Avro Lancaster STGB Chat

[TonyW]

What could possibly go wrong?

[vppelt68]

5 hours ago, TonyW said:

What could possibly go wrong?

How about the group build host going AWOL? . A huge  to Dave @Rabbit Leader for stepping up to "fill the void", well done mate (if I may call you so). Maybe I´ve got stuck in the Finnish corona-boosted self-isolation 🙄... My Lancaster will be finished during this GB.

V-P

[Rabbit Leader]

30 minutes ago, vppelt68 said:

... well done mate (if I may call you so)

Of course you can V.P... and apologies if it appears I was playing GB host. I was just getting a little too excited with all the recent and excellent Lanc progress and wanted to motivate others to stay focused and not distracted by all those pesky Spitfires and Buccaneers! 

Cheers.. Dave 

[PeterB]

Hik,

 

I am currently building the Planet Models resin 1/72 Manchester and I have a question - the kit provides a "towel rail" aerial for under the rear fuselage - Loran I guess. It says that it is optional and I am not sure if I should fit it to my early Manchester Mk I L7284 with the 28' tailplane and ventral turret - any thoughts?

 

Pete

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by PeterB

[Rabbit Leader]

2 hours ago, PeterB said:

I am currently building the Planet Models resin 1/72 Manchester and I have a question - the kit provides a "towel rail" aerial for under the rear fuselage - Loran I guess. It says that it is optional and I am not sure if I should fit it to my early Manchester Mk I L7284 with the 28' tailplane and ventral turret - any thoughts?

Pete

Below is a copy of my reply from your WIP post... it may solicit more responses? 

 

Pete, 

A very quick flick through my Manchester Profile book (#260) suggests that this aerial is shown on all aircraft fitted with the taller 'Lancaster' type tail fins, whilst those fitted with the smaller three finned arrangements do not. This appears to be quite consistent with all the photographs and colour artwork, so my call would be to leave this off. Now I am no Manchester expert, so cannot be 100% sure that there was ever any aircraft fitted with the short span hori stabs and taller fins. Nice wing / engine progress as well. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[PeterB]

Thanks Dave,

 

I forgot I actually have a complete set of "Profiles" on disk - must dig it out.

 

Pete

[Rabbit Leader]

Just now, PeterB said:

I forgot I actually have a complete set of "Profiles" on disk

Showing your age again Pete!! 

At least you didn't rush out and buy a copy of something you already have.... I've done this on a few occasions and have not quite reached the magical age of 50 as yet! 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

[JOCKNEY]

19 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Showing your age again Pete!! 

At least you didn't rush out and buy a copy of something you already have.... I've done this on a few occasions and have not quite reached the magical age of 50 as yet! 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

On the subject of which I might have an extra 1980's Airfix Lancaster I didn't realise I had already Dave, PM me if you are interested 

Oh and Yes I also intend to finish my Lancaster build.

It is with almost disbelief that I have a 100% completion record on GBs so far in 2020 

cheers Pat 

 

[Rabbit Leader]

1 hour ago, JOCKNEY said:

On the subject of which I might have an extra 1980's Airfix Lancaster I didn't realise I had already Dave, PM me if you are interested 

Oh and Yes I also intend to finish my Lancaster build.

It is with almost disbelief that I have a 100% completion record on GBs so far in 2020 

cheers Pat 

 

Very impressed with your GB completion record Pat and good to hear you intend to complete your Lanc as well. 

Now although that 80's Lanc sounds tempting, I think its best we hold off for a while. Today's International postage is not exactly what it used to be as its taking ages for items to arrive down to this side of the world. I am also struggling to really progress my Lanc build this week due to sparring 12 rounds whilst fighting those clear parts. I'll hopefully recover it today, however masking white lines and expecting them to turn out straight isn't exactly fun (or easy) and so far my efforts are more akin to 'something I would have built as a kid'! 

