1/48 Trumpeter Vickers Wellington IC

[Stephen Allen]

I have just finished a small Admiralty Steam Drifter (completed photos to follow), so its back to the RAF, and another stalwart from the early war period. I could build yet another Beaufighter, but the Wellington attracts as a good subject, with a kit in 1/48 that needs a tiny bit of work. The kit is, of course, Trumpeter’s 1/48 scale Wellington IC, first released in about 2006, and my chief reference, apart from what I will be able to find online, is the the very nice 4 plus monograph on the Wellington. I don’t promise a fast result with this build, as there are a number of things about the kit which need to be sorted out, and I will have some other things on the go while it is being built. But there is space on the workbench right at the moment, so I will try to get the difficult bits done before other projects intrude.

 

[Stephen Allen]

My first step was to do a bit of a comparison between the kit’s main components and the plans included with the 4 Plus monograph. The kit parts match the plans so closely that I would surmise that the plans were a reference for the kit. The layout of the geodetic detail on the wings and tail surfaces is also an exact match for the plans, right down to where additional wrinkles or strain points are shown. I can’t speak for how accurate the plans are, though, which is a big caveat.
 

 

The kit has attracted its fair share of criticism. The surface detail of the geodetic structure is highly exaggerated. Most photos show the wings to be very taut and featureless as you would expect. There is one photo in the 4 Plus book which shows the underlying structure very clearly, but in that photo the fabric is billowing out due to low pressure above the wing, not sagging in. I think a small degree of quilting will be acceptable, like the very nice Airfix 1/72 kit.
 

The undercarriage and wheels have also been criticised as being too narrow. I did a rough comparison against the 4 plus plans, and found that the undercart main legs are about 2.5mm closer together than the plan shows. Oddly, Trumpeter’s rubber wheel looks to be only a mm or so too narrow when compared to the plan. The overall nacelle width itself is a good match to the plans, but the problem starts, I think, with a wheelbay gap for the undercarriage to retract into which is slightly too small, which is then compounded by the internal structure of the wheel bay further restricting the available width. In a sense, the further inside the plane you go, the more that small dimensional errors have crept in.

 

 

 

 

There are other bits and bobs that will need thinking about, such as whether the chosen airframe will need internal changes to single pilot configuration. I understand also that there is some discussion about the depiction of the cockpit canopy - the ‘hole’ in the kit for the glass seems about the right size, so perhaps this is more about the depiction of framing/thickness of the kit piece? I have a vacuform replacement for this.
 

Anyway, the ‘to do’ list at the moment consists of doing something about the surface detail, and seeking to correct the undercarriage appearance. The former seems more  a case of ‘Levelling Up’ (to borrow a contemporary UK phrase), than sanding down. I think the best solution for the narrow undercart is to scratch up the legs to the correct proportions and ever so slightly widen the wheels and tyres, then adapt or rebuild the internal fitments to suit. Clearly I won’t be doing the latter with the kit rubber tyres, but I do have the Brengun resin replacements, which might work if carefully sliced and shimmed out. Anyway, on with the show!

 

cheers

 

Steve

 

[Stephen Allen]

The more I look at the way that Trumpeter has executed the surface detail for the Geodetic structure, the more I am convinced that they followed the 4 Plus plans. The geodetic quilting by itself is exaggerated, but it is made more so by the depiction of the dividing strips which show reinforcements or walkways within the structure of the wing. My plan is to reduce the contrast between the high points and low points by using a primer filler, Mr Surfacer 500. Mr Surfacer is easily removed using Mr Color Leveling Thinner without effect on the plastic, so I can go back to square one if I stuff up.

 

this method will build up both the low points and the high points, so the latter will need to be gently reduced to their original height by wet sanding back until they show through. I had thought of just rubbing it back with the above mentioned thinner and cotton buds, but a quick experiment showed that while this method works well for joints, it is not very controllable when used over a large surface. Sanding might lose some of the inspection panel etc detail, but I can always sharpen this up later..

