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Airfix Old Blenheim - Finished


AdrianMF

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Hello All,

 

Well, I see Martin is off building the old Airfix Ju88, which will doubtless cause him all sorts of grief. Why should he have all the fun?? So in a gesture of solidarity I've dusted off the old Airfix Blenheim, a kit that is not without (cough, ahem) "issues".

 

I've been plodding away at it on and off for a while, and here it is with possibly the lowest point in Airfix box art:

Airfix_Old_Blenheim_so_far.jpg

 

I've rounded off the pointy nacelle fairings and reduced the riveting with a light sanding. Wheels will be firmly up on this one, so that's one less job! The engines and cowlings are quite nice to my eye.

 

I've replaced the turret with the spare one left over from my new Airfix Blenheim 1 build, and taken the Blenheim 4 parts from that kit and grafted them into the cockpit. The canopy has been replaced with the Falcon vac form and the fuselage has been fettled to fit. The only remaining changes are a light sanding to the fuselage rivets and re-shaping the tail fin and rudder so it looks like a Blenheim. I think the tail shape error started with "Aircraft of the Fighting Powers" (love that series of books even though the plans are all wrong).

 

I'm going to do the Free French option. The decals look quite good for Airfix of the period, in register, not yellowed. The British option looks nice too - all you have to do is find the red disc for the fuselage roundel!

Airfix_Old_Blenheim_decals.jpg

 

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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Nice! I built the Free French one as a kid but had no idea it was so wrong....not that I would have done much about it even if I had known!

 

Ian

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Yep, of course I'm in here on this one. It's still a very good one and has no major issues. Like that 4 gunpack under the belly. When you sand down the rivets gently, it will looks very subtle and real:speak_cool::popcorn::popcorn:

Edit: Haven't seen that you had already smoothed the rivets. Falcon clearvax is a very good idea.( The only real weak point of the kit, I think. B)

 

As usual for me a bit nostalgic:

71237854ca18a2ee96a3e649a9725e76.jpg

Edited by bbudde
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I think that any kit, regardless of it's level of detail, can make a attractive model, as long as it's well build and painted.

 

Isn't scale modelling more about capturing the soul of the subject, rather than the exact locating of every screw and rivet, more like what a good box art does. 

 

 

 

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Thanks All!

 

I'm looking forward to this build as a contrast to the Fairey Long Range Monoplane project running in another thread. It's a kit I remember very fondly, with the classic box art from the 1960s as so kindly posted above. The bottle-bottom canopy that comes with the kit is its biggest problem by a long way, so I had to fix that; the other fixes I'm doing are fun to do and make a big difference only if you're a Blenheim nerd.

 

Regards,

Adrian

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1 hour ago, Hamden said:

Love the old Blenheim so will follow along as well!

 

At least you won't have several pages of "the front doesn't seem to fit the back and bomb bay won't close properly" with the old one. Put glue round the edges, stick left half to right half, sorted, off to the pub!

 

53 minutes ago, Martian Hale said:

Great to see someone joining in with the insanity!

 

Never more serious mate... :blink:

 

Regards,

Adrian

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1 minute ago, AdrianMF said:

At least you won't have several pages of "the front doesn't seem to fit the back and bomb bay won't close properly" with the old one. Put glue round the edges, stick left half to right half, sorted, off to the pub!

 

Exactly. I put an Airfix Blenheim IV on a wish list, intending the new one but a friend bought me the old one. Although disappointed at the time, it seems I dodged a bullet.

 

Looking forward to this!

 

John.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello All,

 

Time for a new cockpit, using card, leftover bits from the new Blenheim and other scraps. Compared with the cockpit supplied with the kit:

IMG_3496.jpg

 

It's going to be wheels up so I need a pilot and bomb aimer. I ended up using a pilot from a Lindbergh Me410 with arms from the Revell RAF set:

IMG_3497.jpg

 

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

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Very interested to see how this goes. I bought an old 1/72 Airfix Blenheim ages ago and have had it sat on the desk. I feel that watching this develop, given how the cockpit's looking already, will spur me on nicely. Lovely scratch building. 

