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

[Airframes]

Beaut work on the turrets Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Terry. Your great reference pics helped a lot.

 

[Wayne Little]

Done good there Andy

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Wayne. Some woes on the engine nacelle assembly that I'll describe in my next update.

 

[SANCER]

These nacelles of the engines, when they are several pieces that compose them,... always offer resistance and challenges for which we get with them in serious plan!

Pendiente a esas fotos

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

So let's play with this Matryoshka Doll of an engine assembly. I hinted at the odd sequence earlier but here's how it goes:

Here are the culprits. The engine is nicely detailed and the instructions require one to add the complex exhaust header to the engine early in the game. You then slide the cowl flaps onto the nacelle and glue the 3 tabs. Then the engine assembly is glued to the firewall. The other pieces to finish the assembly are shown below.

Now the cowl proper is slid over the engine and is to be glued in place. I had made the mistake of doing just that before doing a dry fit of all the parts and had to tear it apart again. Fortunately, the glue hadn't fully hardened yet. Note the small alignment marks that I made. Despite there being a tab and slot in the parts to lock them in position, they are so small as to be ineffectual so the cowl easily rotated. I therefore had to add the marks to make sure that I had everything lined up properly. You see where this is going......

And of course, with everything else now in place, there is no way that the front cowl piece fits over the exhaust ring. There's a 2mm gap to overcome, far more than a gentle squeeze (or a big honking C-clamp for that matter) would close.

I see two options but only one will make this go away. The first one is to hollow out the front cowl but there's not enough meat on it to make up for the large gap. Which leads to the second and only viable option; cut 2mm out of each individual exhaust stack and reglue the ring in place. To ensure correct length, I will need to glue the ring into the front cowl first and then adjust the length of the stacks to their respective cylinders.

I don't know what happened here as Jeff didn't seem to have this problem when he built this kit in GB 25. Oh well, I dug the hole and now I need to get out. Stay tuned.

EDITTED Reference to Jeff's build Feb 11.

 

[Wurger]

It seems that the engine is protruding from the cowling to much. IMHO the bottom base should be either lower or not that deep into the first part there.
Anyway looking good although still needs to be fitted.

 

[Crimea_River]

It can't go any deeper my friend. See the last pic in post 276. The engine mates tightly onto a flat surface with two pins on the firewall. The error is likely in the fit of the exhaust stubs to the cylinders. Looking back, I doubt that I got all 28 stubs to fit into the holes in the cylinders. All it takes is 2 or 3 that don't fit into the holes and everything will be pushed too far out. I'm sure it's me and not the kit.

 

[Wurger]

Humm. undoubtedly the engine sits too up So you may be right that's the problem with the length of the exhaust stubs

 

[SANCER]

What a situation, Andy, ...
Reviewing the photos, it is likely that you are right, although we have all experienced that some kits and / or their instruction sheets make us question their effectiveness.
Your 2nd solution seems to give the expected result.

Good luck.

 

[N4521U]

Looking very smart.......
hoping you can solve the dilemma........

 

[Airframes]

Hmm ...............

 

[Crimea_River]

The surgery:

I match-marked the exhaust ring and the front cowl and then cut the exhaust stacks.

The ring was then CA-glued into the front cowl and pieces of the stubs were cut out using a chisel x-acto blade.

This was repeated, chiselling small bits of the stubs away until the front cowl sat slush. All was then glued and I now see that the cowl diameters don't match very well as there is a distinct step here.

Though it's quite apparent in this close-up, it's less of an issue when viewed live but it's still disappointing and not something that is easily fixed. I'm going to have to live with it.

Once I get the other one done, I'll shoot some Alclad steel into the engine area to hide the cut marks and call it a day.

 

[Wurger]

Looking good though,. A good job Andy.

 

[Airframes]

Glad you got it sorted Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

Me too but I still don't know what went so wrong. Jeff's exhaust stubs seem to stick out further than mine and deeper into the forward cowl. There was no way that I could force my ring deeper into the front cowl.

Oh well. Looking forward now, not back.

 

[SANCER]

Very well done, turn page.

 

[Wayne Little]

Fix looks pretty good....

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.