F172 Avro Shackleton MR3 in the "De Luxe Aircraft" range.

[PeterB]

Hi,

 

Having fond memories of building Frog kits in my youth I decided to participate in my first Group Build, but decided to keep it simple,so I started off with the Me 410 intending to follow it with the Bf 110G. However, as I am retired now and have perhaps more time than most other participants, and having drunk a little too much of the “Scottish Wine” as Shakespeare calls it (Whisky to the uninitiated), I rashly volunteered to finally attempt my ancient Shackleton MR3. I first came across this kit over 40 years ago in the window of a model shop in Chester – they had on display the South African version and I decided to buy one before long. However, as usually happens when I put off a purchase, Frog went bust so I ended up buying one several years later which came in a plastic bag with a copy of the Frog labelled instructions marked “imported by Hannants”. Most of the parts have fallen off the sprues which are labelled Made in the USSR so it is likely to be a Novo moulding. There were no decals but if it is Novo that is probably no great loss.

 

 

 

 

The Shackleton was an Anti Sub/Maritime Patrol development of the Lancaster/Lincoln bombers crossed with the Avro Tudor transport and powered by 4 R-R Griffon piston engines with contra-rotating props and went through 3 distinct marks – MR1, MR2 with lengthened fuselage and repositioned radar scanner dome, and MR3 with many modifications including a tricycle undercarriage and tip tanks. There was also an AEW version of the MR2 with a large radome under the nose containing the radar salvaged from RN Fairey Gannet AEW3's. This kit is the MR3 with so called Phase II modifications though I am going to model the Phase III version of which more later. For many years it was the only Shack available but in recent years both Airfix and Revell have released new mouldings of the MR2 and AEW2 with an MR3 in the pipeline. It is of course rather crude, covered with raised rivets, and lacking internal detail, but reviews suggest it is fairly accurate in shape.

 

Like most if not all planes, over time the Shack had ever more equipment added which raised the weight, so needed strengthened wings, undercarriage etc, which again also increased the weight so it became progressively more underpowered. The Phase III mods added more equipment, and subsequently, small Viper jet engines were added in the outboard engine nacelles of most aircraft to help with overload and particularly hot and high take-offs. I have always wanted to model that variant, but was put off by the lack of accurate information. However I have now purchased a resin conversion set for the Viper jets so I will have a go at fitting it. Of course it will not be entirely accurate as I gather the Phase III planes also had slightly enlarged wingtip fuel tanks (2 more gallons each?) and modified nose gear but as various other modellers have said it is an old kit so who cares too much about accuracy! The only other mods I might make are adding some bulkheads inside the fuselage.

 

 

 

So, let battle commence! More later.

 

Edited August 12, 2019 by PeterB

[JOCKNEY]

Hi Peter

I am so pleased that someone decided to build the Shackleton, lots of us have this one in the stash, good luck with the build.

cheers Pat

[PeterB]

Hi Pat,

 

Like I said before I just hope I don't regret it - if I don't screw up (and that is a big "if") it should look quite good, at least by my standards. It would be interesting if somebody else were to build one (hint) so I have something to compare with. Thanks for your support - I will probably need it, together with several bottles of Scotch to calm my nerves. Not looking forward to the ruddy intake door for the Vipers.

 

Pete

[Rabbit Leader]

Looks like you’ve got the hang of it now Pete. This will be a popular build and I applaud your enthusiasm and well written historic introduction to what will be a great build. Throw in a conversation in the mix and this thread will be one to keep both eyes on. 

 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

[stevej60]

Looking forward to this one Peter,all those rivet's!

[PeterB]

1 hour ago, stevej60 said:

Looking forward to this one Peter,all those rivet's!

Hi Steve, that will be the next page with pics once the build starts!

 

Pete

[PeterB]

2 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Looks like you’ve got the hang of it now Pete. This will be a popular build and I applaud your enthusiasm and well written historic introduction to what will be a great build. Throw in a conversation in the mix and this thread will be one to keep both eyes on. 

