On Heather's Workbench - Strike Hard, Strike Sure: RAF Bomber Command 1940

[Heather Kay]

I try to set goals when I’m having a session at the bench. Today's goal was to try and get as far as joining the fuselage halves. How did I do? Let’s see.

 

 

First, I set about modifying a control yoke from my Bits Box. Not having suitable plastic rod in stock, I tried stretching some sprue. Getting really thin stuff was dead easy. Regulating the stretch so I got slightly thicker material was not so easy. Anyway, from the discarded heap I found enough bits that would let me adapt the open yoke to the spoked version in the Hampden. It’s a bit lumpen, but once painted it looks okay. At least it’s a bit more to scale, compared to the ship's wheel in the kit!

 

 

Next, titivating a pair of Pegasuses (Pegasii?). You see that lovely fine moulding achieved for the cylinder cooling fins? Then why in the blue blazes can't they ever mould the flippin' push rods as well?  More stretched sprue, unmodified on the left. 
 

Next, engines into cowlings. The port and starboard cowling halves are numbered as 29 and 30. They are, however, different. This is shown by the blocks inside, which is where the bulkhead goes. The port and starboard cowlings are slightly different as the rear, where they will meet the nacelle in the wing, has a slight angle. Some care is needed to ensure the engraved detail outside aligns properly. Annoyingly, the engine and bulkhead must be installed before the halves meet, which means it’s not possible to paint the inside of the collector ring to nearly match the outside. Matt black it is, then.

 

 

It took me a couple of dry runs to figure out how to put these together. Ideally, it would have been possible to insert the engine and bulkhead through from the rear, but no such luck. Note must be taken if the engine's orientation in the cowling, with the little dongle whatsit vertically down - which also means the opposite cylinder is vertically up. Got that? Good. Can you try and remember it for me next time, thanks.

 

 

Not bad. Shame a lot of the engraved bits get a bit lost when cleaning the seams. If I’d designed this, the collector ring would be a single part glued on the front, which would allow the engine to be fitted from the front as well. But, I didn’t design this.

 

 

Another thing I’d redesign is the main undercarriage. Airfix had the same issue, getting that hoop behind the main wheel to fit. Why not mould it as a separate horseshoe shape, especially since it appears to be removed on some aircraft as far as I can see? I’ve resorted to UV CA to try and hold the parts and act as filler. I’ll fit the wheels a lot later, perhaps even fit the whole undercarriage after the painting is done. It ought to be possible to install it easily enough. Famous last words!

 

 

This is where I am. Most internals have been installed. Perhaps because the kit was to make the Swedish machine, the ventral pair of Vickers have no way to fit them. Also, like the upper pair, there is no allowance in the transparency. Things to think about. The side windows in the ventral position are a tiny bit smaller than the apertures. I’ve had to use canopy glue to fix them in place, so gawd knows how I’ll mask them!

 

I'll probably get some paint and mild weathering done inside before closing up. I’ll have to work out how to fit the lower guns as well. Off to ponder.

[Pete in Lincs]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

Off to ponder.

It'll stand no chance of beating you after a good ponder. 

[Brandy]

Much better!

I sometimes wonder whether kit designers actually build kits.....

 

Ian

[Heather Kay]

21 minutes ago, Brandy said:

I sometimes wonder whether kit designers actually build kits.....

I'm pretty sure the designers at Airfix do. I understand test runs are given to other team members to try and fit together as well.

 

30 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

It'll stand no chance of beating you after a good ponder. 

You really can’t beat a good ponder, I find.

[Heather Kay]

An update before I clear the bench for paying work. No piccies, though.

 

I’ve taped the fuselage together to get an idea of how the land lies, particularly regarding transparencies.
 

Earlier I suggested the upper nose glazing was a bit wide and the fuselage join might need shimming to match. Well, in fact, it seems the nose glazing is right. It just needs pinching in to match the fuselage width. That’s going to be a pain in the wotsit, but achievable.

 

At the back end, it’s a bit different. I’m sure there’s something amiss as far as the upper and lower gun compartments are concerned. Apart from the lack of gun mounting, alluded to earlier, there’s not much for the upper rear gunner/radio operator to stand on. There’s a tiny stool he can perch on, but I assume he would stand while popping a few .303s off at an attacking fighter. Currently, he'd fall through the missing floor into the ventral position, which would be suboptimal on many counts. I have a cutaway drawing which I will study further to see if it throws any light. 
 

There's also the matter of the missing bulkhead just ahead of the rear upper compartment. You shouldn’t be able to see straight through from the pilot's position to the tail.
 

