Meanwhile up north...

[Dandie Dinmont]

On 7/24/2020 at 5:47 AM, Greg Law said:

You are lucky it is an H-3. At first I thought it was part of the 15th August raids which were mainly  H-4's and used external racks. It was only after i read the story that i noticed it was an earlier raid. 

yes, hopefully I’ll miss out on all the hassle you had attaching the H-6 bomb racks to the H-3 fuselage.  I’m just about to gird my loins and start work on the engines. Wish me luck. 
 

Craig. 

[Dandie Dinmont]

Gosh, 9 days since I last reported on progress. this will never do.  Initially progress was slow due to a cat on the workbench

 

 

Worse still, he's casting at the moment and left a large amount of fine black hairs behind when he eventually wandered off in search of food. That'll be fun when it comes time for painting.

 

First job was to make a replacement for the bit that had been lost without trace. Here's my attempt:

 

 

And here it is in situ:

 

 

As you can see, having this part missing would have ruined the model. Sometimes I wonder about myself.

 

Next I addressed the issue of the undersized holes (or the oversized pins, take your pick). Some very delicate work with a pin drill opened up the holes enough to allow the fuselage sides to meet, and to provide reassurance that so far everything is in more less the right place.

 

 

The undersized hole issue also affects the tailwheel mounting points and makes me very nervous of what I may find later in the build, especially when trying to attach the engines.

 

Next, I started work on the cockpit. I think this piston affair must have been the device that allowed the pilot to raise his seat and peer over the top of the canopy in inclement weather.

 

 

At the end of the session, I couldn't resist comparing the size of the Heinkel with its great foe, albeit a Mk.V rather that a BOB aircraft. Not as great a difference as I'd expected though of course the cockpit and canopy still has to be attached.

 

 

I can neither confirm or deny that a certain amount of EEYOWWW! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!!! took place after this photo was taken.

 

Thanks for reading,

Craig.

[Retired Bob]

19 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

The undersized hole issue also affects the tailwheel mounting points and makes me very nervous of what I may find later in the build, especially when trying to attach the engines.

Hi Craig, the problem with the undersize holes really is a problem on the wings, I am just gluing the wing upper and lower wings together and trying to drill out the holes is very difficult, the existing holes are close to the wing upper surface so 1/2 a turn with your pin vice and you're through the wing surface, I have just removed the pins, it saved a lot of trouble.   Also the inside surfaces of the mounting blocks for the ailerons need a quick swipe with a sanding stick to allow the wing trailing edge to come together without a gap.  Looking at the cockpit I have made the prone firing "bed" for the nose gunner, it shows on all the cockpit photos.  I used the Monogram one as a guide, 30 mm by 10 mm are the dimensions of a piece of plastic-card, I edged it with some square section strip and made the pad with Milliput, I'll show mine on my thread when it's painted.  How have you got on with making some yellow KG 53 badges?

[Dandie Dinmont]

On 7/28/2020 at 3:17 PM, Retired Bob said:

Hi Craig, the problem with the undersize holes really is a problem on the wings, I am just gluing the wing upper and lower wings together and trying to drill out the holes is very difficult, the existing holes are close to the wing upper surface so 1/2 a turn with your pin vice and you're through the wing surface, I have just removed the pins, it saved a lot of trouble.   Also the inside surfaces of the mounting blocks for the ailerons need a quick swipe with a sanding stick to allow the wing trailing edge to come together without a gap.

 

Bob, you have no idea how grateful I am that you’re trailblazing ahead of me and pointing out all these issues!

 

On 7/28/2020 at 3:17 PM, Retired Bob said:

  Looking at the cockpit I have made the prone firing "bed" for the nose gunner, it shows on all the cockpit photos.  I used the Monogram one as a guide, 30 mm by 10 mm are the dimensions of a piece of plastic-card, I edged it with some square section strip and made the pad with Milliput, I'll show mine on my thread when it's painted.

I’m getting tremendously confused about the whole issue of crew positions in the He 111. Why is there a hole in the cockpit floor  for the pad to cover anyway? At first I thought it was to access the bomb sight but looking at various diagrams, it seems that the business end of the bomb sight is at cockpit floor level. At any rate, it looks like I will have to follow your example and scratch a pad. 

