GB-40 1/48 Vickers Wellington Mk. III - Heavy Hitters III

Great stuff Andy - love the bomb sight !

Impresionante trabajo amigo mío!!

The details on the walls of the fuselage are wonderful. The work that comes to assemble the PE pieces, will be didactic and I share with Terry the result of the bomb sight!

Thanks guys!

Looks great so far Andy!

Thank-you Hugh.

Port side ammo box finished, painted, and set in place.



I have not found any more info on the gun mount and have now assumed that one of the boxes is a gun sight. I painted this one black and will add a clear reflector glass. The other mystery box was painted grey - just cuz.

Simply wonderful Andy

With all - great work Andy!

And sorry, meant to post this a long time ago...the sketch is from my files, all I could find on the net when I was looking a few years back (site not recorded unfortunately, though possibly Deviant art)

The photo I found on the net tonight while looking for the sketch source Source: 25/26.06.1942 No. 70 Squadron Wellington IC DV564 L F/Sgt, Stewart, Landing Ground 104, Qotafiyh II, Egypt

Thanks Karl and Evan. Yes, Evan, I came across that sketch last night as well. Though nicely done, it doesn't offer any further info on the boxes on top of the mount. I have also on file the picture of the two crew members next to the mount. There is a larger version at Vintage Wings of Canada's website and that's the one I linked in post #74.

Looks great ! That sketch is pretty cool as well.

Good stuff Andy

Thanks Graham and Geo.

Nice work Andy.
My thoughts are that the two 'boxes' (painted black and grey) are representing the same type of gun sight as fitted to the turrets, the same as the pics of my sight I posted, with the part you've painted grey being the hood over the reflector screen.
It's possible that the sight is folded to a stowed position, and would be vertical when in use, but it is more likely that it is deliberately mounted on its side, in order to reduce parallax effect with alignment with the offset-mounted gun.
The twin hand-grips probably had rubber covers slotted over them, similar to those found on bicycles of the period, more than likely grey or dull red in colour.

Thanks Terry. I though the same but couldn't reconcile why there would be such a large gap between the "boxes". If the rounded one is supposed to be the hood, then why is it not attached to the body? Even if it was flipped open then wouldn't one edge be attached?

I agree regarding the hand grips but when you look at the picture I posted, there appears to be no colour difference between the grips and the rest of the handle:



Note also the cable coming out of the box on the left. This led me to surmise that it is a reflector sight.

EDIT: Terry, I looked at your detail pics again and the more I look the more I see that you are probably right. I would say that the boxes do indeed resemble your sight and they appear to be mounted sideways. If you look at the positioning of the power socket and the knob in the above pic, these do coincide with the ones in your pic. The gap on the model piece should not be there but should rather be filled with a cylindrical connection between the sight body and the hood. I'm now convinced that this is the case and will proceed accordingly. Thanks for clearing this up.

You're welcome Andy, glad I could help.
The 'box' of the sight is just the bulb housing, with the switch and 'pot' for the dimmer inside it. The optics are in the tubular section, projecting onto the reflector screen within the hood. The tinted sun / searchlight screen flips open forward of the hood. Mine is a MkIIIA, and I think the MkIII didn't have this screen.
Regarding the rubber grips on the gun control yokes, there is a slight tonal difference (allowing for the lighting), and at a guess I'd say they were mid grey.

Thanks Terry. I will make the grips a different colour and will make the sight look like the one in your earlier pics. Appreciate the insight. I have one more potential resource that I forgot to check. Our museum in Nanton has Frazer-Nash turret manuals and maybe, just maybe, this FN-56 set-up is in one of those. If so, I will post relevant info but I won't be able to get to them for another week.

Not relevant to your build but I remember my late father in law who was in the infantry telling me about going up in a Wimpy. He said he didn't think he would ever hear again ! Must have been pretty loud with fabric skin. I noticed one of the guys in your picture doesn't look like he's wearing any ear protection.

I can only assume they were all loud as thin aluminum skin was no better at stopping engine noise. I twice had the privilege of sitting in a Lancaster cockpit with all 4 Merlins running and was glad that I was provided with earphones.

Terry's help to resolve the gun sight got me inspired to finish this area. I first cut off the box that I previously painted grey and attached it to the other part of the sight with a bit of round rod. I then painted the whole thing black and repeated this for the other side. Of course all this was complicated by the fact that I installed the glass panels which prevented me from accessing the visible sides with a paint brush. I also painted the handles a light grey, though the tonal difference in the pics below is hard to discern.

Next came the guns. Knowing that these would almost certainly be broken off, I cut the barrels off, drilled holes in the barrel and breech, glued a copper wire pin into the barrel and set these aside for installation near the end of the build. I then painted the brackets for the gun grey/green and the rest Alclad steel. A bit of a spacer was added on top of the breech to fill the gap with the mount and then, after aligning with the barrels through the glazing, a drop of CA secured the guns in place. I then added ammo belts from some PE spares and made the spent cartridge bags using strips of paper glued together with white glue. The belwo pics show the outcome.



With that done. I temporarily brought the two fuselage halves together and checked on the visibility to the interior. The verdict - like looking into a sewer pipe with welding goggles on. The good news is that this means I can stop adding crap to this area as it will be a waste of time. I had planned to make and install the gunner's seat and some more wooden treads on the floor but won't bother now. I'll concentrate on finishing the nose section and then, after seeing if I can find a way to add the turrets near the end of the build, I'll finally try to get the fuselage halves together.

One other small thing that I did was to add the Eduard bomb bay bulkhead detail. This entailed making the windows larger and pinching some clear acetate behind the part seen below. One thing that was not provided in the PE set was the diagonal braces which reference pics show as crossing the windows so I cut some lengths of solder and glued these on so they would be visible through the bomb bay. I didn't bother making it tidy on the interior as it will all be invisible.



That completes another episode. Thanks again for stopping by.