Vickers Valentia - a continuation of not finished model in GB - FINISHED

[JWM]

Hi,

Within "Big and British" group build I have started work on a Contrail Vickers Valentia. However I did not managed to finish it.  I did not quit, I only paused. So now I hope to start the build from moment where I paused...

The up to now build thread is here:

 

Regards

J-W

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by JWM

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff Jerzy

This build is the business, really looking forward to the next installment. 

Cheers Pat 

[woody37]

Looking forwards to seeing more progress

[JWM]

Hi,

I am coming slowly back to Valentia. The problem is with engines, the Contrail one are really not usable.  This recalls me old phrase: the people split in their opinion on them into two groups, one was considering them worth nothing, the others called them the  **ck... . 

I realized, that in each box of new Potez XXV by Azure there is a spare Bristol ( Jupiter, not Pegasus, but it is 1/72 kit...)  engine, to be precise, just the central part with cylinders. No exhaust collector and no carburetor tubes. I have one spare Bristol engine with exhaust collector fro Broplan. I am trying to copy it in resin, but the used resins are either too soft or to fragile. So the casting either goes deformed or it break apart losing some tubes while I am removing it from silicone form. The resin which I am familiar one, the glue "Classic Distal" for some reasons is not available for a year and I ran out from my reserves of it. I bought the dan braven "liquid metal" resin, it is very fragile... Finally I have two not completed but good enough for further work.On left you can see two engines by Azur (painted). The grey are my castings, the green are parts from Broplan

 So I will try to complete the engines from what I have now.

The propeller I will try to cast as copy  from a box of Kora Fairey IIIF/Gordon. It has proper pitch and diameter.  We will see how it will go. 

The other problem are wheels. I have some injected , but the left and right sided of them are shifted by about 0.5 mm one against the other. I was trying to cut them but it is not easy. So I decided to use the vacu one, but I have to scratch the central parts. 

To be continued.

regards

J-W
 

[JWM]

Hi,

Further work on engines.

I completed the broken (and then missing) pipes going to exhaust collector with stretched sprue:

 

On photo above there is a prop from Fairey Gordon kit by Kora (dull yellow plastic color) and first my copy of it casted in resin (grey).

And back sides with inlet collectors tubing

 

Painted

 

The wheels - just to show problem I have mentioned in previous post

 

The comparison of new and original props

 

Comparison of engines

 

I introduced the brass tubes to have  a solid support for prop camshaft....

 

That is all for tonight...

To be continued

Regards

J-W

 

 

 

 

 

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff Jerzy

As these engines are so visible all this attention to detail will be really worth it when you have finished.

Cheers Pat 

[Sandeha Lynch]

You exhausts and inlets are really impressive work. The original engines in my box appear to have 'impressionistic' exhausts and inlets on them, and that will have to do, but also the injection mouldings are near black in colour so may be a different iteration than yours. The wheels and undercarriage supports are also in black.

 

The supplied exhaust pipes themselves are quite wrong for the version I will do so I will trim them down.

 

l009 by Sandeha Lynch, on Flickr

[JWM]

@Sandeha Lynch - many thanks for this great photo! . Of course the inlets are black at the end, so I will correct. The exhaust pipe is nicely detailed , I mean how it goes between cylinders...

Regards

J-W

 

[JWM]

5 hours ago, Sandeha Lynch said:

The wheels and undercarriage supports are also in black.

Hmm,  ... I have chosen the most dark undersurfaces looking Valentias from what I found in net:

 

I think, that only on the lowest of above the wheels hubs and u/c legs are black, as the whole underside is (it is darker, than the blue from roundel! ). This photo was said to be done in Iraq, 1940 (?)

Below: This SAAF machine(s?) seem to be overall dark green like Ju 86, (or NIVO?) what would be really unique. But I am suspicious, if it is not colorized. 

 

Regards

J-W

[Sandeha Lynch]

Sorry - I only meant that the injection plastic is a black colour ! 😉

 

Here's another I found (not mine) which appears to have been tint coloured on the print. I know you're doing the camo version, but it shows the wheels nicely.