 

Cheers and best of luck.. Dave 

Hi Dave - I have years of experience writing formal reports, but this is a bit of a new situation so I will have to watch I don't go into "lecture mode" too much. Sometimes I get a bit over enthusiastic!

 

Pete

[Rabbit Leader]

3 minutes ago, PeterB said:

Hi Dave - I have years of experience writing formal reports, but this is a bit of a new situation so I will have to watch I don't go into "lecture mode" too much. Sometimes I get a bit over enthusiastic!

 

Pete

You're not the author of Airfix's Workbench forums by any chance?? 

Only joking Pete, it's always nice to read passages that are well written and makes a good change from work abbreviations that need deciphering or kids text messages that mean next to nothing. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

[PeterB]

11 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

You're not the author of Airfix's Workbench forums by any chance?? 

Only joking Pete, it's always nice to read passages that are well written and makes a good change from work abbreviations that need deciphering or kids text messages that mean next to nothing. 

 

Cheers.. Dave 

 

Hi Dave,

 

My greatest problem is knowing what level to pitch it at - after over 60 years of building kits and reading about planes I have a lot of information in my "mind palace" (yes I have just been re-watching the Sherlock TV series). Many of the modellers on this forum know at least as much as me and are far better at kit-bashing than I will ever be so I don't want to bore them rigid, but at the same time there are probably one or two who would find the info of interest. If I get too long winded then I hope somebody will let me know.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

It seems the one thing most people remember about this kit is the rivets and Frog certainly did go to town on it! I believe one of the crew nicknames for it was "10000 rivets flying in formation" and as you can see Frog tried to mould all of them.

 

 

 Once we get the green light, the first thing I am going to do is sand them down with fine wet and dry paper. However, the rivets were an obvious part of the real thing so I will be quite restrained. I just want to reduce the height enough to allow decals to settle well, or at least that will be the idea. Actually, the fact that this is probably quite an old mould may work in my favour as the rivets don't seem quite as bad as I thought they would be. Incidentally the decal sheet in the background was bought just after the kit about 35 years ago and was produced by the company that made Contrail vac-forms I believe. It has grey serials etc for the early white finish and a combination of white and slightly smaller red to make the white outlined red ones on the later grey scheme. Unfortunately, unlike Frog decs they do not seem to have aged well.

 

More on this and other stages of the build in June.

Edited August 11, 2019 by PeterB

[Rabbit Leader]

You've really got to hand it to the Frog Tool makers of the day. We all know that these rivets are a little too prominent, however they are all straight, evenly spaced and probably quite accurate. That would have taken an absolute age to make the master mould, although I do admit not knowing anything about this process. I'm sure you'll make a mighty fine job of it Pete, I sense you're champing at the bit to make a big start to this GB. 

 

Cheers.. Dave

[PeterB]

Well here we go. It probably does not look like it but I have gently sanded the fuselage halves with 600 grade wet and dry. As I said before the rivets were a prominent feature of the real thing so I still want them to show. The plastic is very hard which may or may not help.

 

 

I have also cut out the forward escape hatch which I will tidy up and put in some location lugs so I can glaze it later. I bought a couple of scribers a few years ago and thought I would use them for the first time to scribe in the overwing escape hatches intended for use when ditching. Being a first attempt I was unsure how deep to make them - don't want Matchbox size "trenches", but it needs to be deep enough to show when painted. With 3 more hatches and two sets of double doors to go I should get a bit of experience by the end!

 

On the "Phase 3" planes one of the windows was not there so I will either fill it in or just paint over the glazing. The next stage is to put in the interior so see you later. This could be fun, at least until I try to install the Viper conversion set.

 

Hope you are all doing well with your builds.

