BBMF Avro Lancaster B.1 PA474 - HKM 1/32

[WV908]

 

A Spitfire and Hurricane dance around the airfield, behind the crowd. A thin black blur appears on the horizon, a low grumble, wingtips seemingly stretching out forever. 

 

It draws closer, the sound turns into a rumble - starts to pierce your ear drums. The Lancaster cuts down the middle of the airfield, the sound of it's four Rolls-Royce Merlins filling the sky, her escort fighters clung to either side. 

 

The airfield was Scampton, the weather was perfect and I had finally seen a Lanc at the home of the Dambusters. This wasn't my first meeting with PA474 though, that had been a decade earlier, over my home town. We got one pass and I was hooked. 

 

The first photo I took of the Lanc was at my first Waddington Airshow in 2009, when she was 'Phantom of the Ruhr' - seen here flanked by MK356 and LF363. Is it any wonder that these three are my favourite from the BBMF's stable? 

 

 

When news broke of the forthcoming 1/32 Lanc from HKM I knew what I wanted to do. 

 

As the delivery time drew closer, there was a shock announcement from the now ill-fated wingnut wings - A model with stressed skin, all the rivets and fasters faithfully reproduced and earmarked to be around the same price.

 

I weighed up my options and decided on the HKM, for a number of factors which can be summed up by this one being easier to build. The tipping point was the separate canopy framing on the WNW model, which I really did not want to have to deal with. Another plus is the HKM model has tropical radiators, but I'll get back to that. 

 

So, back to PA474. I knew her first as 'Phantom', then as 'Thumper' and now 'Leader' Although Thumper has the distinction of having flown with FM213 in Autumn 2014, I simply prefer the Leader scheme. My decision between that and Phantom is that one is fresher in my memory than the other and, since I'll be doing the fighters to accompany her, I again prefer the schemes that the fighters are in now.

 

 

There are a number of things to bear in mind when building PA474 - she is a B.1, but far from stock. Her tailplanes are Lincoln, her tailwheel is an A320 nose wheel, there are a multitude of modern aerials and she is of course dual-controlled. The first two can be seen here;

 

 

I'll discuss the kit's shortcomings during the build posts. I was not originally going to do a WIP on this as I am a serial kit-starter..... But a request was put in by the 32nd Wizard himself @tomprobert, so here we are.

 

This build will be slow, it will be lots of mucking around with details and it will be chock full of sub-assemblies that will never be seen once she's buttoned up, but that's what we love on here isn't it.

 

So, take a seat, get your popcorn and Martian cuisine and let me hopefully let you help me walk you through turning the HK Lanc into everyone's favourite,

  

The Glorious 'City of Lincoln'

 

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Edited April 16, 2020 by WV908

[WV908]

Build log No.1 Stardate 97892.16

 

What you need to build PA474 from the HK Lanc;

 

 

Treaded mainwheels, here courtesy of Barracuda-Cast, aftermarket decals courtesy of Kits World and a sheet of plasticard to modify the rudders.

 

Here, the rudders have already had plasticard blanks fitted, which will be cut to shape and blended in when set.

 

Finally you need this resource, which I forgot I had;

 

 

The majority of the photos in it are fortunatley of PA474.

 

The first bits of physical modelling I tackled are the pilot's seat (Ha!) The navigator's table and equipment and the cockpit floor / structure. 

 

 

I am aware of the Eduard sets that are available to replace the radios, but I need to do some further investigation into the interior fit before I make any solid decisions one this area, so for now the sub-sub-assemblies have been completed. There is a small PE part to fit to a hollow piece of equipment.

 

 

Here is the cockpit floor, attached to the first piece of payload bay roof, alongside the rear of the wing spar, more nab's equipment and the pilot's seat. I have a new saw on order to cope with the height issues of the seat and the pedestal - the seat is 1.5mm to tall, the seat's bucket is 4.5mm too long (with incorrect interior detail) and the pedestal is 2.5mm too tall. I was going to leave these originally but they look silly, so as soon as the saw arrives... Oh and the head armour is too short and is of the wrong profile - it's seen here next to it's replacement. 

 

That's all for now, more sub-assemblies and work on the rudders to come.

 

Cheers,

 WV908

[alt-92]

Nobody at the bar yet?

🍿 🍺

 

That looks like a serious long-haul build. Kudos to taking that on, build of a lifetime almost.

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by alt-92

[WV908]

11 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

Nobody at the bar yet?

🍿 🍺

 

That looks like a serious long-haul build. Kudos to taking that on, build of a lifetime almost.

 

I Certianly won't be building two haha, although I would like to do Sally B to sit next to it...

 

There's good hospitiaitly at the bar, my Mother-in-Law is a a Landlady!

Cheers,

  WV908 

[Mancunian airman]

I keep telling myself I will start mine . . . .

