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Vintage 1978 Matchbox 1/32 Westland Lysander


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After seeing Stewie's 1/72 Lysander build and Filipe's 1/32 Lysander build here on BM I couldn't resist the "siren call from the stash" of the ancient Matchbox example put up for sale in Canada that I got hold of on E-bay:

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The idea was to have a quick peek in the box and then return it to the stash but as you can see things didn't quite work that way:

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I refer to the model as being vintage, defined as:

  • representing the high quality of a past time
  • old-fashioned or obsolete
  • being the best of its kind

It shows it's age but I think it should build into a very agreeable representation of an enigmatic aircraft.

:coolio:

Edited by Gremlin56
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Got one of these in the stash as well... and agree, each time I look at it I wanna make a start.

I purchased mine of eBay and although it's got three sets of decals, all are waterlogged rendering them completely useless.

What scheme are you planning on doing this yours?

Cheers and looking forward to more progress... Dave.

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Got one of these in the stash as well... and agree, each time I look at it I wanna make a start.

I purchased mine of eBay and although it's got three sets of decals, all are waterlogged rendering them completely useless.

What scheme are you planning on doing this yours?

Cheers and looking forward to more progress... Dave.

Good morning Dave,

the decals that came with my buy look very reasonable considering their age. I am about 99% sure I will be building a Lysander Mk. 1, in this case an aircraft of RAF 16 Squadron based in Odiham early 1939. Green/Brown camo and Sky undersides. This lets me fit the winglets and fuselage bomb rack. Weathering won't be too heavy, I think the aircraft would be meticulously maintained at this moment in time.

Cheers,

Julian

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Julian... I applaud your choice of scheme, however my mail would suggest that Sky would not be appropriate for the undersides for a 1939 machine. I think Matchbox have this correct, so I'd be following their advice on the colour call-out - Aluminimum if I can remember.

Cheers... Dave.

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Julian... I applaud your choice of scheme, however my mail would suggest that Sky would not be appropriate for the undersides for a 1939 machine. I think Matchbox have this correct, so I'd be following their advice on the colour call-out - Aluminimum if I can remember.

Cheers... Dave.

Good job you gave the head up there Dave. It's not Sky but it's not silver either. I found "KJ-N" in the Warpaint serie #48 by Alan W, Hall. The underside of the fuselage is same camo as the topside, the underside of the tailplanes and ailerons are silver. The underside of the starboard wing is white and the underside of the port wing is black, (I thought this was supposed to be a camouflage for cripes sake :mental::D :D ). This will be the one I build, not often you can do this sort of flashy paint job and call it accurate :blink:

Cor your easily led astray aren't you?

I've always thought of these birds as an ugly ducking with panache.

They certainly played an important part in the war.

:popcorn:

Kev

Yes, well, sort of, okay I admit I am a nasty weak model builder who is easily distracted and led astray :rolleyes::D

It's a beautiful bird in an extraordinary ugly fashion, an enigma none the less doing daring deeds at night in occupied Europe that probably had a high "pukker factor".

I have it from accurate information that there was a special production line for Lysander seat cushions which mysteriously disappeared during these missions :devil::bleh::clown:

Honest indian :clown:

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I'm in! :popcorn:

Martin

Thanks Martin !

So am I

Cheers

Dennis

Welcome aboard Dennis :winkgrin:

This looks like fun!

Presumably you would see the inside of the fabric and the stringers on the inside of the cockpit, like you do on the Swordfish?

Regards,

Adrian

Hi Adrian,

if you check out the BM walkarounds here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/76579-westland-lysander/

you can see there is an awful lot of framing going on inside the fuselage and the supplied framework in the kit doesn't do great justice to the real deal.

There is no way that I am going to attempt to scratch build all that though and even if I did try to you wouldn't see a lot of it once the fuselage halves are sealed up.

Once you dive into the reference material you find a lot of the details are very crudely represented but hey, this is 1978 state of the art :analintruder:

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Hi Gremlin,

Looking forward to this build I built this back in the day but sadly I can't remember anything how it went but I was only about 12 !!! probably glue all over it and me !

Have fun mate.

