1:32 scale Lancaster Mk.1 Hachette Partworks

[Gerry]

Thanks to all for your patience and your continuing expressions of support. I'm just back from my break but haven't managed to reach the workbench yet. I should be around for the next 5-6 weeks and hope to make a lot more progress before I have to go away again.

Right there, in Post #366, is where I would have lost it. Admire your patience Gerry.

Geo

Thanks for that George. Had I fallen into that trap I don't know what I would have done to retrieve the situation. I think that, at best, any solution would have been a bit of butchery and would probably have weakened the structure of the supports. It's at times like this I'm glad I waited before starting the build.

Right, better try to get on with it now.

Cheers,

Gerry

 

[Gerry]

Well, at last I feel I have made enough progress to post some updates. Not as much done as I had hoped, but hopefully you'll see why I've taken so long. The first two shots, below, were my key references for the undercarriage. Photo 1 is the BBMF Lanc from the Haynes Lancaster manual and shows the colour difference quite well, particularly the contrast between the matt aluminium of the oleos and the polished chrome of the piston legs. Photo 2 is a wartime photo showing the correct tyre and some nice weathering on the oleos and hubs.

The instructions give the colours as the undercarriage on S-Sugar at Hendon Museum but I'm pretty sure that was post war, for reasons I'll explain later. Photo 3.

Back to basics first. Photos 4 5. The support brackets were given a coat of primer then sprayed in interior grey-green. Then they were positioned, using the oleos as a guide, and superglued into their final position. This was really difficult but after much persuasion and a lot of profanity, I finally got them fixed in position but not without some breakages on the inner wing section. This was mainly because there are so few clear points to apply pressure. However, everything broken off is repairable with a bit of time and superglue! (A) shows the forward wall panel which had to be trimmed to fit the new position of the support backs. This is just for position and needs to be removed, riveted and painted. The yet-to-be-scratch-built fire extinguishers will be positioned on this, eventually. I should also point out that because of poor light conditions, all of the photos were taken using direct flash, so they're all a little bright.

I felt that I should spray-paint rather than hand-paint, because I feel that I can never get as smooth a result painting by hand and I wanted these to look well. All the components for the undercarriage are supplied as cast metal and I wanted to achieve a finish close to the real thing. This approach required a lot of time-consuming masking, Photo 6.

I used and old piece of fret with some double-sided tape as a support, so as to paint as much as possible in one go. The colour scheme for all these pieces was black with some unpainted metal, masked. First, everything got a coat of automotive grey metal primer, then a coat of automotive matt black, which has a slight satin sheen off it. Photo 7.

Next was the turn of the oleos and hubs. After priming and a spray of matt black, the oleos were masked to preserve the black areas before the exposed areas were to be given a coat of aluminium. The hubs were just rubbed down with wet dry paper to show some wear. However, I changed my mind about the hub colours and I'll explain why later. The hubs were drilled to receive the brake lines. Something I only found out, is that the centre of the hub on the Lancaster doesn't rotate, it's only the outer section with the holes, that rotates around the centre. Photo 8.

After the oleos were unmasked, this was the result. I was pleased with how they turned out and I think that the result justified the time spent in masking and painting. Photo 9.

I hope that you can see the contrast between the matt aluminium and the shiny piston legs. The aluminium finish was achieved with Revell Aluminium 66 which then had a spray of matt varnish applied which flattened it down. After various experiments with the piston legs, the result was achieved with burnishing and polishing the bare metal. I experimented with adding a coat of Klear to a spare piece of polished metal, but I couldn't see any appreciable difference, so I've decided to leave them as polished metal and just hope they don't tarnish in the future.

Now to why I decided to change the hubs. Photos 10 11 below are shots I found only in the last week or so. They're wartime shots of S-Sugar and show that the hubs were not painted black on the rotating outer section, but seem to be metal finish. In the colour shot, you can just about see that the oleos follow the pattern of the oleos as I painted them.

