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Blackburn Botha, W5151, 4AGS, RAF Morpeth, 1942 ***FINISHED 29/06/2020***


DaveyGair

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19 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

The Yellow turned out well Davey looking forward to seeing this come to its final product. Looking at this plane it seems like it would've been a good transport or liason aircraft just by looking at its general layout. 

Apart from excellent vision forward for the pilot many accidents happened because of difficulty seeing sideways! Apparently it passed it's torpedo dropping trials with flying colours but the bottom line was it was just a terribly unstable aircraft to fly for the inexperienced pilot, which many coming through to fly these types were.

 

I've done the uppers now, there is quite a bit to touch up, and yellow is terrible to touch up! I've got to do a bit more paint to the engines and the exhaust rings, I added some stretch sprue bracing and the two intake 'trumpets' inside the cowlings, that I made from rod, gently melting the ends with a screwdriver. Not perfect but they'll do me.

 

Davey.

 

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4 hours ago, stevehnz said:

That is looking most inspirational, you're doing a really nice job on this. :)

Steve.

Cheers Steve, I've decided to just crack on with projects I've held off doing and do 'easier' builds instead. I've got two High Planes Beauforts' on the go, going ok just lots of prep work!

 

2 hours ago, Edge said:

She's really coming on nicely Davey. That yellow is especially nicely done.

 

Edge

 

Thanks Edge, I just stuck it into the 'brush straight out of the bottle, took some coats to build it up mind.

 

After leaving the paint to harden off over-night I decided to do a coat of Gloss, which also means doing the decals as I settle them down with the 'Klear' varnish.  I find I'm that cack-handed these days that it is wise to protect the soft Acrylic paintwork with varnish as I always mark the paint somewhere with a finger-nail or a tool or something!

The markings were just from what I had in my decal stock so may not be strictly accurate, but life is far too short to care about such things for me at the moment.  The fuselage roundels seem a little on the large size but the next ones down seemed too small so that's what I've gone with. The under-wing serials are cobbles together as I didn't have enough number '5's and aren't quite the right type.

I had to search some to get the rather small 'B' type roundels these aircraft had, I thought they'd be bigger, medium bomber size.

The number '7' isn't quite the right size compared to the drawing I went off, and I think is the wrong colour, but again, not to concerned!

 

I put a bit of Matt varnish around the nose (did the upper and lower wings a bit as well with what was left in the air-brush) as I wanted to see if my masking had gotten the shape of the glazing OK, looks fine to me but needs a little clean-up around the edges. There is also dust stuck inside due to static probably!

 

Lots more to do but nearly done now.

Davey.

 

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Pressing on with this, looking forward to getting her finished.

 

The instructions would have you put the observation (bay!) windows in before closing up the fuselage but I decided to fit them after. They would have stuck out far to much doing it that way anyway. I masked and painted them separately than trimmed them down till I  was satisfied with how far they stuck out looking at photo's, which there seems to be some differences in aircraft. 

There is no location place for the undercarriage, and the legs are too long anyway. Not knowing the layout of the inside of the gear bay (not that I would do much about it anyway) I went for strength over accuracy, with two thick pieces of plastic-card drilled to accept the legs.  After a bit of trial and error I cemented them in with 5 minute epoxy, giving time to adjust the fore-aft/side to side orientation. they have a slight lean to the rear, a bit like a Lancaster/Manchester/York under-cart.

There is still a bit to do, adding struts and stuff to the undercarriage, some plastic-card addition you can see in white (the scissor type movable arms at the front of the leg, not supplied, neither are the struts/hydraulic rams).

The props need lots of cleaning up, the wheels less so, but they look OK.

The white square on the starboard side of the nose is 'Krystal Klear', we'll see how it turns out, I'll do the small sound windows the same.

The turret still needs to be sorted, they just supply the transparency and guns.

I was supplied with two pairs of Volkes type filter/intakes which one photo shows an aircraft with them, so I've found some in the spares box (Beaufighter I think) to use.

The aerial mast and DF teardrop fairing are supplied, as are the exhausts.

 

Davey.

 

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Congratulations Davey 

Your Botha is looking a treat, I think you are a yellow paint magician, I end up putting mine on with a roller it needs that many coats !

You are in danger of making some people build their Contrail version of this aircraft, keep up the good work. 👍

Cheers Pat

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29 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

Congratulations Davey 

Your Botha is looking a treat, I think you are a yellow paint magician, I end up putting mine on with a roller it needs that many coats !

You are in danger of making some people build their Contrail version of this aircraft, keep up the good work. 👍

Cheers Pat

Didn't take any magic Pat, just Vallejo Grey primer, Vallejo ModelAir RLM 04 yellow airbrushed in light coats, only had to wait a few minutes for each coat to dry, simples!

 

Davey.

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Done a little bit more today.  Gear doors are on, as are the carb intakes I fashioned from Beaufighter ones, the exhausts, aerial mast.

The DF fairing need a little extension to the mount, and I splodged a bit of Superglue where it shouldn't have gone, so there's a little touching up to do.

I fashioned a mount for the guns then painted and fitted them. I sprayed the back half of the turret glazing, needs a bit more paint on. I'm going to apply the fine framing by using painted Tamiya tape cut into strips.

I started on painting the exhaust rings and pipes, trying a different method as I've never been satisfied with my results so far!

Nor far too go now, just those bits to finish off, the rest matt coated down then a little weathering.

 

Davey.

 

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8 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Really nice to see this come together so well, a triumph of modelling skill in action. :)

Steve.

Cheers Steve. Not so much skill as sheer determination! 

 

Davey.

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  • DaveyGair changed the title to Blackburn Botha, W5151, 4AGS, RAF Morpeth, 1942 ***FINISHED 29/06/2020***

..... and we're all done.

 

I really looked forward to finishing and I think she's turned out OK.  I think PH models has captured the look of the aircraft pretty well and it wasn't such a pain of a project I thought it would be!

Some of the 'Krystal Klear' glazing hasn't dried properly yet, thus the white bits showing.

Thanks for all the support and encouragement , I think this GB has been a great idea and hopefully will continue?

 

Davey.

 

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