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A journey of optimism. Or utter foolishness. Three down, one to go!!


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Made a huge mistake tonight. I was doing a bit of spraying on the Harrow cockpit and thought, as you do, still a bit of paint left so why not use it up.........

 

 

.......on the B-29!! 🤦🏻
 

Foolishly decided to have a look at the kit, as I hadn’t really inspected it as yet.  It’s going to be an interesting build. Some nice detail in places and quite a lot of flash to be cleaned up.  Not much in the way of cockpit detail on the inside of the fuselage
 

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Certainly very little when compared to the IWM 360 of the cockpit 

 

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Some parts are quite nicely detailed and with a bit of work with some painting should come up quite nicely.  
 

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Despite lots of cockpit glazing, I’m not sure how much extra detail will be worth the effort. Time will tell!!

 

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Superb photos of the B 29 cockpit Roland. I do not think you would see much of this though through the limited glazing of a 1/72 model. I am guilty of getting carried away with detailing the interiors of my models and then not being able to see much of it once the model is complete. A saying in our model club is " yes, but you know it is in there ".

But is it really worth the effort and time if you cannot see it ?

 

regards, adrian

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2 hours ago, adey m said:

Superb photos of the B 29 cockpit Roland. I do not think you would see much of this though through the limited glazing of a 1/72 model. I am guilty of getting carried away with detailing the interiors of my models and then not being able to see much of it once the model is complete. A saying in our model club is " yes, but you know it is in there ".

But is it really worth the effort and time if you cannot see it ?

 

regards, adrian

Thanks Adrian

 

I can’t claim any credit for the B-29 pics, apart from taking screen shots of the IWM 360 linked above - what a great resource.

 

I’m also guilty (at times) of overdoing interiors, but as these might be going to the sqn in question (if I’m happy with them) I don’t think I’ll go overboard this time.

 

Rgds Roly

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When I did some work on one of my Academy B-29 variants I realised that the top of the connecting tunnel between the cockpit and the mid compartment didn't have a hole to allow the navigator, or anyone else for that matter to look out of the astrodome which is situated above it. You will have to put a hole into the top of the tunnel for the two to connect. Also, there is way too much space behind the piolets as no internals are given for the front upper turret mechanism which was lagged in a padded jacket type of blanket.

 

Gondor

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Whilst the house is quite and everyone is still in bed, I thought I would take the opportunity to get on with a bit of work. Cockpit now installed, along with the instrument panel and forward bulkhead. Engine nacelles assembled, filled and sanded.

 

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I do like the instrument panel, it’s really well engineered, but I’ve just noticed I haven’t painted the rear crew seat, and I’m beginning to think I perhaps should have added a bit more detail.

 

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Just trying to see if I need to put the glazing in now, or whether I can do that from the outside after the fuselage is sealed up. Later, would make painting a lot easier!!

 

 

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Having said I wouldn’t, I did. Looking at some of the work that @adey m did on his Harrow, and having looked at the amount of glazing in the Harrow cockpit, I decided a bit more detail would be sensible.

 

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Still a bit more to do, adding some “desks” and instruments but it does make it look better.

 

Also did a little time consuming work on the interior of the Welly. Not sure if the red is too red, but it’s a start.

 

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Actually doesn’t look too bad when compared with the photo in the post on page 1.

 

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Iam watching with great interest  ,as i have a couple of these kits in my stash .I am sure yours will trigger me off to get started on them ,good luck .

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10 hours ago, Homer said:

Iam watching with great interest  ,as i have a couple of these kits in my stash .I am sure yours will trigger me off to get started on them ,good luck .

Which kits? Have to say both the Harrow and the Welly are really nice kits. Both need a little bit of work in different ways, so come on in and start a build. I’m enjoying working on them........ even if that is just to keep me from the O/400 and all that rigging!!

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A little bit of progress on the Wellington whilst I try and avoid my least favourite thing, filling and sanding, on the Harrow.

 

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The interior is well detailed and I’m sure there is plenty of opportunity to go for some additional detailing for those that wish to. 
 

Oh well, can’t avoid the wet and dry paper any longer.....

 

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Well, that’s the fuselage all buttoned-up. 
 

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Seems a shame in a way.  All that lovely detailing in the cabin can’t be seen any more. Not sure why I spent so much time on it really 😄

 

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Bomb bay is nicely done, with a few more bits to go in.

 

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Some seat harnesses might have been a good addition though 🤦🏻
 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not much progress, unfortunately, courtesy of Lockdown 3.  I have applied a little bit of filler to the fuselage seams, sanded them back and went to apply a bit of Halfords primer to make sure I’d sanded everything smooth.  

 

Disaster!

 

Well not really that bad, but the rattle can was obviously quite old. Not sure whether it was the paint thickening, or a lack of pressure, or something else, but I managed to throw lumps of paint all over the Harrow.  So, out with the wet’n’dry and try not to remove all of the lovely moulded fuselage detail

 

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I think I’ve recovered things, but I guess I won’t really find out until I spray the camouflage. 🤞🏻
 

Fortunately, I didn’t prime the Welly, so that’s just a case of sanding back the filler, and I have to say, the fit of parts in the Airfix kit means that was only a tiny amount.