The rear transparencies completely kybosh fitting any weapons at all. There should be slots for the barrels to sit in when the canopies are shut. Once I have measurements I can make the slots fairly easily. However, my brain cell is wondering if I can hack the clear parts about to represent them in the open position. That means I need to find out how the lower guns were rigged to a mounting. Another one to add to the ponder queue.

[Hamden]

 

Nice progress Heather, looking forward to the next instalment now

 

         Stay safe              Roger

[Keeff]

Nice progress so far Heather.  I do like the way you write your updates ... both interesting and entertaining! 

 

Keith 😁 

 

[Dave Swindell]

13 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

I’m sure there’s something amiss as far as the upper and lower gun compartments are concerned. Apart from the lack of gun mounting, alluded to earlier, there’s not much for the upper rear gunner/radio operator to stand on. There’s a tiny stool he can perch on, but I assume he would stand while popping a few .303s off at an attacking fighter. Currently, he'd fall through the missing floor into the ventral position, which would be suboptimal on many counts.

Hi Heather

There's only one compartment which has 2 gun positions. All there was in the way of a floor was the roof of the bomb bay, and the fuselage skin aft of the bomb bay. There were two steps, one on each side, up from the bomb bay roof and projecting aft of the rear bomb bay bulkhead for the gunner to step up onto when operating the upper gun, but if he slipped off them he would be straight down into the lower gun position seat.

 

View from the entrance hatch looking forward, rear bomb bay bulkhead with lower gunner backrest in the lower portion of the photo, the steps (with curved ends) left and right above this.

 

 

 

View aft from aroundthe Elsan position, the steps can be seen below the folded seat (stbd) and behind the door (port)

 

 

 

[Heather Kay]

Awesome! Thanks Dave. I shall have a think. It looks, in those photos, a spigot mount for either a single gun, or a pair of guns on a mounting bracket. All useful stuff.

[Heather Kay]

A bit of spare time rootling round the recesses of the interweb turned up some useful detail images. I now have a good idea of how the upper and lower rear guns were set up, how the rear bulkhead and door work, and far too much information about the navigator/bomb aimer's station at the sharp end.

 

Now all I need to do is work out just how much of any of it will be visible through scale four-inch-thick glazing!

[Samuraiwarrior]

Hi Heather,

Wow, I am really enjoying this one. I too have a Valom Hampden lurking in the loft and your build is certainly giving me an appetite to start mine.

I also love the way you describe what you do, what you need to do and find out how it worked in reality. Also the information that comes from fellow BM's is one of the reasons I love being a member of Britmodeller.

Keep up the build, I'll watch in awe and admiration.

Kevin 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Can you tell us how you chemically blackened the photo-etch?  I think the results are actually more convincing than applying paint in some instances and depending on the choice of subject.  Great work so far!

[Heather Kay]

13 minutes ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

Can you tell us how you chemically blackened the photo-etch?

It is Birchwood Casey Brass Black. Nasty stuff, handled with care. I’ve used it on brass and nickel silver model railway parts, some quite large. The most effective method is to dilute a couple of millilitres in tap water and let the parts steep in for a while. Everything needs to be clean and grease-free. I usually run over things with fine emery paper, an abrasive track rubber, or brass scratch brush/wire wheel. Dunked parts eventually acquire a nice sooty black finish, which then needs carefully wiping off when it’s dry to leave an effect not unlike aged steel. For model aircraft PE, I mechanically clean the fret (carefully using a nasty fibreglass scratch brush), then liberally apply the neat solution with an old paint brush. The metal goes black almost instantly, and after half a minute I dab the excess off with a paper towel and set the fret aside to dry properly.

 

As I say, I usually use it as a basic primer for small metal parts. The brief application I use is fairly easily abraded away to leave the bare metal again if I’m not careful. Paint protects it during further handling.

 

 

[Heather Kay]

Right, folks, where were we?

 

I had a good rummage through the dustier, cobwebbier, parts of the internet. This uncovered some useful internal shots, plus relatively clear images that showed the in-the-field modifications instigated by Harris that allowed a pair of Vickers guns to be mounted in both rear positions. That also led to some noggin scratching, as the supplied transparencies are, to coin a phrase, almost but not entirely unlike the real thing. More on that anon.

 

 

Realising I tend to go very much overboard on silly details at times, and I’m not the strongest swimmer at that, I decided to sketch out the internal proposals that would improve on the rather scant kit parts. I traced roughly round each fuselage half, and sketched in stuff. Excuse the poor handwriting. I can confirm that I have never attempted to become a doctor. It’s just several decades of keyboard use rather dulls the handwriting skills. Anyway, I’m sure you can sort of make out what I was aiming at. The references came from a variety of sources, some of which may or may not be pertinent to this build, so I’ve done a sort average of everything on the understanding most of it won’t really be visible with the glazing fitted. It’s definitely a case of "something is there" even if it’s not quite right.

