AVRO Lancaster by Papa - FINISHED - Airfix - 1/72

[Papa]

I needed something to break up the tedium of tying ratlines on my C W Morgan so i started this Lancaster from the Dambusters mission that I’ve had on the shelf for a few years.  There are 7 gray sprues and one with the clear parts.  The quality is excellent. And the few pieces I’ve assembled so far have very positive positioning locators. The pilot in the photo has been primed and is ready for painting. 

[Papa]

Pilot flying “no hands”

[Papa]

Better angle to see hands free

[mtaylor]

3 hours ago, Papa said:

Pilot flying “no hands”

 

 

No wings either.  He is good.

[Papa]

The kit has some nice interior detail that, unfortunately, won’t be visible once the fuselage is together.

[Louie da fly]

The Airfix Lancaster has come a long way since I built mine when I was a kid . . .

 

Steven

[Papa]

I had a heck of a time putting the fuselage halves together.  Just could not get the seam to close tightly. I am going to need plenty of filler😬. During my test fitting the windows started popping out and the map table came apart.  Re-glued all that and filed and fussed and fumed and used several naughty words 👿 .  It didn’t help the fit. And a newly purchased  bottle of Tamiya flat black paint dries glossy!  😝 fortunately i still had some older flat black. So here we are today. Now i am going to tie some more battens on the C W Morgan. I am almost finished with that step; on the mizzen

[Louie da fly]

Surprising. I often find that naughty words magically fix the problem. Or perhaps it's the threat to throw the rotten thing against the nearest wall . . .?

 

Steven

[Papa]

On 4/19/2022 at 7:28 PM, Louie da fly said:

Surprising. I often find that naughty words magically fix the problem. Or perhaps it's the threat to throw the rotten thing against the nearest wall . . .?

 

Steven

I was certainly tempted to toss the whole box in the trash. But sanity prevailed 

[Papa]

The desire to trash this kit and give up resurfaced yesterday when i tried to assemble the wings. Lower pieces went on easily but the upper halves were not going to fit. There was not enough clearance to allow a part that forms the rear of the engine nacelle to fit in the opening provided. Once i determined that was the issue, i removed it and the wing then went on smoothly.  I then removed the lower part of this whatever it is, and glued the upper part where it belongs.  I should have taken some pictures. The next step was assembling the elevator halves.  The instructions here had the part numbers wrong. They said glue B6 and B7 for one side and then An and Am (don’t have instructions in front of me) for the other side. Wrong. The B parts just had alignment holes. While the A parts both had pins.  One needed to match a B and an A. Fortunately I discovered the problem before the glue had set on the joined B parts.  I thought it was strange the there were no pins for the holes.  I should have looked at the next step right away.  One wonders if someone actually tried to build this kit from the instructions before release. 

 

 

[Canute]

Was the Lancaster a new run or a re-pop in a new box? I remember fighting with the older kits to get nacelles and other parts to fit smoothly. Filler putty was my friend. 😉

[shipman]

Rule number one with plastic kits........doing a dry fit with EVERYTHING is essential.

 

Stay calm and carry on.

[Papa]

20 hours ago, Canute said:

Was the Lancaster a new run or a re-pop in a new box? I remember fighting with the older kits to get nacelles and other parts to fit smoothly. Filler putty was my friend. 😉

I have no idea?  How does one determine this?

[Papa]

16 hours ago, shipman said:

Rule number one with plastic kits........doing a dry fit with EVERYTHING is essential.

 

Stay calm and carry on.

That works a step at a time, and i do it.   But dry fitting multiple steps isn’t practical.  That many pieces will not stay together. I have the sense that the kits have zero tolerance.  If a few pieces are just a tiny bit off, like the thickness of a glue joint or paint something further down the line isn’t going to fit.  I’ve been building plastic kits for over 70 years and I think most of them have gone together fairly well. But every once in a while one hits a real devil of a kit.  A few years back i had a Lockheed Electra kit i was building as Amelia Earhart’s version.  That was a nightmare every step of the way.

[Egilman]

2 hours ago, Papa said:

I have no idea?  How does one determine this?