 

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In a bored moment, I thought I really ought to have a look at the 0/400.  Lots of parts to this kit, with 167 parts!  I can’t remember when I last built a biplane, but it must have been several decades ago; I wonder whether I’ve bitten off too much.  
 

Anyway, quick picture of some of this 167 parts. Most are quite cleanly moulded, but there is a bit of flash here and there that will need cleaning up.  

 

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There are quite a few ejector marks, but not sure how much of that will be visible, so I’m not going to worry too much.

 

Quite a few parts have come off the various sprues, so I hope they are all in the bag of bits and are easily recognisable.

 

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A couple of parts appear a little warped, but as they are quite big flexible parts, hopefully they will glue together and bend to the correct shape.

 

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Stupidly, I got tempted, so it was out with the paints!

 

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That makes all 4 models in play at the same time.  When will I learn?

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Just a suggestion, an easier way to pick out the internal cross bracing is just to run a pencil over it to give it a silver/grey colour. Everything inside will be invisible except the main cockpit and the two gun positions anyway. Well, you can see the bomb cells if you're mad enough to shine a torch up it.

 

BTW, the nice big single bomb is to a different scale than the kit, although offhand I can't remember how big it should be. They only ever used a few anyway. Terribly innefective because they could be off by a hundred yards or more.........

 

Paul.

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OK so a bit of a problem! Decided it’s time to make some progress with the Harrow and get the wings on.  Decided to sand the inner edges of the wings down a bit to try and get a slightly thinner tailing edge. All good, wings come together nicely, little bits of filler required.
 

Check the references, offer up the wing to the spar and.......

 

nothing fits! 
 

Look back at references to check I’ve put the spar in correctly, I think so

 

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but the wings don’t fit and sit proud of the fuselage by a significant margin. I checked @adey m’s build of the Harrow to read this: “And then that exciting stage arrived, the fitting of the wings. I would recommend that the wing spar that is provided is not glued to the fuselage before fitting the wings, then any loose play in the spar will make it easier to match up the wings to the fuselage”. 🤦🏻
 

I also found that the spar is far deeper than the wing slots. 🤦🏻

 

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Oh well, a bit of surgery required, so set about opening up the slots which unfortunately resulted in snapping off one spar!

 

Decided the simplest solution was just to remove both, and hope that the wing to fuselage joint is good enough to make a nice strong bond. Fingers crossed it is as good as the tail plane fit.

 

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Blimey Roland, too many balls in the air at once I think  .............

 

I love your Wellington interior, you might be able to have the turrets removeable so you can peer inside now and then, I do that with mine.

 

You have had some bad luck with the Harrow but I think you should be able to just butt glue the wings to the fuselage now, the section of spar still in the fuselage should provide some strength.

 

And now you could not resist the 0/400  ......................

 

regards, adey

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Not sure what happened, but this post should have been the one before the one above, anyway..

 

I was a little concerned over the design of the engine nacelles on the Wellington, as it looked overly complex to my mind and ran the risk of multiple seams, potentially requiring lots of my bête noire, filler and sanding!!


Airfix has chosen to design the wheel well bay and  2/3rds of the upper nacelle as a separate modelling stage, with the final third of the upper nacelle as an integral part of the upper wing, and then the lower section of the nacelle as an integral part of the lower wing.  
 

I probably haven’t described that very well, and I forgot to take photos, so this is how the instructions show it.

 

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I needn’t have worried. Although the design is unusual, the fit of parts is excellent.  A little care is required to make sure the various elements stay aligned as the glue sets, but a gapless finish is easy to achieve without any difficulty.

 

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Just a little light sanding and we should be done here 🤗

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I found the struts on the HP fairly easy to cope with. But the two big problems were the wing troughs and the fuselage was a pig to assemble and keep straight and square, if I were doing it again I’d  probably cut a series of square bulkheads and put them in as I went to ensure shape and alignment. Otherwise it’s a fairly well engineered kit.

Edited by Marklo
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2 hours ago, Marklo said:

I found the struts on the HP fairly easy to cope with. But the two big problems were the wing troughs and the fuselage was a pig to assemble and keep straight and square, if I were doing it again I’d  probably cut a series of square bulkheads and put them in as I went to ensure shape and alignment. Otherwise it’s a fairly well engineered kit.

Thanks Marklo, top tip on some square bulkheads in the fuselage. That makes sense as the parts are quite long and bendy as they are. 👍🏻

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well what a couple of weeks. Sadly I’ve been disconnected from all the models I’m supposed to be building. Got to love CV19!! Anyway, finally connected back with everything, so thought I had better crack on. In the process of adding the engines, I realised that more of the lovely detail put on this kit by Airfix, will also be hidden forever.

 

These bulkheads,

 

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will disappear under the engine mounts. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 

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