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MPM Wellington 1C - FINISHED

AdrianMF

By AdrianMF
in Bomber Command Group Build

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tonyot Blabber Mouth

tonyot

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You are doing a great job Adrian and taking this kit up to another level, fantastic so far and looking forward to the rest of the build,

Cheers

Tony

PS- Good choice for Wards Wimpy too,.....he was one brave bloke and are you going to do it post mission and include his cut out hand and feet holes? It was tragic that he died just ten weeks later,........in my opinion he had `done his bit' and should have been screened, but he probably wanted to carry on anyway? I found a photo of Ward online with this caption;

Sergeant James Allan Ward of No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron RAF, the first New Zealander to win the Victoria Cross during the Second World War, standing in the cockpit of his Vickers Wellington Mark IC, L7818 ‘AA-V’, at Feltwell, Norfolk.

But like you say I`ve seen L7818, AA-R mentioned too which appears to have been taken from logbook entries by a member of the aircraft`s regular crew and this is mentioned on a website all about 75 Sqn here;

http://75nzsquadron.wordpress.com/wellington/

Here are some pics of the wing and fuselage which you have do doubt seen already;

WELLINGTONjames_wardVC_2_zpsda126422.jpg

Wellington-shot-upWardVC-595x454_zps5c8a

All the best

Tony

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AdrianMF Blabber Mouth

AdrianMF

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Thanks for the pics Tony - I've seen one but not the other. Had I done research before starting the kit it would have been an interesting project to make some holes. I have seen pictures of an AA*V that crash-landed into a small conifer forest, and there is a fairly well documented AA*K. I don't think I will end up doing the Ward aircraft because there are too many unknowns for me. So I'm looking at other black-sided schemes, but I am also thinking of doing it in plain brown/green down the sides with "A" roundels and no codes.

Too many choices (or not enough Wellingtons in the stash!)...

Regards,

Adrian

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tonyot Blabber Mouth

tonyot

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Hiya Adrian,

Fair play, I know which photos you mean, if you want to do a 75 Sqn RNZAF Wimpey these are nice options;

R1162, AA-Y;

WellingtonR1162AA-Y75NZSquadronNewZealan

And my favourite,.....early schemed L7794, AA-D;

wellington-75-sqn-L7794_zpsbbb0e516.jpg

All the best

Tony

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tonyot Blabber Mouth

tonyot

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Tony,

I couldn't possibly reveal whether I have made a choice but I am just about to paint the sides brown...

I wonder if that's a gas warning patch just ahead of the cockpit?

Regards,

Adrian

It could be couldn`t it, I`d go for that anyway,.....glad the pics came in handy,

Cheers

Tony

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AdrianMF Blabber Mouth

AdrianMF

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Hello All,

Still plugging away, albeit v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y! Got the camouflage done, now getting ready for all the fiddly little details (engines, undercarriage, guns etc), then custom decals and finishing:

MPM_Wellington_1C_paint_upper_zps5ff501d

MPM_Wellington_1C_paint_lower_zpscc78e41

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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AdrianMF Blabber Mouth

AdrianMF

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Hello All,

In between goose leftovers and sherry, I dimly remembered I had a project. I had thought I could cut up the kit decals to give the style of letters that I wanted, but I quickly came to the conclusion that it wouldn't end happily. I didn't have anything in the right size and style in the decal dungeon, because these letters are tall and wide with thin strokes. So I went down the masking route:

MPM_Wellington_1C_lettering_1_zps3aed12b

I printed out my reference photo (from Tony, in one of the posts above) at full model size and measured up the letters. I then made a masking tape frame and marked out the points at which the lines intersected the edge. I used a reference piece of tape to set the width of each line to get them all the same size. I could then mask up to the edge of the reference tape and remove it. Here's the first side being marked out. You can see that I marked out both top and bottom marks for the "A"s so that I could use the same frame upside down on the other side. After taking this picture I realised I had to move it to get the "D" closer to the window.

So here's the first side done.

MPM_Wellington_1C_lettering_2_zpsdc3070b

It was brush painted with Humbrol 64 acrylic, two or three coats. I like fast drying paint. When the masking was taken off for the last time, I sanded it lightly to remove the worst of the edges,did the curves freehand and did (surprisingly few) touch-ups. You can see my reference tape stuck to the wing so I didn't lose it.

The roundels in the picture have a thin yellow border. I started with the blacked out roundel from the kit as it had the right diameter yellow circle.

MPM_Wellington_1C_roundels_1_zpsc7e79db0

Then I added a decal without a yellow border over the top.

MPM_Wellington_1C_roundels_2_zpsbcd7ebb7

The yellow border is a touch too wide but it's close. I think I must have rounded out the measurements in the wrong direction.

On to the engines. I had decided that using the kit engines (which are rather nice once you have glued all the cylinders on) would be too much effort, given that they don't have a positive location, don't fit and then get hidden by the front plate. So I went with a piece of plastic card cut to shape to hold the blanking plates. I used a piece of plastic tube to pick up the short prop shaft on the kit propellers, so I now have freely rotating props with front and rear bearings 0(well, it matters to me...). I don't think I've lost a lot of visible detail, and the spare engines will come in handy elsewhere.

MPM_Wellington_1C_engines_zpsc6ea9215.jp

So I'm still buried in the details before giving it a final wash and matt coat. I'm hoping to get it in before the end of the year.

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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AdrianMF Blabber Mouth

AdrianMF

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Finished! Actually finished yesterday in 2014 but I had no time to take photos.

First off, here's a photo from the same angle as Tony's view of the original:

MPM_Wellington_Like_Photo_1_zps77fb2cf0.

And some other shots:

MPM_Wellington_Front_zps93e08041.jpg

Whenever I see a close-up of one of my models, I always think: "How did I miss that?!" (and that, and that, ...)

MPM_Wellington_Port_zps0ee4587f.jpg

I have finally discovered manual settings, tripod and delay timer on my camera (yes, I have had it for 4 years!) and so the photos are more than usually unforgiving.

MPM_Wellington_Underside_zpsa341e839.jpg

Serial numbers were home printed. They fought me a little, but I won ;-)

Thanks for looking and wish you all a happy new year,

Adrian

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AdrianMF Blabber Mouth

AdrianMF

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How did you do the wing tip lights, they look real?

Have you drilled a hole and done a silver bulb?

I cut away the light area on the wingtip, paint it black and glue in a solid chunk of clear plastic. Before gluing it in I drill a little hole on the inside face and paint it red or green to represent the bulb. If the plastic cover is tinted, use little bits of coloured hard plastic instead of clear and skip the bulb part. Then sand the plastic back down to profile and polish it back to a shine. If you soften the plastic in a candle flame first, you can squash it into the wingtip and you then don't have to cut it to fit.

Regards,

Adrian

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