This looks complicated. The Special Hobby 1:72 Avro Anson Mk I (late version) - And we're done. Gosh.

[Mark Harmsworth]

Several sessions later . . . . .

 

Work underway on those gaps.

That's Mr Surfacer 500 partly filed down. I have a set of files, one of which has a curved back and which happily is almost perfect for the wing to fuselage join.

 

I applied that Mr Surfacer in several layers which of course meant a fair amount of time spent waiting. 

 

So I gave some thought to the horizontal tail which sadly is a butt join. Those seem to be less common these days thankfully. Some strengthening required.

A section of brass tube inserted through and holes drilled which hopefully line up ok. I should really use rod for extra strength rather than tube - but I find rod a pain to cut whereas tube is so much easier. Compromise.

 

Then a very technical approach to attaching the tail.

 

There's a slight gap so a little Mr Surfacer applied with a needle. I used 1200 this time.

 

And more work done on the wing roots with, of course, the obligatory unexpected problem. 

 

I was being gentle with my sanding and polishing (or so I thought) and was so nearly done but there was an audible crack and the starboard wing root Mr Surfacer split open. Walk away. Walk away.

 

A little while later I returned and opened the crack further with the back of a knife and a few other implements. A few drops of ca glue into the gap as far as possible; allow to cure and then Mr Surfacer again. Sanding. Polishing. Ho hum.

 

All of which made me think of a silly photo. So here's the stuff wot I've been using:

I've used the isopropanol alcohol applied with a cotton bud, to smooth the Mr Surface after the sanding. Oh yes - and some water for the polishing work with those strips of sanding/polishing paper.

 

I can recommend the bamboo cotton buds for anyone that hasn't tried them. I was worried they wouldn't be robust enough but I'm happy with them.

 

That was a strange diversion. Back to the bench.

 

Back soon.

Mark

 

 

[Mark Harmsworth]

With the seams just about dealt with it was time to do the final tasks ready for paint.

 

First attach the engines.

Those slot in perfectly. To say I was pleasantly surprised is a bit of an understatement.

 

Then the resin cowlings.

The reason that the model is upside down is that you need to align the cut out in the bottom of the cowling with a matching shape on the styrene. Not mentioned in the instructions of course but probably fairly obvious.

 

The two small holes in each cowling are for the exhaust with an open hole on the other side.

 

That fit looks ok but the method of attaching is slightly problematic as the inside of the cowling slots onto the front of the cylinders and it is not attached to the styrene at all. Having discovered that at this late stage I was grateful that the cylinders are all in straight. Sort of.

 

Clean the airframe with isopropanol alcohol then time to start painting. With a sigh of relief that I've got to this point.

 

First some more aircraft grey/green on the transparencies as they had taken somewhat of a battering with all the sanding and polishing I had been doing. 

 

The small holes in the nose have a dollop of white glue in them to keep the paint out although in the pictures they do look open to the elements.

 

Then a coat of grey primer.

Which looks strangely brown, Must be something to do with the yellow blotting paper.

 

At this point I'm having something of an internal debate about the scheme. I had decided on the plane from 500 sqn piloted by P/O Peters which was one of three patrolling the Dunkirk evacuation and attacked by nine Bf109s. Not only did they survive but, in doing so, shot down two of the 109s and damaged a third. Amazing. 

 

However. I have been remembering remarks made by my dad, who in 1945 was a 19 year old air gunner with Coastal Command. If I've remembered correctly part of his training was in Ansons (which he called the Annie) and, whilst there is no way of knowing which plane(s) he trained in, I've pretty much decided to finish her as a trainer. With a turret of course for the air gunnery training.

 

I have a couple of options - one is an xtradecal sheet which was out of stock at Hannants but I found it at Blackbird Models and it's now in the post.

 

The other is scheme C in the kit: 

Which doesn't look like much in grey scale but a plane from the same unit in the Warpaint book gives a much better idea of it.

 

Bottom of the page:

 

That'll look good on the shelf and be a nod to my dad. Time to make a decision.

 

Onwards.

Back soon.

Mark

 

[Navy Bird]

On 04/09/2022 at 10:00, Mark Harmsworth said:

Which looks strangely brown, Must be something to do with the yellow blotting paper

 

Sounds like an auto white balance issue. What do you use for a camera?

 

Cheers,

Bill

[galgos]

Hmmm, hose “floating” cowlings are a bit of a problem! I seem to recall I kept mine in position with some well placed Blu-tak! 

[Mark Harmsworth]

15 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

Sounds like an auto white balance issue. What do you use for a camera?

