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Vulcanicity's Stranraer and Heyford dual mega build!


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That bump on the port side of the nose was something to do with the sensor for the outside air temperature gauge - the Walrus had an identical fitting.  From memory it has a slot in the rear face, which was to allow air in but prevent the temperature sensor from becoming over-cooled / iced up in the airflow. [Edit: Chris posted the same thing at the same time - sorry!]

 

Lovely work.

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all, and thanks for the clarification about the outside thermometer/temp gauge!

 

More long delays - PhD corrections (approved on Monday, yay! :yahoo:), comments on a scientific paper (accepted, yay!:yahoo:) and starting a new job (still doing induction and admin, and getting used to a monumental project management system 😞) have sapped my time and energy this time.

However  - it's time for the big reveal!

 

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That's right, one Stranraer of 228 Squadron RAF, based at Pembroke Dock in winter 1938-39. Ages ago, I managed to snaffle a complete decal sheet from the Revell re-release of this kit (mine's a bright-green and turd-brown Matchbox issue, if you remember), off a well-known internet emporium. The original kit sheet I had was yellowed and disintegrating, and a new-old-stock replacement I found in a decal odds-n'-ends bin at Telford was also not great. So far, so happy, as you can see, lovely bright colours.

 

However, I've had a helluva fight to get them stuck down as well as this. I normally make sure I've got a nice gloss surface, apply the decal, and use Micro Set and Micro Sol as per the instructions, and Robert's your father's sibling.

However after about three applications of Sol, these Revell decals just refused to sit down at all - they went all soft and wibbly OK, but once the stuff had evaporated they tightened right back up and refused to sink into panel lines, or even the undulating fabric detail on the wings. Bubbles that weren't there before suddenly appeared I dug out spare unopened bottles of the solvents but this made no difference - I think the decals themselves must just be much too thick.

 

Anyway, faced with a major disaster I did what British people have done for centuries - I bodged a new technique on the spot and crossed my fingers. Turns out, if you wait until the MicroSol is about 3/4 dry (the wibbly bits are just starting to disappear), then GENTLY brush over the decal with a clean, soft but firm paintbrush,applying a fair amount of pressure over the recessed detail and forcing any bubbles out to the side, the recalictrant decal dries and settles as you wanted, and stays there. I've called this Phil's Patent Paintbrush Persuasian Protocol (PPPPP) and you're welcome to it!

 

Then, more stress as (with a great deal of trepidation) I applied a rattlecan satin varnish coat, and proceeded to remove all the masking which had been on for weeks. I've hammed up rattlecan varnish so many times my heart was in my mouth for this one! I've taken to doing less rather than more from the can, and finishing off with Revell aqua varnishes with a hairy stick, as the risk of getting horrible white speckling over roundels and other dark areas is much reduced. Even so, STRESS...

 

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Phew! You can see in this view that I've put an initial coat of grey paint on the metal-skinned areas of the lower centre wings. These were definitely covered with some kind of non-slip coating (or possibly anodised), but it's definitely not black (as Revell depicted with decals) or the enigmatic "Black Green" as Matchbox suggest that you paint these areas. There are very few shots of service Stranraers that show this area, and they're all of poor quality. However they all show a pretty minimal contrast between the silver of the fabric areas and the non-slip sections. I went for Medium Sea Grey as an approximate tonal match (I realise it needs another coat!).

 

I've also more or less finished the Stranraer's engine nacelles, having drybrushed my modified resin engines, then had a minor nightmare trying fix them into my modified cowlings and get them to sit straight. The perils of super-detailing and kit modifications!

 

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Now, from silver, to...NIVO!

 

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I'm not a fan at all of enamel paint (too much teenage lung damage put me off), and the Xtracolour NIVO is not available as an Xtracrylix. So I had to mix my own - I used five parts Humbrol 91 to four parts Humbrol 88, measured exactly with a syringe. I'm pretty chuffed with the result considering it's mixed by eye - it's close enough to me considering there are very few preserved aircraft in this colour and no (?) period colour photos, and so any glaring difference isn't going to constantly annoy me.