Back to the other components. Next is a shot of all the undercarriage bits with the masking removed. You can see I've made an initial attempt to remove the paint from the outer hubs. Rather than delay this post, I'll complete the the job in the next few days, when I have more time. They're a little scratched from the sanding but I hope to be able to polish them back up a bit more. Photo 12.

The next couple of shots show the dry fits for the oleos. Photos 13 14.

Finally (Whew!) a shot of how the rear supports should assemble, Photo 15. The brackets (A) are attached to the rear wall of the wheel well. The lugs on the top of the oleos (B) will be attached to the green support legs (seen at the top of this post). The bolts are to show how all of the elements of the undercarriage will be attached to each other. The bolts are threaded through and retained by a small nut. The excess should then be snipped off.

I had hoped to get more of the assembly done before I posted but there is a load of bolt head detail to be added first and also lots of brake and hydraulic lines which are easier to add before the undercarriage is assembled. As well as that, the wheel wells need detailing before the gear is installed. I hope that all this detail isn't too longwinded but I suppose I'm trying to justify why it took so long to post and I've also had to concentrate on getting some entries together for the IPMS Irish Nationals, which take place this weekend.

Now that all the painting is done, progress on the assembly should go reasonably quickly, unless I hit some unexpected snags. I also hope that installing the undercarriage at this stage doesn't cause me major problems when it comes to painting the finished aircraft. Once this weekend is out of the way, I should be able to crack on.

Till then, cheers,

Gerry

 

[N4521U]

That is just topps!
Amazing how with a bit of care and attention you can put so much detail into 1/32 scale.
Keep on keepin on!

 

[Lucky13]

Magnificent!

 

[ian lanc]

This is looking more than excellent and the next few words have nothing to do with Gerry's work
but hasn't the manufacturer really cocked up on the main undercarriage struts! They are too short.

I'm wondering because the main struts are too short will the finished model sit too low to the ground.

 

[vikingBerserker]

WOW!

 

[Wurger]

Smashing job...

 

[Crimea_River]

I thought I posted a reply to this earlier but it seems to be gone. Hmmm, could be my numb brain.

Anyway, it was along the lines of great work Gerry!

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far Gerry!

 

[mikec1]

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Greetings Gerry;



Very nice, indeed ................



Mike
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[meatloaf109]

WOW!

Yep!

 

[mikec1]

Gas detection paint Paul - but don't ask me why!!

Axually it is carbon monoxide detection paint. Some times you will get leaks in the exhaust or engine
compartment. Carbon Monoxide can leak into the wing of the aircraft and enter into the fuselage of
the a/c. If this happens the paint will turn purple in color leting you know that you have a problem
with the exhaust system.


Mike
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[aviatik]

What a tremendous and awesome project...

 

[Gerry]

Thanks Bill, Jan, Ian, David, Wurger, Andy, Gnomey, Paul, Mike and Martin for taking the trouble to post your thoughts on the progress so far.

Ian, to some extent, I share your disappointment with the oleos. In a side-by-side comparison with the real thing they are the wrong proportion, particularly the diagonal struts which are much shallower than on the real thing. I wonder did they just scale-up plans from an existing die cast model? - because they certainly didn't scale them down from the original plans. It might have been better for me to leave them entirely in black, as then the difference between the sections wouldn't be so pronounced. I don't think there's an aftermarket solution out there, in metal and I don't have the ability to scratch-build a set in metal so I'm going to make the best of what I've got. I also think that in isolation (without a side-by-side photo for comparison) they won't look too bad.