 

Vickers Valentia, RAF Odiham 1934 by Dick Gilbert, on Flickr

[JWM]

I have found one photo from Egypt, 1942 with no doubtful black under surfaces and tropical scheme from top. It is here:

http://aircrewremembered.com/darby-philip-ronald.html

Regards

J-W

 

[JWM]

Before I will finish the bottom side of upper wing (what blocked me a bit) i will go on with important parts: engines and gondolas, undercarriage and tail. 

The undercarriage. In a previous post I have shown the wheels and described a little what problems are with them. Now the struts (below) 

They are generally not bad in dimensions, however they do not look god. They are flat (squared) and in general the shapes are not proper. 

I have started work on them. First I sanded it to get aerodynamic forms. 

This is the first approximation

 

The wheels: I filled the vacu wheels with Millliput, pressed pairs together. The central part I made as the resin casting. This is a copy of central part of wheel fro Fly Caproni 101

 

On photo above you mas see also the rough casting of propellers and the struts made out of 1.5mm X 2.5 mm rectangle profile. 

 

The engine gondolas - I have glued them together and installed the struts. The outer goes straight, so no problem with them. The the inner ones are sloped, I trimmed their length using scalar 

 

More or less it will go like that (no glue yet)

 

To be continued... (still hoping to finish this year)

Comments welcome

Regards

J-W

 

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Wow!  You are a brave man to tackle this!  Just think of all the brave pilots who had to fly this thing at the outset of WWII before transitioning to Dakotas....

[TheBaron]

Bold work as always Jerzy and a pleasure to see this develop.

 

[JWM]

Hi,

Many thanks for feedback! 

My resin cast props (during work on filling voids etc.):

 

They are thought to rotate, so they are equipped with shaft.

 

After painting (some still wet paint)

To be cont.

Regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Nicely done--you've simulated the copper alloy leading edges well on these props!

[JWM]

I received today the brass tubes 1.3 mm of diameter by Amber - I want to use them as exhaust pipes.

First I has to correct the lengths of the front struts in engine gondola, the rear one are of equal length below and above gondola, but the front struts are shorter below the gondole and longer above it. I did not noticed it before, so I cut some 1 mm from bottom and glued it on top of appropriate strut. 

The wings has some inclination and the engines are horizontal, therefore the front struts have not to be of equal size below and above the gondola. 

I have sanded the putty on the strut/gondola joins. 

 

I drilled the openings on exhaust collector ring in places, from which the exhaust pipes goes out.

Then I glued the engines on gondolas (props rotates of course)

 

I prepared the exhaust pipes from brass tube

 

They are slightly bound. I will wait with gluing them until engines-gondolas junction are not dry

 

To be continued

Regards

J-W

 

 

 

[JWM]

Thanks for likes!

The motivation is growing!  I did some further progress with engine gondolas today. 

I add something (I do not know what it is) visible on upper inside front struts and I installed the exhaust pipes using CA glue 

 

I added pins at ends of struts to make positioning more precise. 

 

I painted the exhausts

 

Behind engine on bottom side between struts there were two oil coolers . 

I am preparing them casting in resin copies of the coolers from Fairey Gordon (Kora)

 

So far I have two of them, the rough cast look like that:

 

I have made some work on wheels - now they looks like that. Valentia had a modified U/C legs compare to Virginia and those from set are closer to Virginia one. 

 

 

 

To finish the gondolas I will do all riging on them  prior to gluing them on bottom wings. This is next to do.

Then I will also install u/c and could go to work on tailplane.

 

To be cont.

Ragards

J-W

 

 

 

[Sandeha Lynch]

I have no idea what those items must be, but you can just make it out in these.

 

p7_63 radiator by Sandeha Lynch, on Flickr

 

p7_57 radiator by Sandeha Lynch, on Flickr

 

Speaking of 'things I never noticed before' I had no idea that the original propellers were a braced pair, one atop the other, until I looked closely at yours!!

