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Converting a Tamiya Lancaster into a Manchester


Cees Broere

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Well,

 

Progress is good, the nose section has been glued to the airframe and the engine

nacelles are nearing completion. A lot of parts have been recycled from the donor

kit (Grand Slam). The flame dampers were cut to size and glued to the nacelles sides

and the surplus bits were sliced to get the small inlet and outlet that sit between

the exchaust dampers used on the Manchester and the Lancaster carburettor intakes

fit very nicely futher aft on the nacelle fairings. I am very pleased how the nacelles have

turned out and other than some more cleaning up and filling holes, I only need to make

the radiator shutters and from that it's plane sailing. The undercarriage is Lancaster

using FM Halifax wheels which are a bit smaller in diameter than the Tamiya Lancaster

or the Paragon wheels I had. One problem left to solve is the propeller blades, the

Lancaster ones are too short. So I have to lose some sleep over that one. Perhaps

1/48 Hurricane or Spitfire but I don't know if they are long enough. The Manchester

had some huge propellers. Any ideas?

 

Hope you like it

 

Cheers

Cees

 

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Edited by Cees Broere
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Cees the kit prop blades are paddle blades the Manchester would have had the needle one's, in the newer release of the Tamiya Lanc MkI it comes with both sets of blades so maybe someone won't use the needle one's?

 

Graham.

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Time for an update.

 

Construction work has now finished, all seams have been sanded and given a

coat or two of grey paint to check. The undercarriage is fully assembled and is the

standard Lancaster from the kit. As far as I know these were identical but

for the size of the mainwheel, that has been tackled as well. The tailwheel

has been reworked from the Marstrand anti-shimmy type as used on the Lanc into the

Manchester (balloon) type by filling the groove and filing and shaping the squarish

tyre into the rounded version.

 

Again it is surprising houw many Lancaster parts were modified to suit it's elder

brother

 

I also experimented with the fabric elevators by gluing plastic strips to similate

the ribs and coating it in glue. after this is fully dry rub it down with sandpaper

and it looks much better than Tamiya's rendering, the ailerons were dealt with in

a similar fashion.

 

The quality control department (me) has now cleared everything for the next stage, slapping

paint all over it.

Still no solution found for the propeller blades, any ideas (Fairey Battle?)

Cheers

Cees

 

DSCF1405.jpg

 

DSCF1407.jpg

 

DSCF1404.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some great progress has been made.

 

In a marathon session spread over saturday and today I managed to get some camouflage

on her as well as the black (which turned into a bit of a situation when halfway the

black paint ran out and after some panic mixing the airbrush began splattering drops

all over the surface)fortunately it was on the undersurface of the outer wings and it

has dried up quite nicely, Yey Revell Aqua.

 

A first for me too was laying the camouflage pattern, but having read enough about this

subject it was actually quite simple but the masking off takes a lot of time (not to mention

a lot of masking tape). With this progress the decals might be applied later this coming

week after some touching up has been done.

 

Hope you like it.

 

Cheers

Cees

 

:speak_cool:DSCF1459.jpg

 

DSCF1407-1.jpg

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Hope you like it.

 

Cheers

Cees

 

 

 

SWEEEET! And I'm not talking about the chocolate that seems to be on sale! :rolleyes:

You know that I've got 8 hot resin barrels right here for this monster!

Just give me a shout and I'll drop them by!

 

Cheers,

Jeroen

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Hi Cees,

love conversionwork too. There is much fun building an airplane which doesen't excist in kit form. I envy your abbility to do two engine nacelles with miliput. One I could build my self I hope but two indentical? My twins would look like Jekill and Hide. Very nice work so far. Will trace your progress.

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Danke Mchael,

 

You think making two identical nacelles difficult? You are a master at

making impossible kits into great prototypes that no manufacturer has

ever thought of of kitting. :bow:

 

It's very simple, just remove the bits that don't belong on a Manchester

nacelle. :hmmm:

 

Cheers

Cees

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Danke Mchael,

 

You think making two identical nacelles difficult? You are a master at

making impossible kits into great prototypes that no manufacturer has

ever thought of of kitting. :bow:

 

It's very simple, just remove the bits that don't belong on a Manchester

nacelle. :hmmm:

 

Cheers

Cees

 

You know Cees, this does remind me of something Michael would do. And you've pulled it off-it's looking great, so all the sanding was worthwhile. Congrats on a unique model. :speak_cool:

Regards;

 

Automaton

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