Leo 451

[JWM]

I scaled six different  drawings of LEO 45/451 to 1/72. With all of them fuselage is too short by about 6 mm.

 

Like here

 

Moreover - the tail - wing distance is too short

 

So the surgery of fuselage connot be skipped... Like in parallel build of Leo 451 was done by @AntoineG (many thanks for putting my attention to this problem)

 

BTW - the drawings suggests 16 mm diamter of wheels - it is exctly size of He-111 Z Hasegawa kit!  

 

 

 

Regards

J-W

 

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by JWM

[RidgeRunner]

Hmmm ... think, think, what’ll I do?  Just when I had decided not to make the big cut! Thanks for all of your work on this Jerzy!  The next question for me is how easy it is to cut, insert a 6mm plug and sand it to a seamless condition. Those beautiful curves look difficult to maintain if you jam in a plug of any size! 

 

Martin

[RidgeRunner]

Hi Jerzy @JWM,

 

I’ve pondered this over night and despite excellent detective work by you and Antoine @AntoineG I am going to ride the storm and continue without lengthening.  
 

I have doubts that I could get the wonderful fuselage shape back to a flawless finish. If it wasn’t for the contour challenge I’d tackle it. I will extend the tail cone as that needs it (the kit is the prototype) and leave it at that.  
 

What a saga! ;). My apologies to the modelling audience for this on-off story!

 

Good luck with yours, both of you.

 

Martin 

[JOCKNEY]

As someone who also has this kit, ( its verging on having it's own GB currently ! ) I'll be leaving it as it is.

 

Apart from being far too cowardly to cut the kit in half, I am fortunate in being able to sleep at night with knowing it's not exactly to specification. 

 

If you have both the skills and desire to correct this kit, I salute both your abilities and knowledge to be able to do so, and look forward to watching this unfold before our eyes.

 

Cheers Pat

[JWM]

Regarding some dimensions there are  serious differences among those six drawings. The wheels diameter change from 14 to 16 mm, there is also 2 mm difference in cowling diameter. I will have to chose one drawing, in this moment I think on M.Ryś drawing from B.Belcarz book on Polish aviation in France, 1940 as the reference one, This is valid until I will found some obvious inconsistent with photos   . Nevertheless, all drawings shows that propellers in Heller kit are too small by from 2 to 3 mm(in radius, not in diameter!) . So it is clearly visible change of proportions.  Moreover, I think that authors of drawing could have access to technical data like "diameter of propeller", so it is very likely, that they are correct. 

The spare wheels from Hasegawa He 111 z has 16 mm diamter, the M.Ryś drawings gives 14 mm. The Beriev MBR 2 wheels has 14 mm and now they are my favorite replacement candidate.

Time to say it. I cut and extended the fuselage....

 

So it is a band of plastic card 0.2 mm and 6 mm spacers made from card 0.5 mm thickness. When it dry I will fill the gap with Milliput. This is done separately for halves, so still you can split fuselage into two parts to have access to interior.

 

Regards

J-W

 

[TonyW]

Nice work. The model will look better for adding the fuselage extension.

 

I'm also building one, although I'll be leaving things as Heller provided as I've decided to build it in period for the kits release date. I have another kit that I would like to build in a more detailed style and your thread will  no doubt help a lot with that.

 

Tony.

 

 

[JWM]

I was working with u/c. First I did not wanted to scratch build correcting it. when I look at photos I see that Heller mixed up many details. For sure I wanted to put something into wheel bay, not many things, just to close sides as add spar. Initially I thought the inside of bay should be blue gray, but then I decided to go with bare alu.

The wheels I did from Beriev MBR-2 one with a central part added from plastic card cut out by puncher.

They are   14 mm diameter and wider then original which are definitely too narrow. 

The close of bay seen from top

 

I put some metal net at the end of inlets

 

Glueing the wings tops with bottoms I added some piece of plastic sheets to give support for flapsailerons which are supposed to be glued from top (very unique construction).

 

I added some decals to pretend the instrument panel and replaced the pilot chair. The quality of original transparent (clear) parts, namely their thickness very limit future insight into fuselage. So I glued halves without any additional detailing.

 

The engines with blanked inlet of air frustrating me. So I opened this main inlet of air. This will required some engine to place behind it...

 

To be cont.

Regards

J-W

 

[JWM]

Today I've changed name of topic - it will be 451, not 45. 

And most likely I will do the scheme from Syria, 1941

http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/449/pics/120_5.jpg

 

There is interesting data on individual machines

https://www.passionair1940.fr/Armee de l'Air/Appareils/Bombardement/Loire-Olivier-Leo-451/EN-Historiques-2.htm

Regards

J-W

 

[JWM]

Hi,

I  ascribed the the surface, panel lines and edges of flaps and ailerons from bottom

 

Above (right) wing is done, the lower (closer) shows that the edge of ailerons and flaps was not market at all practically.

 

Since the props are too small I copied in resin individual prop blades from Farman 223 

 

Like other twin engine French machine the rotations are different  (looking from front that one on left (in fact the right engine from pilot position) goes  clockwise (still when looking from front), the second goes opposite.

 

At the end of the day I glued wings and fuselage

 

regards

J-W

 

 

[RidgeRunner]

Great progress, Jerzy. On reflection I should have employed your solution for the aileron attachment. I simply put a few columns of plastic to give solid support. I will seal the joint with Kristal Klear. I found the ailerons needed a lot of thinning too!
 