On 7/28/2020 at 3:17 PM, Retired Bob said:

 

  How have you got on with making some yellow KG 53 badges?

I passed on the decal sheet to my tame graphics designer a couple of days ago and am awaiting results. BTW, it’s actually KG.26 in case you come across any ready-made markings!

 

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it. 
 

Craig. 

[Retired Bob]

11 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

I passed on the decal sheet to my tame graphics designer a couple of days ago and am awaiting results. BTW, it’s actually KG.26 in case you come across any ready-made markings!

I found a decal sheet from "Owl" they have it at Model Hobbies, Owl Decals #S4885 KG.26 £3.60  Not sure about P&P if you just buy a decal sheet.

I know what you mean about the confusion about the cockpit layout, the prone gunners "bed" is there in photos so I just used the Aires cockpit as a guide to make and detail my cockpit, I'll post a photo tomorrow.

 

[Dandie Dinmont]

22 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

I found a decal sheet from "Owl" they have it at Model Hobbies, Owl Decals #S4885 KG.26 £3.60  Not sure about P&P if you just buy a decal sheet.

I know what you mean about the confusion about the cockpit layout, the prone gunners "bed" is there in photos so I just used the Aires cockpit as a guide to make and detail my cockpit, I'll post a photo tomorrow.

 

Sold out unfortunately but thanks for pointing it out Bob.  We’re a long way from applying any markings  but I’ll keep a look-out. 
 

Craig. 

[Retired Bob]

7 minutes ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

Sold out unfortunately but thanks for pointing it out Bob.  We’re a long way from applying any markings  but I’ll keep a look-out. 

Sorry about that, I found it first on Hannants site, but that was clearly marked "not in stock"  With Model Hobbies you only find out when you try to buy something.

[Dandie Dinmont]

While working on the Heinkel, something occurred to me. This is the first non-Airfix kit I've built since returning to the welcoming arms of the modelling family. So how does it compare? Well the plastic the ICM kit is made from is equally soft, the sprue attachment points are, by and large,  mercifully finer and the detail is a little sharper, though not enough to shame the plucky British offering. The moulding seems a little rougher, there's a little flash and a plethora of small ejector marks. Luckily, my micro chisels and a recent purchase from @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies are enough to take care of both problems.

 

 

Another thing, it seems to me that the ICM instructions leave rather more to the modeller's initiative: Case in point,the rudder pedals. These are made out of three parts each. The instructions tell you which parts to use, give a rough indication of the pedals' final location and leave the modeller to work out the rest for themselves. In my case, it didn't help that one of the struts was a little bent:

 

 

(in fairness I probably did this myself when putting the sprues back into the rather tight plastic bag they came in) and the matching rod on the other pedal instantly broke in two after removal from the sprue. Once you've worked out where everything is supposed to go though, it all fits together rather nicely (issues with location pin holes aside). 

 

 

(One of the rods is definitely bent in that picture. I've since sorted it out).

 

An example of ICM leaving things up to the modeller and the modeller getting it wrong:

 

 

You see that funnel like thing which I think must have been for catching the spent cartridges from the dorsal machine gun? I'm pretty sure I've got it going the wrong way but there's no way of telling from the instructions. Even if it was going the other way, there are ammo racks on the sides of the fuselage which it will interfere with unless it's at the correct angle. There's no way of telling this until you start test fitting stuff together. I also found myself wide awake in the middle of the night thinking "You'll be able to see the top of that funnel through the opening for the gunner! I need to hollow it out immediately!!!!" I thought modelling was supposed to be a relaxing pastime?

 

The port fuselage side has some sort of aerial modelled on its underside. Here's a picture:

 

 

I don't have any particular point to make about this, it's just here as a reference so I can replace it when I inevitably knock it off at some point during the build. 

 

At this point, it seemed not much more could be done until paint got involved. Fortunately, a care package arrived from the big H.

 

 

I've never used masks before so that was naturally the first thing I tried. I actually find it quite a restful experience picking the little bits of vinyl (or whatever it is) off the backing sheet and carefully manoeuvring them into place. Better still, if you muck it up, the individual masks can survive being repositioned. So far I'm impressed.

