PK-604 : Halifax B. Mk. I (1979) FINISHED.

[TonyW]

The incredibly smooth build of my Matchbox Me410 over the weekend has given me a shove towards building something a bit bigger now. A Mk1 Halifax fits the bill perfectly. It's going to be another box stock build, warts and all. I've got a recent Revell Halifax for when the need for a bit more accuracy and detailing strikes. For now, a shop window worthy build will do for me.

 

 

 

I removed most of the parts from the sprues ages ago at a model club night, so that's a job already done.

An early start this morning got a couple of hours work done on the kit before breakfast. Not a bad start to the day!

 

 

 

The fuselage front section has been glued to each back section to get them lined up. The cockpit interior has been assembled and glued to one half of the fuselage, likewise the bomb bay floor. That lot has been dry fitted to the other fuselage half and all taped into line. It all seems fine as I look at it, removing the tape tomorrow will see how well its all worked out. 

 

One of the undercarriage legs has a fixing piece missing. I've added a bit of strut in place of the missing bit and reinforced both legs while I was at it. Fixing the modified parts into the bays will need a bit of modifying but I should end up with a nice strong undercarriage.

 

One odd thing. All the engine cowls and nacelles lined up and fitted well other than the port inner. The undercarriage area fitted fine. So did the front cowl. The front top didn't come close to fitting and a fair bit of trimming was needed.

 

 

Everything is drying now and more will happen tomorrow with luck.

 

 

[PeterB]

Bet your build does not take as long as mine! I found that the undercarriage mountings were definitely a weak link in the build and ended up putting packing pieces in between them and the front of the well so they could be glued to them for more support. I don't remember having many problems with the engines but I have found that the upper fuselage glazing - hatches, canopy and the like are poor fits and need a bit of work.

 

Best of luck.

 

Pete

[TonyW]

All thoughts of crashing this one out in two days are history now.

It's going together fine, but its no Usain Bolt build. There are quite a few areas that need help on the kit.

The fuselage is a bit wobbly and looked like it would be a bit of a 'mare to join together so I added strips of plastic rod to help.

 

 

Once dry enough the fuselage halves were joined and the tail surfaces were added. Everything is going to need filler in varying amounts so I might as well get everything set and ready. You can see the amount of filling needed on the top of the fuselage ion this shot, along with a few other areas.

 

 

The prop blades are a bit on the broad side and really could do with being replaced. I've thinned them down quite a bit and they will be OK for this build.

The trailing edges have been thinned down a lot from the rather rounded ones Matchbox provide.

 

The last job this evening was to hit the whole shooting match with more HiBuild primer, in preparation for more work in the morning. So far, so good.

 

 

 

[Rabbit Leader]

Great work on this Halibag so far Tony. She really does look different in that yellow primer and it almost lends itself to being built and the yellow bellied Prototype! 

Cheers.. Dave 

[TonyW]

Todays instalment brings yet more yellow with it. 

 

 

The Halifax got a sanding session early this morning, followed by a bit of snagging here and there to fill a couple of areas I had missed. As the primer filler was going to see action, I took the opportunity to do a bit more bodywork on the long neglected Victor build. It seemed like a good idea. A fair bit of Wet and Dry paper got used on these two today.

By the afternoon it was time to re-sand the Halifax, hopefully for the last time. Everything looked fine, so a thin coat of Revell Aquacolour Dark Earth was added to the wings and upper fuselage. The paint goes on very thin and won't take any overbrushing so the real finish is a coat or two away.

 

 

The wheels got painted and the turrets and canopy have had their frames started. The frames are a bit thick but I'm not going to push my luck trying to reduce them.

The exhaust manifolds and nacelle intakes have been drilled out and painted ready for fitting tomorrow.

 

The last job for the afternoon was to add a smidge of Milliput to the area in front of the canopy to reduce the ski ramp look the nose of the plane has. It runs from flush at the canopy edge to one or two millimetres at the back of the front turret. It will get properly blended in tomorrow but things look much better to my eyes already.

[Winenut]

Really love that yellow primer for some reason! 

 

Progress looks great

 

Keep it up

[TonyW]

Two days worth of catching up to do this evening, so without further adieu...

 

The first coat of Dark Earth was followed by the first of Dark Green and that lot was left to dry in the sun for a while.