 

I've made no progress on mine for a while, just basic cutting from the sheets, so you're doing the best work here, J-W. With luck I'll get on it next year.

[JWM]

On 11/27/2022 at 3:17 PM, Sandeha Lynch said:

I've made no progress on mine for a while, just basic cutting from the sheets, so you're doing the best work here, J-W. With luck I'll get on it next year.

Thank you,

I a spent today a couple of hours looking through the photos which I gathered from net. One of finding ("Speaking of 'things I never noticed before' ) was that some cables in engine riging (and only them) are double, all other are just single one. Those are both on front and on rear of gondolas, staring on lower wing outside, going to gondola bottom near the inside strut. On the top o gondola they goes again from  the outside strut to inside one on top wing. If you look very carefully on yours photos above you'll notice it. 

 

The other thing. 

There is a photo of Valantia said to be done in Egipt in 1941. The lack of fin flashed turns me to think that it is rather 1940. It looks to me like desert camo but with black unsersurfaces, what would not be very strange as for bomber command machine.

 

 

 

I think that I can read the serial of it, it looks to me like K 3559

 

 

I found here http://www.ukserials.com/serials-older-0k.htm that such Valentia did not existed! So - how to read this number? 

The black color looks to go out from struts partially. 

I am still not decided which individual machine to do...

That would be nice as well (also has vary dark - black? some struts and bottom of fuselage). It os 70 Sq machine but serial? I was not able to do any read out with any contrast manipulation.

 

There is a "safe" profile

 

Or maybe the SAAF one

 

Here the underside looks very dark, but it is not black - only strong contrast due to low position of sun, the fuel tanks are bright as u/c legs also. 

 

The other candidate is that one 

 

 

Is it SH-W?  (216 Sq), 1941. 

Again no serial seen...

 

Regards

J-W

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by JWM

[TheBaron]

Fascinating progress Jerzy and tha ks for introducing me to the Aber brand!

Tony

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Nicely done!  How did you bend the metal tubes for the exhaust without crushing them?

[AdrianMF]

Nice work J-W! I didn’t realise Valentias were still flying at the start of WWII.

 

I wonder if the kit’s engines originated from the FROG Wallace?

 

Presumably you slipped some soft wire into the tubes before making any sharp bends?

 

Regards,

Adrian

[JWM]

 

On 11/27/2022 at 6:50 PM, TheBaron said:

Fascinating progress Jerzy and tha ks for introducing me to the Aber brand!

Tony

 

Hi Tony,

Many thanks. Its goes very slowly, because I am making some other easy models on side pausing here... Not always I have power to tackle this stuff.... The Aber brass tube is very nice, sure you'll do good use of their products! 

 

On 11/28/2022 at 3:49 PM, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Nicely done!  How did you bend the metal tubes for the exhaust without crushing them?

Thank you . You have to do this very gently, just with tweezers.

 

 

On 11/28/2022 at 5:37 PM, AdrianMF said:

Nice work J-W! I didn’t realise Valentias were still flying at the start of WWII.

 

I wonder if the kit’s engines originated from the FROG Wallace?

 

Presumably you slipped some soft wire into the tubes before making any sharp bends?

 

Regards,

Adrian

Adrian, many thanks!  Valentia  is that much "special" if you compare it any other WW2 machines. Still, it was the RAF machine of first line during East African 1940 campaign against Italians and later it was an important transport machine during Habbaniya war in 1941 and in attack on Iran. (Perhaps you can compare it with a for instance Keystone bomber in Philppines army...)   From many years I was hunting for it.... It is particulary strange that the Pegasus engines were very modern engines. 

 

Indeed, the both engines and props from original set looks like a poor copies of Frog Wallace. 

 

I have not put any cable inside, simply it was nor needed.  I know also a trick with dry sand and secured both sides of a tube for bounding....

 

 

Today I made some rigging of engine gondolas:

 

 

Please note, that some cables are doubled

 

 

 

To be continued....

Regards

J-W

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Those are beautiful.  Great job so far!