 

I modified the panel where the elevator actuator disappears into the wing to show the pulley - unfortunately this area has a few imperfections which were too difficult to remove with the struts and rigging points all added - but it's all going to be in deep shadow so I'm not sure it'll notice. You all have to act nicely and not point them out in the RFI (due in about October 2022 at current rates)

 

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With the NIVO done, it was time for decals... and a trial fit to produce a more or less complete aeroplane!

More Revell decals, and even worse adhesion. Even the PPPPP failed me for the spats, and I had to resort to cutting the wrinkles with a fresh scalpel blade.

 

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Those of you who know your Heyford variants will know that this is the Heyford II option (nose windows, early style radiator intakes) - I've built K4877 of 7 Squadron based at Worthy Down (I think?) in 1936.

 

This is far as I've got with the finishing of the main sub-assemblies, but hopefully I can get the Heyford's matt coat on this week (cue more existential terror with a spray can) and then do some nice relaxing weathering.

 

Before I go, one more shot. While I bought a full complement of MiniArt machine guns, I was too stingy to spend £25 on two brass Scarff ring mountings for the Stranarer. (The Heyford uses a different kind of mounting which I think is a Hawker mounting similar to that on the Hart series). Instead, aided by some excellent photos from the RCAF archives, I  made a start on scratchbuilding the Scarff rings. I only used the kit ring (thinned down, all the white areas are plasticard stock). Only four more mountings to do!

 

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What a smashing pair - I'm a great fan of any Matchbox biplane and you have done these proud.

 

Does anyone know why British maritime aircraft of that era had the red stripe on the propeller blades, even after yellow tips were introduced?

 

Regards,

Adrian

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  • 1 month later...

Hi everyone!

I've swapped job induction and admin for haring around Southern England surveying newts and rescuing Slow Worms* from the path of mechanical excavators (yes, they do pay me for this!) - this has not resulted in a net increase in model time unfortunately.

 

However, some things have got done on this endless, endless, task.

First, I have finished the five gun mountings! From left to right, these are the dustbin mounting and two Hawker High Speed Mountings for the Heyford (I still find it very amusing that this aircraft was thought to need High Speed gun mountings - cruising speed approximately 115 m.p.h!), and two Scarff Rings for the Stranraer. The only kit parts I have used are the bases of the Scarff rings themselves, suitably thinned.

 

The guns are the wonderful Model Art Lewis Mk. III guns - these are works of art but need a microscope and a trained mouse to assemble them neatly! I think at least three PE gunsights were sacrificed to the Carpet Monster, and will eventually be found lodged underneath the skin of my toes. Plastic memory has meant that the U-shaped Hawker mountings have not stayed parallel-  but hopefully they can be bent back into shape when they're finally attached.

 

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Next, I have completed the door for the Stranraer. Those with long attention spans might remember that this assembly was retained unchanged during the Canadian postwar cargo conversion, but was set into a much larger freight door. This means that after thinning down the kit part, I was able to copy the details from the Hendon machine and didn't have to strain my eyes peering at period photos as per usual. MB provide the window for this door, but it's got lost sometime in the last 21 months of toil, so I made a new one out of some flat clear polystyrene courtesy of one of those dishes you buy baklawa on from your local Asian grocer (mmmmmmm baklawa...)

 

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With the lower wing/hull completed I could finish another fiddly job - the bars over the porthole in the roof over the wireless operator. This little window is missed by MB, and in the real thing there are several metal bars to stop ground crew or aircrew putting their feet through it while walking about on the top of the centre section. This was a very complex operation in order to ensure the window had neat silver bars over it but no paint or glue on the clear plastic - but the result is quite good enough considering it's surrounded by struts and rigging :)

 

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I've also weathered this section. New Stranraers in 1938 look pretty clean from period photos, but panel lines rapidly show up darker, and a mucky waterline develops pretty quickly. I simulated the latter using a combination of drybrushing and masking tape - easy enough on the sides, but getting the line to wrap around underneath the hull, but look completely level from the side was a challenge!

