Avro Shackleton MR3

[Christer A]

Whenever I participate in a GB I usually jump way overboard and rarely finish anything.

To remain true to my inner character, I decided to leap into this one as well, even though that Tomcat really should be finished instead. Or the Tonka. Or the Gannet,, or all the other ones that are stored...

But one must look forward and not backwards, so here goes!

I have one new Revell Shack, in a lovely livery:

Strangely enough it comes with some new style instructions that are both readable and easy to understand:

That was a welcome change from team Revell!

Just get rid of the end opening boxes and all is well.

Key features for me to choose Revell over Airfix is , well. it's an MR3 with nose gear! It looks almost modern (well...) and the red wing tip tanks is really dashing.

But the major thing is this:

Rivets!

And lots of them too. 🤩

 

To please @trickyrich I tried to get hold of as much AM stuff as I could, but I had to stop here

That big etched fret will be a challenge for sure.

Sooo...can I start now?

[trickyrich]

good man!!  

 

🇺🇦

[Mike N]

I have one of these that whispers to me to be built every time I go in the loft. Can't wait to see how you get along with it

 

Mike

[Adam Poultney]

One day I'll get around to building my Revell Shackleton..... but for now I just watch from the sidelines. Have fun with this build! 

[PeterB]

Hi Christer,

 

It seems to be a nice kit. Back in 2019 I entered my first GB - the Frog one, and had a shot at updating their ancient kit. At the time I mentioned that both Airfix and Revell had suddenly started moulding Shackletons and that sooner or later a new MR3 would appear, and sure enough it did, before I had even finished my build! Mine took around 3 months in between other builds and was a lot of work but yours should be a lot easier. The MR3 went through several modification programmes during its life and so there are many differences in  electronics/aerial fit and the like, but the most obvious was the Phase 3 (I think) upgrade when Viper jets were buried in the outer engine nacelles. I had to buy resin ones and modifiy the plastic to make them fit, but I believe Revell include them as an option. I had a look at their instructions after Dave @Rabbit Leader told me he had bought their new kit and it seemed pretty good, though I did notice what my research suggests were one or two minor omissions/errors, but there was some variation between individual aircraft so I cannot be 100% sure. My effort is in the "previous builds" gallery of this GB for comparison.

 

I will watch this with both interest and envy!

 

Pete

[Christer A]

Thanks for the cheers guys!

Peter, your old Frog-shack looks terrific! If i can get to half that stage in twice the time I'll be satisfied 😃

 

I wish I could start immediately on Sunday morning but I have signed up for some stupid things to do first.

This Sunday is the traditional day for the 90 km long Ski-race Vasaloppet:

https://www.vasaloppet.se/en/

I'm no cross country skier like my father but my gym is having Vasaloppet spinning at the same time. We'll be pedaling along with the skiers from start to finish watching them on a big screen taking a few breaks now an then to drink blueberry soup just like the skiers do and so on. Really fun, but it will be a challenging 4 hours or so.

Sitting down for the rest of Sunday is certainly well earned, but probably painful...

[PeterB]

Hi Christer,

 

A lot of my time was spent on the interior but Revell provide all you need and it is a lot more accurate than mine. There are plenty of pics available in books and "walk rounds" and although I have removed mine from the Frog GB build I may still have them if it would be of any help. I think the only "major" faults I found on the Revell kit was how many "towel rail" aerials should be on the bomb bay doors (I went for one as per my pics but Revell do two) and that they have moulded the prominent fairing for the Honeywell radio altimeter under the rear fuselage and my sources suggest it was only fitted as part of the Phase 3 mods, so if you were building the Phase 2 option it probably should not be there -

It's the rectangular bit between the "L" shaped aerial and the extended tail bumper or whatever it is on the above pic,  just above the first aid red cross dec. As I said individual planes had different equipment fits so Revell may be right for the Series 2 they have chosen, but not according to my sources.

 

Best of luck.

 

Pete

Edited March 1, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

This link to a walkround gives good pics of interior detail but is a bit slow to open.

http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/howard_mason4/shackleton/index.php?Page=1

There are a couple of other walkrounds on BM and several more on Scalemates.

 

Pete

[Christer A]

That's a nice but oh so slow walkaround Pete! Thanks for the heads-up about the altimeter, I'll try to keep that in mind once I get there.

I intend to do the Phase 2 option, because who can resist the red wing tip tanks?

Also, with that option the prop tips are yellow and not red, white and red according to the destructions and that seems like a more stress-free approach to 24 blades!

