I Can See For Miles - making three go into two: Frog 340P Miles Master MkIII

[Heather Kay]

I have too many trainers in my collection. My 1940 obsession collection requires I should attempt to have at least one example of each variant of each type, so the Master MkIII complements the MkI in the stash.

 

 

This is the Eastern Express boxing of the Frog kit that dates from 1963. This model is contemporary with the Miles Magister kit. 

 

 

Plenty of flash on view, and if I want to make a decent fist of this thing, I will need to do something about the rather basic cockpit.

 

 

Instructions are chiefly in Russian, but shouldn't pose a problem. The transfers will not be used. They are of a later period in the Second World War than my specialist period. They are pretty badly printed, and don't inspire confidence they would survive first contact with water!

Edited June 16, 2019 by Heather Kay
Clever punning thread title finds me some time later!

[AdrianMF]

Looking forward to your build!

 

I’m doing a Master (or two or three, depending on time pressures) as a kind of continuation from the trainees GB.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Rabbit Leader]

Another great choice Heather and it look like this little kit might prove to be quite popular as this GB rogresses. 

Cheers and best of modelling luck.. Dave 

[Heather Kay]

6 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Looking forward to your build!

Thanks Adrian. I ought to try and get some scale drawings for this model so I can see about making the adjustments you’ve been doing on your builds of this kit. I ought to, at least, make an effort for my museum!

3 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Another great choice Heather and it look like this little kit might prove to be quite popular as this GB rogresses. 

Cheers and best of modelling luck.. Dave 

Cheers Dave! looking forward to getting stuck into this group build, real life permitting of course.

[JOCKNEY]

Lovely choice Heather

I have the Novo boxing of this one so look forward to seeing you bring this one to life.

cheers Pat

[JOCKNEY]

Hi Heather

As you have put us all to shame by completing your Ju88 in no time at all, is this kit the next one to "meet its maker" ?

cheers Pat

[Heather Kay]

34 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

is this kit the next one to "meet its maker

I think it might be. I’m still in a research phase with the Miles trainers, and I can afford to take my time with them.

 

There’ll be a bit of a wait as I have some model railway work to get out of the way first.  

[CedB]

Flashy! Looking forward to this one Heather  

[AdrianMF]

When I get back home I will send you a scan of the plans from the Harborough book on Miles aircraft, FWIW. They fit the model pretty well but whether they fit the real thing ...?

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Heather Kay]

That would be very kind, Adrian. Thank you.

[Heather Kay]

Seeing as it’s Sunday, and I found myself at a loose end - which isn’t true, as I’ve got gazillions of jobs to do - I couldn’t help digging the Master out and getting a better look at it.

 

Having reviewed the flash-ridden box contents, I think there is a Master in there somewhere. I’ve resolved to have a go at scribing panel lines, and even going so far as to convert the MkIII to a MkII. The difference was only in the engine, as far as I can make out from researching. The MkII was fitted with a Bristol Mercury XX, while the MkIII made use of a Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior. I’ve got an old Frog Blenheim that acts as a paint mule which might be persuaded to donate a Mercury engine and cowling.

 

If I make the decision to do a kit bash, I’ll amend the thread title accordingly and let Dave know about the change. As there were more MkIIs built than MkIIIs, I think it befits having one in my cabinet.

Edited June 9, 2019 by Heather Kay

[bigbadbadge]

Another great choice Heather.  Love this model, I do like the Eastern Express box artwork  for this kit, it looks quite a dramatic angle for the Aircraft.

 

Good luck with your build

All the best
Chris

[Heather Kay]

30 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Good luck with your build

Thanks! I think I’m going to need it!

 

I thought it made sense to run some measurements over things. According to all my references, the wing span is 39ft. That, however, I believe is only for the original MkI rounded tip wings. It certainly fits the Pavla MkI kit I have in the stash. The Frog spawn clipped wings for the MkIII, however, measure 35ft 6in.

 

Now, I cant actually find definitive measurements for a MkII or MkIII, because almost every mention on the interwebs comes back with the 39ft dimension.

 

I'm really hoping I don’t need to do some reconstructive surgery to extend the wings in this build. So, if I may, I would like to plead for anyone else’s take on the correct wingspan for a MkII or MkIII clipped wing production Master. Ta! 

