David takes on (a) Hercules - Revell 1/144 >>DNF << :-(

[Gregers]

IIRC the nearest 'railway' scale is N gauge (roughly 1/148th) and Oxford do die-cast Landies in this scale.
Hope this helps.

All the best.

Greg

[DavidWomby]

IIRC the nearest 'railway' scale is N gauge (roughly 1/148th) and Oxford do die=cast Landies in this scale.
Hope this helps.

All the best.

Greg

Thanks, Greg. Sounds like they'll do fine.

David

[shangos70]

Nifty little kit, I have those same AM markings for use on my old Airfix Herc.

[DavidWomby]

Made a small start. I've tried one engine for starters and it's a bit of a challenge to get a completely square cut taking off off the front end of the kit engines. Still the Aeroclub engines look a major improvement.





The Aeroclub engines stand a little proud of the nacelle tops. Aeroclub do include
replacements for the nacelle tops but I think I'll just leave the kit nacelle tops and fair the engine fronts in with putty. The engine fronts will need some sanding anyway as they have a visible mould seam.

David

[DavidWomby]

Looking at pics of RAF planes in their early years, I have to eliminate a cargo door and, I think, some windows from the fuselage. Can anybody confirm the windows?



Thanks

David

[Old_Tonto]

No idea mate sorry but that replacement engine looks very good.

[iggie]

As OT says, nice work on replacing the nacelle fronts; they look much better. Can't help with early Herc window arrangements I'm afraid....

[DavidWomby]

I have been suffering from a severe case of 'no-mojo' on this one but I finally pulled together enough energy to do a bit today.

Here's my tale of woe this week. I had two sets of Aeroclub's lovely metal engines and props in my stash. I pulled out one set weeks ago for this. I then found it had only 3 nacelle tops. I was going to use one from my second set and I pulled that set from the stash last week but now the second set has totally disappeared. The floor is tile in here, so I am blaming the 'tile monster' but in truth it's my pathetic memory. I can put something down and turn around 2 seconds later and have no clue where I left it! I have searched so much for the missing Aeroclub packet that I think that is what put me off working on the model for the last 4 or 5 days. I do hope I find that spare set eventually as it's OOP and I have another of these Hercs that I plan to build as a C3 one day!

Anyway, I have cut the nacelles, used the 3 Aeroclub nacelle tops that I have and 'adjusted' the remaining plastic one to try to match them. You can see a shim in there and it still needs to be shortened.



The front edges will all need to be trimmed to accept the Aeroclub nacelle fronts. Fortunately, the wing to fuselage fit seems pretty good. I plan building them as sub-assemblies so I can get the engines all sorted before fitting the wing to the fuselage - which is still unstarted by the way!

Here's a pic to show an Aeroclub prop v the Revell one! The Aeroclub ones will need quite a bit of cleanup but I think they'll be worth it.



David

[Old_Tonto]

I'm always having senior moments too David.
Hope theparts turn up soon.

Those metal props do look much better than the kit ones. A big improvement.

[DavidWomby]

I decided to push on with this although I will be away all next week and I am getting doubtful that I will complete by the deadline. Anyway, I drilled out the portholes and filled the side cargo door but the big news is: when I opened my box containing my drill bits and pin-vise, lying there in the top of the box was ............... my missing second set of Aeroclub engines!!!!!



David

[iggie]

Excellent find!

Isn't it always the way how you find things when you're not really looking.....in my case usually just after I've decided to do without, or bought a replacement!

[DavidWomby]

This is heading for a DNF. I leave for Toronto in the morning and won't be able to touch this again until the 21st. The last few days have been taken up with work, yard work and installing the air conditioning in my car and I just managed to spent 10 minutes now attaching the engine fronts. They will need some blending in but very nice.



David

[Old_Tonto]

They do look very good David, a big improvement over the kit parts.
Don't stress about finishing. If you are a really good boy in Toronto you might get an extension.

[DavidWomby]

Back from Toronto to sunny warm Florida and I immediately come down with flu (possibly a souvenir given to me by my lovely granddaughter in Canada).

I managed to get restarted on this. The canopy is a bit weird - two pieces, one goes in each fuselage half and the central windscreen pane is on the port half and should slot into the gap on the starboard half when the fuselage is joined. Time will tell.





I am not going to do an interior but added a bulkhead to prevent see-through. My research seems to say the interior is a kind of RAF Sky colour!!! Seems odd so I may just plaster some grey or black in there so it contrasts with the exterior.

The engine nacelles are in PSR stage.

David

[DavidWomby]

Did a bit of dry fitting. Fuselage halves, wings and tailplanes. Nothing is glued but after a bit of fettling of the starboard wing root, the fit seems good.



More PSR needed on the nacelles and I need to paint the cockpit before closing the fuselage up.

David