first things first. if any bulldogs are reading this, SSHHHH! this is a secret build!
ive been threatening to have a go at this conversion for about the last 5 months, so its time to shut up and build!

having got hold of the HBM conversion set i then needed a donor lancaster, i had a choice of two, the first a dambuster version that had got somewhat ruined by having a pot of dirty turps knocked over it about 15 years ago that turned the transparencies opaque. the second an airfix BBMF lanc built about 17ish years ago, wheels up, and had hung on my bedroom ceiling for 10 years.

well, the BBMF machine wasn't in too bad condition, plus all the u/c bits i hadn't used i'd kept and could be used to replace damaged parts on the dambuster lanc.

so i decided that the dambuster was the one to go with.


the remains of the lanc, which was surprisingly easy to take apart considering it was stuck together with ye olde polystyrene cement! in this pic the fogging of the main canopy is obvious, plus the broken u/c parts that will be replaced by parts from the other lanc.
also the unpainted gun turret has been liberated from a short stirling which i can use unmodified for the mid upper turret on the manchester.
never throw anything away!


the HBM set. lovely!
time to start cutting plastic then,

first thing i did was to cut out all those pesky little windows down the fusalage. first i drilled a hole at each end, a little bit short of the actual end of the window

then, using a scribing tool i took out the middle piece.

and finished it off with a couple of rat tail files, its quite slow going but its a very accurate way to open up these windows.
ive got further along than these pics show, but i'll wait till i have some more pics, then post another update.

Hi Phil,
So this one isn't your secret project for Telford 2011 The pictures show how far you have come since this was built, well they will when you post the finished article Nice work on those windows.

well i didn't forget i'd started this thread, although it does look like it!
i've been tiddling along, working on various sub sections so for a while there wasn't really a massive amount of difference to the kit, plus i've been making stuff up as i go along.

the first sub assembly was the tail turret. now this was a problem from the off as the lancaster rear turret is a completly different type from a manchester rear turret. i had planned to use a spare from a halifax kit, still not the correct type, but closer in looks to the manchester turret. but when i test fitted the revell halifax turret on the lanc fusalage it was nowhere near wide enough to look right,in fact it could just about roll down the fusalage through the rear opening.

so in the spirit of compromise i re-furbished the lanc rear turret, but it is removeable, so i can fit it after painting, and if something closer to the manchesters turret comes along it can be easily replaced.
the first thing i did was to replace the gun barrels with quickboost ones, now i cannot praise these parts highly enough, in scale, beautifully detailed with even the ends already drilled out and the cleverest part is a little collar at the breech end so no matter how deep you drill out to fit them, if you use the appropriate diameter drill the barrels will all be the same length.

the collars are plainly visable in this pic.

hollowed out ends! fantastic!

in and painted. the little shim is to improve the fit of the glazing.

all finished (nearly!)
at this time i've got the top turret built but i think i'll save that for another post because after writing all this i need a cup of tea!

750 views and only one reply? (cheers mal!)
Feel free to ask about anything i'm doing with this build, or let me know about constructive critisms.
I don't bite!
Anyway, onto the mid upper turret.

This was taken from a short stirling kit thats seen better days but the first thing to do was to cut out a hole for it to sit in.


I used the stirling turret to mark out where i was going to cut through


Chain drilled around the edge.


Cut out.


Fits like a glove!


As for the turret itself, i had to sand away the lip at the bottom so it would drop into the fuselage. The pin through the bottom goes into a hole in a false floor to keep every thing steady. However, because i put this in a little too low i had to use the cut off fuselage bits as spacers.



All that was then left to do was to re paint the gunner, replace the kit gun barrels with quickboost items and put on the vac form canopy........

Which gave me a bit of trouble as can be seen in the above pic. The very top of this canopy was paper thin, which made it quite tricky to try to cut out the gun slots without crinkling the top.
I didn't quite manage it but i'm hoping that when its painted fully this won't be quite as apparent

Looking, good. The Manchester is deserving of a good model and I have thought of doing a conversion myself.

If the upper turret canopy is no good, I may be able to help as I have a vacuum former at the school where I work and can vacuum form that shape. I need a good reference for the shape and size so that a suitable mould can be made. PM me if you think I can help: can do several so you have more if some go wrong.

