Well Guys, those continental driving distances are giving me itchy feet. Our little island only measures 360 X 160 miles approximately. Hard to go very far and, as Darryl pointed out, it can take you a very long time to get anywhere here, once you leave the motorways. There's a well known story here of the tourist, totally lost, (our road signage isn't great) who asked a local for directions to his destination. The local thought for a while, scratched his head and ventured his opinion "Well now, if I was you I wouldn't be starting from here!"
Anyhow, as you know, I have been working on the bomb bay over the last couple of weeks. The kit is fairly basic in this area and I felt I would have to make a lot of additions/corrections to get it anything like the real thing. The bomb bay on the kit is split over three sections of the fuselage, as I believe the real Lanc is. For ease of navigation I've marked them, from front to rear,
A, B, C. To be fair though, although it was time consuming it wasn't as fraught as I thought it was going to be.
Photos 1 2 show the finished bay as per the instructions. To my mind it looks very 'Legoish'. The front and rear sections aren't too bad but the centre section
(B) is totally wrong.
The instructions also suggest the bombs are placed 4 abreast in four rows, with a further two beside the 'cookie' - that's a total of 18. But the series only supplies nine bombs. Then in the final issue, 125, they show the bombs mounted three abreast, so, if you followed the instructions they would be sitting between, rather than on, the crude bomb slips they supplied! I don't know if somewhere in the series they altered the instructions further into the build.
Photo 3. Here's a typical wooden bomb slip and bomb. As you can see, there's a slit in each bomb that the slip slots into. So they're not visible once a bomb is in position. As each diecast bomb weighs nearly half an ounce, I decided it would be necessary to keep the slips to support the bombs I was using. So I had to figure what bomb load I would feature. I have 11 bombs, the two extra being from issues I had to reorder because of other missing parts.
Photo 4 5. I did some internet research on typical Lancaster bomb loads and decided on what would be the most suitable for the ordnance I had. This is based on the 'No-Ball' load of a 4000lb 'Cookie' and up to 18 X 500lb blast bombs. I played around with a graphic I had and this is the configuration I built to. Once I had it planned, I laid out the bombs in series of three. It meant that I could trim the unused slips in the rear bomb bay section so it would look more realistic.
Photo 6. I have some good reference shots of the Lanc's bomb bay and while it looks very busy and confusing initially, careful study makes sense of it. The Lanc has 12 longitudinal spars in the bay, the kit nine. So I used the wooden spars from the kit but spaced them more like the real thing and added the missing spars from strip. At this stage I also decided to add detail such as pipes wires and, in the front section, the control cables made from stretched fishing line. This is the front section of the bay,
(A) under the cabin. I have shown it in its raw state so you can get a better idea of the materials used. From left to right, it's front to back.
Photo 7. The rear section of the bay
(C), again from front to back. I have less good refs for this section but if any more cables/pipes need adding, I will do so.
Photos 8 9. The centre section
(C) needed to be completely altered to give a realistic appearance. I had some good perspective shots of the layout (8 ) but found it hard to pin down the proper proportions. However, in my research I came upon these references (9). The one on the left is from a 1:48 Lanc build and the right one is the bomb bay from the new Airfix Lanc. From these I was able work out what the relationship should be.
Photo 10. I printed the refs to size and marked the dimensions on to thin plastic strip. (I scanned it so that if anyone wanted to transfer the dimensions to a 1:48 or 1:72 build they can just reduce the drawing in pro.) On the right it's mounted on some foam board for the drilling of the circular bits. Then all the aperatures were cut with a sharp scalpel.
Photos 11 12. In the centre section
(B) I attached the struts, as support for the plastic card, leaving a bomb slip on either side. These were given a quick spray of black, as they would be hard to reach when the new floor is applied. I then marked the floor section with the riveting tool and gave it a spray of primer before it was attached.
Photo 13. The centre floor was then mounted on the prepared base and the bomb support girders and various wires added.
Photo 14 15 shows the three sections dry-fitted from back to front. I had given sections
A C a dusting of primer just to even everything out. 15 is just a perspective of the bomb bay.
Photos 16 17. To finish, I dug out all the bombs and the 'cookie' that's supplied with the kit and just placed them in the rough position they will eventually appear in. The bombs will need a good sanding to get rid of the mould lines.
That's where I am at this moment. I think I've gone as far as I can until all three sections are joined. I intend trying to fit 3 proper scratch-built bomb slips in the rear section where there's room for them and also the cradle for the 'cookie' - but these are quite intricate constructions and I don't know quite know how I'm going to do that yet. There's also acres of pipes on the side walls but they can't be installed until the sections are in one run. Also, things like the bomb door arms are fitted further down the line. It will also have to get a coat of black before much else goes in.
I'm going to have to step back from the build for a couple of weeks. I'm off in a week's time for about 10 days and immediately when I get back there's a local model show on, for which I'm tarting up some entries - everything entered needs to be on a base and that's something I'll have to work on. But if I get anything else done in the cracks, I'll keep you posted.
Cheers,
Gerry