 

 

Each colour got a second coat and the black lower colour added. I added quite a bit of dark brown to the black but it hardly shows. It's a gloss finish against the matt topsides so that might explain that. 

 

 

The wings were fixed into place and decaling began. Although I had two sheets of Matchbox decals to use, both had backing paper stuck to them. The upper wing roundels on both sheets were unusable. A spare pair Stranraer ones were identical, so I used them. Fuselage decals were Extradecal aftermarket ones as the kit ones also had backing paper stuck on them. The rest of the kit decals were usable.

 

 

A satin clearcoat locked the decals into place after a bit of silvering was dealt with. Even though the fuselage ones were laid over a gloss finish a bit of silvering was visible. I cut the offending areas away with a new scalpel blade.

Once the clear had dried, a bit of oil paint staining was added behind the engines. Looking at original pictures it seems the planes could be anywhere from mint condition right through to flying paintwork disasters. I picked the middle ground. Less is more.

 

 

A card base for possible display use got knocked up. I kept it generic, without Halifax titles or script, so other planes could be sat on it if needed.

 

 

 

The canopy wasn't exactly the best fit in the world and it needed a bit of rubber banding to hold it in place while the glue dried. The plane looks like it has toothache!

 

 

The roll of tape was bought for a bit of an experiment with the kit glazing

. @AdrianMF has a rather clever method of wrapping clear tape around wing leading edges to make very convincing covers for landing lights. I've borrowed the method and added a length of crystal clear tape along the spine of the plane, covering both top windows. Once burnished right down and the non clear areas lightly sanded with 1500 paper, I painted out around the windows leaving flush fitting glazing instead of the beer glass kit pieces. The tape edge is only visible from certain angles and looks like panel lines anyway. So long as the tape stays in place and the paint on it likewise, I'll be using the method more in the future.

 

The rest of the kit glazing was done with Glue 'n Glaze. The clear tape looks much better.

 

Fuel dump tubes have been added, along with the undercarriage and props. The airframe has had a coat of ultra flat clear added overall and that has tied the paintwork in nicely. Tomorrow see's the bomb bay and undercarriage doors getting fitted. Turrets need adding and a few other bits and bobs. It's nearly there.

 

Here's the plane as it is this evening, sat on its base for the night.

 

 

There's a possibility the Halifax won't be an only child here as I'm leaning rather heavily toward starting another!

A Coastal Command version, in that very smart white and cammo scheme that Matchbox tempt you with, is getting very hard to resist.

I bough a couple of these kits at the Shuttleworth show earlier in the year for very good prices. The two would sit rather well together...

 

[TonyW]

All done now. Another one for the Matchbox collection.

 

Despite anticipating fit problems with the four part bomb doors, they snapped into perfect position without any dramas whatsoever.  A Mass Balance has already gone AWOL, it might turn up at some point. It was there when I started taking the final pictures but not when I finished.

 

A three footer if I'm being honest, multiple coats of acrylic paint make really neat paintwork very difficult for me. Slowly but surely I'm being drawn towards airbrushing.

 

Here's the model, Gallery shots later on.

 

[Redstaff]

Paintwork looks great from here, don't knock yourself down  

[Learstang]

Very nice work! It certainly looks like a proper Halibag to me.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[Galligraphics]

2 hours ago, TonyW said:

A three footer if I'm being honest

I’d be very happy to have that on my shelf, Tony. Nicely done 

[Adrian Hills]

Particularly well done. I'm familiar with this kit having built three so I know how good you have done 🙂

 

[Mike Dean]

Nailed it!

 

The generic display base looks the business. Just about any kit could sit on there and look good. I'm stealing that idea.....

 

I think also doing a coastal command version would look really good alongside the B.Mk.1. Matchbox went to great lengths to give the modeller three options, and showing a different version of the same kit would sit very well with what this group build is all about. Good job you have the space!

[PeterB]

Nice one Tony,

 

I thought some of my builds were quick (when I am not trying to do 5 at once) but that is remarkable for a fairly big plane! I suppose I would have been about as fast when it first came out, but nowhere near as good.

 

Cheers

 

pete

[Grandboof]

Well finished . Looking forward to the Coastal

Martin H

[JOCKNEY]

Superb job Tony

I was slow off the mark and only caught up after you had finished it 

Congratulations mate, looks the business 

Cheers Pat 

[Pete in Lincs]

It looks great to me too. Keep them coming!