GB-43 1/48 Mosquito FB.VI - Aces' Aircraft of all Eras

[Airframes]

I'm afraid that, being 'Air Mail', all I have is the postage receipt, with date and time.
I have a Rob Taurus FB.VI canopy, and a couple of sets of the brass guns, the latter for a Lancaster build. If the parts don't arrive, I'll send these to you, as I won't need them for awhile, and can get replacements when needed. If the parts then subsequently arrive, after receiving the second lot, then just return them to me and all's fine.

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

Happy to report that Terry's package arrived finally on Friday. and I'll show the contents in detail in a later post. In the meantime, my thanks to Terry for his generosity.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

You're welcome Andy, and glad they finally got there.

 

[Wayne Little]

Great stuff, well done Terry.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Here's a peek at the goodies Terry sent me.

If you can excuse the lighting (I shouldn't have used a white background), the Rob Taurus vacuum formed canopy looks like this. It's beautifully moulded and extremely clear with some very subtle riveting. I will be making the internal framing from scratch which should make this assembly quite attractive if I can pull it off. The one disadvantage is that only one canopy is provided so if I screw up cutting this from the backing then there is no second chance.I will leave a little extra on the edges and slowly sand them back while regularly dry-fitting the part. I'll also need to add the wiper blade on the windscreen which is no biggie.

This will be the first time that I've tried aftermarket brass machine gun barrels as I've tended to make my own in the past when the real things are just plain tubes. However, the .303's that poke out the front of an F.B. VI have lots of detail that is difficult to replicate so I thought it best to get a set. The 20mm cannons and the pitot tube are less of an issue, though a welcome addition to the package. I did not take these out of the wrap lest I lose the things so, for now, you'll need to look through the wrapper.

Back to the bomb/gun bay. In our last episode, I mounted the rearmost gun butts and began work on the ammo boxes. Below you can see the ammo boxes assembled and installed with the gun butts painted.

With that done, I set about building a contraption to support the middle cannons which were mounted forward of the outer ones so that the ammo feeds would not interfere. The kit butts are seen in light grey here and are glued to a built-up T post made of styrene card. The horizontal part of the T was made with varying thicknesses until I got the right height to mount the butts.

It should be noted that the doors that cover the guns will be displayed closed so I took this into account by concentrating on only those details that will be seen through the open bomb bay. The only parts of the middle guns that will be seen are the butts and the lines lading to the firing mechanisms.

Once the center guns were secure, they were painted black and the pneumatic tubes to each firing mechanism were added. The pipe that runs along the base of the support truss represents the fuel line from the wing tanks and the end will be connected to the soon-to-be-built fuel gallery. The pipe is made of solder.

Here's what this all looks like on a real F.B VI. I took this pic crawling under KA114 when it was rolled out in Hamilton in 2014. Note that the ammo boxes can be seen but that they are a very dark brown colour in this case. I chose to make mine bare aluminum.

The strut and hydraulic cylinders that operate the doors will be added once the fuselage comes together but you can see what I've been driving at here. In order to compare, I took the below pic to put us in more or less the same orientation.

It was only after I took this pic that I realized that I screwed up the fuel line I mentioned earlier. The loose end that I left to connect to the fuel gallery is on the wrong side! The gallery can be seen in the reference pic as the grey casting in the top right of the photo. I was constantly working with this reference pic with my model flipped over relative to the pic so I got discombobulated. It should be an easy fix though, provided that I've left enough material on the right side.

That's all for today guys. Thanks again for your interest and comments/likes.

 

[Airframes]

Great detail work Andy.
The canopy should fit snugly - it only needed very minor adjustment to fit my Airfix FB.VI.

 

[Wurger]

I agree. Superbly !

 

[rochie]

Amazing detail Andy

 

[Gnomey]

Great work so far Andy!

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

Scratch built fuel gallery added:

The fuel gallery got a coat of light grey. Next came a batch of hydraulic/pneumatic lines. These were made using 0.3mm lead wire individually rolled, kinked over a piece of styrene card and stuck to a piece of masking tape that was held, glue side up, on my cutting matt.

More progress with two hoses added to the front of the fuel gallery and a trial dry fit underway. The aft end of the above hydraulic lines have been bent up as it needs to be fished through a slot I made in the bulkhead there once everything is glued. The bomb rack is loosely fitted, as is the forward bar and hydraulic jack for the bomb doors.

The dry fit revealed an annoying problem in that the gun butts interfere with the hydraulic jacks (circled below). I don't understand why this happened as I used the same kit parts except that I hollowed out the bulkhead and put everything where it's supposed to go. If you look at the photo of KA114 I posted above, the gun butts are well forward of the jacks so I don't know what gives.

The only solution was to cut off the guns again and make them shorter. Below is shown the left gun unmodified and the right one cut and reduced in length.

Back tomorrow with more and hopefully there won't me more issues like this.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Strange thing with the guns situation, but beaut work on the fuel gallery.

 

[Crimea_River]

Yes, very strange. Anyway, the guns are back in and there's enough clearance now, though they are still closer than they are supposed to be.

 

[nsmekanik]

Looks good from here

 

[Wayne Little]

Great work Andy. those brass barrels are real nice, got the 1/32 set for my mossie.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Tim, Wayne.

 

[Crimea_River]

With guns back in place, a dry fit reveals that the jacks will clear the butts now but they are still close. After double checking placement of all my parts, I still don't know how this would have fit properly in the first place and will check out other Tamiya F.B. VI builds for interest.

With that now done, a major milestone was achieved this afternoon in gluing the pit and bay assembly into the starboard fuselage half. I removed the oleo struts from the door jacks because I KNOW they will break off anyway. The rack that will support the two UBCs was painted aluminum and set in place. It's a bit bulky for my liking but will do the job. Also seen here are pads that I glued to the long range fuel tank mounts. These represent rubber cushions and were painted black. Note also that I did my best to hide the forward interconnecting pipe between the two fuel cells because, according to my references, this equalizer line was at the front of the cells, which is more or less hidden. The bridge I put in the center rib will be cleaned up and painted and the tanks will be touched up.

A side view shows the hydraulic lines now threaded through the rear bulkhead slot and two of the fuel lines connected to the fuel gallery. These two serve the outer wing tanks. Three more lines need to be added: two for the inner fuel tanks and one to the starboard tank in the bomb bay. More stuff will go along this wall including a pressure relief valve and associated plumbing, once I confirm placement using my references.

Flipping things over and looking back at the office, I snipped and connected the spaghetti leaving the back of Junction Box C to the plugs on the back wall. I wasn't overly tidy here as this area will be pretty hard to see.

Back with more soon. Bye for now.

 

[Wurger]

Looking great Andy.