QANTAS Avro 691 Lancastrian

[RayS]

Next QANTAS build is the Lancastrian using the the original tooled Airfix Lancaster kit from a US Airfix boxing, nice mustard coloured plastic!



I will be using decals from Hawkeye Models Australia


I will also use resin nose and tail plugs as well as the vertical stabilisers for an Avro Lincoln



SO onto the build, firstly the fuselage chops to remove the forward and rear turret mounts


and then the window openings were backed with card for later filling


next the mid upper turret fairing was removed


Look at those rivets! A nice fictitious layout similar to the early mould C-47 I built 3 years ago, they will all go and I may scribe in some panel detail


A parts fit test, the resin nose and tail plugs are designed for the newer Revell kit so the thickness of the plastic around nose and tail had to be thinned down


And turret opening filled with card


The basic cockpit was assembled and I added a second cockpit seat, I also did some minor reshaping on the existing seat as it had a semi-circular head rest


I will now wait for the glue in the turret patch to set before cleaning it up and shaping.

[RayS]

So not much to this build really, make a long aluminium tube, stick some wings to it and that's about it. I will need to remove the blobs that are flame dampeners from the engine cowls and replace with some spare exhaust pipes from a Hasegawa Lancaster


The fuselage is together and putty on, hitting this one with a putty hammer as I am not keeping any surface detail. Since the replacement nose and tail bits are designed for the Revell kit their cross section is noticeably different especially at the tops of each piece, so a bit more putty required in those areas to fare them in acceptably.


Time to let the putty set I have started to sand the rivets off the tail surfaces as well.

[scotty100368]

I had been wondering when you'd get around to this one...

Good start mate, looking forward to this one when it's done!

[Graeme H]

Excellent choice there Ray

[hrtpaul]

Looks great Ray. Where did you get the conversion?

[RayS]

Looks great Ray. Where did you get the conversion?

Paul,

I got the conversions from the UK, both the Lancastrian and Lincoln tails. Jen's Bits made the conversion, she sold all her moulds to Model Alliance before the owner went and spent time as a guest of Her Majesty. Don't know where they are now, I believe Hannants got hold of a lot of the Model Alliance stuff at that point though have not seen much anything that range released by Hannants since.

The tails parts are from Alleycat but unsure if they produce anymore.

[RayS]

First round of sanding complete

[

And then it was primed to find...


the expected flaws that were filled again



Next round of sanding and re-priming to follow.

[hrtpaul]

CHeers mate. I'll have to be happy with my 1/144 kit then. Yours is coming along nicely

[F-27pax]

What a good use for an old kit! I'm also going to have to be content with the 1/144 kit and decals, when I get around to it.

[RayS]

Cheers guys, some more work done finishing up the flame damper removal and replacement with Hasegawa exhausts from a Dambuster Lanc.

The slots were backed with card...



the exhausts glued on top...


and all done.


I also started to dill out the small intake scoops on the lower nacelle, 1 down 7 to go. I'm not sure if I will do that with the bigger oil cooler intakes yet.

The nose got some treatment as well, it was pointed out elsewhere that the nose looked to pointer, so after multiple filling an sanding sessions it is getting there with a fuller look. Last filling session here I hope using Mr Surfacer to fill some pin holes.



And finally for this session I removed the Alley cat rudder assemblies from the resin pore stubs and fitted them to the horizontal stabs after reducing the size of the tab on the horizontal stab.