 

Step one was to mask off the areas to be filled in, so I don’t indiscriminately drown the model in primer. Along the edges I have stepped the masking tape back slightly from each defined edge, to give a little overfill for blending during the sanding process.

 

After this, the next step is just a case of spraying a large number of coats of Mr Surfacer. Let dry, repeat.

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looking forward to watching this one develope, like hhe approach to removing some of the depth to the quilting.

 

Rob Taurus do a nice vacform replacement canopy, they also do a set for all the glazing, but I have not been able to get hold of one.

 

Really keen to see how the undercarriage turns out as that has been one of the main reasons I have not tackled mine yet.

Although I bought mine from a boot fair as a rescue project with it being started, quite badly,  I have stripped it down as far as I dare and have been looking occasionally at it before putting it back in the stash 🙄

 

Great start

Chris

 

 

[Stephen Allen]

Thanks Chris

 

We’ll see fairly soon if the approach to reducing the surface effects works! If not, back to the angle grinder that was recommended by one modeler😂

 

I have the Rob Taurus canopy, and a few other bits and pieces - brass gun barrels so I can fit them right at the end as most build reviews suggest they are prone to breaking anyway. Its an amazingly well-detailed kit in so many ways - the engines are marvellous- so its a pity that the overly literal interpretation of the surface detail puts so many off. If only the design team had seen a real one rather than just relying on plans!

 

 My kit has plastic undercarriage, while I understand earlier releases had white metal. At present I am thinking that I will build the new main legs out of brass and Aluminium micro tubing, and see if I can adapt the kit supplied supporting struts to the new, more widely spaced main legs. To use a ship-modeling analogy, they are a bit like building a short lattice mast or superstructure deck support, so when I get to that stage I will build some simple jigs/fixtures to keep everything aligned. That will happen quite early in the build as the new undercarriage bays, and possibly the legs also, will have to be installed before the wings are glued together.

 

Steve

 

[bigbadbadge]

Agreed the detail is fantastic, the engines are lovely,  unfortunately the previous owner of mine assembled them and I will have to see what I can do, or whether to replace ?

Mine has the white metal undercarriage legs.  With this I suppose if would be suitable to cut the middle cross sections and add the longer replacements into holes drilled into each leg from brass Rod perhaps, will see.

I imagine your approach to the quilting should work out quite well and look suitably restrained.

Chris

 

[woody37]

Looking forwards to this, great guide so far

 

[Stephen Allen]

Many coats of Mr Surfacer later. I sprayed three very thick coats, then switched to the hairy stick, to layer on another three coats. The spray can version of the 500 grade was clearly going to take a very, very long time to make the kind of difference I was looking for, so I switched to the brush. I used a largish flat brush, about 3/4 inch, and slapped it on and spread it quickly - this stuff starts to go off quite quickly, so its essential to keep a wet edge as you brush and only go go back once to settle as many bubbles as you can. When you remove the masking tape some of the edges, especially around the nacelles, get lifted up a bit, but its easy to melt them back down again with a small brush dipped in Levelling Thinner. The ability to reactivate the surfacer and reshape it/remove it, is key.  I’ll do more work to fair these edges in and restore detail once the main sanding is completed. In the last photo you can see just how thick the surfacer becomes at the edges. Overall I have used an entire spray can of Mr Surfacer, and about three quarters of a bottle!

 

At the moment I can see that while the contrasts are much more muted than with the bare plastic, they are still quite prominent as the raised bits have also been built up. The next step is to sand back the highest points to reduce that contrast, especially along the prominent reinforcing strips.
 

For now I am leaving it to dry very thoroughly before doing anything else. I’ll spend some time making up some sanding sticks to suit the surfaces and think about the plan of attack. The bits to be sanded will need to be firmly braced from the other side to make sure the reduction happens in the right places.

