1:72 Short Stirling Mk.1 *FINISHED*

[Dunny]

15 minutes ago, mark.au said:

That’s really shaping up well Roger, I’m enjoying following along.

Thanks very much Mark - good to have you along for the ride!

[dogsbody]

Bristol exhaust collectors:

 

 

The right-hand image shows the later ring that was fitted to many Hercules-powered aircraft. It helped to darken the hot, glowing metal. It still left a glow, so the collector ring was over-painted with a stove enamel type of paint. This paint did crack and flake off.

 

This Stirling was operating with an H2S training unit but has had the front of the ring painted a dark colour, possibly black:

 

 

 

This one has the older style collector, without the front bit:

 

 

 

This one doesn't have the front fairing, but has been painted over with black:

 

 

 

In this photo, you can see where the black paint has flaked off the outboard collector

 

 

 

Another one painted black:

 

 

 

 

On Lancaster B.II's, you will see that the collector ring and the front fairing have been painted black:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Dunny]

Hi All,

 

Some progress on the Stirling today! I had a bit of a mini mojo slump last week so didn't achieve much, but I'm back with a vengeance this week 🤩. I'd decided that the cockpit windows needed some curtains - they were such a prominent feature on the aircraft, as you can see here:

 

 

I decided to use the old faithful wine bottle foil for the curtains - here it is after receiving a coat of neutral grey:

 

 

I made a common curtain rail for all of the curtains from a length of bras rod painted black. Here's the finished effect from inside:

 

 

It's not going to win any interior design prizes, but it'll do. Here's the effect from outside:

 

 

That's just about random enough to be plausible, and they'll be nicely visible - I'm calling that a success! Here's the effect with the fuselage halves posed together:

 

 

Looking suitably busy! The final task before buttoning up was painting the turrets. I painted all three, after masking the glazing. I've elected to only assemble the front turret at this stage, as the others can be added after painting. Here's the components after painting, which are a mixture of plastic and PE:

 

 

You might just be able to see that I painted the gun barrels in matt black, then dry-brushed gunmetal over the barrels, leaving the flash suppressors in matt black. Here's after assembly, which was fiddly but achievable:

 

 

I'll give that an oil wash before assembling the housing and glazing, and give it all time to settle down. I might update again a bit later if I manage to get the fuselage together,

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

[mark.au]

Nice job on the interior design Roger!

[Dunny]

Hi All,

 

Some more Stirling progress *groan*! Here's the front turret once the housing and glazing had been glued in place:

 

 

Not the most inspiring of photos, but you get the general idea - I was actually pretty pleased with how the assembly looked after an oil wash. Here's the turret in position, which took some careful manoeuvring to get in place:

 

 

So finally I could button up the fuselage:

 

 

That feels like a key milestone, 4 years in the making! I'm glad I pushed through after my mojo lapse last week, as I'm now enjoying this build very much. Next I glued the canopy in place (I had already glued the overhead instrument array into the glazing):

 

 

I also felt that the front guns had little to no chance of survival without protection, so I've lashed up a sheath from a couple of bits of plastic card. Next I sprayed the canopy with interior grey-green - you can just see the diagonal framing on the LHS. I believe that this is internal framing so I'll mask over that when it is properly dried. You can also see that I've fitted the astrodome. The kit allows for both options, but without photos of the aircraft I felt that on balance of probability it would have had the astrodome fitted, so went with it.

 

 

Finally I got the empennage fitted:

 

 

You might just be able to see that the crew access door has fallen out, so I'm going to have to somehow wrangle that back into position 🤬. Even in 1:72, the size of this thing is very imposing! Starting to look like the real deal too...

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

 

[Andwil]

4 hours ago, Dunny said:

length of bras rod

Is that what they use for underwire? 
 

Looking good.  It certainly is big!

 

AW

[Dunny]

13 minutes ago, Andwil said:

Is that what they use for underwire? 
 

Looking good.  It certainly is big!

 

AW

Lol - unintended humour! It sure is - I might take a photo with my Lanc B.II tomorrow just to show how huge it is...

