1/72nd Matchbox Halifax- FINISHED

[tonyot]

Hiya Folks,

               It had to be done,......I`m going to tackle the Halibag! I`m not sure which version yet,....I have three in mind;

 

1- Mk.II- 138 Sqn Special Duties

2- G.Mk.V- Airborne Forces glider tug, N.Africa/Sicily 1943 with desert bomber scheme and Z Nose.

3- M.Mk.II- Desert Air Force with desert bomber scheme.

 

Anyway, here is the kit;

 

And some extras;

 

Including the Aeroclub white metal prop blades and an old vacformed Z Nose,......another Z Nose from Freightdog and some turrets left over from the Revell kit,....I may be dipping into the Revell spares box a little more, especially if I decide upon a Mk.V with the different undercarriage!

 

Also,...I was going to do a Tempest but one of the upper wing sections, a tailplane and the canopy is missing,....yet another model show buy!! So we`ll sack that one!

 

Cheers for now,

                      Tony

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by tonyot

[TonyW]

This will be good!  

One of the desert schemes would get my vote.

 

The Matchbox Halifax is a new on on me, having been brought up on the old Airfix version. The two would look good side by side. I'll add it to the list. 

[Graham Boak]

Don't add it to your list, it is pretty awful in just about every detail imaginable - but particularly the turret nose, and everything on the wing forward of the leading edge.  To its credit, the overall dimensions and proportions are good, as are the tailwheel, the mainwheels and the size of the ailerons underwing.  Better transparencies are available from Falcon, including the area around the main canopy.  The newer Revell Merlin Halifax is better on pretty well every count including panel lines; except for the tailwheel, mainwheels, aileron size, and everything forward of the leading edge.

[Rabbit Leader]

So good to see the Halibag added to this GB Tony. 

I'm sure you'll massage it into something quite presentable once finished. 

 

Cheers and watching from afar (in between the Brisbane Ashes Test of course!)... Dave  

 

 

[Beard]

My guess is you'll be doing the MkV, seeing as you have those Z noses. Whichever one you do, I'll be watching.

[tonyot]

Cheers for the messages of good will,..... tonight I`ve stuck the wings together, attached the nose halves to the fuselage halves and done some interior panting.

 

I`m now researching some schemes and here some of the Halibags which interest me;

 

138 Sqn;

I`ve got these decals too;

Halifax II, W1007, NF-U,...138 Sqn.;

 

I quite like this aircraft too,.....but might do this with the Revell kit as the later nose is much better in this kit,.. Halifax II, JP201, GR-L, of 1586 Polish Special Duties Flight at Brindisi, Italy, 1944. There is an aircraft from this unit wearing a huge Pegasus nose art,.....but I don`t know the serial!;

or;

 

10 Sqn det/462 Sqn, RAAF in the Western Desert,...I have quite a few in books too,....here is a taster,.....;

 

 

 

 

Halifax II, Series I, W1170, `U', 462 Sqn, RAAF, Fayid, Egypt;

 

 

Halifax II, DT501, J, 462 Sqn, Libya 1943;

Halifax II, DT498, C, 462 Sqn, Fayid, 1942;

 

 

Halifax GT.V, 295 Sqn, 38 Group, Airborne Forces, N.Africa for use in Invasion of Sicily;

 

So that is me just thinking out loud,..

Cheers for now,

                    Tony

 

Edited November 24, 2017 by tonyot

[stevej60]

Great stuff Tony I'm glad to see the Halifax make an appearance

[Vicarage Vee]

All power to you Tony, will enjoy watching this as always!

 

(really, you know that you want to do NP codes :-)) 

[Thom216]

Very nice! Prefer one with a nose turret, myself.

[lasermonkey]

Tempsford is the next village along from mine, so I know where my vote is going!

[stevehnz]

Possibly too late in the day with this info Tony, but looking at the Falcon Clearvax instructions, they recommend shortening the nose halves up 2.5,, as its too long otherwise. 

Steve.