 

 

 

 

 

[elger]

What a great project. Following with interest. On a Czech forum there's another Wellington build going on, by someone who's taking a similar epic approach: https://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=146719&sid=cdaff7513f47a3d0994bd2b8ef61c27f

[Stephen Allen]

He is doing a beautiful job. Being ahead of me, I can borrow his techniques!😀

[Stephen Allen]

While I wait for the Mr Surfacer to set hard, time to think about how to adapt the undercarriage bays to a wider undercarriage. The current internal bay parts are not wide enough for a properly scaled undercart, but there is plenty of room in the nacelles at each side to push the walls of the bay further apart. My current thinking is along the lines of laminating plastic sheet to the outside of the bay walls, drilling through for the attachment points, then cutting away most of the original bay walls to leave a wider space for the new undercarriage legs. This will let me use the kit parts to set the correct geometry for the cart. I will ditch the photo etched bay sides and see what I can build up to make a plausible interior.


 

 

[corsaircorp]

Great job going on here !!

That will inspire me since I have that same kit in the stash...

May I take a seat and learn ??

Sincerely.

CC

[Stephen Allen]

You are most welcome. It will be a steep learning curve for me too!

 

Steve

[iang]

I've had one of these in the stash for a long time, but have been put off by the exaggerated surface detail. I'm keen to see how your approach works. At the moment it seems to be working very well.

[bigbadbadge]

Looking forward to seeing how the undercarriage bay mods come out and I like your idea for them .

Chris

[Stephen Allen]

I certainly hope it works out - as long as I keep the locating tabs from the original pieces and enough to form connecting struts over the wheelbay I think it should work. I am also now contemplating with dread the thought of sawing the resin wheels into exact halves and shimming them out, and wondered if there was an easier way, for example, wider wheels/tyres that could be substituted from another aircraft, such as the Lancaster. Anybody out there know how different Lanc wheels and tyres were from the Wellingtons? 
 

Steve

[Stephen Allen]

With the surfacer dried through its time to sand. I used 400 then 600 grade self adhesive wet and dry stuck to a couple of plastic sanding sticks. I used lots of water and wiped the slurry away frequently so I could see what was coming off and where. I concentrated on sanding back the over- prominent main spar and the reinforcing strakes and went more gently elsewhere. I finished off with an overall rub over with a foam 600 grade stick to blend the edges in. Around the nacelles I used cotton buds dipped in Mr Levelling Thinner to clean up the edge. From the photos you can see how much you need to take off the spar and the other syrakes to bring them back to the surrounding level. The spar and the strakes are all in exactly the right places according to the 4 plus plans, but the kit designers obviously didn’t realise that they were flush with the surface and covered with fabric. Good intentions gone wrong. Ditto for the way the geodetic areas were sunken in from the leading and trailing edges. They are now flush.

 

I have cleaned all the parts up and tomorrow I plan to do an overall gentle coat of fine primer to ‘see what it looks like’, and whether and where I should go further or leave the muted geodetic effect as is. 

 

 

[Stephen Allen]

In the spirit of doing the hard bits first, I decided to have a go at splitting the wheels and widening them. I have the Brengun resin replacement wheels and tyres and while the detail is excellent, they are even narrower than the kit’s rubber tyres and plastic rims. To try and keep the cuts through the wheels rigidly supported and as vertical and straight as possible I decided to build a combined mitre board and fixture around the chosen saw, and the resin wheels. This way I could keep the saw as straight and vertical as possible while making the cut, and keep the wheels from wandering around. You can see the wheels in the centre, and the very fine slits in each end to guide the saw. With some parts of the fixture bridging the saw cuts to stop the wheels rolling, and glued into place, its a once only effort.

 

 

and here is the finished result.

 

 

after that, its simply a case of drilling through the axles and some corresponding pieces of plastic sheet - a 1.75 mm thickness seemed about right- then gluing the pieces together, using the drill bit as a centring guide.

Nothing comes out perfectly when you are cutting and gluing (curse you Heisenberg!), so after a rough trimming I sat both of the assemblies on a bed of putty, joined together by said drill bit, to ensure both would sit level and at the same height. The putty will be sanded down to blend with the bulged part of the tyre.