 

 

But here's a thing. Here's the placement guide for the Montex masks:

 

 

Am I being a numpty or have they only given you enough masks to mask the large fuselage windows on one side?

 

Thanks for reading,

Craig. 

[Stew Dapple]

The two forward large fuselage windows in the bomb-bay area were painted over (at least in some cases, I don't know if it was always done). It might be that the aircraft featured in that mask set don't need four sets of fuselage windows per side?

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Dandie Dinmont]

On 8/9/2020 at 1:58 PM, Stew Dapple said:

The two forward large fuselage windows in the bomb-bay area were painted over (at least in some cases, I don't know if it was always done). It might be that the aircraft featured in that mask set don't need four sets of fuselage windows per side?

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

Thanks Stew. The profiles in the instructions show all four windows clear but you know what they say about profiles! Luckily, these are probably the easiest transparencies in the entire kit to mask with good old Tamiya masking tape.

 

Craig.

[Dandie Dinmont]

The more I think about it, the less I'm convinced by the "those windows were painted over anyway" theory and the more I subscribe to the "Montex can't count" one. Still, whatever their numeracy skills, it has to be said that they make nice masks and I spent a couple of therapeutic evenings applying most of the interior masking.

 

 

Note to self, remember to mask the other sides before aiming the airbrush at the transparencies. 

 

With this done, there was no longer any way of avoiding it. Time to get the airbrush fired up and lay down some paint. As I mentioned earlier, I'm using Xtracrylix paints for this build. I'm an airbrush novice but I'd used Xtracrylics on a previous build with generally pleasing results, the somewhat bizarre secret (found on Britmodeller) being to thin them with Vallejo airbrush cleaner. This I did but I fear that I may have been guilty of over-thinning the RLM02 this time since I ended up with a distinct tide mark on one of the fuselage sides as if the pigment was separating out. I also got some strange mottling with both the RLM02 and the RLM66 which may have the same cause or may be my just punishment for neither washing the plastic, not applying primer before laying down the top coat. Thanks to my unfamiliarity with Luftwaffe colours, I'm also not quite sure whether the RLM02 should be a bit stronger than it appears.

 

 

Oh well, it'll all be hidden when the fuselage is closed up.

 

I also took the opportunity to spray the parts of the cockpit I had assembled to date

 

 

Slow progress, I'm afraid and this being Scotland, I don't even have a heatwave to blame for the sudden loss of mojo. A little more detailing work though and we'll be able to get the fuselage closed up!

 

Thanks for reading,

Craig.

 

  

[Stew Dapple]

Nice work Craig, it's coming on

 

Regarding the painted-over windows, perhaps this (or this) will ease your concerns  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Dandie Dinmont]

1 hour ago, Stew Dapple said:

Nice work Craig, it's coming on

 

Regarding the painted-over windows, perhaps this (or this) will ease your concerns  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

Why didn’t you show me these before I glued all those bombs together Stew? ☹️ I am convinced, painted over those windows will be!

 

Craig. 

[Stew Dapple]

Soz mate  You can at least have the bomb doors open now  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Greg Law]

Quick suggestion.  Cut  the aerial off the bottom of the fuselage and fixed it back on at the end of the  uild. It is very fragile and chances are it won't survive the build.

Ask me how I know. 

[Retired Bob]

Hi Craig, I'm just catching up with things as I have had computer problems, Microsoft have changed my operating system to "edge" and I have put my problems onto Grumping into the 20s thread, when the damn thing lets me connect to the internet.  I have painted over my forward pairs of windows and removed that ventral aerial (thanks Greg)  My problem with the kit is that I have lost an engine cover, not a flat one of course, but one with the supercharger intake on it, hopefully a friend with a 3D printer may be able to make a new one.  Modelling, a relaxing pastime, anyone that thinks that is doing it wrong.

[Dandie Dinmont]

10 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

Hi Craig, I'm just catching up with things as I have had computer problems, Microsoft have changed my operating system to "edge" and I have put my problems onto Grumping into the 20s thread, when the damn thing lets me connect to the internet.  I have painted over my forward pairs of windows and removed that ventral aerial (thanks Greg)  My problem with the kit is that I have lost an engine cover, not a flat one of course, but one with the supercharger intake on it, hopefully a friend with a 3D printer may be able to make a new one.  Modelling, a relaxing pastime, anyone that thinks that is doing it wrong.