Scalemates helps a bunch, using the product numbers off the kit can tell you when it was first made, and the copyrite year tells you when it was cast.... Failing that the box art will give you an indication of age...

[popeye the sailor]

there are also mold date stamps somewhere on the model.......usually on the underside {an indiscriminant place} on the parts.  that also gives you an idea of when the model was produced and molds were tooled.  I've used Scalemates a lot.

[Papa]

S

On 4/26/2022 at 11:13 AM, Canute said:

Was the Lancaster a new run or a re-pop in a new box? I remember fighting with the older kits to get nacelles and other parts to fit smoothly. Filler putty was my friend. 😉

Scalemates does not show this exact box, but nearly identical was retooled in 2012

[Papa]

Photo of the wing problem i was trying to explain. I had to remove the round thing, cut off the part that would be exposed and glue in place after attaching the wing.

[shipman]

Many Airfix kits have had several lives.

Often the original molded 'dates' have clearly been crudely erased from the master mold presses.

[popeye the sailor]

I've found that with some of the newer emerging companies.........Round 2 is a good example.  in some cases,  they forgot to remove the original mold stamps,  but their method is ink stamping.  it is hard to remove with thinners and such.....I've found the best way is sanding it off,  if there is a threat of it showing through the paint.  it's not to bad if it's a 'molded' stamp,  since it's the same color as the plastic.  it's not that uncommon either,  to find the date stamp from another company,  like Aurora,  Pyro,  etc.   take the 1:72 scale Stuka I built a while ago.........this model was produced,  using the same molds, by at least four other companies.

 

there are many kits out there that have issues that your experiencing.....dry fitting {no matter how hap-hazard} usually helps in fitting everything together.  as I build,  I try and see what can be done as a sub assembly,  especially if it is to be the same color.  a lot of times one may have to jump around in the instructions,  in order to head off problems.  I decided to follow the instructions when I built the Christine model.  when I got to putting the body on the chassis,  I found that how they wanted me to assemble the firewall {and the fact that the inner fender wells are molded to the body}  made the process difficult to do.  I have another kit of the same model { same kit but different subject}......I might experiment and build it the way I really would have done it.  no log though 'cuz I already built a similar model  

[Papa]

Installed the landing gear struts.  Very finicky. 

[Papa]

My first attempt at camouflage of this sort.  It needs a bit of touch up around the windows but other than that i think it came out pretty good.  Masking tape and rattle cans.  

[Egilman]

15 minutes ago, Papa said:

.....i think it came out pretty good.

You know what? so do I... {chuckle}

 

Keep going brother, seems to me you have a good understanding of the process, the finer points will come with practice... Straight up, that is how they did it on the real aircraft... flat pattern mats laid over the aircraft and sprayed off the edges.... Couldn't get more authentic than that....

 

Well done...

[Papa]

6 minutes ago, Egilman said:

You know what? so do I... {chuckle}

 

Keep going brother, seems to me you have a good understanding of the process, the finer points will come with practice... Straight up, that is how they did it on the real aircraft... flat pattern mats laid over the aircraft and sprayed off the edges.... Couldn't get more authentic than that....

 

Well done...

Thanks

[Canute]

Nicely done. Camo turned out well.

[Javlin]

The camo looks very good for your first attempt have fun with the glass.

[Papa]

6 hours ago, Javlin said:

The camo looks very good for your first attempt have fun with the glass.

😁

[CDW]

Glad to have found your build thread for the Lancaster. This is a brand-new mold for Airfix, along with a new B-17 kit as well. Both kits are well received by the modelers I have seen that built and reviewed them, light years ahead of the old tools. As a matter of fact, Airfix has released a lot of new kits in the past few years. Many are great kits IMHO. I first built the old Airfix B-17 kit in 1967 after buying it at the Smithsonian in Washington DC. I thought that kit was just fabulous back then. 🙂

[Papa]

She looks real mean sitting on her landing gear.  I am not looking forward to painting the canopies 😬. I am going to see if some commercial masks are available.  

[rudybob]

Beautiful job on a great plane.