Airfix 1/72 Blenheim IV - a second time around

[Simon]

Hello everyone

 

Back with another W.i.P. thread, but be forewarned, this may get messy...

 

I started work on the Airfix 1/72 Blenheim IV about a year ago, intending to do it as Blenheim IV Z7271 MQ-K of 226 Squadron as flown by Sgt. Jack Onions D.F.M. and Bar, from Middlesbrough, who won his Bar for his actions on on July 19th 1941.

From the ORB Form 541:
Wattisham
July 19th 1941
Blenheim IV Z7271 K
Up: 13.30
Down: 17.56 to 18.10
Sgt. John Onions - Pilot
F/Sgt Philip Warmington - Observer
F/Sgt J F L Morton – A/G
Convoy N.W. of NORDERNEY, 7 M/v’s escorted by flak ships were bombed at 15.32.
Vessel of 8000 tons, grey, unladen, bombed and machine gunned, hits scored. Large column of white smoke seen. Aircraft hit by cannon shells, through nose and starboard wing trailing edge. A.G. wounded in foot. Hydraulics U/S. pilot made belly landing. 4 x 250 lb bombs, 480 rounds rear gun.

 

Nice box artwork, some Eduard etch and masks, ready to go.

 

 

A new state of the art Blenheim kit, what could possible go wrong...? Well, one of the first things I noticed on opening the box was that the upper turret glazing (part G3) had some moulding flaws:

 

 

No problem, thinks I, e-mail to Airfix, bish-bash-bosh get a new one...nope, out of stock, sorry. Still waiting a for new part...

 

Anyway, Keep Calm and Carry On. Starting with the cockpit, I added some of the very nice Eduard stuff and few extra bits and bobs:

 

 

 

 

All very nice, and on to the undercarriage bays, again adding Eduard's very nice etched stuff:

 

 

That was all painted, and the wing tops and bottoms joined up. I joined the two rear fuselage halves together, and that's when things started to go a bit Pete Tong. I couldn't for the life of me get the wings and rear fuselage to join neatly. Sand, scrap, curse, try again...nope:

 

 

 

There seemed to be a big step on the bomb bay join too:

 

 

 

I did wonder if I'd done something wrong, and tried to test-fit a few other parts:

 

The starboard aileron, which doesn't quite fit:

 

 

The starboard flaps, which don't quite fit:

 

 

 

The horizontal tail, which does fit, but not that well:

 

 

That's where I left it feeling pretty fed up and frustrated, consigned to the Shelf of Ultimate Shame which I got on with my Italeri Stirling IV (a well-fitting doddle by comparison, ahem).

 

Now it's down from the S.o.U.S. and time to crack on, despite the ill-fitting parts and the very odd Airfix plastic with its slightly waxy-like nature that seems ever so slightly impervious to sanding. This is its last chance, so a deep breath, stand-by for some serious fettling and away we go...

 

Simon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Simon
typo

[BikingLampy]

I'm a fraction further ahead on the same kit (and a lot of the same AM!), and all your issues sound familiar.

 

The turret transparency is similarly trashed. I'm just going to use the retracted version.

 

Fettling the wings to fuselage took a while, but has come out reasonably well for me. Make sure you can get a decent match to the cockpit side sections too, before committing to glue! I have a feeling Airfix's tolerancing has been a bit too precise and the cumulative errors created by paint, mould lines and the odd bit of warpage conspire to leave stuff not fitting. I had to clamp quite heavily to get the 2 wing spars to sit nicely against the central wing sections, and if they're out, it pushes everything else out.

 

Ailerons do fit, but its bloody tight - check for mould lines on the centre hinge bit on the wing, and on the ends of the aileron itself.

 

Bomb bay door fitment is mince. I've fettled mine to flush with the rest of the fuselage now, but there's some chunky gaps like you have.

 

I'm going with flaps down, so no problem for me, there 🙂

 

Horizontal stabilizers? Yup. Like chucking sausages down Oxford Street. Sorting them is the next job.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by BikingLampy

[keith in the uk]

I feel your pain , I am building the A Model DH60G and nothing and I mean NOTHING fits at all.  😠

[Simon]

Ah, so it's not just me. Thank you!

 

It has the feel of a 1/48 kit downsized to 1/72, without taking into account the tolerances being made more, well, tolerant...

 

Onwards and upwards...test fit, fettle, test fit, fettle, repeat...

 

Simon

[Andrew]

Best of luck with this resumption, Simon. The start you made last year looks very nice indeed and I'm keen to see your progress with this kit towards completion - keep fettling!

