Type 142, starting from FROG/Revell Blenheim I - back on track

[AdrianMF]

I am going to attempt to backdate the Revell repop of the FROG Blenheim I to make the Type 142 “Britain First”. I will be using the plans from the Harleyford Bristol Aircraft book and cross-referencing them with more modern plans as I go. Just a placeholder for now, lots to finish in other GBs!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Rabbit Leader]

An Adrian special… this’ll be good. Hope you can clear your backlog soon, I wanna see this 142 take shape. 
Cheers and all the best.. Dave 

[rob85]

This is a great plan Adrian! And you have set yourself quite the challenge, not that any less would have been expected!

 

Rob

[BritJet]

This might help

Steve

 

[Muddyf]

19 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

I am going to attempt to backdate the Revell repop of the FROG Blenheim I to make the Type 142 “Britain First”. I will be using the plans from the Harleyford Bristol Aircraft book and cross-referencing them with more modern plans as I go. Just a placeholder for now, lots to finish in other GBs!

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

This should be good! An aircraft on my ‘to do’ list, and as such I will be watching (and ‘being inspired by’) your progress.

 

Does this mean Airfix have a kit pencilled in for release in 2023? 😁

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, Muddyf said:

Does this mean Airfix have a kit pencilled in for release in 2023

No, but I’m sure I could pencil in some dotted lines on your Blenheim 1 kit to help you get started with with the cutting …

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

[Max Headroom]

This’ll be good. I have this kit, plus the old and new Airfix versions and I have this insane idea to build them together!

 

Just to let you know, the wing shape of the Frog/Revell kit is markedly different outboard of the engine to the two Airfix kits. Give me a mo and I’ll dig out a (crude) comparison drawing  of the three.

 

Trevor

 

 

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, Max Headroom said:

Just to let you know, the wing shape of the Frog/Revell kit is markedly different outboard of the engine to the two Airfix kits.

I’ve built old+new Airfix, FROG and MPM kits and my memory is that the old Airfix kit is the outlier in wing shape. All the others looked pretty good and similar to me. I did a complete fill and rescribe to get the ailerons into shape but I missed reshaping the wing tips and they still weren’t right:

Old Airfix is the Free French ship.

 

The other thing I missed is that the cowling opening is too wide. It needs a bit of strip inside it. I did have a Falcon canopy to replace the bottle-bottom canopy though!

 

In terms of fun to build, I’d put FROG top and new Airfix last, but getting a decent model out of old Airfix is Hard Work so I’m perhaps being a bit over-kind there. In terms of accuracy I’d put old Airfix last and let the others fight it out over general shape and  resto/Bolingbroke features - they all look good to me!

 

That said I’ve still got three FROG and three old Airfix in the stash somehow, even after donating some FROG wings to @JOCKNEY!

 

if you are tempted to do a 3x build, I will certainly be cheering from the sidelines!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Max Headroom]

@AdrianMF Hello! As promised I fished out my comparison sketch of the wings (and as a bonus the tailplane and fuselage).

 

 

I have already started the new Airfix wing so lining up was a bit hairy, but what I tried to achieve was to line up the three wings at the base of the engine. As you can see, all three differ somewhat! Tailplanes aren’t bad and the fuselages more or less match. 
 

The wing is the Revell reissue from the 1990’s and the black mark overlaid is a tracing from the Arthur Bentley drawings.

 

Make what you will of that lot! I have no idea which is right, other than to hope the new Airfix rendition has the benefit of lidar or whatever.

 

Does this help or confuse?!

 

Trevor

 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

7 minutes ago, Max Headroom said:

comparison

Holy Moly! I had no idea there was so much variation in sweep. The thing I picked up on was that the old Airfix wingtips are almost a simple semicircle, whereas the new Airfix and FROG ones have pretty much the same distinctive shape once you line them up.

 

when I get home in a couple of days I will be stacking up my Blenheims…

 

Regards,

Adrian

[JOCKNEY]

Fantastic collection of Blenheims, the Finnish one looks the business.

 

Really looking forward to starting this GB, but must clear my feet of some of the current builds first !

 

Good luck with your Type 142 project 👍

 

Cheers Pat 

 

 

[matford]

this might help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9us4n31ENw

[dogsbody]

 

 

 

 

 

This link works: 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[AdrianMF]

Useful references for the cockpit canopy shape. 
 