Guy

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Aah memories. I remember on an episode of "sorry" with Ronnie corbett , he had a "model plane". It was one of these but inside the box was balsa wood! I will be looking for one of these and following this build.

Thank you !

Wow no shortage of reference material there mate............ :poke:

Lol

Kev

If you want to go crazy on scratch building frames this is the kit to buy :yahoo::thumbsup::yahoo:

Hi Gremlin,

Looking forward to this build I built this back in the day but sadly I can't remember anything how it went but I was only about 12 !!! probably glue all over it and me !

Have fun mate.

Guy

Good morning Guy,

I think the old builds from when I was a kid must have been pretty grim to say the least. I remember getting the number 14 bus into the city center of Plymouth on Saturdays and making a bee line to Lawson's with my pocket money burning a hole in my pocket. Grabbing the latest release by Airfix and rushing back home to stick it together so it would be ready for the fierce air battles with the other kids in the neighborhood. It was great fun as I remember it now.

I recently found some old photos of a couple of builds I did about 40 years ago. Really confronting with a high "what the heck was I thinking of there" content :analintruder::yikes:

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Good morning Dave,

the decals that came with my buy look very reasonable considering their age. I am about 99% sure I will be building a Lysander Mk. 1, in this case an aircraft of RAF 16 Squadron based in Odiham early 1939. Green/Brown camo and Sky undersides. This lets me fit the winglets and fuselage bomb rack. Weathering won't be too heavy, I think the aircraft would be meticulously maintained at this moment in time.

Cheers,

Julian

Hi Julian

Not wanting to pee on your firework, but I'm pretty sure that 16 Sqn didn't fly Lysanders from Odiham, 4 and 13 Sqns did, but 16 was based at Old Sarum. I have an interest in Odiham, I only live 4 miles from there, and spent many a long day as a kid sat on the field and have a pretty comprehensive history of the station. I can check if you like, I have a couple of mates who work there, and I'll see if I can did any photos of Lysanders based there during the early war years.

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Hi Julian

Not wanting to pee on your firework, but I'm pretty sure that 16 Sqn didn't fly Lysanders from Odiham, 4 and 13 Sqns did, but 16 was based at Old Sarum. I have an interest in Odiham, I only live 4 miles from there, and spent many a long day as a kid sat on the field and have a pretty comprehensive history of the station. I can check if you like, I have a couple of mates who work there, and I'll see if I can did any photos of Lysanders based there during the early war years.

Old Sarum is not what Matchbox thought back in '78 but the Warpaint reference agrees completely with you ! I think I now have the correct scheme and correct location for this aircraft. Any information on the Lysander would be very welcome.

Cheers,

Julian

I'm in too Julian, I always had a bit of a hankering to build this kit myself... glad my mini-me version played a small part in inspiring this B)

Cheers,

Stew

Good morning Stew,

Your Lysander build played a bigger role in this build than you realize :) Your beautifully painted Lissie had me searching E-bay and the Dutch Marktplaats for a 1/32nd scale version.

I hope I can make the paintwork look as good as you did,

cheers mate :winkgrin:

Nice Dogfight double you are working on at the moment, the new Airfix Wildcat is a huge improvement on the old example they had.

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Aha, found you! I knew you were lurking with a Lysander somewhere, I sold mine as part of the stash cull before we moved here. I can't make up my mind wether I regret it or not, no doubt after watching your build it will be the former.

John

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Aha, found you! I knew you were lurking with a Lysander somewhere, I sold mine as part of the stash cull before we moved here. I can't make up my mind wether I regret it or not, no doubt after watching your build it will be the former.

John

Sacrilege John, sell one of these in a stash cull. Still, might be a good idea for my stash :yikes:

I have the revell boxing in the stash, it has tempted me a few times to get it onto the bench, so will keep an eye on this

Go on, pull it out of the stash :winkgrin: You know you want to................................................................................. :coolio:

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1/11 update:

A very enjoyable day working on the Lissie. Scratching up some things for the cockpit and busying things up in this area in general.

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Still needs weathering and dirtying up :winkgrin: The fit is rather vague and took superglue, gator Grip glue and ordinary cement to get things together. Once this succeeds it's plain sailing but the assembly here shows the age of the kit :coolio:

Edited by Gremlin56
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