Andy

thats much appreciated andy.
although i should have mentioned that i've used a vac canopy from a squadron set, so i don't have anything to take a mold from.

it doesn't actually look too bad so i'm hoping to get away with it!
cheers, phil.

Time for my weekly update!
I started work on the resin tailplanes which looked as if they are meant to be butt joined, however by filling in the kits cut out slot for the lancaster tailplane, then drilling through, i was able to use some copper wire as spars-

Plasticard blanking on the rear.

Filled and drilled!

Spars in place.

These tailplanes are going nowhere!

the tail fin was given a similar treatment.

its definitely beginning to look like a manchester now! in this pic the tailfin isn't fixed, which made life easier today when i got the bomb bay sorted out.

O.K. being as this build is about a week ahead of these updates i'm going to try to bring them bang up to date.

The nose turret had its kit glazing replaced by a vacform item, which turned out to be not as straight forward as it sounds, because the kit glazing also has the mounting for the guns and turret floor moulded intregrally, whilst the vac form part is simply the glazing.

I ended up gluing the rear part of the mount directly to the floor of the fusalage, adding some little greeblies to make things seem a bit more busy through that really clear vacformed turret-

This is coming on Phil and looking nice.
Clearly this isn't your "secret build" but will we see it finished for Telford?

it should definitely be finished for telford!
i'm being very strict about only building one kit at a time, so compared to my usual build speed this ones racing along.
plus my bench is staying a lot tidier when i've only got paints and bits for one build as opposed to 3 or 4!

LOL, I planned on doing the same and all was going well untill I realised that the Spit that I was building for Telford last year wouldn't get completed, so I started something else. That didn't get completed either and now I have 6 on the go, none of which seem to be moving forward I also want to start another, well 2 more in fact as I have the urge to scratch build loads of details since my new job. A good thing in one way but I know that I'm trying to do too many. What's after the Manchester?

Famous last words.

due to the fact i forgot i had entered the spitfire campaign, and someone i know is always saying "you can't have too many spitfires" i'm now building FOUR 1/72 spitfires.

at the same time.

after those are built i really don't know what to start, i have some cracking kits in my stash now, although it will definitely be an oob build!

Looking good Phil, interesting building technique. Not seen a kit built in this way. keep up the good work.
tom

well, this has been on the back burner for a while because i forgot i had put my name down in the spitfire campaign, and had to drop everything to get a spitfire kit built!
sooooooo.........
its back to the Manchester.
one thing i thought i could improve on the resin engines is the intakes. there is an engraved mesh pattern there, but its not really visible.
i have some fine brass mesh that i bought from littlecars.com a while ago for just this sort of thing.

the problem i had is that how to cut the mesh to the correct oval shape to fit into the intake.
my answer to this was to push a piece of masking tape into the intake-

then draw around the inside with a fine pencil

take it out, flatten it and stick it to a piece of plasticard

cut it out and there's my template for cutting the mesh

to hold the mesh to the template while its cut out, i used a pair of locking tweezers

and heres the result-

fits like a glove!

and repeat three more times.

i painted the left hand intakes in matt black, then gave them a gentle scrape to bring out the mesh detail.

i couldn't resist putting the parts together temporarily!
although the tail planes are fixed in place, the wings and engine are loosely fitted, but all the big sections have copper wire inserted as the resin parts are heavy, and mostly only are butt joined.
i really can't wait to get some paint on now!

just a quick update today!
it seemed to me that the kit undercarriage might be a bit flimsy to take the weight of all the resin, my first answer to this was simply get some white metal replacements.
however Lancaster main gear legs in 1/72 don't seem to exist (unless anyone out there knows different!) so i decided to help the plastic legs by putting in a couple of bits of sprue to transfer the weight upwards so the undercarriage isn't just stuck to the side of the nacelles

my next job is to sort out the landing lights set into the wing.

Actually I do know different
Scale Aircraft Conversions does a set for the Revell kit that most likely can be adapted.

Jessica

thanks for that Jessica,
I've been dipping in to that site looking for Lancaster parts, i'm guessing that sets a new release?
it will also solve the problem of the tail wheel too, i was planning to make something like the white metal part in that set with thick copper wire.

well, after putting this one on the back burner for eight months I'm back on it again.............


