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

Great work so far Andy!

Andy, I'm so sorry I've been remiss in looking in on this wonderful subject. The video you posted of the weapons prepping and loading is outstanding. I lost a lot in the questions about the weapons load as I must say I'm not much up on the British weapons and the incedary weapons are really out there even with the US loads. To me it looks like they loaded B-29s with all the sticks that would fit in a basket or webbing and closed the bomb doors. Anyway I have a high interest in the Wellington and may need to invest in one one day soon. The work on the on the IP came out smashing. Really nice compass. I really don't care for the clear face IP sets but I guess they have there place. I shall be very interested in the following of this build.

Thanks for the nice words Don and to you too Hugh.

I'll start with what I did on the port wall of the cockpit a couple of days ago The "before" pic below shows the rudimentary detail on the kit wall and the after pic shows the detail I added based on the photo discussed above. If you look closely on the before pic, you can see a scratched line which I use as a reference for the floor location.



The cockpit area was painted Tamiya Rubber Black and drybrushed with silver to bring out the detail. Not all of the lines seen in the photo have been added but I figured there's plenty there to represent the guts of it. That said, I discovered after the fact again that my Mk III layout was slightly different than the photo references so I'm not really kosher here. Don't tell anyone....

I also went back on what I said earlier and decided to depict the "bulkhead" behind the pilot as a khaki coloured fabric.This decision was based on my interpretation of nsmekanik's pic showing the w/o and observer looking forward. Here you can see the same lines running down the wall as on the restoration pic with the fabric behind them. At any rate, here's what I came up with:



In the above pic, you can also see that I added the silver handle attached to the vertical frame which I take to be an emergency hydraulic pump. Various lines have also been added with lead wire and stretched sprue. On the now-painted pilot's position, you can see that I changed the trim box. The elevator trim, which is actually just a series of spokes with no wheel has not been added at this stage and just the rudder trim wheel is shown.

Moving now to the next compartment, I added the door which I cut from sheet styrene using the bulkhead opening as my template. With the door painted and swung to the open position, nothing of the wireless set-up nor the w/o's position will be seen through the cockpit glazing so I'm not going to bother painting all the details here. Had there been a window, I would have done so but I limited myself with just painting the area to roughly simulate the wooden floor and partition wall.




The other news is that I just used my yet-to-be-received Christmas money from my mother to buy the beautiful, pricey, but discontinued Eduard bomb-bay PE detail set. This detail set costs 3 times as much as I paid for this model though I got a good deal on the kit. Hopefully the detail set will arrive before the holidays but I won't hold my breath as we've had a postal strike here that is backlogging a lot of stuff. There's plenty to do before I get to that point anyway.

Once again, thanks for your interest and support.

Hermoso trabajo y se ve muy bien esa cabina!
Beautiful work and that cockpit looks very good!

Thank-you sir!

Spot on. I dont need to tell you that the pe sets can enhance, but they are not always correct. I think I'm going to hold a lot of the pe I got for mine. The undercarriage set is becoming a real pain without adding all that much in my humble opinion. Looking forward to seeing what it will do for the Wellington weapons bay though.

Nice work Andy.

Some nice detail going on there Andy.

Thanks everyone. Don, the PE set is indeed fiddly but so is the bomb bay structure. Trumpeter have created a lot of interior parts that won't be seen but the opne bomb bay gets little attention. The "roof" is plain plastic as are the fore and aft bulkheads and the main feature, 2 open truss structures with lightening hold in the members, are treated as solid chunks of plastic with moulded framing.

Great work Andy

Looks great so far Andy!

Merci mes amis.

Started work on the interior. The first step was to come up with the reddy/pinky/browny mix to represent the doped fabric. I just splashed some Tamiya white, red, and hull red together til I got something that looked close. In the pic below, I had already started silvering in the frames.



A close-up of the simulated aluminum framing. I did all this with a silver Prismacolour pencil while listening to an interesting radio show so I got carried away doing much more than originally intended. Very little, if any of this will be seen so I was just going to concentrate on areas that may be seen through glazing. Trumpeter's rendition of the geodetic framework falls apart somewhat above the longeron as the pattern stretches too much.



In a short break today before lunch, I managed to throw in some of the guts but stopped short of the parts that span across the waist windows where the guns are supported. I need to look into the details and colours of this part a little more as this will definitely be quite visible through the windows.



Here's the best reference pic I found on the net so far. Anyone know what the frames across the windows support? The chap on the left is holding a portable Aldis lamp but I'm not sure what all the rest of the framework holds nor what the guy on the right is doing. I'm thinking cockpit grey/green for the frames unless someone knows better.

What a good job with that interior and the detail of that geodetic framework.

I'd lie to you if I had something to say about what the frames across the windows support
(it's an extraordinary photo).
I had not seen the design of that interior structure (I still have a lot to know).

Our friend on the right, looks very placidly looking out the window, will not be just posing for the photo?

I love how you take the advance of the interior, Andy, with all the guts to place, I imagine how that interior will look !!

Saludos

Good stuff Andy.
Looks like those are the gun mounts across the windows, with a 'trough' into which the gun receiver is mounted (no guns fitted here). Canvas sleeves are for the ammo feed. Bloke on the right is just posing I think !

Great mods Andy

Thanks guys.

Luis, I will add all the parts the kit provides but will not spend any time scratch building or detail painting stuff that won't be seen. Where's there's a possibility to see the interior through clear parts I will give these areas more attention.

Terry, you're right that the gun mounts there but I thought there might be more to the rig than just the mount for the gun. But then, it's British.....

Here's a crappy cell phone pic of the kit part loosely laid in. Below that is a close up of the instructions.




The instructions are a bit vague but it seems the gun fits into the rectangular opening in the frame. Part Q11 goes onto the semi-circular knob to its left. I'm guessing the two boxes under the gun (installed on the fuselage already in the instructions) are ammo boxes but there's no sign of the canvass sleeves. I wonder what Q11 is all about? The part does replicate the L-shaped racks in the photo I posted and these seem to be hinged (not the different angle between the left and right assembly. I'd love to know what these are for.

Part Q11 is the gun control handles, as seen in the period pic, and I would guess that the 'box' parts shown already installed in the instructions drawing are the collection boxes for the empty cases and links.
Compared to the period photo, the kit appears to place the forward (beam gun) ammo tanks rather high (see below). Although I'm not totally sure of their orientation, I would presume that aft tanks serve the rear turret.
On the left on the main (horizontal) gun mount frame, I think that's supposed to be a MkIII reflector sight, in the stowed position.
Not at all sure what Parts F36 are supposed to be - the guns were belt fed, from the tanks mentioned, via the canvas feed sleeves. Believe it or not, a similar arrangement, including the twin gun-control handles, was used on the Britten- Norman Islander configured for maritime patrol duties, mounting twin L7 GPMG's !
It looks like you've mounted the ammo tanks in the position where Parts F36 should go - see yellow arrows and 'X's' in pic below. If the tanks are moved down and aft as shown, then they will be in the correct position compared to the period photo.
As you mentioned, I would think the colours of the frames, control handles and tanks would be cockpit grey-green.

Thanks Terry. Will look into this and provide a more detailed response later as it's late here. The two tanks are correctly positioned in terms if the kit's locating points. Both tanks serve the rear turret - two tanks on either side serving all 4 guns individually. I have not yet added the ammo tracks but both lead back from the two tanks.