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Revell 1/72 Supermarine Walrus, whale-spotting in the Southern Ocean


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revell-walrus.jpg

 

I'm planning on building an in-flight model of G-AHFL "Boojum", one of two Walruses that were operated from the S.S. Balaena as whale-spotters during the 1946-7 southern whaling season.

G-AHFL.jpg

 

I was inspired to this build by a set of JBOT decals I bought, with the original intention of modelling G-AJNO of Scottish Airlines. But the sheet included markings for G-AHFL, which introduced me to the "whaling Walruses" G-AHFL "Boojum", G-AHFM "Moby Dick" and G-AHFO "Snark", which seemed like more interesting subjects for a model.

Only Boojum and Snark sailed on the Balaena--Moby Dick was left in South Africa. (One can see why, with a name like that, they decided they didn't want to take it on a whaling voyage.)  A sister aircraft, G-AHFN, ended up flying in the Folkstone Trophy Race. There are a reasonable number of reference photographs of the four aircraft.

 

As a flying model, I need a rotating prop, so I printed up two propeller discs to depict the Walrus's "four blades in two planes" propeller, and mocked up the propeller boss from styrene tubing.

walrus-prop.jpg

 

I moved some of the kits interior detail around and did some scratch building to depict a pilot and navigator/observer. I didn't spend a lot of time on this, since the interior will be minimally visible. I also opened up the two side windows in the kit fuselage and "glazed" them with some slivers of overhead projector transparency.

walrus-interior.jpg

There's also a neodymium magnet strategically placed to allow the final model to lift off and on a stand without any sort of visible slot in the underside.

 

I've made the necessary magnetic support out of another magnet surrounded by plastic card and epoxy, but haven't yet decided on the detail of the stand itself. Here's the rather unedifying underside of that object:

walrus-stand-1.jpg

 

The main scratch-building challenge for this one is the grab-rail around the nose. I drilled out the fuselage halves and inserted lengths of 0.5mm brass rod as the rail supports, in positions judged from photos and diagrams.

walrus-rail-1.jpg

The bulge on the side of the nose (a thermometer housing, apparently) needs to be removed--it was only present on the port side of this aircraft. I'll also fashion a little fairing in front of the side window, which the kit depicts on the port side but for some reason omits on the starboard.

 

Here's the finished grab-rail, and some styrene strip added to the rear fuselage for the rails on which the rear hatch slides:

walrus-rail-port.jpg

 

The kit depicts the rear hatch in the retracted, open position. I want it closed, so I split the kit part and flattened it out, and added a little styrene sheet to its forward edge to suggest its real shape. I also opened up the small windows in the hatch cover, replacing the frames with styrene strip.

walrus-rail-starboard.jpg

And you'll see that starboard thermometer housing has gone, though I still need to make the fairing in front of the window.

 

So far so good, then. But I will need to scratch build a rear wheel and extended oleo, because the kit includes only a version with a compressed oleo and the standard rudder fairing around the wheel. This is also my first venture into rigging a biplane, so there's that to look forward to, too.

 

And I'm going to need to do some work on JBOT's decals. Despite being my inspiration for this build, they have a few shortcomings. There's only one set of large letters, and the aircraft needs two, for the upper and lower surfaces of the wings. The decal sheet gives a choice of black or a strange dark green for the fuselage letters. This aircraft is often depicted with (rather brighter) green lettering on its yellow surfaces, but I don't know the origin of that--I've only ever seen black-and-white photographs--so I need to come to a decision about what colour of lettering I want. And there's a problem with the lettering on the nose of the aircraft, which should (among other things) read "Ex S.S. Balaena" in flowing script. The JBOT decal sheet looks awfully like it reads "F.F. Balarna". The writing is almost certainly too small for anyone to notice ... except now I've noticed it, dammit.

 

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Hi there

I tried to build one of these a few years ago but gave up when trying to get the engine/struts/top wing together. As moulded the 4 short struts from the engine to the top wing throw everything out of alignment.

 

Good luck

 

Regards Toby

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A very interesting project and a great start, I really like the way you have tackled the spinning prop, that looks wicked.  