 

EDIT: I just found some info that confirms the wing span was shorter for the later marks. That’s good to know! I’ve seen 35ft 8in, which is two inches longer than my measured kit wingspan. Nice one Frog!

Edited June 9, 2019 by Heather Kay

[Paul821]

Can't help with plans but..

 

when I was nowt but a lad back in the 1960's my sole reference for all my WW2 builds were the four paperbacks published by Ian Allan on Aircraft of the Second World War. I still have them and under the Miles Master it says

 

"the final version (602 built) was the Master III powered by the 825hp Pratt and Whitney Wasp Junior and having a clipped wing of 35ft 7 in span."

 

However, only last week I bought two recognition books from1944 and these say Master 1 span 35ft 8in

Mks 2 & 3 span 35 ft' 8 in"

 

As the books are still in copyright I will scan the pages and PM them to you.

 

[stevehnz]

4 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

I’ve got an old Frog Blenheim that acts as a paint mule which might be persuaded to donate a Mercury engine and cowling.

Sounds like a plan Heather, I've one of these kits ear marked for just such a conversion but I"ll be using a Airfix Blenheim engine & cowl for this, carry on with the good work.

Steve. 

[Greg Law]

12 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

Thanks! I think I’m going to need it!

 

I thought it made sense to run some measurements over things. According to all my references, the wing span is 39ft. That, however, I believe is only for the original MkI rounded tip wings. It certainly fits the Pavla MkI kit I have in the stash. The Frog spawn clipped wings for the MkIII, however, measure 35ft 6in.

 

Now, I cant actually find definitive measurements for a MkII or MkIII, because almost every mention on the interwebs comes back with the 39ft dimension.

 

I'm really hoping I don’t need to do some reconstructive surgery to extend the wings in this build. So, if I may, I would like to plead for anyone else’s take on the correct wingspan for a MkII or MkIII clipped wing production Master. Ta! 

 

EDIT: I just found some info that confirms the wing span was shorter for the later marks. That’s good to know! I’ve seen 35ft 8in, which is two inches longer than my measured kit wingspan. Nice one Frog!

Heather, Have a look at this site. I think it explains the wingspan issue quite well.

https://ww2db.com/aircraft_spec.php?aircraft_model_id=514

Looks like the rounded wings were squared off down to 39ft. Well that's the way I read it.

[Heather Kay]

10 minutes ago, Greg Law said:

I think it explains the wingspan issue quite well.

Thanks Greg. I am, however, going to take issue with that site. The writer seems to have taken a lot of the available knowledge and made a bit of a melange with it. As Eric Morecambe might have put it, all the facts are in there, just not necessarily in the right order.  

 

After checking various sources, I’ve settled on the following timeline for the wingspan dimensions:

 

• Master MkI and MkIa were built with rounded wing tips which gave a span of 39ft
• Master MkII and MKIII were built with tips clipped (really just redesigned and rejigged, I suspect) to give a span of 35ft and some change
• Master MkIs were later rebuilt or fitted with the clipped wings.

 

That fits well with what I’ve measured on the Pavla MkI in my stash, and the Frogspawn MkIII I plan to convert to a MkII. I think that makes sense: it is, after all, a rainy Monday morning and the first cup of tea hasn’t kicked in properly yet!

 

Now, I must away to my workbench where a model railway loco needs my attention with a bow pen and some transfers. 

[Rabbit Leader]

Wasn’t there a Scale Aircraft Modelling ‘Aircraft in Detail’ article on these Miles trainers a while back? I’ll have to dig out my issue later on and see what Allan W Hall et al have to say. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Heather Kay]

First, my thanks to @Paul821 and @AdrianMF for being kind enough to scan and send me copies of various documents to help with this build. Adrian sent me scans of three-position drawings of the MkI and MkIII. I've had a chance to compare the kit wing plan and fuselage shape against the drawings, and the old Frog kit shapes up pretty well. It's certainly close enough not to be too worried about minor discrepancies, although the short tail fin might be adjusted if I think about it a bit harder. Oddly, the main undercarriage track on the kit is slightly narrower than the drawings, but you can well believe I'm not going to attempt moving that about!

