Gondor's Lancaster Mk XL

[Gondor]

Dont forget to sand off the marker pen at the wing tips with fine paper as the stuff can leach through when painting, no matter how much primer covers its 

Going to be an impressive beasty when its done, will look good next to a normal lancaster or even a lincoln 

G

Hopefully I will finnish this in time for Cosford Thorvic.

Second coat of filler is applied, should be sanded on Sunday!





Work on the interior Saturday, mainly the nose and cockpit area. I am planning on useing the Eduard set for the Hasegawa B I/III for the interior as it should help make it look buisy and speed up the build.... I hope 

Gondor

[Gondor]

Its been a while since I last posted in this thread and not much has been happening that I have felt worth of posting actually. Lot of brain power going into working out how to get some things done to the model that will make it easy to work on though.

For example the props. How to make them easy to build and yet detachable as well as what to do with the awful items in the Airfix boxing's especially the "Paddle" blades that look more like planks than propellers!

So here is my solution......

The component parts to the new propellers....... from left to right are.....

The Spinner cap which I have cleaned up a little, next is the front view of the nacelle front straight out of the box other than slightly opening the hole for the prop shaft........ the next item is the rear of the nacelle showing the box section which the prop shaft slides into, and finally the completed prop minus the spinner.....



Again left to right, but this time the construction process for the propellers...... first the Airfix propell or which is about to be modified ............. next up are three spinner back plates from Airfix Lancaster kits with the blades removed and in various stages of lump removal then sanding slightly thinner ............ Revell Paddle blade, a vast improvement over the Airfix ones ready to be attached to the spinner back plate and lastly in this picture the finished article with the prop shaft fitted.



The rear of the spinner back plate with the Revell propell or fitted to it. Not much of a shaft to fit through the front of the engine nacelle. I simply added a tube that fitted over the stub of a shaft and snugly fitted into the front of the engine.



The finished assembly minus the spinner. I know it looks odd using the square section for the prop shaft to pass through but the internal dimensions match closely enough to the external dimension of the tube used for the prop shaft. Its not going to be seen so what does it matter what shape it is? The main thing is that it works and I had it at hand.



I have decided not to do much work for the interior other than the cockpit and turrets to save time putting the whole thing together. Hopefully I will be able to get more work done on the interior of the fuselage this weekend while working on the engines and wings now I have a solution for putting the engines together without having to fit the propellers first.

Gondor

[tc2324]

Blimey...., are they yellow or is your camera playing tricks.... 

Know what you mean about not doing much and just trying to work out how stuff needs to be done. I sat at the modeling table tonight and just looked at me Jag trying to work out my next move. That`s an hour I won`t be getting back.... 

Looking forward to your next update and seeing your plans come to life.

[Pablo1965]

This is going superb....Waiting the next step. 

[Gondor]

Blimey...., are they yellow or is your camera playing tricks.... 

Its the camera makeing the parts look yellow, I probibly should turn the flash off.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Yippee.... more progress. Prop sub assemblies finished so they are the first parts ready for paint! Decided on a change to the rudders. Yes I know, another change and at this stage of the build. The change though will be more in the keeping of the origin of the aircraft.

Gondor

[McColm]

 

[Gondor]

Found out that there is an dip in the upper surfaces of the wings because of how I have stretched them.

The wing of the Lancaster (at least when made by Airfix) decreases in thickness the further you get from the fuselage until you reach the point outside of the outer engine where the wing is cranked upwards.

Because I used inner wing sections to lengthen the wings of the Lancaster XL there is now a reduction in wing depth on the inboard side of the middle engine of each wing 

I had three possible solutions

1) Do Nothing and just fudge the join

2) Filler and lots of it followed by lots of PSR

3) Skin the inner wing between the inner most pairs of engines then perform PSR


I have decided to follow option 2 as that should be less effort than option 3. Option 1 was a no go from the start as I can be a bit of a perfectionist with the finish and the paint scheme is white on the upper surfaces which will show any blemish so it has to be done well 

First layer of filler has been applied so I am going to have to vacate the modelling room soon as I am getting a headache from the fumes 

This also delays the finish of the build so I don't think it will be done in time for Cosford .... this year way to much to be done even when I get the whole thing as one piece due to the white finish showing up every lump and hollow.

Progress is being made though, the new larger rudders and fins are progressing nicely and I hope they will confuse people nicely, in fact I hope that the only thing that will give away that its not a normal Lancaster will be the extra engines then people should start to really look and try to work out what is going on.

Gondor

[sequoiaranger]

I assume you mean, by "wing depth" the distance between the top and bottom of the wing. You can eliminate SOME of that by thinning the LEADING edge of the outer wing parts and then "rounding" off the now-sharper interface between wing halves. Ideally you would leave the top half as-is, then take a big slice from the leading edge of the lower wing half, move it a bit forward to meet up with the top leading edge, and feather the trailing edge in.  Or you could take smaller slivers off BOTH wing halves. I hope this doesn't sound more complicated than it actually is, and of course is predicated on not having the top and bottom wing halves inseperably unified already.

[BETTER] The other, but similar and I think would be the EASIEST and most aerodynamically rational, course of action is to open up the leading edge of the outer edges of the inner wing (out to just beyond the first engine) so that the inner edge of the "new" outer wings matches up (without the paragraph above's headaches). Now you have a "constant depth" of wing out to the second engine, and THEN the taper begins!!
You can put a small "plug" in the leading edge interface nearest the attachment point (of the outer pair of engines), and fill in the slim triangle of open space in the inner leading edge with CA glue and sand, etc. I have made MANY adjustments in "thickness" to wings by adding and subtracting material from leading and trailing edges. It works, and MAY save you a lot of tiresome PSR.

If you want further discourse on the method above relating SPECIFICALLY to your problem, PM me and I would be glad to "discuss" it!

Good Luck!

[PR19_Kit]

IIRC most Lincoln conversions meet the same problem using a Lancaster as a basis (I wonder what else you COULD use of course  ) There are various schemes propounded, some using sequoiranger's method of packing open the leading edge so the taper isn't as marked.

I can't speak from personal experience (yet....) as I haven't done it, but it makes sense to me. 

[Gondor]

If I had realised that there was a problem when I was putting the wings together back in 09 then the helpful suggestions would be viable. Unfortunately when I stuck all the bits together there was heavy use of superglue and brass rod and other items to help keep all the wing parts together so I can only add or remove from the exterior.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Sorry for not posting anything about progress as there has only been a little progress. Tail fins are nearling completion which is good. I have yet to build up the corrage to tackle the mass of filler that now covers the are between the wing root and the mid engines of each wing 

Progress pictures will be shown when I get the tail find finished and primed then I will get to seriously working on the mid upper turret and its location which will probably mean sticking the rear of the fuselage together.

I am thinking of assembling a set of undercarriage together so that I can check out hot the aircraft sits on the ground. May have to find some longer runways for the aircraft to operate from in the background story.

Anyway, progress is still progress, just nothing much to show other than filler waiting to be sanded back.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Works social night tonight  so nothing done model wise 

Gondor

[Gondor]

Yet again very little progress to report. Should finish the tail assemblies mid week if the PSR goes OK then priming and photographing for comments.

Gondor

[Gondor]

A belated Happy second Birthday to this thread, even if the model is in use as a spiders home than anything else at the moment

Gondor