[tonyot]

Thanks everybody,...and sorry Steve,....too late,..... but if anything it looks too short to me!

 

Here are the wings and tail assembled;

 

 

 

And here are the nose sections attached to the fuselage halves,....I used small sections of plastic card to strengthen the joint and a couple of coats of RAF Interior Green Grey;

  

 

 

The cockpit parts have been started and received a coat of Interior Green Grey;

 

Filler was applied to the nose to fuselage joint and also to the rather heavy panel lines around the nose. The cockpit has been assembled (apart from the control column which has gone walkabouts!) and had a watercolour wash and some black detail paintwork,....just needs a dry brush of silver,.... once I`ve bought the paint! The interior of the nose area was painted back,.... don`t know if this is correct for the earlier variants, but was an anti search light measure on the later variants,...and it cannot be seen anyway.  ;

 

I`m pretty sure that I`ve decided on building the model with a nose turret,.....but using one left over from the Revell kit as it looks better than the kit item;

 

Looking further into the future,....I`m going to have a go at opening out the engine intakes and maybe using the left over Revell radiator parts;

 

So thats it for now, all the best.

                                             Tony

[tonyot]

Hiya Folks,

              Spent Sunday at home resting up so managed to get some more done on the Halibag. 

 

As mentioned previously, I want to use a spare Revell Halifax nose turret and here it is (on the left), built up, alongside the rather insipid looking Matchbox kit item;

 

They were both test fitted to the kit;

Revell;

 

Matchbox;

 

As you can see the nose will not close around the Revell turret,..... but as it looks so much better than the Matchbox turret I decided to open up the mounting hole to allow the turret to sit in place and also remove some plastic from the area behind the turret and also underneath,..to create a bit more room. 

 

Next,... the interior of the cockpit and nose was spruced up a bit. Among the extra work done here was to cut away a section of the floor in the pilots cockpit underneath the instrument panel......at first I was going to live with the Matchbox error of including a fixed seat for the Air Engineer,.... but after I was asked by Jonny if I was going to do something about it the gauntlet was down,..... so I  cut this away and as it left a square hole in the floor the entire floor area was covered with a piece of plastic card to create a new floor. More plastic card was used to create positions for the Navigator and Wireless Operator down in the nose along with some spare seats from the Revell kit (one of them fell out prior to the photo,...but it has since been added again! Plastic card was also used to strengthen the cockpit floor and also to creat a bulkhead for the lower nose area with thicker scrap plastic used to fashion a seat back for the pilot, to which was added a harness of Tamiya tape,..along with plastic rod arm rests and a seat adjustment lever.  

As the Matchbox Halifax is quite a delicate thing with pretty poor seam lines along the fuselage which are quite prone to opening back up again,.....plastic card was also added vacuform style along the seams to help make them stronger;

 

 

I was stuggling for daylight by this stage so the photos are not very good......but as I`ve decided (so far) to go for the 138 Sqn Special Duties aircraft I also stole the  `joe hole' parachute exit from an unbuilt Revell kit and opened up a hole in the Matchbox fuselage.

And here are the fuselage halves,..ready to join;

 

Cheers,

          Tony

Edited November 26, 2017 by tonyot

[PhantomBigStu]

Good to see one being done, was going to myself, but with my B-17 still not done and a sunderland on the bench (and something else large planned for the Christmas break) I have no room to work on any large 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

Nice work there Tony 

 

I built a Spec Ops Series 2 Halifax from 148SQN a few years ago for an ex-RAAF chap who was a Navigator on them, it was from this kit and I had to scratch build the 'Joe hole' and various other bits. I did not know the Revell kit comes with these parts.

 

Anyway, I have another kit to do this same build for myself one day. I had thought about it for this GB but I am not sure I will have the time with my other builds on the bench.

 

Looking forward to seeing yours finished.

[modelling minion]

A great choice again Tony.

I like the extra work you have done so far, very good, and I am sure which ever of the versions you choose (I would find it difficult to choose too) will turn out very well.

