Category: General

Last week I built the starboard leading edge of the wing and floored and painted the aft-most sections of the fuselage.

This week I mostly worked on the starboard undercarriage and the bay it goes into, with some work on other internal details.

To start, I found and laid out all of the bags for this week’s work.

The first set of pieces are for the air intake which lays behind the leading edge I built last week.

This section would end up being one of the most difficult due to needing to straighten the bundle of wire in the bottom left of the above photo.

The first step was installing the two intake holes into the wing leading edge section as shown below:

Next, I installed the brackets onto the air intake.

Then I installed the two small curved pieces of metal into the holes in the vent.

Following that I had to measure out and then drill two holes into the wing to mount the whole assembly.

Then I added a pencil line to represent the point at which the fuselage meets the wing.

I then proceeded to paint the air intake, and glued it to the wing.

Further, to this I began adding details around the intake, including wires.

In the picture above a small hole has been drilled to allow a wire to be threaded through to the fuel tank.

And this issue was finished off with the addition of two thick pieces of copper wire.

Next I unpacked the next issues pieces.

And began marking the two side pieces up for adding rivet marks, using the other piece as a template.

Before setting aside the pieces to be painted later.

I then unpacked the other two issues’ pieces.

Before beginning to add rivet marks to the two bulkhead pieces.

The second piece has a couple more lines of rivets than it should because I misjudged the distance that the central rivet lines should be apart.  Also the curved line of rivets on the bottom edge was challenging.

Again these two pieces (and several others) were set aside to be primed and painted.

Next, I painted the engine control board and the forward hinges for the undercarriage.

I also assembled the engine oil tank.  Part way through attempting (and failing) to install it I decided that the simplest course would be to completely remove the engine mount from the model.

I also installed the hinges mentioned above, and glued a piece of the black wire between the two mounting points for the engine.

Then, I added a collection of wires to the back of the engine mount as shown here.

At about this point I installed the four bulkheads into the undercarriage bay following painting them, and finally began work on the structure of the undercarriage.

The pieces shown above were then screwed together as shown in the next photo.

Then I added small pieces of metal to represent bolt heads.

Before gluing the two arms into the proper place in the undercarriage bay.

I also added a pair of valves to the upper set of wires.

And the last thing for this week I added a piece of wire down the back of the two lower arms of the undercarriage assembly.

Leading to this week’s conclusion.

 

Next week I’ll be finishing the starboard undercarriage, and starting on the over-wing hydraulics.

Last week I covered the construction of the second trailing edge section, the step onto the forward fuselage, and the rivet marking of the floor for the aft-most sections of fuselage.

This week I started by unpacking the pieces for the starboard leading edge of the wing, the bunk, the flooring for the aft section of the bomb-bay and all of the pieces to make the back of the pilot’s instrument panel.

As with the pilot’s instrument panel I passed the parts for the reverse of the panel to my father who was again eager to help.  Unfortunately, we both neglected to take photographs through this process, so we only have the final result:

The first thing I made this week was the leading edge of the wing, these are the parts:

The first step of this was to remove all of the pieces from the fret and cut a small notch at the apex of the two pieces 188a to accommodate stringers:

From there it was a simple matter to assemble all of the parts into a block:

I also added the curved metal details to either end:

From this point, I then had to add stringers, and then remove the back part of the frame:

Finally, I had to add metal pieces to the interior of the rear edge and remove a short length of stringer from the front of the piece:

Next, I moved on to the floor panels which were part of this week’s inventory:

First I had to measure them against their intended destination, which involved altering them to fit:

The line on the far right of the panels seen here shows the length of the block that they are supposed to fit into.  Then I had to measure the proper width, and file to fit again:

Quite a lot of filling later this was the result:

The lines are to mark out the places to put rivet marks for the ribs which you can see in the next picture:

As you can see in this picture the lengthways marks have been added which I marked next:

I then put these pieces aside to paint.

The next stage of the build was the bunk, the parts for which are shown here (the bag contains the Oxygen bottles which will be stacked underneath):

Which came together quickly and simply.

Next, I added stringers to the fuselage block, and wing trailing edge.

Once the stringers had been attached it was time to paint everything.

And it was finally time to put in the decking from last week:

Next I first primed:

And then painted and attached the oxygen bottles to the bunk:

Finally, I attached the wing root shape to the cockpit section of the model.

Leading to this week’s conclusion.

Next week I’ll be working on the vent which goes behind the leading edge assembled this week, and make a start on the starboard undercarriage.

Last week I covered the assembly of the aft most portions of the fuselage, and the mounting points for the mid-upper and rear turrets.

This week, I started (as ever) by unpacking this week’s set of parts.

The first step was to take the aluminium sheets at the left of the above photograph and trim them to fit the proper positions.

  

Next I used a thin marker and a ruler to mark out the rivet lines.

Once this was done I used a pinwheel and the same ruler to inscribe rivet lines into the metal.

Which had this result.

And once you turn the plate over:

I then set these aside to be painted later.

I then took these parts:

Plus a wooden dowel, and a short length of metal wire.

First I shortened the dowel to the required length, and assembled the pieces in the fret above to make a box like structure to fit around the base.  Then I assembled the whole structure, adding a thin metal sheet part way up the dowel.

I then added a piece of masking tape over the metal to protect it during painting.

I then set this piece aside for later.

The next issue focused on the Flares, and the flare-racks to be placed in the fuselage directly aft of the wings.

