BOAC Lodestar

[Vingtor]

A good choice!

[modelling minion]

What a neat touch, I love it!

[81-er]

Very nice work there with the windows and the curtains

 

James

[TheyJammedKenny!]

I closed up the fuselage with some effort around the nose.  Try as I might, I couldn't figure out what the conflict was, but the fit is so-so.  Nonetheless, the crew is situated and everything will be left to set for a couple days before I sand the seams and re-scribe the panel lines.  Tape protects the windows against grubby, glue saturated fingers.  To guard against dust entering the cabin, I sealed the bulkhead between the cockpit and cabin with PVA.  Nonetheless, there are specks of dust here and there, which I'll attempt to remove with static electricity.  I'm leaving off the cockpit transparency for now to keep it clean.

 

 

 

 

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Here are the engine cowls and engines, the latter trimmed to fit so they can be inserted from the rear of the cowlings.  My plan is to use the engines to hold the cowlings in place, with the engines attached to the wing nacelles using a length of 7/16" diameter tube cut to length.  That'll be part of post-painting final assembly.  I'm hoping things move more swiftly at this point.

 

The 1/2" diameter tube wrapped in 400 grit sandpaper is my tool for getting the cowling faces to form a near-perfect circle.  It can also help to sand the inner seams on the rear of the cowling.  I've used this technique on several projects, and it's always worked well.

 

 

[rob Lyttle]

Kenny, you've done a great job with with this not-so-easy kit so far,but I wish I'd found it earlier to chip in. I got a bit obsessed with the Lockheed Twins and searched long and hard for insights into the Lodestar and Ventura wings and flaps situation. So, too late I'm afraid, I'm going to disagree with @Vingtor.

My judgement is that while other kit manufacturers have done it wrong, Special Hobby have the dogleg extension precisely right.  Let me show you this...

The extension is a flat plate fastened to the runners and nothing more. The flap is parallel front and back, it's the Hudson/L14 flap and wing.

The L14 suffered buffeting on the tailplanes from prop wash and Lockheed's solution for the L18 Lodestar and Ventura was to raise the tailplanes 12" and fit these plates to basically protect the tail by pushing the airflow away. 

The few existing airframes are no real help as various wings have been substituted from, say, Howard 500s etc. 

I had suspicion from looking at many various photos, but that photo is the clincher for me. 

I do mine this way, 

So I say, Special Hobby have it right (and have taken quite a lot of flak for it over the years. 

[modelling minion]

Neat job on closing the fuselage and very good progress in general, nice idea for sanding the cowlings. 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

1 hour ago, rob Lyttle said:

My judgement is that while other kit manufacturers have done it wrong, Special Hobby have the dogleg extension precisely right.  Let me show you this...

Thanks!  That's a great photograph and definitely answers so many questions!  At this point, I'm not going to attempt to curve the trailing edge downward, but I will keep it thin.

[Vingtor]

12 hours ago, rob Lyttle said:

So, too late I'm afraid, I'm going to disagree with @Vingtor.

 

You might be correct. There is a Lodestar at a nearby museum. I can check on my next visit.

[rob Lyttle]

5 hours ago, Vingtor said:

I can check on my next visit.

I'm always glad of more information on this, but beware of retro-fit wings and parts. There's so few airframes left and various alternatives can be sourced from Lockheed Twins 👍 Loads were adapted and modified into business and executive planes after WW2 and other wingplans designed. This is probably where most spare parts are sourced. I know Howard and Lear were both upgrading PV1 Venturas. 

The aircraft in the BM Walk-around section is a prime example of a "messed-around" Lodestar. 

But let's see how Kenny gets on with the build 😀

[Vingtor]

Two photos from the Air Britain book on The Lockheed Twins, supporting @rob Lyttle :

 

 

[rob Lyttle]

I meant to mention, Kenny, total admiration for the way you did those windows. That's a perfect finish and flush with the fuselage surface 👌 What glue is used there?

I'm back on poly cement and cocktail sticks, after a number of fails with the Micro Kristel Kleer white stuff and other trials. All the extra work you do must test the fixture to the limit. 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

3 minutes ago, rob Lyttle said:

I meant to mention, Kenny, total admiration for the way you did those windows. That's a perfect finish and flush with the fuselage surface 👌 What glue is used there?