 

Andrew.

[lasermonkey]

I'm just in the process of finishing mine. All the major construction, painting and decalling is done, I just need to seal the decals and stick the last few bits on.

 

I have read conflicting stories about the new Airfix Blenheim. Mine was made in the UK and for the most part it went together surprisingly well. The worst part was the fit around the bomb bay, and I think that's universally bad as IMHO Airfix were trying to be a bit clever and came out looking daft. Certainly, the nose assembly to rear fuselage fit was pretty good on mine, though I was expecting trouble. My tailplanes fitted perfectly and I remember being quite impressed about that. I think I may have had to do some very minor adjustments to get the wing-fuselage joint just so, but nothing more that one might expect on any kit really. If it wasn't for that bomb bay area (honestly, it's just a really bad idea!) it would have been nigh-on perfect.

 

It does make me wonder though how some people get kits that go together without any fuss and others can get the same kit and it's a nightmare. Can tolerances vary that much?

 

Anyway, I hope you manage to beat it into submission because it looks lovely once it's done and I'm already itching to do another one!

 

Cheers,

Mark.

[Simon]

Interesting to hear other people's issues with this kit, and also lack of them!

 

I'd hate this W.i.P. to sound like an endless Airfix-bashing exercise (there is a bit more to come - sorry!), but it should all hopefully come together with a bit of effort.

 

I did receive a reply from Airfix about the replacement turret transparency, and I'm on the list for when the restrictions get lifted.

 

More soon...

 

Simon

[lasermonkey]

Oh, I totally get the frustration with Airfix! Although I seem to be luckier than most, my F4F-4 fought me all the way. For some reason the fuselage didn't want to close together around the cockpit assembly. When dry fitting, one attempt in ten would result in it going together ok. The rest of the time it wouldn't and I'd be damned if I could find out why this was happening! In the end I just had to fill the gap. The undercarriage parts were poorly defined and ill-fitting and in the end, I don't think I enjoyed that kit at all.

 

My made in the UK Blenhiem has a different, harder plastic than the made in India kits. The Indian stuff somehow manage to be soft and brittle at the same time, which is a bit of an achievement in itself! I wish they'd change it. The UK plastic was nicer to work with, though still different from anything else I've come across.

[Simon]

43 minutes ago, lasermonkey said:

My made in the UK Blenhiem has a different, harder plastic than the made in India kits. The Indian stuff somehow manage to be soft and brittle at the same time, which is a bit of an achievement in itself! I wish they'd change it. The UK plastic was nicer to work with, though still different from anything else I've come across.

Now that's interesting. I bought mine at a model show about three or four years ago, which presumably makes it an Indian-made kit? It's very odd plastic...as you say brittle and a bit soft, and it seems quite resistant to sanding too!

 

I've already managed to snap one of the engine cowling panels, but hopefully not a big deal.

 

Simon

 

 

[AdrianMF]

The Airfix kit is a bit of a curate's egg. At least it's an improvement on the old one!! I've built all four of the injected 1/72 ones (MPM, Airfix old and new, FROG) and I have to say the FROG one was the most fun. You seem to be knocking it into shape though - what you have built looks very nice.

 

19 hours ago, BikingLampy said:

Like chucking sausages down Oxford Street

I've never heard that before!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[BikingLampy]

Quote

I've never heard that before!

You've obviously been brought up in a more genteel environment to me. The phrase is generally adaptable to your location of choice - when I was a student in Cambridge, it was "like throwing a chipolata down King's Parade"; as a current Sheffield resident, I probably should compare to Winnats Pass. Either which way, you get the idea - encased pork (by)product introduced to your large empty space of choice with some force.

 

Anyway - back to the plastic...

[johnd]

There are some building hints here that may be of use.

 

John.

[Simon]

12 hours ago, johnd said:

There are some building hints here that may be of use.

 

John.

Thanks John. I think I may be too far down the road for some of the helpful hints, but useful stuff.

 

I especially liked the quote at the end "Provided that you do not expect to finish this kit in a weekend you will enjoy it!"

 

I'm now 13 months into it (off and on - mostly off!) and still waiting for the enjoyment bit...

 

Simon

[johnd]

1 minute ago, Simon said:

I'm now 13 months into it (off and on - mostly off!) and still waiting for the enjoyment bit..

I'm sure there'll be a late surge of joy. Hang on in there.

 

John.

