MPM Wellington Mk.IC Completed

cool.   Following this build.   I need Brit bomber in the stash.  

Thanks John. I have a few of the British bombers, including all 3 of the 4 engined heavies. I'm planning a GB in 23 that will give me a excuse to build one of those.

Why that instead of the Airfix Wellington, Martin?

The Airfix kit wasn't released until 2018, i bought this back in 2011. But it does cause some confusion as Airfix has markings for the aircraft i want to do but it has a different individual aircraft letter. So i am now trying to work out which is correct.

Following. An MPM kit with resin upgrades can be a double challenge! 

I know what you mean Chad. I am hopeing that as the resin is from CMK there won't be any major fit issues.

You'll be having fun with that build. Great subject and I know you'll do a good job on it but I saw MPM and my immediate thought was...."YEEESH!!!" Will be watching this come together.

I'm always up for a challenge.

One thing about this Wimpy kit is that there is nothing to represent the lattice work behind the windows. So i used some thin styrene rod painted aluminium. This took a few nights getting it all fitted. I had to sand down the edges of the bulkhead for it to fit.

The fuselage went together pretty well considering its an MPM kit (i've had worse) and with the lattice work added. Though one small section did come away and its now wedged between the bulkhead and window.

The resin tail pieces fitted well.

The PE flaps were a different matter. Instructions say the ribs are to be 2mm apart and i excepted that. There are 30 on each wing, but it wasn't until i fitted 27 on the first that i realised the remaining 3 would not fill the gap. So i worked it out and it should have been clser to 2.5mm between each rib. So once i removed the 27 ribbs, and straighted out the bent ones, i got them fitted as they should have been.

I'm now working on the rather intricate resin engines.

I'm surprised they didn't include something so critical! Good on you for scratch building it!

Thanks Chad, i was a bit.

Finally got an update. I was able to get the engines together. These are little kits by themselves. Each of the pistons along with all the pipe work are seperate parts, took a good couple of days to get these done.

And got the aircraft painted. Once again the Montex masks have proved a pain with quite a few panels lifting. I am expecting to have to clean paint off clear part.

All paints are Xtracolor.

Now to get the decals added.

That's looking good mate 

Beautiful work! I've always really liked the early war British bombers, a Hampton is on the shelf with new tool Airfix Wellington, Whitley, and Blenheim in the queue. 

Gotta hand it to you, even being able to see a 2.5mm vs 2.0 mm spacing difference on the flap ribs is impressive.

That's a ton of detail in those tiny engines. To be expected though with MPM kits. They'll throw you a detailed curveball just when you think you're making good progress!

Thanks guys. To be honest, i only spotted the issue with the flaps when i had a third of it left to rib and only 3 parts left. Would have saved some effort if i had worked it out myself before hand.

Those CMK sets are very detailed, i used some engines on an He 111 and i like to do maintinance dio's when i can get the parts, so this was a good chance for that.

You've pulled ahead of me on my build. Mine should be in paint soon

Not too keen on how Trumpeter did the engine nacelles. Very small attachment area

Thanks TJ. I didn't use the kit engines for this, but it looked like it would have fit ok.

There is a bit of an issue with the decals for the subject i am doing. According to the instructions, V-AA of 75 Sqn was the aircraft on which Sgt ward climbed out onto the wing to put out an engine fire, for which he was awarded a VC. I have seen profile images and other models which say the same thing. But a few weeks ago i was looking at the Airfix kit instructions, and the aircarft with the call sign R-AA was supposadly the aircraft on which Sgt Ward was flying, and both have the same registration number, L7818. So i did some digging and several sources i found suggest the Airfix kit is correct. One site, which lists the call signs and registration numbers of the 75 Sqn Wellingtons not only confirmed that R-AA was Sgt Ward aircraft, but also had the registration L7818. The kit i have, V-AA, was L7848, pretty close. So, with that solved, as i don't have the decals to change the V to an R, but the MPM sheet included spare registrations some of which included a 4 in the right size and colour, that pretty much made the choice for me.

I then gave it a flory wash and a flat coat and started adding some of the remaining parts. The engines were a bit tricky, getting the exhaust ring over the pipe work meant some squeezing things into place.

A few final bits to add and the figures to sort out.

I got the Wimpy wrapped up today. I just had the last bits to add and attach it to the base with the figures and equipment. The figures are a CMK set designed to be used with a Wellington. The tower, truck and lader are all from the Airfix bomber re-supply set.

This was a nice build, especially for an MPM kit. I've had worse. The CMK engines were a bit tricky, mainly getting the exhaust ring on, bt it got there in the end.

I'm also glad to get an aircraft from Feltwell on my completed list. When i worked at RAF Lakenheath, we also worked on the base at Feltwell. Much of the old base is still there including the wartime hangers this aircraft would have used.