Edited August 11, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Slight change of plans. I was going to start on the interior, but as the cockpit looks very empty, particularly seeing Adrian's Proctor build, I decided to invest in some etched parts, which will take a few days to arrive. Also, given the number of windows in the fuselage sides, and the problems getting the long border between the white top and the grey bottom straight, I decided to paint the exterior first. I have sprayed the top white and once that is dry I will mask it and spray the rest grey, though the ruddy rivets will no doubt result in a bit of paint creep under the tape. I will show you the result in a day or so. I have fitted the "missing" window and filled the holes in the nose where earlier models had Yagi aerials, so they can be painted over now. I will also make a start on the wings and sand them down a bit, so I will see you later.

[Ventora3300]

Lovely start, Pete. This is a biiigg kit and an iconic aircraft so well worth the effort you are putting in. Good luck with the PE - in my small efforts to date, I've never really got the hand of sticking narrow brass edges together with superglue. As someone else said, most of the PE ended up stuck to my fingers rather than to the kit! All the very best of luck with this one. Mike.

[PeterB]

3 hours ago, Ventora3300 said:

Lovely start, Pete. This is a biiigg kit and an iconic aircraft so well worth the effort you are putting in. Good luck with the PE - in my small efforts to date, I've never really got the hand of sticking narrow brass edges together with superglue. As someone else said, most of the PE ended up stuck to my fingers rather than to the kit! All the very best of luck with this one. Mike.

Hi Mike, I am no great fan of PE myself - things like aerials always look 2 dimensional, but it is good for some things. I bought this for the instrument panel, rudder pedals and engine intake grilles primarily. As I mentioned at the start of my Me410 build, I am of an age where neither my hands or eyes cope well with small parts, so whether or not the tiny throttle levers get fitted to the side consoles remains to be seen and I think the windscreen wipers are probably a non starter, but we will see.

 

Good luck with your builds.

 

Pete

 

[PeterB]

As expected there has been a bit of “bleed” under the masking tape but it is not too bad – as my late father in law would say “a blind man would be glad to see it”. I will paint on the black anti-dazzle panel near the end and I will anyway need to touch the grey and white up later after I have joined the fuselage and scribed the various hatches.

 

 

 

There are no less than 20 ejector pin marks in each fuselage but fortunately they are not too bad and I have been able to scrape down the 3 or 4 that might just be visible. Having seen Adrian's excellent close ups in his Proctor build I thought I would see what my camera would do.

 

 

 

One thing which intrigues me is the pair of locating sockets in the nose which would be in an ideal place to mount the 20mm cannon, but neither they nor anything else is provided to use these holes! I will now stick in the bomb bay floor and ditto wheel well. I will have to remember to trap the opening bay doors when I do it.

Edited August 11, 2019 by PeterB

[CliffB]

Very nice progress Pete - I can see you're enjoying it!

Do you know the trick of making the first coat of paint after masking another coat of base colour?  In that way, any initial bleeding should not be visible.  Well that's the theory anyway!

 

Cheers

Cliff

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Pete

Great choice and great start, will watch with much interest. I had a Frog kit along time ago and sold it which I regret. 

Keep up the good work, and good luck with your build.

All the best

Chris

[PeterB]

Whilst waiting for my photo etched set to arrive I have cleaned up the fuselage mouldings, adjusted the size of the escape hatch opening so it matches on both fuselage halves (my wonky razor sawing again) and added the bomb bay roof in place trapping one bomb door. This was made rather more difficult by the fact that the fuselage was bent, though given its age, together with the length of the moulding and the various large cut-outs I suppose it was to expected. I therefore clamped the halves together overnight to set so that it should locate in the other half a bit easier when the time comes. Presumably the slot in the bomb bay roof was for a substantial stand which would have been included in the original boxing.

 

 

 

Before I glue the halves together I will drill some holes in the inboard edge of the starboard bomb door to take the “towel rail” aerial seen on the real thing. I will be modelling the doors closed and as they are also a bit bent they will no doubt need some adjustment. Although I bought some Aeroclub 20mm cannon years ago intending to put them in the nose of the Shack, I have decided they would not be fitted to this aircraft so late in its career. Maybe I will use them in the mid upper turret of the Lincoln when I eventually build it.

