1/48 Wellington Mk. III of 425 Squadron - "Starting to Finish"

Looks good so far Andy!

Great work Andy. Very informative build. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Great scratch work and lots of persistence. Too bad it's in a place where you'd have to pick up the model to see and you're not going to let anyone do that… are you? Display it on a mirror! I fully detailed the wheel wells of my Tamiya 1:32 Corsair with all the hydraulics. It's in a showcase at the hobby shop and the wheel wells are completely un-observable. I know it's there.

Thanks guys. Builder, I'm not hung up on people seeing the details after I'm done with them. I enjoy building these details and challenging my skills - that's the hobby for me. Once the details are complete, the enjoyment ends and the models sits in a display case or in a tupperware container, rarely if ever to be seen again by human eyes. With that in mind, I'm thinking that I will only complete the details for this one wheel well and leave the other as supplied with the kit, though I will need to move the struts forward to match the side I'm working on now.

I have not decided what to do with this model when I'm finished as it's far too large for my display case. If the Bomber Command Museum near me is interested, then I may donate it.

They should be interested!

Well, maybe not. They have lots of models that have been donated and some are stuffed in a full display case in a corner.

Anyway, I press on. The other side of the well walls has been completed and, as you can see, it needed a bit of shape encouragement in the form of added braces.



With that done, I began to figure out details of how to mount the undercarriage components in such a way that would allow me to adjust the height of each side to suit the wing dihedral. Studying detail pics revealed that the parts that I needed to add would lend themselves well to allowing this feature. I started by cutting and shaping 4 gusset plates that would receive the jacking frame/retraction strut and gluing these into place immediately on front of the spar:



These effectively created a track into which the part could slide up and down until the correct location is determined and glue added. In these next pics, the jacking frame is loosely mounted between the gusset plates:



There are some rather unsightly ejector pin marks on the delicate frame but fortunately these face forward and won't be seen so I'll leave them alone.

The next step will be to do the same for the main u/c frame. Then will come the tricky part to set the assembly to the correct position. As I said in the previous post, I think that I will use the ugly kit-supplied walls on the port wing and that will help me to measure and set the proper position of my scratch built parts. That's a few steps ahead though so I'm not going to worry about that too much right now.

Thanks again for looking in.

Impressive !

very impressive !

Thanks again. After studying various pictures of a Mk I and a Mk X, I added details in the form of hydraulics and an unknown unit on the inner side of the well. It was after studying the photos that I realized that I installed the spar the wrong way around. The partial K-brace was on the inner side whereas it should have been on the outside. I managed to cut the kit part off and make a new one in the proper location.



It seems there isn't much else mounted on the inner wall and so, after I install details to hold the main struts, it will be on to painting. Mercifully, it will all be flat black save for a few details and so a lot of the imperfections will be disguised a bit.

Thanks again for following.

At this point, I decided to jump over to the port wing well so that I would have a solid go-by to allow me to set the u/c struts at the proper configuration in my scratch-built well. For this, I decided to use the kit parts, except for the fact that I had to extend the well and move everything forward by about 4 or 5mm to match what I did on the other side. The kit provides two halves for the well with holes to receive the metal struts, the jacking frame, and the spar. I dry-fitted these parts together with the main u/c assembly in place and marked out the holes that I would need to drill in the new locations



Inside the well, there are some very stout photoetched metal details that depict the well rib details. The pic below shows these glued in place with gel CA.



Having drilled the new locating holes in the plastic wall, the next step was to drill through the tough PE. My regular modeling bits barely scratched the surface and so I had to resort to using a 1/16" cobalt bit in my drill press to get through the PE. With that done. I was able to check the fit of the well assembly and glue the walls together. I left the u/c pins unglued so that I could adjust these later. I also decided that the spar would be adjusted and go in last once everything was correctly located.



The assembly was then dry-fitted into the wing and the large gaps between the PE and nacelle edges duly noted.



Copious amounts of gel CA were then used to attach the finished well to the provided locating pins. When that had set, I squirted some into the gaps between the PE and nacelle edges and then all this was clamped until things set.



With that done, the walls were nicely aligned with the nacelle. The kit provides a roof for the nacelle and this was then installed. I had to cut and modify it to allow it to fit over the struts that had moved forward and then the spar was fitted. I didn't bother with holes in the walls for the spar and so it was just slide into place and CA glued. Note how the spar now aligns with the raided detail in the wing but also that it is not tapered to follow the wing contour.



I'm glad that I decided to scratch build the starboard well details as the kit parts, though not horrible, do not represent the actual installation very well. That said, the starboard well is a lot of work and so I didn't want to repeat it all again for this side. I've satisfied my goal of detailing one of the wells and so will move on. Anyway, there's lots more to do ahead in the bomb bay!

wow Andy, looks great.

I agree with Le Chef.

Very nice work impressed

Nice work.

Thanks everyone. Much appreciated.

Very impressive.

Wow!!!