Cheers.. Dave 

[PeterB]

Ok, a couple more questions about my Manchester build - which is one of the early ones with the 28' span tail.  Under the bombaimer's hemispherical dome in the nose is a rectangular cut out as in the Lancaster. Planet offer two options but without any explanation. You can either cut the dome so that it has a "tab" to fill in the rectangle as a window, or you can instead glue in a rectangle of resin with a circular window in the middle - any thoughts? Also, I have seen pics of both Lancasters and Lincolns with the entire main undercarriage and the wheel centres "Silver" but most show only the lower part of the leg in that colour and the rest black. Planet show everything silver - again any thoughts as to what is correct.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[zebra]

4 hours ago, PeterB said:

Ok, a couple more questions about my Manchester build - which is one of the early ones with the 28' span tail.  Under the bombaimer's hemispherical dome in the nose is a rectangular cut out as in the Lancaster. Planet offer two options but without any explanation. You can either cut the dome so that it has a "tab" to fill in the rectangle as a window, or you can instead glue in a rectangle of resin with a circular window in the middle - any thoughts? Also, I have seen pics of both Lancasters and Lincolns with the entire main undercarriage and the wheel centres "Silver" but most show only the lower part of the leg in that colour and the rest black. Planet show everything silver - again any thoughts as to what is correct.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

I’ve got the Warpaint book in front of me. In photos where the window under the nose is visible, nearly all are rectangular. The prototypes had the circular window and you can see it on the 2nd production aircraft (L7277). There’s a photo showing L7288 from the side and the underside of the nose looks like it doesn’t have the rectangular window, but it’s not that clear. L7320 - which had the wider span tailplane - clearly had the rectangular window. I’m guessing the first production batch had the circular window so I think if it had narrow span tailplanes it would be reasonable to go with the circular window. But I wouldn’t say I’ve got strong evidence for that.

 

regarding the undercarriage, most photos in the book (including the photo of L7288 I referred to above) seem to show the top part of the main strut is black, the bottom part (starting where the first diagonal strut meets it) is silver with a small black section (a damper?) above the hub. Diagonal struts look like they’re entirely silver and wheel hubs are silver.

[PeterB]

Thanks Julian,

 

Mine is L7284 so I will probably go with the resin insert with the small "porthole" type window unless I hear otherwise fairly soon. At least it will save some tricky cutting of the vac form blister.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Rabbit Leader]

On a similar topic, the Hasegawa Lancaster includes two types of undernose clear / perspex panels as well. Once, masked and painted one will leave a rectangle window, whilst the other an oval style one. I'm building a Tiger Force VII and was thinking that the oval would be more appropriate as I'm sure the BBMF and NX611 examples show this type. Any thoughts on this one? 

Cheers.. Dave 

[PhantomBigStu]

On 5/12/2020 at 10:31 PM, Rabbit Leader said:

On a similar topic, the Hasegawa Lancaster includes two types of undernose clear / perspex panels as well. Once, masked and painted one will leave a rectangle window, whilst the other an oval style one. I'm building a Tiger Force VII and was thinking that the oval would be more appropriate as I'm sure the BBMF and NX611 examples show this type. Any thoughts on this one? 

Cheers.. Dave 

The airfix instructions for the BBMF one shows the oval type

[PeterB]

Although not strictly correct, I am cosidering having the ventral "dustbin" turret on my Manchester in the lowered position whilst the kit stands on its u/c. The outside will be painted matt black - it is solid with no interior but in the real thing I think the insides would perhaps be aircraft grey green. Now here is the problerm - it had quite a bit of glazing which I am going to have to simulate with paint. Any suggestions on the best colour? I was thinking silver toned down with a little white and perhaps a tint of grey/green.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[zebra]

6 hours ago, PeterB said:

Although not strictly correct, I am cosidering having the ventral "dustbin" turret on my Manchester in the lowered position whilst the kit stands on its u/c. The outside will be painted matt black - it is solid with no interior but in the real thing I think the insides would perhaps be aircraft grey green. Now here is the problerm - it had quite a bit of glazing which I am going to have to simulate with paint. Any suggestions on the best colour? I was thinking silver toned down with a little white and perhaps a tint of grey/green.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Hmmm, not something I’ve ever tried but perhaps something to simulate the interior colour under a coat of something translucent and glossy with a strong tint like Tamiya smoke (or maybe some mix of Tamiya clear green and smoke)? Best thing to do might be try a few different approaches on an old model. Hope you find something that works, it’ll look interesting.