 

[mark.au]

Some great restorative/corrective work going on here, and very well executed too.  

I also had one of these in the stash but sold it when I couldn’t think of a way to solve the exaggerated surface details.  I wish I’d kept it now…

[Stephen Allen]

I know how you feel. I have had this in the stash for a while, took it out from time to time to look and think then put it away again and started something else.  But the Wimpey is an essential part of the RAF’s early war story, and its not as if someone else is going to do one in this scale anytime soon (but please, Airfix, could you get on with a Hampden in 1/48 in my lifetime?)😁

 

 

 

[Stephen Allen]

Another step towards reconstructing the undercarriage to the correct, wider, stance. Three different diameters of Albion Alloys telescopic tubing were matched to the three main diameters needed for the new stanchions

 

. They are cut to ensure the maximum of overlap to keep the legs as rigid as possible. With thin wall tubing it can be roll cut using a razor blade, which gives a neater finish than a micro saw and does less damage to the mitre block.

 

I will be cutting off and reusing the axle mounts and the upper section of each leg, each inside a section of the tubing.

 

 

Another homemade fixture helps accurate placement of the small holes needed to attach new, wider, cross supports to the stanchions.

 

 

First set of holes completed. Working with thin wall tubing is easy, you just have to be careful not to press too hard and work slowly to avoid collapsing the tube. I am trying to be as accurate in the work as I can, knowing that small differences can be accommodated when I set up a fixture to assemble the legs.

 

[Stephen Allen]

Just one photo today. I have attached the plastic axles to the oleo sliders and glued the different parts of the legs together. I used a small fixture to ensure that the legs would be aligned and all come out the same length. I used a bit of rod through the holes near the top of the legs, and aluminium tube through the axles to keep everything aligned - if the tube slides easily through the axle holes then the legs are properly aligned and not twisted.  Small dabs of glue on the sliders then the assembly is quickly forced together against the fixture to square up the bottom.  This isn’t the finished width of the undercarriage, I will set that next with a different fixture. Trying to keep everything symmetrical so that it won’t end up as a Wonky Wimpey!

 

[bigbadbadge]

Great work on the undercarriage legs  and wheels.  The surface texture looks good too, great work.

Chris

[Stephen Allen]

Tonight’s progress, setting the width of the undercarriage Oleo legs. The outermost edges of the widest parts of the stanchions have to be 14mm apart. If you have this kit and look at the kit undercart you will see just how much wider a stance this gives the undercarriage. Two plastic strips have been set at this distance and glued down on a base, forming an open ended box to align the legs at the correct distance and parallel. Another piece helps to esnure that the axle end remain square as well.  As with the axle bearers, I have re-used the plastic top sections of the oleos, spacing them out with a brass tube slid over the original rods. They seem to want to cant at a slight angle with a tightly fitted tube, so I used a larger diameter tube for a loose rather than tight fit so they won’t try and distort after the glue dries. The second, smaller brass tube is pinned into the legs with a piece of brass rod. This goes through each leg and into the plastic kit section which is glued into the top of the oleo, so it should be a fairly strong joint. 15 minute epoxy for all of these joints, to give me enough time to align everything properly, and I will leave it all to set overnight then do the second set.

 

[David H]

I've been following with interest your efforts at leveling the disparity between the geodetic framework and the fabric.

 

With regard to sanding tools, it seems you are using much of the same stuff i would. I know you mentioned sanding sticks, but have you tried any of the Tamiya sanding sponges? Also, if you can find them God Hand (i think) makes these little square foamy "bricks" in 600, 800 and 1000 grit. They're small and easy to manage but a bit more rigid than the Tamiya sanding sponges yet not as rigid as the sanding sticks.

 

Its a little hard to tell in the photos, but i take it youre sanding down things until the framework wears through, and then sort of stopping?

 

Just some food for thought.

 

-d-