Think of the rigging as fun and take your time and you will be fine . It is really enjoyable. 

Good luck with the rest of the project.

Chris

 

1 hour ago, Planebuilder62 said:

Hi there

I tried to build one of these a few years ago but gave up when trying to get the engine/struts/top wing together. As moulded the 4 short struts from the engine to the top wing throw everything out of alignment.

 

Good luck

 

Regards Toby

Hi Toby the engine is actually offset slightly on these machines. So hopefully you still have it to have another go.

Chris

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14 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said:

I tried to build one of these a few years ago but gave up when trying to get the engine/struts/top wing together. As moulded the 4 short struts from the engine to the top wing throw everything out of alignment.

 

I've just been dry assembling the relevant parts today. As well as the fact that the engine nacelle is tilted off-axis in the real aircraft, there's the additional problem that Revell's instruction sheet contains a mistake, showing one of the strut assemblies going into place the wrong way round. Or so I have deduced. We'll see how that goes, but I do seem to have found a way to get the top and bottom sections aligned squarely with the nacelle tilted off-line between.

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This is, of course, the old Matchbox kit from 1973. It builds well (my ex made one up about 25 years ago) and looks the part, even if it is missing the fine details that many of us now consider essential.

 

Chasing down the Matchbox instructions may be of assistance in working out how it's all meant  to go together; they should be available online somewhere. 

 

Edit: in fact.... 

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/matchbox-pk-105-walrus-mk-1--133204

 

and scroll down to the button labelled 'Download' in the Instructions section. 

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12 hours ago, Rob G said:

This is, of course, the old Matchbox kit from 1973. It builds well (my ex made one up about 25 years ago) and looks the part, even if it is missing the fine details that many of us now consider essential.

 

Chasing down the Matchbox instructions may be of assistance in working out how it's all meant  to go together; they should be available online somewhere. 

 

Edit: in fact.... 

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/matchbox-pk-105-walrus-mk-1--133204

 

and scroll down to the button labelled 'Download' in the Instructions section. 

Interesting, thanks. Comparing the Matchbox and Revell instructions reveals the problem:

matchboxrevell.jpg

Revell reverses the position for part 14. I think Matchbox is correct.

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I've drilled out the hole in the front of the engine nacelle (which is not moulded in the kit part) and assembled it in what seems to be the correct order (the lower struts engage in the right place with the fuselage, and the upper struts with the centre section of the upper wing), and started rigging it.

walrus-nacelle-1.jpg

I'm following a high risk strategy of rigging this section before it's glued to the fuselage, for ease of painting. Looking at various walkaround images, it seemed to me that the rigging was attached either to the lower struts themselves, or at the junction of strut and fuselage, so I've been leading my monofilament down from the nacelle and hooking it around the locating lugs at the lower end of the struts, through a blob of CA. (The tape is holding the struts in very slight fore-and-aft compression, to make the fuselage alignment precise on dry fitting, so that hopefully I don't end up with slack rigging when I put the pieces together. We'll see how that works..

The upper struts are being rigged more conventionally, with the monofilament passed through holes drill in the underside of the centre section. Room for manoeuvre is quite cramped, so I threaded them all through before cementing the part into place on the struts. The above photograph was taken just before I started tightening and gluing.

 

I've also managed to put together a scratch-built rear wheel from bits of styrene and brass, and paint the engine in an approximation to what I see in walkarounds.

wheel-engine.jpg

 

These will both go on fairly late in the build, after I've painted, decalled and sealed the main assembly.

 

And I've drilled the wings for rigging.

wings-drilled.jpg

Also a single hole in the upper wing that will take a bit of 0.5mm brass rod for the radio aerial support.

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Good progresslike your style with the rigging, if you get some slackness with the monofilament thread you can either plow it with a hairdryer or if you are feeling braver a hot soldering iron near to it (without touching the model) and the rigging will tighten up instantly due to the heat.

Great job

Chris

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6 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Good progresslike your style with the rigging, if you get some slackness with the monofilament thread you can either plow it with a hairdryer or if you are feeling braver a hot soldering iron near to it (without touching the model) and the rigging will tighten up instantly due to the heat.