[tonyot]

Cheers Chaps,.......well here is another update;

 

Those engine nacelles are awful,..... so I`ve decided to spruce them up using the nacelles from the Revell kit as a source of spares;

 

From left to right we have;

1/ the basic Matchbox nacelle front (in black) with the Revell radiator and nacelle in front and behind.

2/ Next, the Matchbox part is having the radiator intake opened up using a drill, while the bulge on the bottom of the Revell intake has been removed ready to add to the Matchbox part which does not have this represented in any way.

3/ With the intake opened up the lower section has a groove filed into it ready to accept the lower intake, while the Revell radiator is reduced to make it fit the narrower Matchbox nacelle. The Revell nacelle was also cut open in order to use the roof fairing above the intake. 

4/ The finished nacelle. 

The finished nacelle below;

 

In order to allow the Revell nose turret to fit properly the nose are underneath it was widened slightly,....using a piece of plastic strip glued around the rim, and then filler was backfilled underneath. Hopefully this will work!;

 

As the Matchbox kit does not have any representation of the scalloped nose found on the real aircraft, I have tried to sand the upper right hand area in front of the cockpit to give some indication of this. The entire nose seems to drop down too steeply towards the turret compared to the real aircraft but there is nothing that can be done about this;

   

 

Here is the full fuselage, with panel lines scribed and seams sanded, a new port hole was added above the wings on each side of the fuselage. As the 138 Sqn Halifax was an early variant it retains the waist gun positions and the layout of the rear fuselage portholes does not need to be changed,.... unlike later variants;

 

And here are the wings and tail all sanded,....along with the first of the completed radiator nacelles;

 

So,..quite a bit of progress was carried out yesterday!

Cheers

          Tony

Edited November 27, 2017 by tonyot

[Beard]

My word you're going for it on this one Tony. You've also convinced me not to purchase a Matchbox Halifax (which isn't a disaster as I have a Revell MkIII in the stash).

[tonyot]

Haha,.....yeah Beard,.....it is a bit of a pig if you want to make it look a bit better,......it is simple straight out of the box mind you, if you can live with the poor nose turret,..... the kit also has the later clear nose too!

 

Well today I have finished the radiator nacelles;

 

And test fitted the wings as well as fitting the horizontal tailplanes too;

Although the wings have some real trench lines sunk into them, I`ve decided to leave them alone and not fill them.

 

Here is a close up of the nose with the Revell turret in place;

 

 

I`ll probably paint the model with the wings off and then attach them afterwards,......so just tidy up the radiators and it will be almost time to paint,

 

Cheers,

          Tony

[Thom216]

Looking great! Nice work on the nose and in the 'pit. You're making me want to get one of these myself. (the Revell one though...)

[dogsbody]

Too bad you don't have a set of these.

 

 

 

 

Chris

[tonyot]

1 hour ago, dogsbody said:

Too bad you don't have a set of these.

 

 

 

 

Chris

Yes Chris,.....thanks for pointing that out! If I had some,.... I would have used them,..... but I tried getting some a few years ago without any joy, including a request here on BM,.....however my `fix' is better than nothing,

 

Cheers

         Tony

[Dermo245]

This is great modelling Tony....love it! 

Dermot

 

[Romeo Alpha Yankee]

3 hours ago, tonyot said:

Yes Chris,.....thanks for pointing that out! If I had some,.... I would have used them,..... but I tried getting some a few years ago without any joy, including a request here on BM,.....however my `fix' is better than nothing,

 

Cheers

         Tony

 

I also have a set of radiator parts in resin, not sure if they are Aeroclub or not. I think I will have to hunt them down and check them out.

[TonyW]

I've nothing but admiration for the work you are putting in here, the model is going to be a cracker by the look of it.

 

I must admit, I would have built it straight out of the box and would have been happy with a clean build. That's me and my take on old models.

I suspect I would sneak quietly out the building with it, should yours turn up at the same modellers meeting though.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing this one progress.

 

Tony.