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I'd forgotten about Airfix's ubiquitous "man trying to read a book while trapped in a very small sleeping bag"! He was certainly checked out on quite a few aircraft.....

 

Ian

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Nice internals Adrian - good job! Fiddly isn't the word for it at 1/72, impressive stuff.

I'm obsessed by pilot figures at the moment and interested to see that the pilot you have there seems to be an 'early chubby' - you know, the ones that now come with 'melted faces'. I found a couple like that in an Airfix Ju52 and they've now been put somewhere safe to act as masters for later molding. I guess he doesn't fit the cockpit eh? Par for the course...

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Thanks chaps!

 

11 hours ago, limeypilot said:

man trying to read a book while trapped in a very small sleeping bag

 

He resembles me in every camping trip I have taken in the past twenty years! Must buy a bigger sleeping bag. Mind you, before we mock too much, spare a thought to the man moulded into the bomb-aimer's floor in the Frog Whitley kit! I have a Frogspawn re-pop of not exactly stellar quality, and it took me a while to work out what the part was!

 

10 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Great looking cockpit, better than the new Airfix one in my opinion!

 

Well, it is half of the new Airfix cockpit, thanks to their inclusion of the MkIV nose parts in the MkI kit :) I'm using a Falcon canopy, so I should get to see the bit of it that isn't obscured by the crew.

 

6 hours ago, CedB said:

'early chubby'

 

I strenuously deny that any "chubby chasing" is taking place! On another forum he has been nicknamed "Archie", which is how I think of him. Like Doctor Who, the Airfix pilots have regenerated over the years, and kits have been often updated with newer pilots. I reckon he's the third generation. from mid sixties onwards. He's my favourite of them all, and it's possible to carve the arms off and re-position him quite easily. The blobby face of recent remoulds is possibly down to the softer plastic and its inability to produce a really sharp cast of the fine face detail at the pressures they use. The Tiger Moth/Typhoon pilot is a step back IMHO, being a bit featureless overall and a bit thin, but now that kits have scale seats instead of benches or pins the pilots have to fit into seats that are scale width on the outside and narrower-than-scale on the inside because of the minimum thickness of plastic. With a scratch built seat the sides are 10 thou not 40 thou, so you get 1.5mm extra width, or 4 inches in real life.

 

I ended up using a Lindberg pilot because his feet reached the pedals and I wanted to keep my stock of nice sharply-moulded Archies.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

 

 

Edited by AdrianMF
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Hi Adrian,

 

From my unwritten memories... I once tried made an accurate long-nose Blenheim from this classic kit. At that time I was young and handsome. Not any more young and I have some thoughts why I lost most of my hair..

 

Well, back to business. I try to recall what I did for it. First thing was sanding it smooth, then re-shaping the engine nacelles as you did also, Wing tips needed shaping also. Tail planes too. Nacelles were surprisingly good after cleaning but prop and prop hub needed more work as well as landing gear. Wheels were acceptable for that time.

 

But the fuselage... In fact basic dimensions were decent, but cross-sections and fin and rudder were a story of their own. Rounding lower corner was not difficult nor moving lower front corner forward to get the front glazing into better angle. Rear fuselage was laminated with polystyrene sheets from inside and filed and sanded to better cross section outside. For tail I used a thick sheet cut into correct shape between the kit parts. All surface detailing, ailerons etc. needed to be re-done and so on...

 

Cheers!

 

AaCee

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This was one of my absolute favourites as a young lad  of about 10 Adrian. When painted using the original Airfix paints, I really liked the way it looked. I had no idea at all that it had any faults, it just went together a treat and looked great :). Very 'Commando' book cover friendly (along with 'Victor' comic, favourite reads of the time).

 

The Free French markings seemed very alternative and exotic then, and it was unusual (for me) to have a desert scheme twin engine aircraft. It's partner, on my shelf, was another (still) favourite, the Frog Martin 167 Maryland in Free French markings.

 

A lovely pair (ooh er missus!).

 

Great cockpit work indeed Adrian, with nice recycling of parts from the newer kit, to help grandpa along :).

 

Looking forward to seeing it built with a nice clear Falcon canopy (things of great beauty).

 

Best regards

TonyT

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