Hi Bob sorry to hear about your woes, modelling and otherwise. I don't use Windows so I can't help much with your Edge issues but have you tried contacting ICM to see if they can get a replacement to you? 

 

Craig.

[Retired Bob]

8 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

Hi Bob sorry to hear about your woes, modelling and otherwise. I don't use Windows so I can't help much with your Edge issues but have you tried contacting ICM to see if they can get a replacement to you? 

That's a back up idea if the 3D printing doesn't work.  I made some improvements to the ICM engine panels, small intakes and vents that  are on the Monogram kit but ICM have ignored, so hopefully the 3D copies will work.

[Greg Law]

How on earth did you loose that panel? In the photo it looks like the engines are complete.

[Dandie Dinmont]

Hello again.

 

Progress has been slow but honestly, can you blame me when this is the sight you're face with when retiring to the man-cave of an evening? 

 

 

I ask you...

 

Normally, I am the staidest of modellers, doggedly following the instructions in the correct order, but for some reason this build has seen me flitting from section to section like a particularly ditzy bumble bee alighting on whichever flower takes my fancy. This errant behaviour will undoubtably come  back to bite me on the bum (can I say bum?) in the near future but meant that I needed to consider the dual questions of what the bomb load of 1H+FT was, and how many aircraft actually took part in the raid on the 12th of July. To aid me in this investigation, I had a rather nifty interactive map produced by Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives which details every bombing reported during the Second World War in the Aberdeenshire area. You can find the map here but I have attached my own efforts to show all the reports of the 12th of July 1940 below, mainly because I couldn't work out how to get a screenshot of the real map showing them all.

 

 

The red figures in each yellow area are the number of bombs dropped at each location. The dotted line is my attempt at tracking the route of 1H+FT.

C.S. stands for crash site and B.S. does not indicate my doubts as to the likely veracity of this report but stands for Bomb Splinters. My own feeling is that the splinters are far more likely to have come from the barrage of ack-ack that greeted the luckless Heinkel than anything dropped by it but the report comes from Spa Street which was home for the first 5 years of my life so I've left it in. 

 

Two things are clear:

1. If more than one aircraft was involved, then they must have had formation keeping skills the Red Arrows would envy.
2. There seems to have been quite a large number of bombs dropped.

In passing, I can't help wondering how they calculated the number of bombs had dropped in each location.  Number of craters? Separate areas of destruction? Number of bangs? In the area marked 5+, 5 bombs were recorded as having gone off plus an unspecified number of unexploded bombs found on a railway line. Adding these together, we get 30+ separate bombs.

 

The H3 model of the He-111 carried its bombload in 8 ESAC250/ix bomb cells mounted mid-fuselage (these cells held the bombs nose up which meant that they tumbled dramatically after leaving the aircraft. This must have made bomb release such an interesting time for the crew). The largest bomb each cell could hold was the SC250 but each cell could also be sub-divided to hold smaller bombs, incendiaries or even cassettes of cluster bombs such as the infamous SD2 butterfly bomb. If 1H+FT had been carrying incendiaries or SD2s, I'm pretty sure it would have been mentioned in the newspaper reports of the time (I'm not even sure the SD2 was in use this early in the war) and so my best guess is that the Heinkel was carrying 4 SC50 bombs in each cell making 32 in total. This makes sense when you remember that the original mission of the aircraft was to attack Leuchars airfield, you'd probably want to scatter bombs over as large an area as possible in the hope of damaging aircraft on the ground.

 

Convinced, and desirous of producing as accurate a model as possible, I investigate the availability of 1/48 SC50s and discovered that 32 of them would cost me considerable more than the original kit did. Instantly  my desire for ultimate accuracy evaporated and I decided that the 8 SC250s which come with the kit would have to do. Luckily at this point, the estimable  @Stew Dapple came up with concrete photographic proof that at least one He-111 of KG.26 in this time frame had the windows of the bomb compartment painted over, neatly concealing the contents of the bomb racks. Result! So long as the bomb bay doors remained closed, the SC250s could go in the spares box and the reputation of the accuracy of the build remain unsullied.