[Dunny]

Hi All,

 

You must forgive me but I'm afraid my curiosity got the better of me, and I couldn't resist wheeling out the Lanc B.II to check out the relative sizes:

 

 

 

Now THAT is a scale comparison!! 😍

 

I'm getting more excited by this build as it progresses - would it be wrong to put these two amazing aircraft together in a diorama along with all the RAF resupply vehicles? Maybe, but sometimes you gotta say what the...

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

[bigbadbadge]

Oh wow Roger the Stirling is looking great, the curtains,  although not painted in Paisley patterns , look good, as does the front turret too.

Sorry to hear of the Mojo, but glad it's back and it's great to see the fuselage closed up.  Crikey the comparison with your lovely Lancaster, which it's lovely to see again, really does how just how big the Stirling is, wow.

A diorama with both , good grief that will be massive,  you may need add an extension to the House fella.

Great work on this.

Chris

[Dunny]

1 minute ago, bigbadbadge said:

Oh wow Roger the Stirling is looking great, the curtains,  although not painted in Paisley patterns , look good, as does the front turret too.

Sorry to hear of the Mojo, but glad it's back and it's great to see the fuselage closed up.  Crikey the comparison with your lovely Lancaster, which it's lovely to see again, really does how just how big the Stirling is, wow.

A diorama with both , good grief that will be massive,  you may need add an extension to the House fella.

Great work on this.

Chris

Thanks very much Chris. Although the 2D profile comparison kindly provided above by @dogsbody does show that the Stirling is bigger, it is somehow more apparent in 3D - it is huuuge! It is unsurprising that it could not keep up with the bomber stream, given that these two were both Hercules powered,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[AliGauld]

7 hours ago, Dunny said:

Now THAT is a scale comparison!! 😍

To quote a well known TV programme "Yes, Jamie, It is rather a big one." 

That is all looking rather splendid from this end.

Looking forward to more.

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[Dunny]

7 hours ago, AliGauld said:

To quote a well known TV programme "Yes, Jamie, It is rather a big one." 

That is all looking rather splendid from this end.

Looking forward to more.

 

Cheers,

Alistair

Thanks very much Alistair - I'm certainly enjoying this one!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[Dunny]

Hi All,

 

Some strong progress on the Stirling today! I'd noticed that the fit of the canopy was a bit off, leaving a pronounced step on the starboard side:

 

 

I therefore gave it a quick sanding, leaving this:

 

 

You can also see where I've masked off the internal framing on the canopy. Next I turned my attention to the landing lights. Rather bizarrely, the kit allows for landing light positions on both port and starboard wings. Despite trawling t'internet I could not find any photographic evidence for placement on the starboard wing, and only evidence on the port wing was on cutaway schematics. Just to complicate matters, I think when I originally started the kit four years ago I opened the starboard position incorrectly.  I therefore CA'd a length of sprue into the starboard position to act as a base for some filler:

 

 

And here's the lights fitted to the port lower wing:

 

 

Some fine detail painting of those frames with a sharpened cocktail stick, let me tell you! 

 

Next I fitted the undercarriage to the lower wings - the right unit disintegrated during this process, with much swearing resulting. Anyway, all's well that ends well:

 

 

I've used CA to bond the units in place, so they shouldn't be going anywhere! Once this had been done the wings went together without issue, and were glued onto the fuselage with several bucketloads of CA. So here's where we are now:

 

 

And a shot of that gangling u/c:

 

 

Finally, in the continuing photographic series "How big's my bomber?", another comparison with the Lanc:

 

 

 

F'ing big would be the short answer!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

[mark.au]

Excellent.  Now it's time to get a couple of buckets ready for the paint.

[Dunny]

48 minutes ago, mark.au said:

Excellent.  Now it's time to get a couple of buckets ready for the paint.