.....or so I thought, because I've just realised that the matchbox campaign that I signed up for has started so heres a little update, then this kit goes back to the "deferred" shelf.

BTW, I have picked up a set of scale aircraft conversions metal u/c parts (four months ago!) so once I get stuck into this I think I've got everything I need to just finish it.

However i'm now back to building this after nearly nine months, i've been painting and fettling the canopy for the last week



It still need a bit more touching up at the minute, and was painted by masking straight sections, i.e. side to side bars, then I used a cocktail stick for extra accuracy.



The tailplanes were drilled and i used a small piece of a snipped off pin as an attachment point



And now its looking like a Manchester!
The pins fit really snugly so i put them on while I sprayed the black underside, a first coat of humbrol 33 including the inside of the bomb bay, then the outer surfaces were sprayed with xtracolour night black, leaving the bomb bay interior in the more "matty" humbrol.

well, i've had a bit of a modelling drought due to one thing or another this year, but a couple of weeks ago i dusted off my manchester conversion, got the fuselage painted, and today got some decals on-


I'm giving it the identity of L7310 EM-H because whilst trying to sort out which actual aircraft would be the subject of my build i came across this-

"F/O (Acting Squadron Leader) C.J.F Kydd was awarded his decorations whilst serving with No 61 Squadron at Hemswell,Lincolnshire where he flew Hampdens and completed 33 operations before being posted to No 207 Squadron at Waddington which at the time had been converted to Manchesters.

He lost his life when the Manchester 1 L7310,EM.H, he was flying in on air test on 21 June 1941,crashed at Dunstan Pillar,close to Waddington after an engine failure.Vulture engines were the worse engine engineered by R.R. and had a particular problem with being under powered and prone to engine bearing failures although this one failed because of a loose tappet which caused a valve blockage.

His date of death is given by Chorley as 21 June 1941,ie the date of the crash, but he died from his injuries 2 days later"

From this site-
http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/war-air/19492-squadron-leader-charles-john-french-kydd-d-s-o-d.html

And i thought it would be a fitting tribute.

Interesting thread. I'm intrigued by your project.

It looks like a fairly straight-forward conversion. Has it been as easy as it looks?

actually, it has. prior to this conversion i turned a 109G into a hispano bouchan as used in the battle of britain film, with a resin set from the same place as this manchester set.
that was basically a replacement nose, but building that smaller conversion gave me the confidence to have a go at something a bit more complicated.

and touch wood, up to now its turning out as nicely as i hoped it would!

Looks great. keep going. Gives me the confidence to try more ambitious conversions.

this Manchester now has a reason to exist!-

Well its certainly been a while since i posted an update on this build!
i did carry on building after the last update but it was really sporadic and all of a sudden (it seems!) its near enough finished.

So heres a whistle stop tour of what i did since august!



I was planning to use the original kit parts for the undercarriage, however due to the weight of the resin wings i decided to try out a scale aircraft conversions lancaster u/c meant for the revell kit.
so far so good, but, the SAC parts although metal are extremely soft, so much so i am sure you could roll them into a ball with just your bare hands!



but they do look good.

Also i only had one u/c door left from the original kit so i scratched up a set of tin ones from a pop tin, using the one plastic door i had as a template.


(and before you ask i know i wrote "W" on that for a reason, can't for the life of me remember why now!)

Tailwheel was the kit wheel with the anti shimmy groove filled, SAC metal part and some jiggery pokery to get it to do its job!




Next thing was to get the propellers sorted out, for this i used a DB Productions white metal/resin set



And the piece de la resistance!-
something i've been wanting to incorporate on a kit for a while now is the use of littlecars.com light lenses, easy enough to put in place because they actually have a sticky coating on the back, you just peel them off the plastic backing and place them where you need them




To finish the effect i simply got some clear thin packaging plastic, cut it and moulded it to the shape of the leading edge with hot water, and with a bit of detail painting it looks very effective!

Phil,
Great work on this conversion, it's really coming together well. And I admire your staying power. Can't wait to see the finished model,you don't see these every day.....which makes it all the more interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Simon