 

Before reaching this happy conclusion, I'd already started work on the bombs, bomb racks and engines

 

 

If I was being sensible, I would heed the experience of @Greg Law and @Retired Bob and build the minimum engine block necessary to attach the bits that are visible from the outside but the engines are such lovely mini-kits that I couldn't resist including all the bits. This is something else that will almost certainly bite me in the future.

 

 

When the time came to assemble the engine mounts, mindful of Greg's experience, I took my time, test fitting everything at least twice and refraining from my usual practice of splashing about large amounts of TET. All went well as the following picture hopefully demonstrates

 

 

With that nail-biting event over, it was time to try something new. Until now I have used Vallejo primer (goes on easy, comes off even easier) but have long sought a primer that I can actually sand after application. On @CedB's recommendation, I had purchased a bottle of Stynylrez. Eagerly I set up the airbrush and let fly.

 

Friends, it did not go well. Typically, my test spraying of the paint mule went fine but as soon as I pointed the airbrush at the actual kit parts, it started spluttering like a Daily Mail reader perusing the latest immigration figures (incidentally producing a mottle effect which in other circumstances I might have been very pleased with) before bunging up completely. Had Uncle Ced lead me up the garden path?

 

Thanks for reading,

Craig.

[Retired Bob]

On 20/08/2020 at 12:19, Greg Law said:

How on earth did you loose that panel? In the photo it looks like the engines are complete.

Answers on a postcard, when I took that picture the engine panels were attached with blu-tac to get a coat of primer on, this was mainly to check everything looked ok, Mr color paint. with levelling thinner shows every imperfection.  I took the panels off to clean up some seams and when I went to refit them one had gone, disappeared, was not found, even after a CSI type search with a torch.  Hence my need for a new panel by 3D printing.  No cats or dogs to blame, the goldfish look guilty as hell, but I think they always look like that, or they want food?  My modelling table is becoming a Bermuda Triangle for missing bits I tell you!

[Retired Bob]

18 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

Convinced, and desirous of producing as accurate a model as possible, I investigate the availability of 1/48 SC50s and discovered that 32 of them would cost me considerable more than the original kit did. 

 Craig, have you costed upgrading all the machine guns to Master replacement brass barrels, it made me splutter, a bit like your airbrush.  But I bought them in the end.

[Dandie Dinmont]

7 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

Answers on a postcard, when I took that picture the engine panels were attached with blu-tac to get a coat of primer on, this was mainly to check everything looked ok, Mr color paint. with levelling thinner shows every imperfection.  I took the panels off to clean up some seams and when I went to refit them one had gone, disappeared, was not found, even after a CSI type search with a torch.  Hence my need for a new panel by 3D printing.  No cats or dogs to blame, the goldfish look guilty as hell, but I think they always look like that, or they want food?  My modelling table is becoming a Bermuda Triangle for missing bits I tell you!

Strangely enough, I lost one of the PE seat belts in similar circumstances. I left them all carefully stuck to a bit of masking tape while the glue dried on the pads you attach to the belts and when I returned, one had disappeared. Unlike you Bob, I have two obvious suspects though they both are proclaiming their innocence. If it doesn't turn up, the guy in the back is just going to have to hold on for dear life.

 

Craig. 

[Dandie Dinmont]

8 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

 Craig, have you costed upgrading all the machine guns to Master replacement brass barrels, it made me splutter, a bit like your airbrush.  But I bought them in the end.

I haven't, though I have bent a few of the plastic originals. (checks interweb) That's actually less than the bombs would have cost and they do look good. Hmm......

 

Craig.

[Retired Bob]

25 minutes ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

I haven't, though I have bent a few of the plastic originals. (checks interweb) That's actually less than the bombs would have cost and they do look good. Hmm......

I bought mine from big H, and yes they look much better than the kit items, longer too.  To fit them into the glazing I'm using a small length of brass tube, 0.9mm diameter tubing is ideal, of course I only had 0.8mm and 1.0mm diameter tubing in my stash, not 0.9mm but using a bit of epoxy glue cures most problems and it dries clear.