Scale Aviation Modeller International – April 2019

the fuselage, as a bit of a break.

Basic construction involves

upper and lower halves, which

ultimately slide over the wing

spar to butt up to root fairings

with a plain joint. Each wing

has a number of internal parts

to it to represent the engine

carburettor and oil cooler

intakes, and the Eduard exterior

etched set has some very nice

mesh pieces to enhance these.

The inner nacelle interiors are

made up of six plastic parts to

represent the undercarriage

mountings, what I think is an

oil tank, and the ducting for the

inner engine turbochargers this

lot is dressed up with a further

ten etched parts, including a

sheet of structural ribs which

needs bending to it the roof of

the nacelle and which warrants

a word of caution - however

carefully bent, and tightly

glued, this piece interferes

signiicantly with the it of the

upper and lower wings at the

horizontal nacelle joint line, and

requires quite a lot of plastic to

be carved away from the nacelle

side walls (parts H15 and H16)

to get a good it. I didn’t take

enough of with the irst try,

attempting to rely on clamping

to get the joint to it – needless

to say it didn’t work, so one

wing has a slightly oval nacelle.

With the wings closed up and

the leading edge cleaned up the

etched framing

around the

intakes and the

upper surface

inspection panels

can be added, the

trailing edges glue together

with a slight gap which I illed

with superglue and sanded to a

blended edge. Only the slightest

smear of iller is needed at

the wing root joint and before

itting the horizontal stabilisers

I assembled and added the

rear gunner’s compartment

which again is moulded in clear

plastic to make masking the

windows simpler. Gluing this

assembly together requires the

twin machine gun mount to

be itted, so wanting to use the

superb master gun set, I cut of

the rather oversized kit barrels

and drilled the receivers to take

the brass barrels which were left

of to be itted after the main

painting and masking stages.

The kit instructions would

now have you it the engine

turbochargers at this point,

although there’s no need, they

can the assembles, painted

various metallic shades and set

aside until after painting the

underside of the wings. Out of

the box the engines are each

made up of four parts, a solid

disc cylinder bank, exhaust

and intake manifolds and a

front gearbox. There’s some

moulded inning and ignition

wiring detail, although the

rather lat cylinder bank means

that nothing can be seen of

the manifolds. The Quickboost

resin alternatives have much

better cylinder detail and an

integral gearbox but need to

have the manifolds grafted

on in the right orientation to

suit each individual engine’s

installation and can be further

improved by using Eduard’s

etched wiring harness. The

it of the manifolds is a bit hit

and miss but is close enough

for what can be seen through

the engine when the cowlings

are itted. Because of some

small inaccuracies in attaching

the exhaust manifolds, I had

to do some adjustment of the

locating key at the back of the

intake manifold pieces (part

J8) to get the exhaust to line up

with the turbocharger ducting.

The cylinder block was painted

black and dry brushed with

aluminium, and aluminium

and Burnt Iron was used for the

intake and exhaust manifolds.

The etch wiring harness was

painted with Vallejo Hull Red.

The engine cowlings ofer

the option of closed or open

cooling gills and it to the

front of the nacelles (after the

engines are itted) with rather

indeterminate mating surfaces,

especially if the cowlings have

needed signiicant sanding

to ix the joints, probably

the least positive bit of

engineering in the whole kit.

The undercarriage is well rendered and only needs brake pipes to bring it to

life. I used lead wire rather than Eduard’s etch

The upper surfaces

were pre-shaded

conventionally

using H77 Tire Black,

after priming with

Halfords grey

Part way through the

painting process with the

Dark Earth and Green done.

I didn’t do an accurate count, but a quick

eyeball suggests there are around 220

individual etched pieces to fit on the

fuselage

APRIL 2019 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

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