I’m going to sand off the “panel lines”. My machine was silver lacquered (I think) and so wouldn’t have had any visible lines.

 

Keep up the good work :). 

 

Martin

[Rabbit Leader]

Again, just catching up on many of these great Heller WIP threads and the progress is so good. Nice mods to the bare plastic kit Jerzy, she will end up a unique and accurate kit once finished. 
Cheers.. Dave. 

[JWM]

Thank you. It appeared that I wrongly interpreted where is the leading edge of flaps, it is more in line with ailerons also on bottom side, so I am correcting this...

Regards

J-W

 

[RidgeRunner]

43 minutes ago, JWM said:

Thank you. It appeared that I wrongly interpreted where is the leading edge of flaps, it is more in line with ailerons also on bottom side, so I am correcting this...

Regards

J-W

 

Hmmm .... have it got them wrong too ?

[JWM]

2 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

Hmmm .... have it got them wrong too ?

Here it is clear that it goes in line with edge of aileron 

 

In model there are three parallel lines and I interpreted the center one as end (ie. leading edge) of flap and it should be the next one, closer to trailing edge of wing.

J-W

 

[RidgeRunner]

I’m sorry, Jerzy, but I still don’t know what you mean.

 

Martin

[RidgeRunner]

Please ignore this - posted in error

 

[JWM]

Since I decided to open main inlet to cowling I had to do some kind of engine there inside. The inlet gap is about 1 mm, so I did not want to do any detailed engine, just a very. very basic one. First idea was to put a resin copy of a one row of 14 cylinder engine. I quit it as too complicated mechanically. Next was attempt to press an alu foil using engine, put some thin layer of resin on back side of foil. It does not work as well. So finally I cut a piece of corrugated side of CD box a,d from it i made a rough immitation of seven cylinders in front of each engine

(from top: the resin single row of radial engine , alu pieces, inlet rings and the final solution)

 

Then I painted and glued together.

It looks "good enough"  to me:

the next problem is in spinners - they are too large and not as conical as should be. I have found a spare Dpitfire mk V spinner (darker on above photo)r, made a silicon form of it and will do another spinner as cast resin.

 

he cutting of edge of flaps (due to correction of initial error) is still far to end:

on above you can see the openings for gondola and for a bottom window.

 

Comments welcome

Regards

J-W

 

 

 

 

 

[JWM]

I have changed the construction of engines/props set. I glued engines (and even painted first layer of yellow for Syrian campaign) but I drilled out the opening fro props.

Into such larger holes I will press from front the rotating props (bigger than those from box), which has a plastic tube housing inside the prop shaft, secured from end with a cup

The new props have about 2 mm larger radius as can be seen here. The original props are of size right for the Bloch 131, and I will used them in Mach 2 kit of this bomber, since the original props there are both rotating one direction, and as in other French twin motor machines, the left and right turns opposite.

 

 

 

Back to Leo 45. After analyzing of photos finally I used spinners from Leo Heller box, though I cut 1.5 mm of them from back and I added 0.5 mm thick disc from back. The blades are resin copies from Azur Farman props. You may see deteils of  their construction on above photo.

 

 

I glued the wheel bay doors and gondola

 

And the extended cone on the end of fuselage looks like here:

 

 

OK I will show them two - besides Leo 451 there is Bloch 131, The Mach 2 kit. Btw - look, that it is geometrically almost same with Bloch 152, only bigger...

 

Regards

J-W

 

 

 

 

, 

[Toryu]

Just caught up with your progress - impressive! Heller seems to like too short fuselages (and wings). I'm in the band of extending freaks, too - here...

[JWM]

In books I have there are  two colour profiles of Leo from Syria - in book by Fernandez and Laureau

(

 

there is "white 5" , whereas in that one

There is a "white 13" with some red inscription below cockpit not shown all... But I did not found a photos of those machines, I mean the "white 5" is shown after belly landing but no from of machine is seen, only rear fuselage and tail. 

On profiles the machines have differently painted spinners (yellow or black) and frames of front canopy (yellow or in blue-grey). It makes me a bit undecided. Anybody knows which is more possible? )or could be both true as I am talking on two machines...)

 

Today in net I have found that one,  "white 3" (No 142):

 

Most likely I will go for this recent one...

Regards

J-W

 

[JOCKNEY]

That Farman looks attractive for the potential French Fancy GB

 

I always was a sucker for good looks  

 

Cheers Pat

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, JOCKNEY said:

a sucker for good looks

...sounds like another case for the Heller Detox Crew...

[JWM]

This Farman 222-2  is hard to get, this is existing only as vacu by Aerovac,. Not in my stash so far.  I wish to have one, once...

https://www.scalemates.com/pl/kits/aerovac-7206-farman-222-2--205903

 

Regards

J-W

Edited November 19, 2020 by JWM

[JWM]

Hi

Some progress report - I did basic paint work (first layer):

 

The problem I faced is a bauble of air or vacuum in a front of main canopy. It is right on the front:

 

IT makes in fact my canopy useless, since it that place there is no frame to hide it behind. I was thinking on doing a stamp or a vacu form but now  I am very grateful to   @TonyOD  who offered me a spare one...  

 

regards

J-W

 

 

 

[TonyOD]

Anything to help this excellent build towards its conclusion! 😁