I am just building two baby ones in the STGB currently running so I am sitting right at the front with my tea and crumpets to catch all those snippets you are going to show us all; I can put to good use on mine  . . . 🧐

Ian

[WV908]

1 minute ago, Mancunian airman said:

I keep telling myself I will start mine . . . .

I am just building two baby ones in the STGB currently running so I am sitting right at the front with my tea and crumpets to catch all those snippets you are going to show us all; I can put to good use on mine  . . . 🧐

Ian

I kept opening the box and found myself too daunted each time. It's the reason I sold my 1/24 Typhoon. It was just too much - that and I wanted to build it with the engine closed up, which the kit was not really designed for and is, if other build threads are to go by, a pig to sort. 

 

The instructions for the the HK Lanc are set in blocks on the paper like a comic strip, so I'll build it in these 'strips' as all these sub-assemblies. 

 

Equally I keep looking at my Airfix 1/72 Lancasters and now find them too small and fiddly, but I will finish the 1/72 trio some day. Here is NX611;

 

 

 

The way I've seen of sorting the pilot's seat seems over complicated, so I've cooked up a simpler way to do it, that doesn't involve scratch building everything except the seat back.

 

I'm undecided on wether or not to display any of the Merlin's - they are underscale to fit within the cowlings, but I'm not sure how they'll look until I actually build one. There are dummy exhaust stacks to fit which I could use instead. If I only fit one 'exposed' engine, I'll fit the blanks for the others and keep the engines for my Spits and Hurri's. I plan to do Ferocious Frankie in 1/32 as well, so may use one for that.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

[klubman01]

A point of correction, if I may.

 

The tailwheel is from an Avro Lincoln (RF398 to be precise).  In 1965 PA474 was at RAF Henlow, and in preparation for the flight to RAF Waddington it was discovered that the original tailwheel was cracked.  It was swapped with that from RF398 which was parked next to PA474.

 

This information is from "A Lancaster at Peace" by Sqn Ldr RE Leach, published by the Lincolnshire Lancaster Society.

 

Trevor (former BBMF Flt Engineer, 1990-91)

[WV908]

32 minutes ago, klubman01 said:

A point of correction, if I may.

 

The tailwheel is from an Avro Lincoln (RF398 to be precise).  In 1965 PA474 was at RAF Henlow, and in preparation for the flight to RAF Waddington it was discovered that the original tailwheel was cracked.  It was swapped with that from RF398 which was parked next to PA474.

 

This information is from "A Lancaster at Peace" by Sqn Ldr RE Leach, published by the Lincolnshire Lancaster Society.

 

Trevor (former BBMF Flt Engineer, 1990-91)

Hi Trevor,

  Thanks for the info Whilst this is indeed true and was so during your time on the BBMF (Jealous would be an understatement) in recent years it has been swapped out for, not an A320 nose wheel as I stated, but an A340 nose wheel (I have been corrected on that on another thread) - Both PA474 and NX611 have these A340 nose wheels, but I'm not sure what FM213 has.

 

Are you able to enlighten me on the equipment that PA474 has at her Navigator's station please? Even the Haynes manual has no photos of this area.

 

Thanks,

  WV908 

[Chaotic Mike]

Hi, good luck! I'm about a couple of days away from finishing R5868 roughly as she is in Hendon. Basically it's superbly moulded but the tolerances in places are extremely tight.. I am dreading putting the wings on, without reopening the fuselage! 

 

Bomb doors are a total mare... 

 

Mike

[klubman01]

I stand corrected.  Thanks for the info.

 

As luck would have it, and for reasons I don't understand, I found a photo (that I took in 1990) of the Nav's position when looking through Sqn Ldr Leach's book, so there's good!

 

As much as I can tell, it's all original equipment apart from the UHF/VHF radio and IFF box which is positioned just above the parachute pack at the bottom right of the picture.  As we only flew VFR, navigation was by map and stopwatch, plus large landmarks.  The radio and IFF was the only modern kit.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Trevor

 

[WV908]

3 hours ago, Chaotic Mike said:

Hi, good luck! I'm about a couple of days away from finishing R5868 roughly as she is in Hendon. Basically it's superbly moulded but the tolerances in places are extremely tight.. I am dreading putting the wings on, without reopening the fuselage! 

 

Bomb doors are a total mare... 

 

Mike

 

Hi Mike, I'm still only on the cockpit but I too have found the tolerances to be tight - it makes lining up pieces with the cockpit sidewalls.... interesting. Have you got any photos of your build?

3 hours ago, klubman01 said:

I stand corrected.  Thanks for the info.

 

As luck would have it, and for reasons I don't understand, I found a photo (that I took in 1990) of the Nav's position when looking through Sqn Ldr Leach's book, so there's good!

