For a new challenge I am in the Sea Plane Campaign with a Supermarine Walrus. I started off enlisting in the Battle of the Atlantic Campaign with HMS Achilles (NZ Division) as it participated in one of the earliest engagements, the Battle of the River Plate. It carried a Walrus so I thought with two campaigns running concurrently, the Achilles and the Walrus would tie together well.

It's probably not the prettiest plane nor the most well known but it served for the duration in one duty or another.

"The Supermarine Walrus was a British single-engine amphibious biplane reconnaissance aircraft designed by R. J. Mitchell and first flown in 1933. It was operated by the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and also served with the Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF). It was the first British squadron-service aircraft to incorporate a fully retractable main undercarriage, completely enclosed crew accommodation, and an all-metal fuselage.

Designed for use as a fleet spotter to be catapult launched from cruisers or battleships, the Walrus was later employed in a variety of other roles, most notably as a rescue aircraft for downed aircrew." Wikipedia


I was in London in early June and had a spare morning so went out to Hendon to see their restored Walrus and took a few photos for detail. I think this is what HpH have based their kit on. The box is well packed:

The instructions come on a DVD. Not sure how this will work over time since I like to use highlighters to keep track of what I am doing and don't have a computer where I build. Probably just print them off.

You also get some Eduard photoetch, and HGW seatbelts, and a chocolate!

Since this is my first resin build, there is plenty to clean up, so with blood sugar enhanced this where I will start


cheers
Michael

Good morning Michael,
a very interesting box contents Looks like a nice model to build though,

Definitely looking forward to this build!!

Doug

Michael,
You're a braver man than I While I've looked at resin kits, I've never taken the plunge and bought one. Needless to say I'll be following your build with great interest.
Joel

I had a bad experience with one of Verlinden's large scale resin figures, (mind you I didn't have any good razor saws etc.). Poor guy looked like he got run over by a truck, everything crooked and wonky. It is possible to get excellent results though I have been told, I just haven't managed to

Hi Julian,
Your are right, tools are everything. I have worked my way through several #11 blades. The stubs are pretty small on this but very hard and in awkward places. Time will tell on the quality of the result.

Cheers

Michael

Hi Joel,
I don't know about braver! Certainly five hours into this build of cutting and shaving I still don't have a starting fuselage so I do wonder what I have begun. What I do need is some fine weather. It's winter here, so I can't yet get outside to do the finishing sanding.

May be the build will get you to rise to the challenge of resin.

cheers
Michael

Thanks Doug. I just hope my ability lives up to my ambition for this kit.

cheers
Michael

I will, at some stage, be getting one of these so I am looking forward to seeing how this goes

Hi Michael

It's certainly ambitious - and I'm definitely looking forward to it too! I've got HpH's Avia B-534 and Sg-38 Schulgleiter and they're beautiful kits.

All the best

Rowan

Hi Rowan,
I certainly underestimated how much ambition would be required
The detail on the kit is very impressive but releasing its "beauty" is a labour of love!
I cleaned up the fuselage to the extant that all the obvious stubs are removed.

The panel lines and rivets are quite fine and need some careful working around, especially on the Walrus' snout and centre joins. You can see the level of detail here

Where the two halves of the fuselage join it is very hard to determine what needs to be removed but the width can be figured from the internal framing, I hope. Here is the unbraced internal view


The framing comes like this

and about 6 hours and 42 pieces later you have the a Walrus skeleton!


Given that every part comes with a requirement for trimming and shaping a lot more patience is going to be required.

But all is not completely rosy. In a box of many bits there a couple of flaws, one minor - HpH use wire in the struts to give them strength and in one set the casting has gone awry

I will email and see if they will re-issue.
The second is more major - one side longer than the other. The mismatch starts after the rear gunner hatch.

Once the fuselage is joined this will take some shaping of the tail and rescribing I guess. I may also affect the ribs lining up inside but I will have to wait and see on that.

My ambition remains intact for the present.

cheers
Michael

Hi Mal,
I will check back with you when this all done and dusted
For the moment I think I will need some moral pressure to get this the end

cheers
Michael

Michael,
I couldn't imagine successfully cutting out and sanding all those internal spars. your fingers must ache by now. Sure hope that they replace those two mis-cast braces. If not, I'm quite sure you can make them out of sheet plastic and wire.

The interior and exterior detail is suburb, which should keep you going.

Looking forward to your next update.

Joel

Certainly is a labor of love Michael, should look fantastic when you get to assembling it though. Just don't sneeze near the frames and muddle them up

Hi Michael,
I'm with you, just keep a positive outlook and take it slowly, I'm sure that you will overcome. I will be building mine on water, so I'm not sure that the wheel struts would be a problem to me if I should have that same problem. I would also ask for a new fuselage half. I had 2 CMK buccaneers both of which had miss matching fuselages. CMK replaced them as it was a known issue. They, as this, are expensive kits, so I would expect the manufacturers will correct the problems. If you don't ask you will never know. However, if the slightly different fuselage lengths don't cause any major problems I, personally, wouldn't worry about it

Thanks Joel, Julian and Mal for your kind comments.

I have added the ribs and the dimensional detail they add is great. (and has cheered me up about this kit!)




The floors are next but before then I think I will paint the interior as it stands. As an aside on HpH's colour callouts, they don't give a lot away by recommending any paint producer codes. The interior is "Zink Chromate".I am guessing standard british interior green for this unless people know otherwise for a Fleet Air Arm plane at the start of the war.

cheers
Michael

That looks good Michael

I personally would go with RAF interior green; that is based on the fact that Supermarine painted the interior of Spitfires, for the most part, in that colour. I think that silver dope is also a possibility also and probably in areas that are not used by the crew. I do not know about any of this in fact though. I do have, somewhere, a couple of photos of a Walrus taken at the FFA museum at Yeovilton. I'll see if I can dig them out

Michael,
What a difference with the addition of the fuselage formers.

I did a few Google searches on the interior color of a Walrus MK 1, and all that I could quickly find was a few pictures that clearly showed British Interior Green. I would suggest that you do some Google searches and see what you can turn up.

Joel

Looks really good Michael, amazing difference,

Very impressive, Michael- cheers!

I would likely crawl into this kit and never be seen again- I'd just get lost in the details! Thanks for presenting such a fabulous subject so nicely.

all the interiors that i've seen are standard british interior green but if you do a pre-war aircraft just make sure first...

paul