[Seahawk]

I sometimes wonder if Airfix are setting out to produce the perfect kit for old codgers: one in which you can whittle away contentedly at plastic for hours on end without any of this boring ending-up-with-a-finished-model nonsense.  Certainly my Blenheim I and IVF kits looked rather like yours, especially around the bomb bay: build up sidewalls here with Microstrip to remove step, cut back side walls there so rear of closed bomb bay doors part fits properly.  I eventually achieved a pretty well perfect fit on the wings which also much reduced the bomb-bay problems but only after a lot of fettling, hacking away almost at random at possible interference points.

 

I've since bought a Blenheim IV, which is of UK manufacture: slightly darker plastic and looked like a different kit with the panel lines appearing finer.  The fit of the parts also seemed much better though the bomb bay problem has not entirely gone away.  I commented to Simon of the Airfix team on how much better the UK manufactured kit in harder plastic was but he said that UK manufacture (or did he mean use of the harder plastic?) had been discontinued because (something like) "the customers didn't like it".  I found this very hard to believe: I suspect the fell hand of accountants.  Anyway, my Blenheim IV kit seems much closer to what the designers were setting out to achieve.

 

Conclusion 1: the Airfix Blenheim is let down by an ingenious parts breakdown which didn't quite come off (it did with the Whitley) exacerbated by the poor quality plastic and/or quality control of Indian-manufactured kits.

Conclusion 2: I wished I'd stocked the stash with Blenheim IV rather than Blenheim IVF kits.

 

Good luck: at least you know you are not alone!

Edited April 29, 2020 by Seahawk

[Simon]

I wholeheartedly agree that the parts breakdown is far too clever for it's own good, and designed with very little, if any allowance for any builder-initiated errors, no matter how small.

 

Anyway, here is where I'd got to before I threw in the towel:

 

 

and after more fiddling, test-fitting, sanding, scraping and general whittling away like an old codger (couldn't have put it better myself!) the rear fuselage and wings seemed to finally like each other. So, deep breath, I've taken the plunge:

 

 

Clamped, clothespegged, bulldog clipped and rubber-banded to within an inch of its life, I'm hoping it'll be okay once it's had a chance to set properly...

 

Simon

 

 

 

 

[woody37]

3 hours ago, Seahawk said:

I sometimes wonder if Airfix are setting out to produce the perfect kit for old codgers: one in which you can whittle away contentedly at plastic for hours on end without any of this boring ending-up-with-a-finished-model nonsense.  Certainly my Blenheim I and IVF kits looked rather like yours, especially around the bomb bay: build up sidewalls here with Microstrip to remove step, cut back side walls there so rear of closed bomb bay doors part fits properly.  I eventually achieved a pretty well perfect fit on the wings which also much reduced the bomb-bay problems but only after a lot of fettling, hacking away almost at random at possible interference points.

 

I've since bought a Blenheim IV, which is of UK manufacture: slightly darker plastic and looked like a different kit with the panel lines appearing finer.  The fit of the parts also seemed much better though the bomb bay problem has not entirely gone away.  I commented to Simon of the Airfix team on how much better the UK manufactured kit in harder plastic was but he said that UK manufacture (or did he mean use of the harder plastic?) had been discontinued because (something like) "the customers didn't like it".  I found this very hard to believe: I suspect the fell hand of accountants.  Anyway, my Blenheim IV kit seems much closer to what the designers were setting out to achieve.

 

Conclusion 1: the Airfix Blenheim is let down by an ingenious parts breakdown which didn't quite come off (it did with the Whitley) exacerbated by the poor quality plastic and/or quality control of Indian-manufactured kits.

Conclusion 2: I wished I'd stocked the stash with Blenheim IV rather than Blenheim IVF kits.

 

Good luck: at least you know you are not alone!

I’m finding a similar experience with many of the new tooling kits. Great subjects, however overly engineered which wouldn’t be bad if the manufacturing was good quality. Warpage, soft plastic, deep sink marks in difficult places to correct are some of the challenges I’ve come across. They’ve not stopped me but I do wonder what experience kids may of had who got their first kit for Christmas and ended up with something that looked like a crash landing. The only one I’ve built that just fell together so far was the whitley. The 1/48 Blenheim was ok although getting the canopy neatly fitted was a challenge.ive got one of these to do but think I’ll just watch Simons being built for now as I know he’ll win

[lasermonkey]

3 hours ago, Seahawk said:

 

 

I've since bought a Blenheim IV, which is of UK manufacture: slightly darker plastic and looked like a different kit with the panel lines appearing finer.  The fit of the parts also seemed much better though the bomb bay problem has not entirely gone away.  I commented to Simon of the Airfix team on how much better the UK manufactured kit in harder plastic was but he said that UK manufacture (or did he mean use of the harder plastic?) had been discontinued because (something like) "the customers didn't like it".  I found this very hard to believe: I suspect the fell hand of accountants.  Anyway, my Blenheim IV kit seems much closer to what the designers were setting out to achieve.

