Part 19 – The Shape of things to Come

Apologies to all for missing the date for the Build diary by not one, but two weeks.  Amazingly all of the delays were due to the first step which will be covered in this entry.  To try and make up lost time, this build diary and the next diary will both cover twice as much work as usual.

Last time we covered the mounting of the first two engines, the creation of the second rudder, elevator and vertical stabiliser and the rehanging of the door.

For this diary we will cover our plans for the actual display of the model, the cutting of fuselage panels, the creation of the second inboard and outboard flaps, the second aileron, and the mounting of the last two engines.

During the two week hiatus in Build diary entries the archive team got together and discussed what would happen to the model once it has been finished.

Whilst we do not yet have anywhere to actually display the model, it was decided that a diorama of the aircraft being repaired on a dispersal would allow us to display the model to its best advantage, whilst providing a reason to make portions of the interior visible through removed panels (if anyone reading this has any of their own ideas that they think might be better please comment and we’ll definitely consider them).

We haven’t yet reached a decision on which aircraft this model will be displayed as, if anyone has any ideas or preferences, please let us know in the comments (photo documentation would be a bonus).

Part of the result of this decision was the realisation that the door in the tail of the model would need to be open and the ladder in place to allow the crew to board, so they were both removed from their places in the tail section of the model and the door was rehung in an open position.

The first piece of work to actually move this model towards completion was cutting around 140 aluminium panels out of metal sheets.  Of these 72 are for the bomb-bay doors alone(!).

This was achieved by securing a sheet of templates to the top of the aluminium sheet.

And then using a sharp knife to first cut out the template,

And then the panel, this was achieved by repeated scoring the metal with the knife (sometimes more than a dozen times for a single cut) until the sheet had been cut through.

This whole task involving five sheets of metal took almost two weeks to complete by itself and consumed nine knife blades.  These pictures are of the cut out panels (minus the bomb-bay doors) laid out as the will be in the finished model.

These were then all put aside until they will actually be used.

With that done it was time to move on to the parts for the model itself.

As ever, with these diaries, the first thing to be done was to cut out the parts for any structural components, in this case an aileron and inboard flap.

Which were then assembled.

Before stringers were added (also seen here is the outboard flap to replace the one I built backwards last time.

These parts were then sanded down and put aside until they could be finished.

Next came the task of marking out the rivet marks across all of the panels for this diary, using the frame as a guide.

With that done, we moved on to assembling the engine mounts (this picture is from the last build diary as I forgot to take a picture at this stage).

With this done the next task was to paint all of the pieces.

Having done that, the flaps could be installed in the trailing edge sections.

The smaller parts for the cockpit could be put together.

And the Pilot’s chair could be finished off by adding the side and foot plates, legs and seat control.

It was also at this stage that the four document holders were glued into the cockpit, next to the pilot’s position.

Followed by the flight engineer’s seat and the chairs for the Wireless operator and navigator.

Next, two control rods were glued into both the aft bomb-bay section and the cockpit section of the fuselage.

Before we finally moved on to adding the panels to the wings and ailerons.

Once they had been built the ailerons then had panel lines scribed into their surface with a sharp knife (unlike the rest of the wing the ailerons were often fabric covered).

And the last panels to be attached were the two sides of the cockpit.

Then we moved on to adding the wiring harnesses to the inboard engine mounts.

Before mounting them on the wing main-spar section of fuselage (at this stage we also glued the two inboard fuel tanks into their bays).

And finally mounted the two engines onto the frames.

Then we finished off the framework for the second outboard engine nacelle.

The final stage of construction for this build diary involved taking these parts.

Which were used to bridge the gap between the tail section and the mid upper gun section of the aft fuselage, whilst also filling in the area near the tail wheel.

A red wire was also run from the horizontal stabiliser’s spar forwards, and was run as far forward as the rear spar of the wing.

With the two aft-most sections joined it was possible to add the other three main sections of the fuselage, joining them together so that the stringers lined up.

And finally adding the two inboard trailing edge sections to finish off the main structure.

Leading to it being possible to stand the model on its own three legs at long last.

Bringing us to this diaries’ conclusion.

Next week we will be starting to fill in the bomb-aimer’s position, adding more details to the wings, cladding more of the fuselage and attaching the wings to the model.