 

 

Armed with a sketch map, I dived into the Bits Box for likely greeblies. In the event, I haven’t actually used any of this selection. Close inspection, by the way, will reveal a couple of upgrade sets for a TSR2. I know, but who doesn’t like a TSR2? I have one, and it’s been built. I’ve probably mentioned it somewhere before. Other likely parts came from a little pot of odd components, scavenged from defunct electronics and so on.

 

 

 

This is the scene before the decorators arrived to slosh some paint about. It means you see how I bodged things together from all sorts of plastic and metal.

 

Some kind soul had taken some decent shots inside the front of the Hampden being restored for the RAF Museum, which allowed me to add a rough representation of the bracing that supported the pilot's section. I’ve also added a floor for the navigator. He also gets a table. What I can’t pin down is the bomb sight arrangement in the glazed nose. I have decided, if nothing turns up, to simply pretend it’s not been installed yet and is being fettled by an Erk on a bench somewhere off scene. There are two instrument and switch panels which live above the side windows in the nose, and they’ll go in later.

 

 

I tried to lavish a bit of time on the rear compartments. Václav, bless him, had rather taken the easy route here, and assumed there would be nothing much seen through the transparencies. However, fitting weaponry means the clear parts won’t be able to hide anything - and the ventral position will need quite some adjustment anyway. So, I’ve made the bulkhead, and installed a representation of the floor that isn’t totally flat, and added some small detail to the whole area. The plan is to cut the upper transparency clamshell so it’s in the rolled back position. That will allow both machine guns to be fitted. Underneath, some major surgery will be required to the transparency. I think I’ll talk about that when I get to it, because I’m still working some of it out.

 

Painting restored inside on all the new stuff, it was time. As I like to do, I tried to get the top seam as neat as possible. Working along a bit at a time, liquid cement was brushed into the seam, then it was left for a bit. When I was happy it was set enough, I repeated the process for the underside.

 

Thankfully, only a small amount of scraping and sanding was needed to get to this point. I’ll probably slap a witness coat of paint on and see how it looks.

 

The navigator's picnic bench was fitted. The real one appears to slide back and forth, and could be unshipped and stowed out of the way when it was time to identify the target for real. I mentioned the bomb sight apparatus earlier. If I do fit it, it will be inside the nose glazing rather than attached to the fuselage.

 

So, a lot of fiddle and faff for a couple of days' work, but I’m quite pleased with the end result. Having something in the right sort of places behind glazing will make quite a difference.

 

While I’ve been doing all that, I’ve also begun mental prep for the next builds in this collection. I’ve been considering the Stirling particularly. Eduard produced PE detail sets for the Italeri kit, and I’m of a mind to acquire at least the cockpit set for my Airfix kit. I noticed the full set of three detail sets were available, but I doubt much of the exterior stuff will fit the old kit. What does the BM Hive Mind think? Worth the risk or not?

 

 

[dogsbody]

I don't know if you have seen these or if they would be of any help to figuring out the bomb-aimer's position, but here they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Heather Kay]

That third one I hadn’t seen. That’s very helpful. Thanks again, Chris!

 

I'm still of a mind to not try and make a sight. I will attempt the support frames for the optical panel, though. They are quite obvious.

[Heather Kay]

Mind made up. I’m not adding the bomb sight, or the machine gun, to the nose. That avoids a world of pain having to make various brackets and supports that hold all that gubbins in the nose. 
 

Now to the part that has been worrying me: fitting transparencies.

 

 

The cockpit glazing has three parts. I spent a good while fettling the side windows before committing to cement. Then I left it alone so it all set nicely. It needed some more fettling to get something approaching a good fit, but there are still some gaps. I’ll fill those with canopy glue. I decided the easiest route for the nose greenhouse was to fit the lower section first. As you can see, I’ve co-opted some thin microrod to act as the optical panel supports. Pleased with those. You can also - just - make out some dark patches inside the upper part, which are random PE strips that sort of look about right for the various switch panels above the side cheek windows.

 

 

The plan for the rear gun position transparencies is for surgery. The upper one will be trimmed back so it sits in the open position. The lower one needs more drastic and potentially catastrophic hacking about. It seems the lower position was open to the elements once modifications were made to fit the twin gun mount. This might seem odd, but remember it was only a few years before that aircraft like the Heyford were in front line service, and that had open cockpits. While uncomfortable, I don’t suppose it was thought an odd situation in 1940. Cutting must remain for my mojo to pull together some guts to tackle it.