 

Thanks.

I've previously tightened stretched sprue aerial wire with the heat from a newly-extinguished match. It's good to know something similar is possible with monofilament.

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8 minutes ago, abat said:

A really interesting build and some great detective work. I Look forward to more updates. 
Andrew

Thanks.

On the detective-work front, one thing I still need to get my head around is the run of the large number of ropes that bedecked the Walrus. I'm planning to add these in stretched sprue as a late bit of detailing. But I really need to start looking at photographs and figuring out how they all connected.

I've also sanded off the unconvincing handling sling that is moulded on to the top centre section, so I'll need to simulate that, too.

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I came up with a stand, using my scratch-built magnetic base and an old large-size Airfix transparent base. I quite like the resulting low position, and think it'll look good on a sea display base. I'd show you the fuselage in position, but it's currently drying from its first coat of yellow.

There's a little patch of felt in the "cradle" because these neodymium magnets are pretty aggressive when they click together, and I'd like to preserve the paintwork on the underside.

spacer.png

 

And I've finished my revision of JBOT's decals:

spacer.png

 

These are printed on Experts-Choice laser decal paper and sealed with a 50:50 mix of Microscale liquid decal film and surgical spirit, airbrushed on.

I revised the muddy green fuselage letters provided on the original decal sheet, and copied and recoloured the large black letters to give myself green upper wing lettering. The positioning of these letters is visible in this view of sister aircraft G-AHFO:

spacer.png

There's also no evidence of the classic walk/no-walk footprints on the upper wing surfaces, so those decals go into the spares box.

 

I'll use JBOT's original black letters for the wings' metallic undersides, since my recollection is that these bed down nicely with a fairly glossy finish, whereas my own decals always turn out matt.

I completely redid the UNITED WHALERS markings, by lifting the lettering from this image of G-AHFN, which more closely matches what I'm seeing in photographs. And I did my own "Boojum" lettering, because the JBOT version looked a little battered.

Just behind the UNITED WHALERS logo on each side of the nose there's a little red and white flag below the cockpit window. JBOT provides two identical port-side versions of the lettering and flag, but also provides a couple of mirror-reversed flags, which are what's needed on the starboard side, as you can see from my link to the G-AHFN image, above. United Whalers used the "hoist at the front" convention (rather than "hoist at the left") when painting flags on their ships (as explained here) and this evidently carried over on to their aircraft, with the starboard flag a mirror image of the port.

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Upper surfaces painted Trainer Yellow, and glossed for decals:

Walrus-yellow.jpg

 

Wings decalled and lightly weathered:

Walrus-wing-decals.jpg

The reference photos I've posted so far show the registration letters following the line of the leading edge, rather than running transversely.

 

The floats are a bit high-risk, since they need to end up in the same vertical line as the interplane struts. I started putting them in place a little absent-mindedly, and then, rather than prise them off the wing again, I've run the side bracing wires through their holes and tacked them in place some distance away from the holes. That leaves me enough wiggle room to rock the float a few degrees either way for final alignment. Provided I don't break the whole thing. We'll see.

 

I also have enough reference photographs to figure out the run of the ropes:

walrus-ropes-photos.jpg

walrus-ropes.jpg

I'd quite like to know the function of these, but none of my references (including the Air Ministry manual) seem to address that issue. I've started a thread in the Discussion section:

 

The fuselage needs a few details and some decals, and then I'll see if I can get the pre-braced nacelle struts to fit squarely.

 

 

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Fuselage and tail largely assembled and decaled. Here's the starboard side of the nose, showing my rebuilt decals

.decalled-nose.jpg

I also added the missing fairing in front of the observer's window on this side, using a chunk carved from some hemicylindrical styrene strip. (Originally purchased to serve as the S-IC service tunnels on my Revell Saturn V, but the leftover bits have been sitting in the spares box looking unpromising, until now!) The silver patch represents the wing-folding instruction panel, which is moulded into the left side of the kit fuselage, but not the right.

