1/48 Paragon Manchester and Lincoln conversions questions.

[Le Taureau Qui Rit]

Good Morning all,

 

I have both the Paragon 1/48  Manchester conversion and the Lincoln conversion sitting in my stash. I picked them both up back in the dim and distant past when they used to only cost about £50 each, but they've stayed on the shelf awaiting a time when I would become brave enough to risk attempting a couple of conversions that have become increasingly rare to the point of being borderline irreplaceable if I were to make a dreadful mess of them.

 

Before anyone asks though, I'm not interested in parting with them either! 🙂

 

My question is whether the HK Models Lancaster 1/48 is a possibility to use as a donor kit for either of these conversions?

 

Also, if a conversion using the HK kit with either of the Paragon sets is do-able, is there any particular point or advantage to choosing the HK over the Tamiya one they were originally designed for?

 

I built a Tamiya Lancaster back in about 1995, and I enjoyed it a lot but even back then it seemed a little long in the tooth.

 

I haven't yet seen the HK Lancaster "in the plastic", so I would be interested in any thoughts anyone has on the matter. 🙂

 

Daniel

[MarcB]

Hello Daniel,

 

I did the same test a couple of weeks ago and, using the Mk.1 Eyeball only, it appeared that the Paragon parts wouldn't match the HK parts.

 

I tried the Lincoln conversion and it looks like the HK fuselage is slimmer than the Tamiya one.

 

So I'll proceed with my initial plan and chop the Tamiya kit rather than the finer and nicer HK kit.

 

Perhaps the Manchester conversion could be more easily persuaded to fit the HK kit.

 

Marc

[Phoenix44]

The HK kit is very nice in the box. No idea if it's accurate or more/less accurate as Tamiya though. I'm seeing Tamiya versions on eBay for pretty good prices now so I'd be tempted to go for those if I was cutting them up.

[Le Taureau Qui Rit]

Hi Marc,

I have to admit I had a kind-of gut feeling that the mid-fuselage insert for the Lincoln might be a sticking point with the HK Lancaster. Thanks for confirming that.

 

It seems to me that (perhaps counterinuitively given that one needs to change the number of engines) the Manchester is actually less of a drastic conversion than the Lincoln!

 

As you say, I'm probably better off keeping the HK Lancaster as a Lancaster, and use the (slightly cheaper) and more basic Tamiya Lancs as donors, particularly seeing as they are the kits that Paragon had in mind when they produced their conversions.

 

It seems quite odd to think of the Tamiya Lancasters as being relatively "basic" or old fashioned as I can vividly remember as a youth looking up at the big Tamiya Lancaster boxes that would always be stood quite prominently in model shops, usually fairly near the ceiling and always positioned with their box tops facing into the room as, to my mind at least, the ultimate model kit to aspire to build!

[woody37]

I would of thought the only risk with the Manchester would be any difference in the chord on the wing join. Apart from chord length, any profile difference could be manipulated with internal spars possibly? The Manchester is a fairly straight forwards build. Only the first 22 aircraft had the narrower tail planes so in most cases, it's only a case of fitting the smaller tails to the existing tailplanes. 

 

 

[brewerjerry]

Hi

   slightly off topic,

      my future intention is to use an old airfix magazine article for a 1:72 scale manchester conversion and just scale it up to 1:48 using a tamiya lanc 

   only difficulty for me might be building the manchester engine nacelles 

   cheers

     jerry