus on the outsides better by providing more of a contrast?

Edited October 26, 2014 by tonyot

[Blastvader]

Tony, you truly are a mine of useful information Thank you very much.

Anyway, as small and in this case I really mean small. I've made a thing. I was looking at the pictures of the interior that you posted above and thought I could jazz up the rather bare kit offering, especially the turret whiich looks nothing like the real thing.

So, without further ado....BEHOLD!

So, it's a bit crap but I'm strangely proud of something that has taken me over three hours. You'll never be able to see it but I'LL know it's there and that's all that really matters. I've also added rome formers and stringers to the rear of the fuselage and added the ammunition drums for the Vicker's gun. But I dodn't bother taking pictures of that.

So, that's it for now.

TTFN all!

[AdrianMF]

I thought the kit looked a bit bare there. That will do nicely!

Regards,

Adrian