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Airfix Dambuster - 1/72 Avro Lancaster B.III


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blimey

 

it's a Lancaster bomber thingy, wow

 

jesting apart (a part? which part?...) Tom I love the lamps, they really do show why I say you will make a Sea Vixen shaped Sea Vixen


Sublime skills dude

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  • 4 months later...

Oh my has it really been this long since and update … well we have had a splendid summer, and I’ve had a brief sabbatical away on the allotment and holiday’s during the fine weather given the frequency of a good British summer rivals that of Hailey’s Comet. Oh erm yes Johnny it is the kitchen variety, better late than never eh mate...:whistle:

 

Anyroad I’m back at the bench and have finally been working on the Lanc. First up was to get the wings finished off:

 

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As you can see a reasonable amount of clamping was required. Only a modicum of filler along the edges was required – gloop being my favourite medium. This was duly sanded back. Then it was on to the navigation and formation lights. You don’t get them in the kit so it’s a matter of utilising a piece of clear sprue – drilling out a small hole (or three), a blob of paint, supergluing in place, and then sanding back like thus:

 

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Now I’m not sure if the Dambuster Lanc had the later type formation lights as per those in the bottom right of the diagram in the left. I seriously suspect they did and I’ve got it wrong. However, I couldn’t find a reliable source so plumped for the early version.

 

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Amidst all the sanding I managed to pop one of the windows…grr. Fortunately I was able to glue it back in place with lashings of Tamiya thin. Fingers crossed it won’t pop when I come to mask it as remedial action will be a lot harder which will necessitate a lot more swearing.

 

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Next up were the engine nacelles and their innards.

 

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The call out doesn’t specify a colour for the tanks, but from what references I’ve seen and other modeller’s builds, they’ve gone for a red so I followed suit. A bit of black and silver here and there plus a light wash to bring out the detail to add a little interest to something that won’t be seen – but we all know it’s there!

 

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On assembling the nacelles I drilled out the intakes. Not as good as the aftermarket goods available, but a slight improvement on the kit offering.

 

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Despite fettling and numerous dry fits, there was quite a noticeable gap which required a smear of filler – Mr Dissolved Putty sorted it out.

 

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Here they are in place:

 

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I mentioned way back that there are quite a few imperfections in the plastic:

 

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These have been filled with gloop and sanded back.

 

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This is where I’m up to. Wings sorted and engine nacelles in place plus the other bits n bobs. Not quite ready for running around the room making aeroplane noises yet, but not far off.

 

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Looking great Tomo, and thanks for the answer. 😊 always better late than never.

Noticing all kinds of ways this kit is better than the Tamiya one. It even has the Cable cutters. 🤨 

Exclelent stuff. Looking forward to watching her come together. Fingers crossed for that window.

 

Johnny

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎9‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 3:16 PM, Procopius said:

Hurrah, Tomo's back at it!

Nice to be back PC, and nice to be missed.

 

This is a brief update. I have been doing a fair bit of work behind the scenes, mainly gluing the wheels and upkeep mine together, and prepping other bits for paint, such as the undercarriage which must be glued in place before you can glue the remaining nacelle sections in place. I won’t be the first modeller of the Airfix new tool Lanc to espouse that I’m not altogether comfortable with gluing the undercarriage in at this stage, for the obvious reason it’s a sticky out bit just waiting to be busted off. However, we have no choice, and by all accounts it is pretty sturdy…so what could possibly go wrong?

 

Of course there is another motivation for this little update. It was club meet today, initial discussions about the club table at Telford got underway, and naturally I want this to be on the table as we are hoping to display our most recent builds to freshen up our display a little. Organising the layout is none other than the adorable Bill (Perdu) of Naviation  fame, and he is now on my case, cracking the whip, accompanied by ear bashings and KUTAs! With no further ado then I really do have to get cracking.

 

The mechanism for spinning the bomb, undercarriage flaps and a few other bits and bobs got prepped and a coat of Alclad grey primer.


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But the main purpose was to try out a technique for adding tone to the black finish. Notoriously difficult in any scale to achieve a realistic tonally varied finished. Both the Baron (Tony) and Spadgent (Johnny) have used filtering techniques to great effect on their builds. Naturally I’ve paid particular attention to Johnny’s Lancaster build (and it is quite a build) because he achieved a convincing finish on the black underside, without it looking over the top. I’ve seen other modellers use similar techniques too.

 

I thought I’d have a crack at pre-shading.

 

This was my first attempt using Alclad black – yep I know I need a little more practice! I also did the fins/rudders. My reasoning is that painting them separately will avoid having to mask them later, and if I make a pig’s ear of it all I can simply strip the paint off and start over.

 

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Anyroad once dried I gave them a coat of Tamiya NATO black and this is the result. The tail is a little subtle, especially when photographed using my iPhone:

 

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The fins are a little better, and to be honest will actually be seen. I took them along to the club meet to get their opinion, and pleased that they all could make out the differences in tone.

 

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With that then I have a modus operandi for the black finish. Must now push on gluing everything together lest Bill serves me with my P45!

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  • 1 month later...

Back to the grind after a busy hot summer and a catastrophic heating breakdown. All is fixed and the mancave is toasty warm again.

 

First up was a little maintenance as I’d had to move lots of stuff around in the mancave and there was the inevitable casualty:

 

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Fortunately it was easily repaired with cyano and a micromeshing.  With that done it was on to the undercarriage. They had an overall coat of Alclad black, the hydraulics chrome, the other bits dark aluminium and white aluminium. You can’t quite tell from the piccies but there are different tones. From what reference pictures I’ve seen on tinternet the undercarriage appears a semi-gloss black.