In relation to whether they will make the Lanc sit too low, that's something I will be conscious of now. I've had a look at some of the completed builds for this kit but because of the angle of the photographs it's hard to say. I did a little exercise on Photoshop where I roughly cut-out my oleos and, taking the width as the measurement, positioned them on the BBMF Lancaster, They are a little chunkier which could make them seem shorter, As you can see, when the top bar of the diagonal struts is positioned at the correct height, the hubs do drop a little short. It might be possible to compensate partially for this by adjusting the length of the piston legs but, to be honest, I'm unlikely to be able to make that call until the weight of the completed airframe is sitting on the undercarriage. Also, changing the height of the solid oleos might also have a knock-on effect to the fit of the rear supporting braces and to their ability to retract properly. See below, the original and the adjusted photos.

Mike, thanks for your contribution to the 'yellow spot' debate. I think Airframes did also allow for that explanation in one of his posts to either this or another Lanc thread.

Keep your comments coming and if anyone has other suggestions on the oleos, I'd be interested to hear from you.

Sláinte,

Gerry

 

[Airframes]

Nice work again Gerry. As for the undercart, it's a difficult one to decide on. First, I would paint them the correct colour - all wartime photos and film footage I've seen has them them in the black/'aluminium' colours, never all black.
As for the 'sit' of the model, here's a suggestion. Perhaps compromise slightly, by extending the top of the struts just a touch, or lowering their mounting points within the wheel bay the same distance, after first making a pair of very simple mock up main struts for each side, to gauge height and angle in relation to the ground, and to the axle centres. These can be made easily from rod, metal tube, or even wooden BBQ skewers and, fitted to the model, will help you measure and gauge what is required.

 

[Gerry]

Thanks Terry,

I had a good ponder about your advice but I must admit I got quite pee'd off with the whole oleo situation. I had to step back from it for a couple of days and let the annoyance pass. Having considered the options, I think that I will try to do something to increase the length but I need to be careful that whatever I do won't make matters worse, rather than correcting the problem.

This is the way I'm thinking at the moment.

I just roughed this up quickly using plastic tubing and the sizes are approximate rather than accurately measured. This would give the visual appearance of the oleos being longer. The ideal would be to find hollow brass or aluminium tubing to the correct diameters (A). Attached and painted, I would hope that they would have the strength to support what will be a heavy model. The next problem would be to source a narrow piece of metal with a drilled hole to fit into the support brackets and attach this solidly within the tubing so that there's no movement, other than at the swivel point. I don't think that the wire that I used in the mock-up would be suitable (B).

I think that it should be possible to leave attaching the oleos until after all the other undercarriage elements are installed and that will certainly help with the fitting and adjusting. If I feel that this isn't going to work I may end up using the oleos as originally intended.

So I've now just started on the job of detailing the wheel wells. First the internal front and rear metal panels.
These had to be trimmed to allow for the corrections to the spacings of the undercarriage supports. These were riveted using a riveting wheel. I find that the wheel's teeth don't penetrate the metal sufficiently, so each rivet has to be enhanced using the tip of a pin. These were painted then lightly sanded to highlight the rivets and then positioned in the bays.

The next thing I wanted to tackle was the engine fire extinguishers, which are housed on the front walls of the wheel wells. Thanks to the great set of reference photos supplied by Andy (Crimea_River) in post 352, on page 24, and some other earlier references of the bays from Terry (Airframes), I had plenty to go on.

The bottles are scratch-built from sprue and painted in brass. The nozzles are scraps and the mounting rails made from plastic strip. The mounting straps are thin lead foil. Some old decals were used to give a busy look.

I then mounted the bottles on the metal bulkhead and added the plumbing (a combination of both sets of references from Andy and Terry).

I've also made a start on the rest of the detailing and pipes but there's loads more to be added, based on the refs. One other thing that's new, is the diagonal bar for the oleo supports and its associated cableing.

That's it to date. Will keep the posts coming as matters progress.

Cheers,

Gerry

 

[Wurger]

and nothing more to say.

 

[Scipio]

Thx for the pics...You've got your future time locked in.... any after market parts available?...or needed.

 

[Crimea_River]

Wow Jerry.

 

[ian lanc]

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