Welcome back to week 14 of this build diary, last week we covered the fitting out of the Navigator’s position, the creation of the first of the vertical stabilisers, and the installation of some of the hydraulics in the aft fuselage.
This week we will be covering the first part of the ammunition feed system, building the second horizontal stabiliser and adding some skin to the underside of the port wing.
As ever we start by examining this week’s parts.
The first step was to temporarily attach the skin panels to the wing and then to each other to hold them in place for the next step.
Then the panels were attacked with a rivet maker and a ruler to give the proper pattern.
These two panels were then put aside to be primed and painted (on the inside).
We next moved on to building the horizontal stabiliser. First the sheets of parts were laid out.
Before removing all of the components from them.
After that it was a simple matter of assembling the pieces.
And adding stringers.
Before this assembly was also set aside to be painted.
Similarly, the third ammunition box was assembled from its parts.
Before also being set aside to be painted.
Following priming and painting, we returned briefly to the wing panels to install the two lights in the underside of the wing.
First, a bulb shaped piece of plastic was placed inside each of the bowls, before the whole thing was closed off with a piece of clear plastic. Finally, these assemblies were glued to the inside of the wing panelling. At the same time two short lengths of stringer were removed to allow the lights to fit into the wing.
Then the panels were attached to the wing.
Similarly, we also painted and finished off the second ammunition box.
And painted the ammunition trays.
Before putting together the more complex section of the feed. A Lancaster’s stainless steel ammunition tracks and ammunition boxes held 2,500 rounds of 0.303 inch ammunition for each of the rear turret’s four Browning machine guns.
And then glued all of the parts into the fuselage.
Bringing us to the end of this week’s work.
Next week we’ll be building the other wing and finishing off the ammunition feeds.