 

Cheers,

Bill

Hello Bill. I have a Nikon D3400 which I usually have set to 'A' for Aperture as I understood that was best to ensure most stuff stayed in focus. The WIP images are on my desk which probably isn't lit that well for photos but is ok for working - four different lamps, an overhead light and some natural light filtering through the blinds.

 

For my RFI shots I try to use as much natural light as possible but not direct sunlight. Although this has made me think:

 

[Navy Bird]

Hi Mark,

 

I have a photo booth with two 400 watt equivalent compact fluorescent photo lamps providing diffuse lighting. The lamps are rated at 5100 K. I've set the white balance in my camera using a Kodak target. Using the target is easy - just take a photo of it using your standard photo booth lighting, then tell the camera "hey, this is white - make some adjustment to ensure it comes out that way," However, I still find I need to tweak the white balance to 5450 K in my photo editing software (I use Corel PhotoPaint 2022 currently) and also the gamma to get photos whose colours and exposure I like.

 

I've been told all this stuff is a science.   

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Mark Harmsworth]

Gosh. A month has passed. Where did that go. Not too much time at the bench but more recently I've got back to it and there've been a few painting and masking sessions.

 

First a self-inflicted extra step as I'd settled on a trainer scheme, with plenty of yellow, after I'd primed in grey. So a coat of white to help out the yellow. These next coats are all xtracrylix.

 

Next Trainer Yellow.

Yellow is quite an unforgiving colour and this needed more than one coat. Looking ok so far.

 

The yellow goes halfway up the fuselage sides so I had several masking sessions. Which made me appreciate how curvaceous the Annie is and resulted in four types of masking material.

In that picture there's scrap paper, masking tape, blu-tac to hold stuff in place and then on the cowling bumps I used Copydex. On the left cowling it has cured and become transparent and on the right it is still fresh and nicely pink. Wonderful stuff - and my pot will probably last me forever.

 

Then up the right way and a couple of coats of Dark Earth.

I do like the xtracrylix sheen.

 

There's a large gap in the fuselage behind the main cabin as I decided to build the turret assembly up at the end. There's a lot of teeny resin bits that go in there - too much opportunity to break things I thought. Whether I'm going to regret that decision we'll see soon-ish.

 

So here's the main turret pieces painted dark earth.

It's a bit of a rubbish picture but you get the idea.

 

More masking now for the Dark Green. Back soon.

Mark

[Mark Harmsworth]

I should've expected this little frustration.

 

I tend to take my time (no, really) particularly with the masking stages - which I mostly enjoy.

 

I generally start work on the wings first and then get the fuselage scheme to join up. I had that underway and I was happy:

 

I was working from the kit instructions for this trainer scheme and started to work out how the fuselage scheme was to join up with the wings. I wasn't too worried as the lower fuselage is yellow so the green/dark earth scheme wouldn't need to actually join up but would just need a bit of consistency.

 

But, the kit scheme was not being cooperative. The side views and the top-down views didn't match. I've tried to show that in this image:

The darker grey is dark green.

 

In the side-on view the circled areas are shown as dark earth but in the top-down view they are dark green.

 

I checked the schemes in my Warpaint reference and I realised what Special Hobby have done.

The top, colour, image is Warpaint and the lower, grey-scale, is the kit instructions. The Warpaint scheme shows complete consistency across wings and fuselage whereas Special Hobby shows a complete disconnect.

 

Special Hobby have chosen to invert the scheme on the wings. Thanks, Special Hobby.

 

I find this type of mistake really frustrating. A recent build of mine was the Hasegawa 1:72 Lancaster where there was a similar error - the right side view was simply a copy of the left and made no sense:

 

Right then. I've got that out of my system. Back to the bench and re-start that masking.

 

all the best

Mark

 

[galgos]

Sorry that this has happened, I’ve never trusted “schemes” shown by manufacturers Mark because almost always they rely on secondary information that somebody else has produced, often wrongly. My initial and main point of reference is always a photograph of the real thing which I then back up with further research.

[Mark Harmsworth]

I agree - although I had thought in this case the scheme should have been fairly straightforward with DE/DG on the upper surfaces and yellow undersurfaces. And it's not as though the scheme is 'wrong' it is more that someone has been lazy in drawing it - showing something like a 'B' scheme for the wings and an 'A' scheme for the fuselage (I've used B and A just to illustrate).

[Mark Harmsworth]

I pulled off that masking and started again ready for the Dark Green - and had this:

 

 

Dark Green on:

 

Then a step which I enjoy and worry about at the same time - starting to remove all the masking to see what she looks like:

A few touch ups required but looking good so far.

