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

[Heather Kay]

I bought some more P.38. It worked properly, which proves to me the tubs have a shelf life and the old one was past it.

 

I can make progress again. 

[Gondor44]

3 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

I have to admit I’m leaning towards this solution. The problem I’m likely to encounter is keeping the mixture in place on a compound curved surface. Still, worth a try.

 

Araldite can be very slightly runny if warm or fresh, the longer it has before you apply it to any surface where it could sag the better. Another possible solution is the plank the area you want to fill with plastic card and carve/file/sand away to your harts content.

 

Gondor

[Heather Kay]

58 minutes ago, Gondor44 said:

Araldite can be very slightly runny if warm or fresh, the longer it has before you apply it to any surface where it could sag the better. Another possible solution is the plank the area you want to fill with plastic card and carve/file/sand away to your harts content.

 

I'm impatient. I was planning on using 5-minute epoxy, and I usually panic when I do, hoping to get it applied where it's needed before it goes off!

 

As it's turned out, the new tub of Isopon is working as it should. 

[Gondor44]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

 

I'm impatient. I was planning on using 5-minute epoxy, and I usually panic when I do, hoping to get it applied where it's needed before it goes off!

 

As it's turned out, the new tub of Isopon is working as it should. 

 

Glad the new tub is working as intended. Far better for the areas you want to cover than Alaldite.

 

Gondor

[woody37]

Hi Heather,

 

sorry, I've just caught up with this. I didn't have to do any filling to get the wing levelled with the inner wings. I've just looked back on my photo's to see what I did, but they don't show me, however I think I created some spars that may have forced the wings to match the inner section profile. Is it beyond pulling the wings apart to try this?

 

Neil

[Heather Kay]

24 minutes ago, woody37 said:

Is it beyond pulling the wings apart to try this?

I'm afraid it is. The resin is actually quite hard, so I don’t think it would have responded to attempting to widen it like that.

 

The problems have been caused by the castings being slightly misshapen. They are quite chunky lumps, and I wonder if the moulds were a little distorted somehow during production. It is what it is, and I hope the worst won’t really be all that noticeable once the model's finished.

[Heather Kay]

Happy with the filled gaps, I did some further tidying before carefully scribing the panel lines. The conversion kit is designed to match the Airfix kit, so the panels don’t necessarily match with published plans of the Manchester. So be it.

 

Time to fiddle with filling flap gaps.
 

The resin flaps are nicely moulded. They don’t really fit properly closed. Even allowing for the extra thickness I’ve created in building up the outer wing "roots", the fit isn’t stellar.

 

The fit is not even, um, even on either side. Mmm, more gaps!
 

As I’m fitting the things closed, especially since I didn’t have the original kit flaps open either, it’s a fairly simple job to scratch new flaps from sheet styrene. I did actually measure the apertures to get the things as near as I could to the correct size. It doesn’t look it here, but this replacement part does actually fit neatly. A little packing is required inboard underneath the flap to give it the right level with the wing surface. I hope to glue the new parts in, and then do some careful sanding to thin the trailing edges.

 

During the earlier fill-and-sanding operations, I managed to damage the leading edge oil cooler intakes on both wings. Once I’ve finished faffing about I shall effect some repairs, probably with UV resin.

 

Progress is slow, and will slow a bit more as I’ve got paying work to get on with for the rest of the week.

[woody37]

That's disappointing on the wing thickness Heather, sounds like an inconsistency in the moulding as mine were very good. Great save though, that's looking the part now. 

 

If you struggle with the cooler intakes, drilling holes out and inserting some plasticard tubing could work, I did that on my 48th build:

 

 

After painting

 

 

[Heather Kay]

My wings are missing the cooler vent flaps. I’m not going to even attempt to make them. I might have done on a plastic wing, but not on the resin.

[AdrianMF]

Good news about the Isopon. It's my favourite filler nowadays. I chucked my last one out after four or five years and bought a new smaller one, so it does seem to have a shelf life - I guess we need more supermarket car park incidents to use it all up.
 

Glad to see this back on the go and that you have your mojo back!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[MOK61]

20 minutes ago, AdrianMF said:

Good news about the Isopon. It's my favourite filler nowadays. I chucked my last one out after four or five years and bought a new smaller one, so it does seem to have a shelf life - I guess we need more supermarket car park incidents to use it all up.

 

Be careful what you wish for, Adrian!   😁

[Heather Kay]

A mild dose of Manc mangling.

 

The poor old Vultures were not the best effort from Rolls-Royce. The design - essentially a pair of developed Kestrels glued together round a common crankshaft - promised much, but suffered overheating, excessive oil leaks, and those crankshafts were unable to cope all that well. Given sufficient time and resources, the general thinking is RR could have made the new engine work well, but what with a war on and the company concentrating on pumping out Merlins as quickly as they could, the Vulture was killed off eventually. Ironically, the Merlin line was being developed quickly enough it was almost matching the power output that had been expected from the Vulture.