 

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The next big job with the Stranraer is the rigging, and fitting the top wing onto the bottom wing!

This is not quite such a muddled-up order as it may seem, as most of the lower ringing points around the Stranraer's centre section bay are drilled into the struts not the lower wing. This means about 1/4 of the rigging can be done before doing the big scary join:

 

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I'm quite impressed with EZ Line, and it's certainly much more user-friendly than the fishing line I used to use. One problem is that it seems to be very easy to fix it in with a twist in the wire - since it's not round in cross section this really shows up. The fact I could only get Blue is also annoying as I have to repaint the whole lot silver! At least a coat of paint makes the twists slightly less obvious.

 

On to the Heyford. Before doing the fuselage-wing joint the painted Heyford needs some weathering on the engines and wings- in particular the insides of the nacelles will be near-impossible to reach after final assembly.  Again this is the 1930s and aircraft weren't too filthy, but NIVO seems to have shown up the weathering and stains quite a bit. With the upwards and backwards-facing exhausts, the aircraft should show staining across the upper wing:

 

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I've also weathered the nacelles and added some chipping, although I think the latter might need a bit of knocking back. The exhausts had three paint coats - a Citadel steel coat, a dense rusty brown wash, and subtle drybrushing with a light grey to simulate the whitish heat crazing you seem to get on exhaust stacks:

 

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That's all folks - next post will see some final assembly and a lot more rigging!

 

 

 

*For those from outside the UK, and indeed those without a nerdy interest in ecology, a Slow Worm is neither slow nor a worm. It is not a snake either, despite looking like one. It is in fact a sort of lizard without any legs (this is not the same as a snake). Got all that OK? Good.They are legally protected, hence why someone pays me to rescue them from places where houses are going to be built.

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Thise are both looking very spiffy, especially in silver! 

I think you'll find that "high speed" refers to how quickly the gun can be brought into action from the stowed position, not the speed at which the aircraft operates! 😂

NIVO is available from Misterkit, but I only just received mine so haven't had a chance to use it yet. There's an O/400 waiting in the wings for that....

 

Ian

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More nice work Phil :) 

I've scrapped the flat EZ Line in favour of the Infini stuff from Jamie at Sovereign Hobbies - much better IMHO and available in different gauges.

Can't provide a link at the mo as the site's closed for the Scottish Nationals :( 

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The Heyford wings-without-fuselage are looking increasingly surreal! I love the weathering on both of them, and I will be trying out the grey dry-brush on exhausts too.

 

Looking forward to the next episode.

 

Regards,

Adrian

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Some beautiful work on these, just caught up with it.

 

well done on rescuing newts and slow worms, even if it’s your job! Don’t suppose you have read the older Adrian mole books by Sue Townsend have you??

 

Rob

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  • 5 weeks later...

Thanks for the comments everyone! @rob85 no I never did! Might have to look them out.

@CedB thanks for the tip - as you'll see I've taken your advice!

 

First...ta daaaa!

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My patience with test-fitting the upper wing (remember, I assembled the wings with all the upper strut attachments glued but all the bottom attachments dry fitted) paid off royally with the Stranraer - final fitting of the upper wing proceeded with hardly a whisper of the gut-knotting stress that operations like this usually cause me (but read on, viewer!).

 

It was then a relatively simple job to rig the outer wing bays with EZ-Line (this was before I read CedB's suggestion above). Painting the blue thread silver was fiddly but at least any slips with the brush won't notice.

 

The remaining work now on the Strranraer involves attaching all the bits I've been itching to stick on for months but which had to wait until after rigging, unless I wanted to attach each one several times.