Edited August 11, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Just to keep things moving, today I will have a go at improving the seats in the cockpit. As you can see they are a bit basic to say the least.

 

 

 

They actually looked like this so I will have to add sides and probably armrests as well.

 

 

Adey also kindly sent me a pic in the chat section which shows the seat a bit more clearly, and with the armrests in the raised position. I would have thought that the outboard armrest would get in the way when using the side consoles. I suspect the seat is mounted a bit too high as well in the kit. We will see.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by PeterB

[PeterB]

 

Well, the photo-etch has arrived and it is something of a mixed blessing. I will be using the instrument panel and rudder pedals together with the wheel trims to cover the “melt it in place pin to get moving wheels” which is so typical of Frog. I had also intended to use the side consoles and the engine grilles but there I hit a problem.

 

 

The idea with the etched grilles is to drill and cut/file out the kit moulded grilles, which would be fine if the plastic was only a couple of mil thick but there is a ruddy big locating plug behind the engine face which must be at least 6mm thick as you will see. The only way to open up the grilles as I see it is to actually cut off the lug reducing the thickness to more handleable proportions but that raises a number of difficulties.  I am not too good with a razor saw and would probably make a mess of it, but even if I did not, if I then glue the plug back on to ensure positive location, the etched grille would not be see through, which rather defeats the object. As Frog have made a reasonable job of moulding the grilles I think I will not bother though I will have to fill in some sink holes.

 

 

 

As to the side consoles, the etch is a standard rectangular box shape, which was alongside the seats but they have not provided the distinctive throttle pedestals of a totally different shape as in this picture. It seems I will have to make my own from plasticard, but at least then drilling holes to glue the various levers and knobs in will be a bit easier. At the beginning of my Me 410 built I said I would not build anything with small parts and now I am contemplating sticking miniature etched throttle levers on – must be going senile!

 

 

Oh well this should be fun!

See you around.

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by PeterB

[dad's lad]

Love those cockpit pictures, I can almost smell it from here.

[PeterB]

1 hour ago, dad's lad said:

Love those cockpit pictures, I can almost smell it from here.

I guess that after all those years standing outside the smell will have mostly gone, but in its day it would no doubt have been quite a mixture - oil, sweat, leather to name but a few. I read somewhere that you could always tell a German plane by its distinctive smell - the author thought it was something to do with the different alloy they used to build them. Whatever, I guess it was a familiar and therefore comforting smell to the many young men who flew the Shack in its long service. Thanks for your comments and there will be more pics to come when I get on to painting the interior.

 

Pete

Edited June 7, 2019 by PeterB

[dad's lad]

3 hours ago, PeterB said:

I guess that after all those years standing outside the smell will have mostly gone, but in its day it would no doubt have been quite a mixture - oil, sweat, leather to name but a few. I read somewhere that you could always tell a German plane by its distinctive smell - the author thought it was something to do with the different alloy they used to build them. Whatever, I guess it was a familiar and therefore comforting smell to the many young men who flew the Shack in its long service. Thanks for your comments and there will be more pics to come when I get on to painting the interior.

 

Pete

Pete, my late Father served in the RAF during the war and got up close to a few German wrecks. He always used to say they smelled like cat's p*ss.

 

Having been inside the Shack at Newark I can only say that it it's current smell is diminished from what it WAS it must have been quite pungent in its day 😁

Edited June 7, 2019 by dad's lad
Spelling

[PeterB]

1 hour ago, dad's lad said:

Pete, my late Father served in the RAF during the war and got up close to a few German wrecks. He always used to say they smelled like cat's p*ss.

 

Having been inside the Shack at Newark I can only say that it it's current smell is diminished from what it WAS it must have been quite pungent in its day 😁

Not sure if it was in Rawnsley's book Night Fighter that a sickly sort of smell was described as coming from a burning bomber his pilot Cunningham had just attacked and set on fire. Again I think that was claimed to be because of the alloy used to build them though I would have thought it was pretty much the same as used in British planes.

Edited June 7, 2019 by PeterB