[PeterB]

3 hours ago, Christer A said:

Also, with that option the prop tips are yellow and not red, white and red according to the destructions and that seems like a more stress-free approach to 24 blades!

Yes, I did say in my build thead it would have been far easier to do the South African option Frog offered as I happened to have a sheet of decs for that and the prop tips would be a lot easier.

 

Pete

[Christer A]

Decals for the props would've nice!

 

My God, I just had a look at the walkaround pictures. That bomb bay is an absolute mess of pipes, hoses and electrical wires!

This could be fun to replicate 🤪

 

[PeterB]

Hi Christer,

 

I seem to remember the wheel bays are just as bad if not worse. As I am sure you know one of the nicknames was "10000 rivets flying in formation" which may even be an underestimate, but I think another should have been "plumber's nightmare" with all the pipes and cables. As I was building a "phase 3" version I cannot remember what all the differences were between that and the "Phase 2" other than the altimeter and the yagi aerials on the sides of the nose - they were replaced on the Phase 3 with a couple in front of the canopy which Revell have overlooked I believe. The aerial fit on top of the fuselage changed quite a bit over the life of the MR3 as well and the D/F loop was replaced with a brown panel - I see Revell include both but don't seem to use the loop fairing? The walkrounds of the MR3 are almost certainly all Phase 3 ones but I have a couple of books on the Shack if you need to check anything. They list every one ever made and what happened to it, including refits as I recall - I spent the best part of 4 months studying the ruddy thing but it was a while back. Somebody posted an amusing video which I think is still on my build thread, showing a preserved Shack blowing a wall down!

 

Pete

Edited March 4, 2022 by PeterB

[Colin W]

Great idea for this GB. I hope you get to finish it.

[Christer A]

The spinning session yesterday lasted for about 3,5 hours and felt great.

Lots of blueberry soup, bananas and buns to fill up with energy during the exercise, which really helped.

For the first time in my 20 years of bike training, I did get sore on my upper inner thighs so that was a bit of a bummer

I blame the pants! (Dilbert)

 

Ok, time to start to harm some plastic!

I started with the bomb bay of all things, mostly because I have looked at reference pictures there and at least got an inkling of an idea of what to do.

Step one was to attach all PE from Eduards set

Next step was to add more plumbing.

Some lead wire on the sides to simulate the electrical harness and 0,5mm plastic rods in the middle for the steel pipes.

That actually used up most of the modelling time for the entire weekend though, which was unexpected.

Oh well, I hope that this looks good under a coat of paint, so that the effort was worth it!

[CliffB]

I can see that you're already setting a high standard for detailing this kit Christer.  Definitely one to watch!

[Adam Poultney]

Loving the extra detail, but I think when at some point in the far future I eventually build my AEW.2, I'll leave the shortened bomb bay doors closed.

And here are a few Shackleton photos which I'll contribute to the thread:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Christer A]

Thanks Cliff and Adam!

That MR3 has started to sink quite deep, hasn't it?

 

Some paint has hit the bomb bay, but I forgot to take any pictures of it, so that'll come later.

I did make a start with gluing the fuselage parts together, since it's split in the front like this:

A separate nose for AEW but a common rear fuselage. Standard stuff really.

This is Revell though so just mating the front part to the rear and get a neat join is not going to be a Tamiya experience, nor will it be a Mach2...

But with some scraping, sanding and lots of dry-fitting, a good result could be had.

At least on one side, The other one got a bit of a step, so that was dealt with in another way.

Clamping over a cocktail stick allowed for a better join, since it was possible to press both sides together with one clamp.

I haven't checked that final result yet, but fingers crosses it will work.

[JeroenS]

Nice work Christer, this should be good. 

[Adam Poultney]

Good start on the fuselage

Edited March 14, 2022 by Adam Poultney

[Christer A]

Thanks guys!

 

I must say that I'm not terrible impressed with the larger etch bits for this kit.

Eduard would have me removing all details on the front and rear bulkheads in the main landing bay.

I can't really say that the etch makes a positive difference here!

Looking at the rear bulkhead here

http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/howard_mason4/shackleton/images/shackleton_087_of_137.jpg

one can see that Revell is much closer to the truth here!

Also, the sides are to have large pieces as well, but

It's too short by 1,5 mm or so

I can choose to align it at the front or the rear, since the cutout for the doors are not lining up either.

Sigh.

Too bad that I had removed the detail here before I did a test run.

Oh well, I'll have to come up with something.

[Christer A]

While waiting for a chisel to arrive to deal with those pesky ejection pin marks in the main landing gear side walls i thought it might be a good idea to get the wings together.