Thanks,

Adrian

[AdrianMF]

On 10/06/2021 at 22:14, Max Headroom said:

comparison sketch of the wing

I’ve got back home and just had a look at wing sweep on my various Blenheims. TBH, the sweep at least doesn’t seem to vary much between the kits, but I will do some comparison photos tomorrow when I am fresher!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[AdrianMF]

Time flies! I had a day off today and a spare hour, so I’ve started by removing the wing recess and turret supports with scalpel, scriber and micro chisel:

 

The darker, harder and more brittle plastic is a FROG kit, the lighter, softer plastic is from an incomplete Revell repop that Pat @JOCKNEY and I have been raiding for spare parts. The softer plastic makes it easier to do modifications like this.

 

I will be following up on @Max Headroom Trevor’s wing shape comparisons when I’ve had a couple more deliveries from the postman…

[AdrianMF]

Here we go. New Airfix vs FROG:

Pretty close! Nacelles, gun ports, landing lights line up perfectly, ailerons are within a mm of each other, but the FROG one has a rather broader wingtip. Thanks to @Max Headroom Trevor for prompting me to take a look. I’m sure I will be doing a similar comparison to Old Airfix at some point in the GB.

 

[edit] You can see that old Airfix is a bit smaller still than new Airfix or FROG, and the aileron shape is totally wrong:

[AdrianMF]

Well, you can never have too many Blenh…

 

Err no. I think this is enough:

 

Four FROGs, two and a half Revell re-pops, three old Airfix and one slightly crushed new Airfix in a bag. In addition to the four Blenheims I’ve built already…

 

Oh, and I bought another FROG one off eBay yesterday .

[Heather Kay]

Well, you ought to be able to make one good one from that lot!

[Max Headroom]

The old Airfix had nacelle fairings that were too long and I believe that in 1/72 the new Airfix had ‘kind of’ Bolingbroke ones. 
 

Looking forward to the next episode.

 

Trevor

[AdrianMF]

7 hours ago, Max Headroom said:

too long

I rounded off the back of the nacelles when I did mine and did a bunch of stuff, most importantly a Falcon vac canopy!

 

It turns out the wingtip shape wasn’t too bad after all (although the ailerons need a re-scribe).

On the Type 142: the plans from the Rugrat Resin kit (thanks Steve @BritJet) are identical to the ones in my Harleyford Bristol aircraft book, so I’ve printed a couple of copies for reference rather than having a vintage book out whilst sanding, cutting and gluing. There are lots of plausible-looking modern plans that are clearly inaccurate, so I’m not using them at all, having spent years collecting them from t’interweb.

 

Fun and games on this project:

I want to keep the top of the wings complete because I can align them using the excellent overlapping tabs that are moulded on at the bottom edge of the root rib. I have added extra card to the front tab so it slots together over the back tab giving a rigid sliding fit. I have cut a new bed for the tabs to rest on in the new low position. Here are the wings fitted:

 

The wings were originally inset into the fuselage. You can see that the wing tabs still have some way to go before they touch the opposing root rib:

 

I can’t trim back the wing at the root because the tab will come off. So I will cut a recess to allow the top half of the wing to fit in the fuselage, keeping the flat bottom for the tabs to rest on. I will then cut away the root of the lower wing halves until they fit against the fuselage. That’s the plan!

[AdrianMF]

I forgot to press save on the last one, but 40 minutes later I’ve got this:

 

A jewellery saw really saved the day here. The wings are now inset:

I bent the rear of the root fairing down a bit on top and bottom halves to give a nicer fillet at the bottom of the fuselage

 

The tabs go right across to the other wing root, just like they did on the original mid-wing:

 

You can see that I will have to trim away the roots of the lower wing halves:

 

But I’m quitting while I’m ahead tonight!

 

 

[stevehnz]

You masochist you. I'm most impressed with this Adrian, I did have my doubts but can see now it is coming along nicely. Carry on.

Steve.

[AdrianMF]

On 18/07/2021 at 05:06, stevehnz said:

I did have my doubts

Thanks Steve. Me too! I wanted to keep that nice positive fit to keep the wings aligned with each other and that ended up being a fairly easy way to do it.

 

If anyone else wants to try it out, I put the top halves of the wings in the original recesses and marked where the lower edge fell on the front and back of the recess. Then I drew a new “lower edge line” 6mm below and parallel to the two marks and cut out the new slot for the tabs on top of that. After that you can pop the upper wing halves on, trace round the roots and cut out the new recess.

 

Today’s job is to bash the nose into shape and then fill and sand the fuselage, cut out the windows and glue the top wings in place.

 

After that I think I will work on the undercarriage fairings before I trim and add the lower wings. Then I can do the interior and throw it all together.
 

Bizarrely, it had curtains on the windows. Talk about window dressing!

 

[edit] if you want to try this at home, make the wing 7mm lower, not 6. Later on I had to drop it another 1mm.

[Jinxman]

Lovely stuff - heavy duty modelling in 1/72!