[PeterB]

Hi

 

Like the Lancaster, the Manchester has the "hatch" for the dinghy in the Starboard wing root. On the Lanc this seems to have had a red outline, but as I mentioned previously Comet don't provide any of either the red or black lines for the wings and underside. The Profile on the Manchester shows the wing lines but no outline on the hatch and I have yet to find a good photo showing the wing upper surfaces clearly. Has anybody got anything to show either the presence or absence of the lines round the dinghy hatch? If not I will follow the Profile book and not have any.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[dogsbody]

From the IWM:

 

 

You're right. There are no good views of the inner side of the upper starboard wing. The one above is all I found.

 

 

 

Chris

[PeterB]

Thanks Chris,

 

Can't work out if the hatch has lines round it or is in fact all painted a different colour - it certainly seems to stand out from the green it is on - more like a gas detection patch! I think I will leave it as it is for the moment as I can always go back to it later.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Rabbit Leader]

My turn for a Lanc / Linc question. 

I've got the Freigtdog Licoln wheel resin set and one wheel hub (I assume the brake side) is more pronounced than the other. Early versions of both Moquito and Meteor show that their wheels were fitted so that the brake or spoke were both visible from the same viewing side - eg. both left & right wheels showed the spoke when viewed from the RHS or brake from the LHS. Does anyone know if this was the same for the Lincoln arrangement or do both these brake hubs point inwards or outwards? 

 

Cheers.. ( and I hope this makes sence) Dave

[nimrod54]

Dave, I hope this link will be useful, there are some good shots of the Lancaster undercarriage on page 3, and there is also the walkaround section here on Britmodeller. I think the flat side of the hub is usually the brake side. Hope that this helps.

[Rabbit Leader]

Appreciate that @nimrod54, looks like the wheels face the same way from either side - flat hubs when viewed from the right wing and raised hubs from the left. This will help getting this WHIF closer to accuracy (if one can say that?). 

Cheers.. Dave

[nimrod54]

Glad that it was of some use @Rabbit Leader, from looking at my Haynes Workshop Manual on the subject, it would seem that the flat sides are the brake side and the centre portion of that houses the brake pads around the outside and is fixed, with the inner rim of the wheel rotating around this. I hope that makes some sense, as you would expect it's a hefty bit of kit.

 

Cheers buddy.

[vppelt68]

Thank you all for participating in this Lancaster Family Type Group Build, in one way or another! Congratulations to those who managed to finish their builds and post them in the Gallery, likewise to all of you who found the inspiration to start building one but the time just wasn't on your side (I know I was darn too close to joining you!) and also to all of you who popped in to have a look at the many masterful builds going on and maybe also post a line or two .

Variety is the spice of life and by God, that's what this STGB is full of. To anybody thinking that a Lancaster is just a big blob of mostly black painted metal and they all looked alike, please have another look through this group build and admit you (and I!) were so wrong!

I'll write something about the variety of subjects, scales etc later this evening, and compose the poll to be opened too. We all love that!

I was a very bad GB host (again, many would say) . Fortunately the community is self-supporting and in a good GB the host is actually very little needed between the start and the end. I would especially like to thank @dogsbody and @Rabbit Leader for stepping in and keeping up the builder's spirits and answering to various questions posted about the subjects at hand. Thank you!

I'll also count how many little Merlin cowlings entered the Gallery. It might be so that we'll give the Spitfire/Seafire STGB a tough competition in that number .

Thank you all, best regards V-P

[PhantomBigStu]

Shame I couldn't finish mine,  been fun and some great builds in the gallery, not least given theres at least two lincolns I believe