 

As much as I can tell, it's all original equipment apart from the UHF/VHF radio and IFF box which is positioned just above the parachute pack at the bottom right of the picture.  As we only flew VFR, navigation was by map and stopwatch, plus large landmarks.  The radio and IFF was the only modern kit.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Trevor

 

 

Hi again Trevor - that's perfect! There are differences from the kit so it's a massive help. Is that a teddy bear stuffed up in the roof!?

 

Cheers,

  WV908

 

[Chaotic Mike]

Here you go... 

Enjoy? 😎

[klubman01]

29 minutes ago, WV908 said:

 

 

Hi again Trevor - that's perfect! There are differences from the kit so it's a massive help. Is that a teddy bear stuffed up in the roof!?

 

Cheers,

  WV908

 

It's actually the legs of Snoopy, from Peanuts.  He sat through a hole in the Nav station roof (where the sextant would be positioned for star shots).  Snoopy wore the old style googles and flying helmet, as seen when the cartoon had Snoopy versus The Red Baron.

 

I don't know if Snoopy still flies in PA474.  It's difficult to tell from photos as he was only about 8 inches tall.  Quite why he was there I never found out.

 

Trevor

[WV908]

2 hours ago, Chaotic Mike said:

Here you go... 

Enjoy? 😎

The wires, oh god the wires! I've tried to do this before and failed, but you've made it work. I'm planning on trying it again with this - as it's 1/32 I recon I can get away with thin, sheathed electrical wire. It's fixing the wires that I find I have trouble with. I'm satisfied with how the engines look on display, so I think i'll have the starboard outer uncovered. 

 

2 hours ago, klubman01 said:

It's actually the legs of Snoopy, from Peanuts.  He sat through a hole in the Nav station roof (where the sextant would be positioned for star shots).  Snoopy wore the old style googles and flying helmet, as seen when the cartoon had Snoopy versus The Red Baron.

 

I don't know if Snoopy still flies in PA474.  It's difficult to tell from photos as he was only about 8 inches tall.  Quite why he was there I never found out.

 

Trevor

From my photo I think he's no longer there sadly, which is a shame. I seem to think though that he's actually on the forward bomb bay bulkhead, if anyone can confirm? 

 

If he's still somewhere in the aircraft I'd like to try and add him

 

Cheers,

  WV908 

[WV908]

Build log No.2 17 Aprilis MMXX

 

One step forward, five steps back and one forward again.

 

In build log No.1 I showed the start of the modifications to the rudders to turn them into Lincoln style rudders. These, strictly are not Lincoln rudders, rather Lancaster B.VI rudders. They were fitted to the late built B.1's from mid-late 1944 onwards. Fitted to some Mk.I, VI and VII Lancasters, all these late build Lancs were intended to operate in the Far East, in the event that Japan did not surrender and an offensive had to come from the West. These Lancasters, PA474 and NX611 included, had the larger tropical radiators. 

 

Fortunatley, since HKM measured up PA474, the kit has these tropical radiators. Unfortunately it means that the marking options in the kit can't strictly be done accurately as the radiators are too large for them and indeed most of the aftermarket decal options available. 

 

Back to the rudders - My first attempt involved cutting a piece of plastic card, attaching it and blending it in with filler. That went fine until I started to sand the filler back and attempted to carve the joint for the the extended trim tab. The card bent and the joint ripped. 

 

I removed the original attachments and sawed back into the rudder, with the intention of affixing a larger plastic card insert. I found the trailing edge and rudder bottom to still be too flimsy. 

 

The successful attempt 3 involved sawing a slot into the rudder, inserting a piece of brass sheet and then cladding that with plastic card. It was then blended in with filler and sanded to shape, following which the joint between rudder and trim tab was carved. This has been completed on one rudder so far, as can be seen here;

 

 

The first airframe specific modification for the interior was completed today. The rear of the main wing spar has the emergency blow down equipment fitted, as well as a tank on it's top. The valve on the tank required moving and one of the blow-down valves was removed, along with it's piping. The box to right of this requires hollowing as it is in fact a shelf and contains one of the blow-down valves. I suspect the remaining valve on the spar is for the flaps and the newer system under the shelf is for the landing gear. 

 

The navigator's seat has been attached to it's pedestal, the rudder pedals have been assembled and I have started work on the airscale PE instrument panel, which is very fiddly.

 

Cheers,

  WV908 

 

EDIT: I'm not sure if i'll have chance to make any further progress over the weekend, but the other rudder is waiting for my new saw blade to arrive. 

Edited April 17, 2020 by WV908

[Chaotic Mike]

It took me two goes to make the Airscale panel. It's good when done though! 

[WV908]

4 hours ago, Chaotic Mike said:

It took me two goes to make the Airscale panel. It's good when done though! 