 

And, as you can glimpse above, the nacelle and upper wing centre section are now in place.

decaled-fuselage-starboard.jpg

decaled-fuselage-port.jpg

This was surprisingly stress-free. The rigging didn't need any adjustment, and, the centre section has ended up looking pretty squarely aligned:

fuselage-nacelle.jpg

 

I've now started rigging the wings---threading generous lengths of monofilament through the holes in the upper wing undersides, which I'm fixing to the inside surfaces with blobs of CA. Then I'll close the upper wings and glue them in place. Then I'll glue the upper surface of the lower wings in place, using the interplane struts as my spacing guides. (Fortunately, the upper sections of the wings carry the locating tabs that engage with the fuselage slots.) Then I can thread and tighten all the wing rigging before finally placing the lower surfaces of the lower wings. concealing the fixation points inside the wings again.

 

That's the theory, anyway.

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3 hours ago, Hamiltonian said:

I've now started rigging the wings---threading generous lengths of monofilament through the holes in the upper wing undersides, which I'm fixing to the inside surfaces with blobs of CA. Then I'll close the upper wings and glue them in place. Then I'll glue the upper surface of the lower wings in place, using the interplane struts as my spacing guides. (Fortunately, the upper sections of the wings carry the locating tabs that engage with the fuselage slots.) Then I can thread and tighten all the wing rigging before finally placing the lower surfaces of the lower wings. concealing the fixation points inside the wings again.

 

That's the theory, anyway.

 

This is looking great, I love the post war colour scheme. I am planning a similar approach to the rigging with the Stranraer, but the other way around. My lower wings will be fixed.

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Thanks for the kind words. Upper wings going on now.

I know some people use elaborate jigs to get the wings positioned precisely, and I often wish I had one, but in the meantime I find that if you have enough little pots in enough different sizes, you can come up with something.

The critical point for this one was the discovery that I could level the fuselage by using the shoulders of two Tamiya pots to hold the tailplanes level:

fuselage-levelled.jpg

Then it was just a matter of using slowing drying epoxy and nudging around a some more little pots:

upper-wings.jpg

Made easier by the fact the dihedral on the upper wings is zero degrees, of course.

(The little bits of tape are controlling invisible skeins of monofilament.)

 

Once that's dried overnight, I'll turn it upside down and try to come up with a way of getting the lower wings in position while simultaneously locating three interplane struts per side.

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This is an excellent variation on the Walrus theme, I like it! You have also come up with some very interesting ways of getting around hitches.

 

Cheers, Ray

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So far so good.

The lower wing went on fairly easily. I epoxied up the locating tabs, glued the interplane struts into the upper wing with "Powerflex" CA, which is a little mobile for a while before it sets, and then positioned the lower wing. I was then able to nudge the lower ends of the struts into their pre-glued locating holes without smearing glue everywhere. A quick check that everything that needed to be square was square, and then left overnight.

lower-wings.jpg

Now ready for rigging, and then I'll close over the lower sections of the lower wings.

 

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I meant to mention that I painted the underwing wheel bays (the discs of flat aluminium paint visible in the post above) because I haven't decided whether or not to model this aircraft with its undercarriage removed. "Boojum" and "Snark" did fly with no undercarriage for a period while in the Southern Ocean, although I've also posted photographs that show them flying with raised undercarriage. So I have a free choice.

Here's "Boojum" on the crane, sans undercarriage.

boojum-no-undercarriage.jpg

I haven't been able to glean what function those underwing pods fulfilled from John Grierson's memoir of the voyage, Air Whaler.

 

Also visible above is the hook under the nose, which characterized these aircraft. This was used for a "mat pickup", in which the aircraft motored up on to a net being towed alongside the Balaena, and was then hoisted aboard.

Walrus-mat-pickup.jpg

As you can see above, I've yet to add this feature to my model, and I forgot to drill a locating hole for the 0.5mm rod I'll be using. (I did remember to make three holes for the radio aerial supports on the wings and tail, though.)

I'll get to those bits of detailing once I'm sure I won't be knocking them off again!

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