 

First I painted the flares black:

Before adding red paint to the tips, and to replicate the text on the sides.  I then secured them in groups to the flare racks, make sure to get the distance between the racks correct.

Before touching up the paintwork.

Lastly, I glued the racks into the fuselage section:

Following all of this I added stringers to the aft-most fuselage section:

Before starting on the construction of the starboard wing trailing edge.

This involved these parts, pretty similar to the same structure last week:

The main difference lies in the rectangular section at the right of the above image, which form the recess for the life raft to fit into as shown in this image:

Leading us to this week’s conclusion:

 

Next week I’ll be working on the leading edge of one of the wings and some more of the trailing edge completed this week.

Sorry everyone, for the missed week.  I finished the build diary, but never got around to actually uploading it.  With that in mind, this week I’ll upload two diary entries starting with last week’s.

Last week, I moved on from where the original owner of this kit had gotten to, starting with this:

This week I’ll be setting out on my own with parts 21 to 24.

The first step is to look at the parts provided for these instructions.

Looking at the instructions I see that parts 21 and 22 both focus on adding frames to the bomb bay of the model, so I’ll do both of those parts simultaneously.

First is taking all of the parts out of the sheet that they are cut into.

Then I attached them to a couple of pieces of masking tape so that the side attached to the model faces down.  Once this was accomplished, I spray-painted them all black.

The next stage was to take the short wooden batons seen at the far left of the unpainted image, and cut them to the proper length to fit between the frames of the cockpit section of the model.

Once this was done I attached the lengthways frames to the cockpit section.

Finally, I did the same with the other two sections of the bomb bay, and painted over any visible gaps in the paint work (seen here with the fuel tanks from last week in place).

Next I moved on to issue 23 which covers the construction of the next section of the fuselage.  All of the pieces from this issue are shown here:

Building it was relatively straight forward, the frames had to be cut from the sheet and glued together in sequence before using the wooden beams at the top of the image to strengthen the entire structure.

Issue 24 was much the same, using these parts:

In a very similar manner to construct the section of the fuselage holding the door in the Lancaster’s tail.

Leading to this week’s construction coming to a conclusion rather quickly.

 

I also have to mention that the replacement parts for the flight controls arrived just in time, and I also finished them off.

This week was slightly different, involving my first use of a pinwheel to mimic rivet marks, but more on that later.

The first step, as ever was laying out this week’s components:

And then unpackaging them:

As you can see, there are plenty of frame parts, a lot of stringers, and a few metal plates, two of which will be part of the floor in the main-spar section of the fuselage.

First was building the trailing edge of the starboard wing.  These are the parts:

Which were pretty strait forwards to assemble into this:

The next step was to add stringers to both the top and underside of the section, including a set of stringer pieces which had to be attached between the ribs as shown in this picture:

Next was preparing the two floor pieces for the main-spar section, first the metal plates were roughly positioned to check for overlap:

Next, I trimmed the pieces both along their edges, and at the end nearest the camera in this picture to allow the pieces to fit properly.  Then I used a pinwheel to mark out lines of rivets (unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo at this point). Before spraying them with primer, and then (once that had dried) cockpit green.

As you can see, I misjudged the trimming, as the two parts don’t actually meet in the middle.  Also, some of the rivet lines take a slightly odd path.  But this stage has been a useful learning experience as to how to use a pinwheel.

At the same time as I painted the floor plates, I also painted the wing trailing edge built above, first with cockpit green, and then, I masked over it and painted the interior of the spoilers black:

The next part of the procedure was to extend the aft-most section of fuselage built above up to the rear turret using these parts:

Which resulted in this:

This was then further extended to add the rear turret housing:

And a similar set of pieces were used to create the attachment for the mid-upper turret:

This concludes the assembly up to issue 28.  It currently looks like this:

 

Next week we’ll be making more flooring, adding a lot of stringers, and starting on the internal details for the aft fuselage.

 

 

Last week I spoke about how we received a Hachette Partworks 1:32 scale Lancaster model.  I also covered our efforts to repair some damage which had occurred prior to us receiving it.

This week I will be focussing on catching up to the instructions in issue 20, as the original owner had clearly intended to do things in a slightly different order to the plan given by the manufacturer.  As I mentioned last week, we’ll be keeping to the instructions for the most part (unless we decide on a modification for the model).

 

The first thing that I did, was decide that I didn’t like the way that I had painted the fuel tanks last week.  So I took everything off, sanded them, and repainted them.  I also shortened the straps to make it easier to insert and remove them from their positions, and sanded down parts of the frames around them for the same reasons.

 

Whilst the fuel tanks were drying I primed and painted all of the metal pieces (except the cockpit instruments, more on that later).

Once these had all dried, I installed the smaller silver pieces onto the fuel tanks, and followed that by spraying them with a satin varnish.

Next I used the other metal parts (except for the propeller and spinner) to build the first of the four merlin engines.

The next stage was to finish off the fuselage sections which I repaired last week, installing stringers to complete the assemblies.

Finally, I painted the fuselage assemblies the mixture of the “Cockpit green” and black described by the instructions.

Whilst all of this was going on, another modelling enthusiast (my father) had volunteered to build anything connected with the cockpit.

To this end, he started by repainting and repairing the pilot’s seat.

Before moving on to the engineer’s panel and cockpit controls.

Unfortunately, one of the engine control boxes went missing whilst this was being worked on.  A replacement issue has been ordered and should be in place by the next build diary.

All together the sum of our work looks like this:

Please join us next week for issues 21-24, including the first sections of fuselage which I will actually have to assemble.