I'm happy you said that - I managed to fold the corner of and snap one of the smaller panels as I was moving it when it was setting in place. I wasn't happy at all as you can imagine. It's fixed now, but I really wish the kit manufactures would come up with a better way to do instrument panels so we don't have to mess around with tiny bits of brass. 

 

As good as the airscale set is, I am not a fan of working with PE. For someone who knows how to work with PE properly, a great result can be attained. I just hope I make something passable with it that looks better then the kit panel.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

Edited April 17, 2020 by WV908

[WV908]

Here is the starboard side rudder prior to sealing;

 

 

Cheers,

 WV908

Edited April 17, 2020 by WV908

[WV908]

Build log No.3 Vingt-Deux Avril Deux-Mille-Vingt 

 

Hi all,

   Not too much progress to show as I've been experimenting with a few different ways to do things, mainly creating the second control yolk.

 

 First up are the the rudders;

 

 

Starboard (complete) on the left and Port on the right. There was a slight incident with the port rudder in that the trim tab snapped off whilst sawing. The plastic in this kit certainly is odd - soft in places but also brittle. The port rudder is seen here with it's brass insert, not yet cladded.

 

 

We are now looking at both rudders flipped, Port on the left and Starboard on the right. The Port rudder has now been cladded with plasticard and CA'd to the brass insert, which has been cut and filed to shape. The lower edge of the starboard rudder has been reshaped as I realised the trim tab was too long, by about 0.5mm

 

So, for the control yolk;

 

 

I had tried warming and bending a suitable length of plastic rod to match the kit supplied yolk, but could not avoid it snapping on three attempts. I therefore decided to turn to copper wire for the 'handle bar' of the yolk. 

 

I used the kit yolk to make a jig with a block of milliput. Once set, I wrapped enough strands of wire around each other to attain the correct diameter and bent it to fit in the jig. It was then removed from the jig, sealed with CA to retain the shape and then inserted back in. This was followed by CA'ing a piece of sprue, to use as the centre of the yolk into the centre depression on the jig. The spares box was then raided for something to use as the stalks - I found some parts from an old Airfix Nimrod which fit the bill when trimmed. These were glued onto the centre and CA'd onto the 'handle bar' and left to set. 

 

With the button box added and centre stalk trimmed, this is the result so far;

 

 

I'm fairly happy with it - it's very fiddly and not something I've done before. It needs a lot of cleaning up, but I'll probably shoot it with some primer and gently sand it to shape. 

 

 

Finally the overall shot of pieces being worked on - The base to the pilot's seat has been removed and I'm in the process of cleaning up and plugging up the hole - The pieces in there this far are to retain the strength of the piece and provide a shelf for it to sit in to retain the correct heught. The 'roof' of this has been retained and will be reshaped. The port rudder has been profiled, with the trim tab evident. The wing spar rear cover has had the box on it's lower right cut out and hole plugged - the shelf requires extending. The front partition under the navigators table has had the vertical rods removed, a slot cut out of it's top above the parachute holder (the modern radio fits here) and the strange box on it's left has been removed. In the centre are the control yolks and to the right you can see I've removed the incorrect positioning guide mouldings from the cockpit side. I will need to order some strip of the right size to fill in the missing detail and construct the new, lower base of the pilot's seat.

 

Until next time!

 

Cheers,

  WV908

 

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by WV908
Added image

[tomprobert]

Any further progress in this..?

[WV908]

Hi @tomprobert

  None so far sadly, bar the fuselage ribbing. I hit a brick wall concerning my scratchbuilding skills when it came to the cockpit interior. I tried a few different ways of doing things and ended up binning them. I kept the 2nd yolk I made, but I'm still really not happy with it.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

 

 

[tomprobert]

5 hours ago, WV908 said:

Hi @tomprobert

  None so far sadly, bar the fuselage ribbing. I hit a brick wall concerning my scratchbuilding skills when it came to the cockpit interior. I tried a few different ways of doing things and ended up binning them. I kept the 2nd yolk I made, but I'm still really not happy with it.

 

Cheers,

  WV908

 

 

I often find myself shelving a model when things don’t go as planned - that’s why I’ve got about 10 on the go at any one time 😆

 

Hopefully you’ll return when the mood takes and we’ll be waiting patiently. 
 

All the best,

Tom

[Whitewolf]

I'll sit in on this if I may, I've been planning to do the same build for a while. The Lincoln tail fins are a pain, I could have sworn there was a plan to address that issue on the real plane. I'm surprised no one (AZ?has done a resin set in 1/32. 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Whitewolf

[Cees Broere]

I love this project.

Always nice to see some sawing getting done (and put right after that of course).

[Whitewolf]

One other thought here is the fuselage windows, present in the kit, but not on PA474.