Very nice casting here, since the rivet detail is excellent! One cannot see the wings for all the rivets...

However, there are a few drawbacks. First, they're big!

Second, they have a sorts of easily breakable parts on 'em.

The fuel dump pipe has broken on one wing, the spar between the aileron and the flap section fell of the other. Luckily I found that one, and I expect to replace the pipe with some brass tube later on.

Another favorite item are the three antennas om each wing:

They're attached from the inside since they're held together like a fork and to ensure the correct angle.

Yeah, that'll work in the long run. 

Not.

Or it could, if the builder was a strict gentleman with a spotless uncluttered bench and lots of free space.

(not a fitting description of me)

Then I couldn't resist the temptation to make a dryfit:

Big and British indeed!

Hopefully the wing to fuselage fit is good enough to allow me to paint them separately so that I don't have to manhandle that 50cm wingspan all the time.

[PeterB]

Hi Christer,

 

Yes, it is nice that Revell have included things like the dump pipes and aerials but having them on at this stage is certainly a potential problem - I used brass tube for the pipes, but drew the line at the static wicks on the trailing edge which I imagine Revell have not included? I found that leaving the wings off was definitely the way to go given all the detail work required on them and the decals to put on, but I worked on the joint before painting started to make sure they would be an acceptable fit. The only worry was getting the alignment of things like the undercarriage and the Vipers right so they were not at the wrong angle when the wings were glued on - the u/c was OK but one of my Vipers ended up twisted off line slightly. However in your case they are part of the kit nacelles and you probably won't be using them anyway if you do a Phase 2 machine.

 

Pete

Edited March 16, 2022 by PeterB

[Christer A]

Hi Pete!

Static wicks are not included by Revell, but are present on the Eduard set, I think there is about 20 of them or so. Those will have to wait for a long time 🙂

The Viper option has a separate set of engine nacelles, but they'll stay in the box for now.

 

It feels like I did a lot of stuff over the weekend, including modelling but very little to show for that effort. Well, painting takes time!

The bomb bay was painted but is yet to receive a wash to make the details pop a bit more. That'll come once the fuselage is joined I think.

I also got a new toy, a chisel to carve away at those nasty ejector pin marks. A better option probably would've been to make a special vertical sanding stick, but I'm sure it'll have many uses in any case.

Then I installed all etched that I wanted to use in the landing gear bays. I left off the front and rear bulkheads though, since Revells plastic is as detailed as Eduards etch, but better 3D.

The nose gear rear bulkhead was a better choice though! Revell does not have anything there, since it's made in one piece.

Some tiny details was also added :

Midge tubing that fly fishers use to build there lures is a great thing for cable connectors and such.

The whole lot was then given some paint.

Looking at walkarounds it seems that green fuel tanks are visible to one side and I tried to paint that using a brush and Tamiya paint. Not a terrible good combination, but that was what I had that was green enough.

Well, I'll call it self sealing material and move on. With a nice black wash most will be hidden...

 

While waiting for that to dry, I started to paint some internal fuselage bits.

This looks quite colorful, but with the information that I have, it seems to be the case. The noise insulation might be a tad too dark (I used Tamiya XF-57 Buff lightened with 50% white) but at least it will be visible.

I'll also add more Linoleum brown hatches and stuff to the rear floor, just to have it look a bit different.

But where did the weekend go, and why do I have to go to work now?

Typical.

[Christer A]

More hatches and stuff has been painted for the rear area:

Now I need only to add the swivel seats, then I can install it into the fuselage.

I've also made a start in the cockpit:

 

The throttle columns and massive trimwheels (seriously, what's the point of a trim wheel that is as large as a bicycle tire?) are quite lacking in the kit, but Eduard only provides etch for the throttles.

Not the easiest of things to install, but I'll get there in the end. Somehow.

 

Another good thing to start was to add filler to the inner nacelles and the fuel tanks.

Once the filler comes out, the build has started properly, that's for sure!

[Christer A]

Despite my efforts, I managed to paint the wing tanks on the wrong side:

They were supposed to be on the outboard wing on both wings...

Well, since I had to use some filler internally to hide a few gaps , I probably need to repaint them entirely.

It could be tricky to redo the green though!

 

Also, the engine nacelles wasn't a complete Tamiya fit, so they was also faired in with filler. Water based filler and a wet cotton bud is awesome for this kind of job!

By the way, I can't really make up my mind about the flaps.

They look nicely detailed in plastic, but British custom would have them raised at all times except when landing.

What do you think?