 

 

This rather unhappily shows the chief issue with the nose glazing. The moulded part has perhaps spread slightly before cooling after the mould process. To fit neatly, it needs gently squeezing and to be held while cement sets. I can already see some tiny stress fractures beginning to appear. I have glued the front where it meets the lower section, and I’m leaving it alone to set nice and solid before I try to persuade the rear into position. If it cracks, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I haven’t looked, but I assume there is a Falcon vac set that covers the old Airfix Hampden, so that’s a potential way out if it all goes south. You’ll also note a slight mismatch on the cockpit glazing. This I’m not too worried about, because the real thing slid back over the fuselage. I think I can get away with that.

 

So, all to play for, yet much to go wrong. I’ll probably muck about with this stuff on and off over the coming days. Wish me luck!

[Heather Kay]

In the cold, damp, light of morning…

 

 

That wasn’t so bad. A little further careful filing to refine things. The upper bit will need slots where it closed over the gun barrels. I can’t work those out until I’ve made up the gun fittings themselves.

 

 

Meanwhile, I’m going to take this as a win. It’s not quite right, but it’ll do. Any further fiddling about might cause damage. There is a Falcon vac set for the Airfix Hampden, but it rather looks like I won’t need to acquire it.

 

T'other side ain’t quite so pretty. Either some thin black styrene sheet can be glued in, or I’ll fill it with PVA. All in all, then, things turned out marginally adequate. I’ll take that.

 

While the old noggin considers making up mountings for the various pea shooters round the nether regions, attention will turn to wings and tail.

[Zephyr91]

Great write-up as usual Heather.   Loving the subject.

 

How did you do the cross cut on the lower transparency?  I've been hacking a Defiant turret glazing and found that bit the hardest to do neatly. 

 

Cheers

 

Rob

[Heather Kay]

39 minutes ago, Zephyr91 said:

How did you do the cross cut on the lower transparency?

I was wondering that, too!
 

Only kidding. I used the saw to cut down to the frame line, then used a sharp scalpel blade to score across a couple of times. The saw cuts acted as stops to prevent the blade slipping where I didn’t want it. I scored in a couple of places across the section I wanted to remove so I wasn’t attempting to snap out too much at once. A small pair of flat nose pliers was used to snap where the score went, finishing up with a fine file to tidy up.

[Zephyr91]

3 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

I was wondering that, too!
 

Only kidding. I used the saw to cut down to the frame line, then used a sharp scalpel blade to score across a couple of times. The saw cuts acted as stops to prevent the blade slipping where I didn’t want it. I scored in a couple of places across the section I wanted to remove so I wasn’t attempting to snap out too much at once. A small pair of flat nose pliers was used to snap where the score went, finishing up with a fine file to tidy up.

Thanks for your time on that.  Useful tip for we tyros. 

 

cheers

 

Rob

[AdrianMF]

Super progress on this! I must say I'm struggling to see how the Valom kit is significantly better than the Airfix one...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Heather Kay]

37 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

I'm struggling to see how the Valom kit is significantly better than the Airfix one...

I can understand that. The Airfix kit isn’t at all bad, if suffering from the Demon Rivetter of Old Haldane Place, and flash and mismoulding in its more recent iterations. The transparencies are pretty bad, too, but can be replaced with vac form. 
 

 

Forgive the rubbish markings. I’m not sure what the manufacturers of them were thinking, because it doesn’t seem right for any period up to the end of 1940! Anyway, this was my effort at updating the Airfix Hampden. Replacement engines would have helped, finer Vickers GOs and a better paint job all round, too. 

 

[Heather Kay]

I bought this.

 

 

The best twenty quid I’ve spent in a good while. It has, I have to admit, encouraged me to move the Airfix Stirling up the build order a bit. I need to dig further in the box, but I reckon it’s going to be something of an adventure making it into one of the first Series 1 Stirlings - and the prospect is exciting! Moreover, the book has cleared my thought about whether to acquire the full Eduard PE detailing kit. Though it’s intended for the Italeri kit, I reckon a good proportion of the bits and pieces will be usable on the Airfix kit. In the same way I bought the Flightpath detailing set, intended for the Airfix Anson, and used some of it to slightly improve the Special Hobby Annie, I reckon it’ll be worth the risk.

 

There is no further Hampden update at this stage. Real life and work are getting in the way.

 

[Lord Riot]

I’ve only just seen this, what a brilliant project. I love these sets where models complement each other, it’ll be a fine looking collection when finished. I’ve sometimes wondered about getting similar kits, but display space is becoming an issue with 30-odd 1/48 jets and some big 1/72 ones so it may need to wait til we move in a few years!
 

That detail in that Hampden is looking amazing!