 

Well, despite saying I wasn't going to do anything much for a week or so, the muse was with me. I'd had a reasonable day on client commission work, and felt another hour or so at the bench fettling styrene would be enjoyable.

 

 

I decided to attempt scribing the panel lines. Keeping it fairly light, I was a bit worried to note the moulding had some flaws in the styrene and it occasionally started to delaminate as the scriber went across it. I flooded the areas with solvent, which I hope will stop any further issues there. Thankfully, being a mainly plywood-skinned aircraft, there weren't many lines to scribe, and it turned out okay. I'm happy with it, at least.

 

The next job was to remove as much flash as I could. I treated it much like a vac-form, and carefully trimmed around the edges with a sharp blade. Final finishing will be dealt with once the parts are stuck together.

 

 

One thing led to another, and I amputated one of the donor Blenheim's engines. Here it is blutacked to the Master's schnozz. It looks a bit incongruous, but when you look at the real thing, such as this one...

 

15_002630 Miles Master II by SDASM Archives, on Flickr

 

...you can see the Mercury XX installation is quite a lump and a bit larger than the fuselage section at the nose. 

 

 

Full URL here at the IWM web site.

 

This photo of a load of Wrens beavering away on a Master MkII in the dead of night neatly shows how close the cooling gills of the Mercury cowling come to the leading wing roots. 

 

 

The model form needs to heave back a fair whack, but I think it's distinctly doable. There's quite a bit of fettling to lose the thickness of the gills at the rear, but I think a passable MkII is within grasp.

 

Not sure when the next update might be, but you never know!

 

[AdrianMF]

Nice scribing! I don't know about Eastern Express, but the Novo re-pop is made of super-brittle plastic and I can imagine the delamination issues.

 

Some Master notes:

• The nose of the Mk III drops down a lot so a spot of Milliput(*) would bring it up more, and you could usefully widen the fuselage towards the front too, for a MkII
• you can sand down the mating surfaces of the fuselage halves towards the back end to make it taper more - I've got mine 1-2 mm narrower in the tail fin, which helps it blend into the rudder better
• the rear fuselage doesn't taper nearly enough in profile. I cut my rear fuselage away and trimmed out a wedge of plastic, but I think careful sanding down on the top edge would give a better profile

Given that you are about to do a splendid job on the Master, I am going to start on my  three-year old stalled-at-10%-done Wyvern build instead. Plus I can't face any more yellow painting just now!

 

[Edit: the "short tail fin" issue might be related to the "rear fuselage doesn't taper" issue??]

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

(*) other fillers are available, but I don't use 'em

 

[Rabbit Leader]

13 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Wasn’t there a Scale Aircraft Modelling ‘Aircraft in Detail’ article on these Miles trainers a while back? I’ll have to dig out my issue later on and see what Allan W Hall et al have to say. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

Here ‘tis!! 

 

As always Heather, this kit is looking the goods.. 

 

Cheers and happily watching and learning along.. Dave

[Heather Kay]

10 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Some Master notes:

Excellent advice, as always. Stored for later retrieval!

 

Dave, thanks for confirming my earlier wingspan ramblings, too.

 

As one does, one was thinking. The kit transparencies are nice and thick. The Pavla kit includes vac-forms for both early and late canopy styles, and since I was planning to build that kit as the earlier MkI, the later canopy would be spare. I shall investigate whether it will fit the Frog fuselage at all.

 

Enough! Back to the model railway world for a bit.

 

 

[Whofan]

Heather,

 

your build thread

 

"I Can See For Miles - Frog 340P Miles Master MkIII"

 

A closet Who fan, too? 

 

I'll keep an eye out for this one if you don't mind !

 

 

[Heather Kay]

23 hours ago, Whofan said:

A closet Who fan, too? 

Sadly, I’m not a massive fan. I don’t dislike the band's stuff, but they’re of the generation before me really. I just like to try and be clever with thread titles.  

[AdrianMF]

On 10/06/2019 at 21:53, Heather Kay said:

undercarriage track on the kit is slightly narrower than the drawings

It’s the same for the Pegasus kit too, so I wonder if there’s another set of drawings out there.

 

I’ll have a look at “Aircraft of the Fighting Powers” (same publisher, Harborough, as the Miles book) and see if their drawings are different in that respect, just out of curiosity.

 

Regards,

Adrian