 

Then another of those 'oh bother' moments:

That rear cabin window was not as firmly attached as I thought and I'd managed to push it in. Definitely time to walk away for a cup of tea.

 

Somehow (I still don't quite know how I managed this) I manoeuvred that out of there. Looking at that picture I honestly don't know why it didn't just drop inside the fuselage.

 

Anyway. I got it:

Gosh was I pleased.

 

A careful cleanup, some gentle work with a file, a few drops of ca glue and pva to fill the gaps and it was back in place.

 

A brushed coat of Klear (down to my last third of a bottle now) and decals on:

Time to start thinking about those last bits which is actually a longer list than I'd remembered: undercarriage, exhausts and other bits around the engines, pitot tube, aerials, bracing wires and the turret assembly.

 

These are the turret parts:

The two transparencies have come out well - thanks to the Eduard masks. The resin parts are small and fine. A nice gun, three parts in the middle form the gun support and the two parts on the right are the gunner's seat - rather like a garden swing. The gun has a helpful slot underneath to attach to the support but that's it. I'll have to make a mini jig of some sorts.

 

Onwards

Mark

 

 

[Navy Bird]

Those last few bits usually take longer than the rest of the model, at least over here at Navy Birdland. Paint looks good - and a great recovery on the window.  

 

Cheers,

Bill

[galgos]

I hope you tested and prepped the fit of the part surrounding the turret Mark, it can be a real pain. Looking very good indeed.

[Mark Harmsworth]

I figured out how the turret parts could fit together and, with a small amount of fettling and some primer, I had this:

The lower part of the turret transparency has to go in first otherwise the gun support may well interfere with it.

 

Turned my attention to the undersides and got the undercarriage together. I was concerned that it might be rather fragile but it seems strong enough and she stands on her legs no problem.

This also shows the long thin exhausts and some bits on the bottom of the cowling - all resin. The pitot tube is styrene and has been attached with a small piece of wire drilled into the bottom (no locating tabs of course).

 

Then another of those steps where I have anticipation and worry in equal quantities - removing the masking from the cabin transparencies. 

Nothing went wrong - how odd. Seriously though I am fairly pleased with that and it was worth all the work on the interior. You can definitely see quite a lot through all those windows.

 

Next my attempt at the tail bracing wires.

That's a lump of blu-tac on the end of some invisible mending thread (strange name but that's what it's called).

 

I was unsure about those wires so I asked in the WW2 area and had some really helpful responses. Have a look if you are interested:

I painted the propellers - made a lot simpler with the Anson only having two blades and this is one resting in front of an engine.

 

The kit comes with some neat p.e. and one part being the detailing on the front centre of the propeller.

May well leave that unpainted. The photo doesn't really do that justice as it is really quite small with lovely detail - including a neat raised thingy in the middle.

 

These two photos also just about show the masts for the aerial wire and the (slightly bent) df loop. No locating tabs so again small pieces of wire used for extra support.

 

Next up, taking a deep breath and having a go at the aerial wires.

 

Onwards

Mark

 

[Navy Bird]

Very nice work - and you thought it might be complicated. I think you nailed it.    

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Dandie Dinmont]

Hi Mark,

just spent a lazy Sunday afternoon reading this thread as part of my due diligence before tackling the Airfix 1/48th rendition and I’ve been highly entertained. I can only hope the Airfix effort gives me an easier ride than you’ve had, but you’ve done a superb job. I look forward to seeing the finished article. 
 

Craig. 

[Mark Harmsworth]

Here we are then - on the final straight.

 

I attached some thread to the mast on top of the tail and then used the thingy I hardly ever use to hold the thread in place over the mast. A drop of ca glue to hopefully secure it in place.

 

Like this:

As I write this I've remembered that the other clamp from that thingy fell down the back of my desk. Time to crawl around on the floor again.

 

And the same approach for the aerial coming up from the main cabin:

 

Some delicate work with a pair of sharp scissors to trim that thread and there she was.

 

And a couple more images.

 

 

To be honest there are a few more teeny bits of p.e. I could attach but . . . . . 

 

Next - take some photos for a RFI post. 

 

Looking back on this I find that I've got a fair bit of pleasure out of the build. There were certainly a few frustrations along the way - and this time not all of them were down to me! I'm pleased with the way she turned out and it was definitely worth the effort.

 

Having said that perhaps I'll be searching the stash for something a little simpler for the next one.

 

All the best

Mark

 

[galgos]

Well done Mark, she looks lovely....a character-forming build!  I can highly recommend the new Airfix Anson, a much easier and angst-free experience.

[Brandy]

That looks excellent. I may even have to add one to my stash...

 

Ian

[Hook]

Lovely Annie!