Thanks Mark! I think I've resolved to try and reduce the panel lines by prime 'n' sand, so we'll see how that goes!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[bigbadbadge]

Excellent progress Roger, it's looking very impressive glued together like that and very tall.  The landing lights look great in position too. I can imagine the Anglo Saxon words when the undercarriage started playing up😉

I have fairly recently started using Tamiya Extra Thin cement and find it excellent for really adding strength to the wing joints after joint with CA then brush it around the joint after and it melts the plastic together to really toughen the joint, it's great stuff.

Love the comparison between the Lanc and the Stirling,  you have started something now with that,  it be great when both painted.

Great work 

Chris

[Dunny]

20 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Excellent progress Roger, it's looking very impressive glued together like that and very tall.  The landing lights look great in position too. I can imagine the Anglo Saxon words when the undercarriage started playing up😉

I have fairly recently started using Tamiya Extra Thin cement and find it excellent for really adding strength to the wing joints after joint with CA then brush it around the joint after and it melts the plastic together to really toughen the joint, it's great stuff.

Love the comparison between the Lanc and the Stirling,  you have started something now with that,  it be great when both painted.

Great work 

Chris

Thanks very much Chris! I have a brand new bottle of TET fast acting, donchaknow! It is good stuff but belt and braces this time for such a big beast,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[bigbadbadge]

6 minutes ago, Dunny said:

Thanks very much Chris! I have a brand new bottle of TET fast acting, donchaknow! It is good stuff but belt and braces this time for such a big beast,

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

It's great stuff, I am a bit late to the party with TET!!! 

Chris

[Dunny]

1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

It's great stuff, I am a bit late to the party with TET!!! 

Chris

Better late than never Chris - don't sniff too hard though 🤣

[bigbadbadge]

1 hour ago, Dunny said:

Better late than never Chris - don't sniff too hard though 🤣

Ha yes, it is really is cracking stuff😉

[Dunny]

Hi All,

 

A quick update. As yesterday was a public holiday (Australia Day), I decided to take today off too so have had some cheeky mid-week bench time. Most of the morning was spent cleaning up seams and masking up for primer - you can see that I've masked up all the fuselage windows as well as the landing lights. I also resprayed the cockpit glazing with interior grey green to cover up the remedial work I had done in that area - I also sprayed the interior of the cowlings at the same time. As the exhausts and collectors are separate components, my intent is to spray the camouflage on the cowlings at the same time as the airframe 🤩. Here's before the first coat of primer:

 

 

I sprayed the first coat of primer, which revealed the usual range of blemishes and minor imperfections to clean up. I then sanded down all of the areas where I felt the panel lines were too prominent - the wings and tail, mainly. I then gave the whole lot a good wipe down before applying the next coat of primer, which got us here:

 

 

It could be my imagination but it does look like the panel lines are now a little less prominent. Good enough for me anyway - I'm off to start laying don the Dark Earth. I may update again later!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

[Dunny]

Hi All,

 

Some more good progress on the Stirling this afternoon. First activity was pre-shading - you can see from the photo below that I'd loaded up the airbrush with DE and started to spray the wingtip, before I realised I'd forgotten to pre-shade .

 

 

Never mind - here's the job completed:

 

 

Next I laid down mist coats of DE:

 

 

Nice - pretty happy with how that's looking. There was a little Mid-Stone mixed into the top coat for tonal variation. I then masked up for the Dark Green, but forgot to take a photo of that stage, so here's the result:

 

 

Very happy with that! In this final photo I've started to apply the masking for the Night (or Nato Black!).

 

 

I decided to not rush to get it done, so that'll be all for a week or so as I'll be away for most of the weekend,

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Roger

[mark.au]

Looks really great Roger.  I really admire how you achieve a very nice texture and variation in your camo finishes.  How did you mask, tape of blutack?

[Dunny]

Just now, mark.au said:

Looks really great Roger.  I really admire how you achieve a very nice texture and variation in your camo finishes.  How did you mask, tape of blutack?

Thanks very much Mark! I use paper templates for the flat surfaces, and blutack for the fuselage. 

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[bigbadbadge]

Looks lovely Roger, very  quick painting progress too and great to see a cheeky mid week update.  This is really progressing well.

Cracking work fella and enjoy your weekend away.

Chris