 

 

Happy with the general mess under the wings, it is time to build up the engine nacelles with the aim of getting them attached. Then I can work on the final filling and fettling of wings and power eggs in one piece.
 

Because the Vulture had so many operational problems, all sorts of attempts were made in the field to get the things to run successfully for more than a few minutes. Variations in cooling intakes and vents, different exhaust layouts, they tried all sorts. Consequently, needing to pick a specific aircraft at a specific time in order to model that exact day's layout of bits and bobs means most models end up with a sort of generic form. I’m okay with that.

 

The mouldings in the conversion kit include the early exhaust layout, which is fine. It also had four small intakes on each side, which isn’t fine. The two rearmost ones should point backwards. The photo shows before and after. Carefully shaving the errant bumps off, and referring to drawings and photos, I made sort of the right shapes from plastic rod cut at an angle. For the plane I’m modelling, there should be a pair of slim crescent-shaped holes just to the rear of the new vents. I had a look at if they were feasible, and decided they weren’t. My view at present is there are so many compromises going on - such as panel lines on the nacelles being not quite the right size and throwing off my measurements - with this build I may as well just ignore them.

 

The next phase will be adding the carburettor intakes, big radiator scoops, and the exhausts. Once they’ve been filled and fettled, I can try and fix the nacelles to the wings.

 

You never know, it might be all over by Christmas! 

[Brandy]

Nice to see this one back, Heather. Looking good!

 

Ian

[TheyJammedKenny!]

2 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

it might be all over by Christmas!

It seems Goering and his boys believed this in 1940.  Great going!  How did you achieve such scientifically uniform scribed lines?  They look excellent.

[Heather Kay]

50 minutes ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

How did you achieve such scientifically uniform scribed lines?  They look excellent.

Ta. I use a generic skrawker (which is branded Trumpeter in my example). Against a steel straight edge, gently drawing along with light pressure. 
 

 

 

[Heather Kay]

 

Well, that’s the main nacelle details done. There’s a deal of gap filling to do before I attempt to attach them to the wings. I think that’s a job for tomorrow, with fresh eyes.

[Gondor44]

3 hours ago, Heather Kay said:

You never know, it might be all over by Christmas! 

 

 

I see that you carefully declined to say which Christmas 😁

[Galligraphics]

1 hour ago, Heather Kay said:

 

Well, that’s the main nacelle details done.

You were right - that's a LOT of intakes/outlets...

[Heather Kay]

Why? Why does it always happen to me?

 

 

A new pack of Araldite Rapid. Well, only used once so far, and the cap on the hardener tube is stuck fast. I can only guess I managed to get a smear of the resin on the end of the tube last time. Bah! Nothing for it but to punch a hole (arrowed). I wonder if I can wrap the whole thing in tape so I can use it again? If not, I suppose it’s yet more landfill.

 

Me and two-part concoctions, eh?

 

 

With a couple of quid in the swear box, I’ve now sort of attached the nacelles to the rest of the plane. Now we're getting somewhere. I’ll need to do a bit of jiggery-pokery around the undercarriage bay areas, as the resin nacelles are a tiny bit narrower than the Airfix moulding. Once I’m happy, and everything is fettled, I can begin to think about the undercarriage.

 

It does feel oddly satisfying to finally get this far. The thing is looking like a Manchester now.

 

 

 

 

[Billos]

27 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

and the cap on the hardener tube is stuck fast. I c

A bit late now, but in future you can use pure acetone which will melt it sufficiently to unscrew it. Dip the tube cap side down in a container of acetone, leave it for as long as you can. Might take several goes.

[Dave Swindell]

1 hour ago, Billos said:

A bit late now, but in future you can use pure acetone which will melt it sufficiently to unscrew it. Dip the tube cap side down in a container of acetone, leave it for as long as you can. Might take several goes.

Hot water can also work, the heat softens the resin enought to unscrew the cap.

[Heather Kay]

Thankfully the epoxy set properly.

 

 

 

And after some careful filling and finishing, this is where I am. You know, I’m not sure why I haven’t installed the centre fin yet. Perhaps that’s the last thing I’ll do for this session.

 

 

[Heather Kay]

I did the fin thing. It’s even straight and vertical!

 

 

 

[stevehnz]

Looking very nicely Manchestery Heather, they weren't a bad looking aircraft at all.

Steve.

[Heather Kay]

3 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

Looking very nicely Manchestery Heather, they weren't a bad look aircraft at all.

Steve.

Thank you Steve! I was commenting to Best Beloved earlier how some aircraft appear to be dumpy or out of proportion. The Stirling appears to have an immensely long fuselage, yet the wing span is greater than the length. The Manchester, despite having an identical fuselage to the Lancaster, appears to be shorter and squat. That’s probably due to the large engine nacelles and shorter span, I guess.