 

Conclusion 1: the Airfix Blenheim is let down by an ingenious parts breakdown which didn't quite come off (it did with the Whitley) exacerbated by the poor quality plastic and/or quality control of Indian-manufactured kits.

Conclusion 2: I wished I'd stocked the stash with Blenheim IV rather than Blenheim IVF kits.

 

Good luck: at least you know you are not alone!

You and me both! While the UK plastic was a little bit weird, it was far nicer to work with and as you said, the fit was better and the detail sharper. I'd be as happy as Larry if they switched manufacture solely to the UK for these reasons alone.

 

No, I don't believe for one moment that anyone complained about the plastic!

 

Cheers,

Mark.

[Simon]

So, how did it go...?

 

Actually, quite well, considering how it has been going! I'm happy with the join now:

 

 

Still got the step on the bomb bay edge, though:

 

 

But the trailing edges of the wing and wing root match very well now:

 

 

A smidge of filler, and Robert's yer Ma's brother...

 

While that was all setting, I thought I'd start on the engines. I started with the props, and another moan (sorry!). Who thought it was a good idea to put the sprue attachments on the trailing edge of the prop blades? Oh, and the moulding is mis-matched - joy:

 

 

They were a swine to sand down, given the plastic's odd texture. The hubs were a bit 'blobby' too, so I've ordered a set of SBS Models props and hubs which look a lot better.

 

Moving on to the engines, here are the parts for the primed and painted:

 

 

and once assembled they look pretty good:

 

 

There is some Eduard etch on there, but to be honest you can hardly see it!

 

I thought I'd also try a test fit of the cowlings, and after a bit of sanding (I don't think there is a single part of this kit that hasn't required sanding or some sort of fettling so far), they seem to fit okay:

 

 

 

The joins should tighten up once glued.

 

But, do the engines actually fit inside them? Well (gasp!) yes, they seem to (at the moment!):

 

 

 

So that's all good then, in the words of Ian Fletcher...

 

More soon

Simon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Simon

[Simon]

Another quick update...

 

After test-fitting the engine cowlings, I painted the inner surfaces and lower parts of the outsides, and I've glued the rather nice replacement exhausts from Barracuda in place, then added the cowlings to the engines:

 

 

Fit is actually pretty good (no, really...), and I've used Formula 560 Canopy Glue which gives a little bit of flexibility and wiggle-room. Takes a while to dry, hence the rubber bands to hold everything in place.

 

Meanwhile the cockpit is all done. I've added a scratch-built bomb sight, and added an astro compass on the starboard side:

 

 

 

 

I also changed the bomb aimer's seat - I think the round one is for the Bolingbroke?

 

Now, to see if it'll fit...I taped the two halves together, and tried it on the rear fuselage/wing assembly:

 

 

 

Not too bad. I've tried the other glazing parts on and it seems to all work. Happy days...

 

Meanwhile I'm working on the bomb bay - I'm having it open, but the match of front/rear isn't great:

 

 

So all that's come off, and I'll make a new roof for it and fix the mis-matched sides:

 

 

And finally, another moulding oddity on the starboard aileron. Looks like the mould had some fluff in it:

 

 

Easily fixed, but most peculiar.

 

More soon,

Simon

 

 

 

 

 

[dogsbody]

Dude! That bomb sight looks great! Nicely done.

 

 

 

Chris

[lasermonkey]

1 hour ago, dogsbody said:

Dude! That bomb sight looks great! Nicely done.

 

 

 

Chris

It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?

[Simon]

3 hours ago, dogsbody said:

Dude! That bomb sight looks great! Nicely done.

 

Thanks for that, much appreciated.

 

I'm a bit of a dab hand at making them now, after two Airfix Lancasters and an Italeri Stirling Mk.I. Dunno why someone doesn't make resin aftermarket ones (AFAIK)...

 

Simon

[dogsbody]

Why don't you show us how you made yours? 

 

 

 

Chris

[Adam Poultney]

Really would like a Blenheim.... the better looking Mk1 of course. Was thinking about this kit, but it seems to be one of the almost nice Airfix kits that's let down by poor moulding.... I know there's the 1/48 kit and Blenheims aren't thaaaat big... I build V Bombers in 1/72 so I can certainly handle one of these in 1/48....

Regardless of the poor moulding in places you seem to be doing a fine job of this model so far.