 

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Anyroad they were fitted in place and the remaining sections of the engine nacelles glued in place. The undercarriage fitted like a glove, but the nacelle panels needed some fettling.

 

I have begun the dreaded transparencies. While the blister fits okay, the bomb aimer’s window sits proud:

 

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There is a raised frame around the window, but I needed to cut the positioning lugs off so the panel behind the window fits flush:

 

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Before I completed this task I painted the inside of the panel NATO black and fitted the bench.

 

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Initially way way back I scratchbuilt the bomb aimer’s wishbone sights and printed off a tiny map. I was going to lay them across the bench, but they did not look right, being overscale and hiding the bench, so alas they were ditched.

 

It was then onto the main canopy. Airfix has you fit the two side panels separately, which allows them to mould different versions. I understand the logic, but damn it is fiddly. The Formula 560 canopy glue (old recipe Bill) came in handy as did the Tamiya thin to glue them in place without making a mess. But it was tricky, so plenty of cursing was in order.

 

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One last look at the cockpit detail:

 

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After a dip in klear it was glued in place:

 

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It’s a tight fit with only minor little gaps that will either require a smear of canopy glue or a trickle of Mr Surfacer. Quite pleased with it. Oh that masking though…

 

I’ve also got the bomb housing finished, NATO black, dry brushing and the spinning mechanism was normal matt black – of course it won’t be seen:

 

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The housing was fitted and then I added the aldis positioning lights. I drilled out the housing and I’ll add some Little Cars lights post paint.

 

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Strangely the addition of those two little bits of plastic give it the “Dambuster” look which distinguishes it from a normal Lancaster. Onto the rest. Looking forward to Telford – don’t forget the meet up at the Brum table.

 

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Nice work

 

But very tardy, I was hoping we'd get this too as well as the dainty Fury on our table

 

 A timely reminder about the 1300 (One o'clock in old money) meet at our stand on Saturday

 

" BE THERE OR BE...somewhere else I suppose..."

 

Not that we won't be there the rest of the time, sometimes but sometimes we go shopping

Modellingtools and Sovereign Hobbies spring to mind, for example

 

Commercial over and hey Tomo, this really is becoming a beauty

 

Tremendous work

 

👍

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6 hours ago, Mikey-1980 said:

Apparently as a very small child I've stood in the middle of the Mohna dam.

Hello, I  grew up there nearby. Now it has not that much water as usual.  Hopefully it fills up again in the next time  and much rain is needed for that. Today dry (since last April) with 17°C in mid November :mental:. Anyway a good place to be evertytime. Cheers

 

41595644_484507448700726_368951976265003

Edited by bbudde
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello Tomo,  very nice work on the Lanc. Looking fine so far. I was at the lake yesterday and it was scary, sad and spooky there, but somewhat interesting and fascintating. Hopefully this is only one extraordinary year on that. All other reservoirs here look similar at the moment.

https://www.wa.de/nordrhein-westfalen/imposante-eindruecke-fast-leere-moehnesee-luft-10612882.html

Cheers

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well Telford was a blast as usual and good to meet up with some of you – Ced and Bill bought me a beer too :winkgrin:

 

A quick un. I added the bullet belt to the forward turret:

 

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It won’t be that much visible behind the glazing which I’ve masked:

 

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As you can see I don’t have any masks so it is a tedious and timely affair of cutting and aligning little bits of Tamiya tape on and on and on etc.

 

Moving on to the rear turret I added a coat of NATO black to the rear sliding doors and then glued in the axe. It does look nearer 1/48 to be fair, but not much of it will be visible and you’ll get the odd glimpse. I scribed a line for where the doors meet but forgot to remove the moulding sinks. Oh well too late for that now. Let’s hope the axe distracts you.

 

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I added the control column and firing triggers, but when I came to add the bullet belts they wouldn’t. It was incredibly fiddly and try as I might I couldn’t get them to stay put. I also knocked off one of the fiddly bits of the turret and was getting more and more angry and stressed. At this point I said to myself: “you know what I’m not enjoying this and it’s supposed to be a fun hobby” and so I gave up. I don’t like to admit defeat and always up for a challenge but sometimes you have to quit while ahead and the once you stop enjoying a hobby it’s time for a re-think in my opinion. So here it is without the bullets.

 

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I’m still pleased with the finished job. Half a loaf is better than none as they say.

 

I finished off masking the turret. I must say the moulding definition of some of the framework leaves much to be desired. For the aficionados among you it may be worth investing in some aftermarket vac-forms. They will have the added benefit of being clearer too, oh yeh and some masks…

 

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I blended in the canopy and now I’ve moved on to masking the equivalent of a 1/72 greenhouse:

 

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I took a break from this Sisyphean chore to finish off the wheels:

 

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There are other little bits and bobs to do which will serve as relief from masking all these blinking windows. Until next time…

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Pshaw, who needs no steenkin bullets anyway, not us I'll be bound har har!

 

(Er not that tight please)

 

Sisyphean huh, looks like our chairman is influencing to you Tom, That's his handle you know

 

In serious mode just for a second, looking very good

 

Tamiya tape's not so bad huh and I cannot ever get 'proper' masks right anyway so colour me impressed

 

:)

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1 hour ago, Tomoshenko said:

Well Telford was a blast as usual and good to meet up with some of you

It was great to meet you also Tomo, and I so loved that little Fury, but then I knew I would! 😁

 

The Lanc is coming along beautifully, looking forward to seeing it evolve to completeness.

 

Terry

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18 hours ago, Tomoshenko said:

So here it is without the bullets.

 

Well, the naafi van just arrived and the armourers have sloped off for a brew and a bun, so they'll load up the rear guns later.... :)

 

The turret interiors are stunning Tomo...!

 

All that masking looks fun...:blink2:

 

Keith

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