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Hi everyone, Been taking a little break from my ongoing Spitfire project ( https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/90445-first-ever-lsp-tamiya’s-mk-viii-spit-mt594-wheel-well-mods/ ) as the engine stuff is getting a little tedious and I’m waiting for a few bits and pieces from Hannants to finish off the wheel wells before I paint them and glue them all together. The typically useless Langley distribution centre at Heathrow has been holding onto my package for the last two weeks now. Hopefully I get it some time soon… So in the meantime, and to give me a little variety I went and bought the Border models nose kit. The whole Lancaster kit looks beautiful from the builds and such I’ve seen online but it costs a fortune and I’d have nowhere to put the ridiculously large final model so I opted for just the nose. I was initially planning on doing the phantom scheme included in the kit but the kit decals are quite a ways off the actual nose art from photos and I feel like almost every modeller has a model of the “Phantom of the Ruhr” on their shelf so why not do something a little different? Whilst searching for Lancaster details online I stumbled upon this very interesting blog https://clarencesimonsen745590793.wordpress.com/2019/07/15/from-clarence-simonsens-collection/ detailing the research and efforts of a certain Mr Clarence Simonsen to preserve WW2 nose art from Canadian bomber squadrons. As a Brit-Canadian myself, the idea of modelling a British-built, Canadian-flown Lanc was appealing and amongst the many interesting nose art photos on the above blog, the ones of NN701 of 429 Squadron caught my eye in particular with its striking double skulls wearing top hats! It also has the nicknames of its crew painted at their respective stations which I thought was cool so that’s the Lanc I’ll be doing! To avoid the detail paralysis that sometimes takes hold of me and which has definitely slowed my spitfire build at times, I’m going to be keeping this one as an out the box build (we’ll see how long that lasts…) Comically inaccurate box art aside, the kit itself is fantastic. The moulded in detail is beautiful, the outer skin surfaces are lovely. I did find some of the parts were a little more flash-y than expected but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with some careful scraping. I’ve cleaned up and put together all the interior parts into paintable sub assemblies, as you can see here. I used plasticard in a few places to fill holes or cover ejector pin marks that were difficult to fill and sand. The ribs in the bomb-aimer’s section are separate from the side walls and are a very tight fit. I trimmed the parts that inserted into the slots slightly to ensure a flush fit with the wall and also filled and sanded the ejector pin marks on each rib as they face towards the nose when installed. I also filled and sanded the front rib so it had a flush finish all around the edge of the side wall piece as this would be visible through the front blister. As a ‘44 British production Lanc, and based off the one photo of her, I’m going with interior green for the cockpit, black for the bomb-aimer’s area and front turret but happy to be dissuaded by more knowledgeable folk! Annoyingly, I planned for the Gee installation option over the H2S as I was originally going to do the Phantom, but I’m pretty sure I can see the pole in the cockpit that indicated H2S fitted in this photo (see circled below). So I’ll have to fix that and put together the H2S boxes that go at the end of the navigator’s table. Also does anyone happen to have or know of a higher definition version of this photo of this aircraft? The original photo I believe was owned by Mr Simonsen of the aforementioned blog but he has sadly passed away. Not sure if that photo has ever been reproduced in any books or museums or anything like that… The reason I ask is because I can read the nicknames of all the crew, save for the wireless operator position (circled below) which is too blurry to read in this small low res scan of a photo. I’d like to be able to have his name there too as its location is a part of the nose kit. I also tried to find the names of H.A.M. Humphries’ crew online to see if it might help me guess but to no avail. So if anyone has a better copy of the photo or info about the names of the crew, that would be much appreciated. For all I know, the nickname of the flight engineer may well be painted on the starboard side where I can’t even see it. On to the paint shop! Will

Here we go, fun build of the Italeri rebox of the 1992 Hobbycraft kit, using decals from Kevin (thanks!!). Built for one of my club members who is doing a lot of WWI events. Billy Bishop was the leading Canadian ace of WWI, a pilot of remarkable skill, and usually went hunting solo. Not much was done on these undersides, but the topsides are weathered to knock down the shine. I need to learn how to do props better. Getting there! Seat is actually painted paper towel. The pattern seemed to fit pretty well. Close up view of the top wing weathering Tail before weathering: And after:

In the news today http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/11/newly-restored-spitfire-pay-tribute-men-risked-protect-britain/