Thanks so much!  I used Tamiya Extra Thin cement to hold them in place.  One advantage of keeping them slightly proud of the surface is that you can touch the glue applicator against the sides of the windows without much fear that you'll accidentally smear it against the optical portion.  Capillary action draws the glue around the window and bonds it to the fuselage.  After that it's a matter of sanding and polishing the clear parts.  They're still not exactly flush with the surface, and that's how I'd prefer them to remain, because the paint will layer around them and I want to minimize the risk of lifting it.  I'm not a big fan of PVA substitutes for windows, unless they are extremely small, like on the 707 in 1/72.

[TheyJammedKenny!]

11 hours ago, Vingtor said:

Two photos from the Air Britain book

Thanks so much!  They help a great deal, including with the shape of end of the exhaust, which forms an outward-facing ejection port, though I wonder if it made a difference that these were P&W R1830s, rather than the CW R1820s I'm using.

[AaCee26]

On 9/29/2025 at 11:20 AM, Vingtor said:

 

You might be correct. There is a Lodestar at a nearby museum. I can check on my next visit.

The Gardermoen one? IIRC it was a Learstar or some another vip modification with long nose, different windows, camera housing, cut wingtips among other modifications before it was modified back to the Lodestar.

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee

[TheyJammedKenny!]

To get the angle of wing dihedral consistent between left and right, I started by attaching the horizontal stabilizer, which has zero dihedral, and ensured it was square.  There was a bit of a gap on the underside between the lower halves and the fuselage, and I had to doublecheck to ensure I was using the right parts, as the Lodestar kit also contains empennage for the Hudson/Super Electra.  

 

I filled the gap with styrene, followed by Mr. Surfacer 1,000, which is now particularly goopy, almost like Squadron Green Putty.

 

 

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Here are all the sub-assemblies, awaiting sanding.  Yes, I had to guess about the rudder trim tabs and didn't get one of them right the first time around.  In the course of sanding the rudders into a more wedge-like shape, I obliterated them.  The trailing edges on the rudders looked too rounded and vacuumed-form-like out of the box.

 

 

[modelling minion]

Thats good progress, the tail feathers are taking shape nicely.

[81-er]

I think that's a very good idea to use the tail as a datum to check the dihedral of the wings from

 

James

[TheyJammedKenny!]

I assembled the major components and have some regrets about the trailing edge of the wing, which I think needs to be corrected by cutting the flap guides and carefully bending the whole thing about 3 degrees toward the ground.  At least the dihedral looks right.  The difference in wingtip height between right and left is a manageable 2mm.

 

 

[parip]

8 minutes ago, TheyJammedKenny! said:

The difference in wingtip height between right and left is a manageable 2mm.

It has to be flat tire 😅

 

Kenny you have a great looking model!

Cheers 🍻

[TheyJammedKenny!]

Mmmm, no, that didn't work.  When I removed the extra plastic I'd added earlier, I just ended up causing more damage to the flack tracks.  When I attempted to bend the wing trailing edge extension downward, it resisted to the point where I was fearful of causing serious breaks along the wing.  So at this point there's no profit to my attempting to correct the wing cross section.  

 

Instead, I've contented myself with puttying the joints with Mr. Surfacer White 1500.

[rob Lyttle]

I think that'll look fine after the paint job brings it together. 👍

[TheyJammedKenny!]

49 minutes ago, rob Lyttle said:

think that'll look fine after the paint job brings it together. 👍

Thanks! I gave it the old "college try," and see what you mean about the trailing edge.  Once it's pointed out, you start noticing it in every other photo of a Lodestar taken in the 1940s from the appropriate angle.  The average non-specialist modeler won't notice.

 

My plan is to clean up the seams, attach the cockpit and create special mounts to hold the engines at the appropriate distance from the wing-mounted nacelles.  As with other models I've done that have an overall aluminum finish, I'll apply a primer of gloss black and make seam corrections as needed.

[81-er]

That's really looking good

 

James