Vickers Wellesley B(PR)III

[PR19_Kit]

This device came about when I 'found' a part finished Wellesely while Mrs. PR19 and I were doing our best to sort out my model room to accept a spray booth so I can (maybe....) do some airbrushing in future. The Wellesely had been in the state shown below for many years, and I was less than interested in doing it OOB, but wondered if a Whiffed version might work.

I did a search on here and found pics of OGL's awesome pink PRII and that triggered off an idea of another sort of PR Wellesely. An Academy P-51B kit had already sacrificed chunks of fuselage and wing to my Martin Baker MB8 Marlin project and I thought the engine may well fit the nose of the Wellesley. A bit of chopping and measuring proved it would be a WONDERFUL fit, so the job was on. The various components are shown in their initial state below.



Obviously the Merlin would need a radiator and I happened to have loads of Hurricane bits around and they provided the under-fuselage radiator and the first propeller (see later.....)



With a bit of PSR and some grey primer the engine conversion is seen here.



With all the basic work done it ended up looking like this, but not before I'd dropped it and snapped off the stupidly fragile undercarriage. 



This posed a major problem as I didn't have another kit, the tiny bits of u/c leg having been devoured by the Carpet Monster. A quick eBay check found four Wellesleys for sale, one in the USA with a starting price of £19.00 or so!!!!  I bid on one of the UK ones and got it which arrived here on Monday and so I continued.

The cameras were to be fitted in one of the bomb panniers, the other being a fuel tank (see backstory linked below) so I drilled one tank in  afew places and fitted small lengths of tubing as lens tubes. I figured a desert scenario would be most likely, as the only Wellesleys left in the RAF at the start of WWII were out in East Africa, so out came the Dark Earth, Light Stone and Azure Blue. I made up some decals for the codes and the non-standard sized C1 roundels on the fuselage and there it was done.

This leaves out the VAST amount of trouble I had with the new landing gear however. It broke FOUR times during the build, and once I glued them back on the wrong way round, left to right!  To make things worse, in the process of re-fitting the u/c I broke all three prop blades off too!!!! I'm starting to hate plastic props.....

The prop from a Frog P-51A was about the right size and that was substituted for the broken Hurricane item and I finished off the paint job. Before Milton Keynes on Sunday I'll weather it a bit as it seems highly likely it wouldn't have stayed pristine for long out in the Western Desert.









Back story here :- https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=34529.msg547038#msg547038

[Vulcan7]

Superb conversion 

[RussC]

Ohhhhh, thats nice ! even for a short winged plane. 

[tc2324]

Turned out nicely Kit. Love the desert scheme and it sets this apart.

[PR19_Kit]

Ohhhhh, thats nice ! even for a short winged plane. 

Yes, I was thinking it lacked a bit in span, but the thought of trying  to extend those geodetic patterened wings defeated me! 

Glad you like it gentlemen, there's a family link here in that my Dad was on 2 PRU at Heliopolis in the same time frame and he had a 'thing' about Wellesleys. I did think of writing him in to the backstory but I could almost hear his muttered 'Tut, tut, boy!' that I would surely have got were he still alive. 

[rickshaw]

Nice one!   I know we discussed it some time ago and its turned out nicely.  I still think a fuselage mounted camera would have been better though, with both pannier given over to fuel but your version has turned out well.   I think you've earnt yourself a Koala stamp with this one!   

[Army of One]

Looks great......thought the wings might have been longer though......

[kevincallahan]

Very nice.

Hey Kit, you wouldn't by any chance have the rear/bubble cockpit left over in your spares box, do you? I've managed to lose mine from the kit and the model currently sits on the Shelf of Shame because of it. Maybe we could make a deal if you still have it? TIA.

[NARSES2]

Lovely looker, the C type roundels make her look quite modern 

[PR19_Kit]

Hey Kit, you wouldn't by any chance have the rear/bubble cockpit left over in your spares box, do you? I've managed to lose mine from the kit and the model currently sits on the Shelf of Shame because of it. Maybe we could make a deal if you still have it? TIA.

I certainly do, and you'd be welcome to it. PM me with your name and address and I'll drop it in the post.

[MilitaryAircraft101]

Great work Kit, love the backstory too!

[Weaver]

Nice one kit! 

[Gondor]

Thats a very nice conversion kit, like the backstory as well.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

I masked up the canopy and the side windows to give it a coat of matt varnish. I had two cans of Precision Matt and tried both of them.

Both nozzles blocked solid after about 5 secs.......

So I switched nozzles to ones that came with my decal varnish and they worked a treat. Nice gentle spray over the whole model, making sure I didn't get any fingerprints on it, and set it out to dry.

A couple of hours later the model was white, GLOSS white............!

So I got out the Humbrol Matt Varnish and brushed on a coat. Luckily the white vanished and the proper colours came back. But it dried gloss, or semi-gloss anyway............!!

So I got out the Micro-Flat, and it dried semi-gloss...............!!!

So I tried Xtracrilix Matt Varnish and it dried semi-matt...........!!!!

Any more coats of varnish and the thing will be 1/48 scale. 

I think I'll ask someone at MK 2012 to 'demonstrate' matt varnishing with an airbrush on the ruddy thing!

[Martin H]

So, does this mean I have to dig out and dust off the PR-II for the MK show?

Looks good with a Merlin. An engine I didnt consider while building the PR II.