 

The floats were simple to attach but a nightmare to rig. As you can see the struts are very thin, and this means they have absolutely no sideways strength. You can't just rig one of those diagonal wires at once, or the whole caboodle rips itself off with anything more than zero tension applied. You really need to simultaneously tension and knot the two wires in each pair, while using that convenient third arm you have to apply superglue to your two knots. Not being Zaphod Beeblebrox myself, I had to borrow Ms Vulcanicity to hold the wires while I glued.

 

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For the moment, I'm not going to try crash-moulding a replacement canopy for the Stranraer, even though there's something slightly squiffy about the shape of the windscreen (if nothing else it doesn't slope quite enough). I've spent not far off two years on these builds and am *very* keen to get them done. However, this being me, and this being this project, every kit part needs modifying to some extent to appease the modelling gods. So I've decided to open one of the sliding side windows so that tiny tiny people can squint inside and see all that scratchbuilding I did back in 2017. I took a saw to the canopy. It was fine. Nobody died.

 

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On to the Heyford. I left you with the wings and fuselage almost ready for that fateful join. However, one important job needed doing first, which was preparing the two v-shaped struts which connect the bottom of the fuselage with the lower centre section. It's one of the eternal truisms of life that if you have a Matchbox Heyford, part 21 (the rearmost of these two struts) will always be broken in the box. After some faffing around with trying to pin the breaks (much like trying to splice mouse femurs) I gave up and made a new one.

 

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Stick the wings on the fuselage, stick the struts in, slap some NIVO on, Bob's yer uncle. I also added two curved items which I'm fairly sure are footsteps to aid the ascent to the heady heights of the fuselage, plus a mysterious pipe connecting the centre section with the fuselage diagonally on the port side. Looking at a cutaway I have I think this may have housed a trailing wireless aerial - I suspect there's a hole underneath the bottom of the trailing edge to accommodate it, but I've no idea where and it's at an absurdly oblique angle so I'm not drilling it out.

 

You can also see one of two struts connecting the nacelles and the upper wing root. MB have the attachment points for these wrong at both ends, making the kit parts too short, so again I whittled some out of plasticard like a peculiar kind of Boy Scout.

 

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Looks something like a Heyford now!

 

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If I thought that rigging the Stranraer all seemed a bit too easy (floats and extra arms notwithstanding), then boy was I right. Just the sixteen wires inboard of the Heyford's nacelles (twelve visible here) took me about five hours of rigging time, even with the more manageable Sovereign Hobbies black cable which CedB suggested. (By the way, the suggested scales don't seem right - I bought the 1/72 stuff and it would seem a bit fine even on a 1/144th scale model! At most it would be suitable for a small WW1 biplane in 72nd. This is the 1/48th thread).

 

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The essential problem is that unlike the Stranraer, the Heyford is painted in a colour specifically designed to absorb as much light as possible, and I simply couldn't rig the centre section wires until the basic structure and V-shaped struts were in place. This me gamely traying to thread superfine black elastic through tiny dark green eyelets in minute, dark space.s  Cue much rage - Ms Vulcanicity has developed a Biplane Rigging Rage Meter and this was a good 11 on the scale.

 

Still, I managed - eventually!

 

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If that's got you in a cold sweat, here's a nice picture of some photo-etched bomb racks, ordnance and scratchbuilt bomb bay doors to calm you down. More soon, hopefully (Slow Worms permitting!)

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Two exceptional models being produced here from two classic kits. A huge amount of effort and patience but it is certainly paying off.

 

 A belated congratulation on your Ph D and job - hope all goes well with the latter, even if it does cut into essential modelling time!

 

P

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great work Phil and I'm glad the Infini is working for you too - once you get the scale you're happy with…

 

Looking pretty spectacular, both of them!

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They look gorgeous. I hadn't even thought about the problems of rigging dark models with black thread! I can't imagine how long your list of things to finish is but I'm looking forward to seeing them sitting pretty on the done shelf.

 

Regards,

Adrian

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