BSC '12 1/48 Revell Mosquito B Mk. IV

Carsenault

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May 7, 2009
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Not ready to start just yet, but very soon I will be.

My intended first entry for the 2012 Big Spring Contest will be the Revell Germany 1/48 Mosquito B Mk. IV in the markings of Wing Commander Guy Gibson's (DFC, DSO, VC) 627 Sqn Mosquito Mk.XX (serial number KB267). Wing Commander Gibson earned the Victoria Cross while commanding 617 Sqn during the Dambuster raids over the Ruhr River Valley. Gibson was killed in action on September 19th of 1944 in this aircaft after a succesful pathfinder mission over Rheydt Germany.

I will be using Aeromasters Mosquito Raiders pt V sheet Featuring Gibsons AZ@E, and also BarracudaCals Mosquito Stencils which I have on order. I may also replace the kits spinners and landing gear with the more accurate parts from the Airfix kit. Not planning on using any other aftermarket items for now, but I will be attempting to convert the kits 250lb bombs into smoke markers .

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Started my Mossie last night, not much done just yet, only a few interior sub assemblies plus I painted and masked the exposed fuelcells on the bomb bay ceiling. With any luck I can begin painting the interior over the weekend.

One thing alarms me though. I have been test fitting as I go along and so far I have had a few issues, nothing that cant be fixed, just not something you'd expect on a recent mainstream kit of a very popular a/c.

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Hey Carsenault, I was going to ask - which of the Aeromaster schemes are you planning to do (invasion stripes -yes ;D)?
 
I tend to like controversial schemes... The scheme I am doing is the Mosquito that S.L. Gibson was flying the night he was killed in action. As the story goes, the a/c that was assigned to him had a serial number ending in "13". He felt that was a bit too unlucky so he took a different a/c instead, "AZ-E" ser# KB267. The mission was a very dangerous one over Germany in September of 44. His objective was that of the pathfinder, desinating targets with smoke bombs for the heavy bombers. The mission was succesful but his a/c crashed en route back to England killing him and his radio operator/bomb aimer as well. Engine trouble or running out of fuel was the suspected cause.

The Aeromaster sheet does not have any stripes on this a/c at all. However, being just a few months after D-Day, there should have at least been occupation stripes (stripes under the fuselage only). There are some bits of the wreckage that survived, one section is in a museum in the UK that clearly shows black and white paint near the right side fuselage roundle.

I havent decided If I will just do partial stripes, or the full invasion stripes. As far as I know there is no concrete evidence either way. The Full stripes would look pretty cool though.

Wreckage picture, please note, these are small pieces of wreckage placed over replicas of the fuselage sections.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29353381@N05/4668801990/#
http://www.mossie.org/images/donated_images/Barry_Pemberton/large/1_002.jpg

example with full invasion stripes

http://www.flyingart.co.uk/images/PAINT1.jpg

Most probable profile.

http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/77/pics/9_40.jpg
 
Do you know the details on this kits origin? I'm building the Tamiya 1/48 FB.VI kit at the moment and the engineering looks similar but not the same. I built the original Monogram release back in the 70's(?) and don't remember much about it except that it was a challenge.
 
Nice choice ,and a great bit of history too ...Looking forward to this :)

Chris.
 
ShutterAce said:
Do you know the details on this kits origin? I'm building the Tamiya 1/48 FB.VI kit at the moment and the engineering looks similar but not the same. I built the original Monogram release back in the 70's(?) and don't remember much about it except that it was a challenge.

Its Revell Germany's own tooling, the kit is marked 2008 on the inner fuselage. it is similar to the Tamiya kit, except Revell added some extra detail, but unfortunately made a few errors along the way too. 2 Single stage Merlins are included and can be displayed on thier engine mounts with a little surgury to remove a few cowling panels, to save time I wont be doing that. A nice addition is all separate control surfaces which I believe the Tamiya kit does not have. 2 notable goofs are the spinners which are a little too bulbous, and the main landing gear struts are a tad too short. The separate control surfaces are what originally sold me on this kit, but given the choice, id buy the Tamiya kit next time.
 
I was finally able to spend some time at the workbench today. And some serious work was done. over the weekend I began airbrushing the cockpit and other interior areas using Model Master Acryl British interior green, then I picked out other details using Tamiya and Humbrol paints, nothing fancy, not even doing a wash since little of it would be visible anyways. I invested in a set of Mosquito data decals from BarracudaCals and I got to use a few placards in the cockpit, they are tiny but look right to my eye. They include a really nice 2 part decal for the instrument panel, however, it didnt seem to fit the ip from the Revell kit which I discovered while trying to place the first part. What a waste since I wasnt able to salvage it. I will keep the 2nd part of that decal to use on another kit some day. I used the kit ip decal instead, not the best looking , but at least its something to look at. I high lighted a few of the guages to match reference pics I had. the fit in the cockpit wasn not what I had expected. I really had to fight with some parts to get them to sit right, trimming plastic where I needed too. ANd even after lots of sanding on the sides of the floor, I wasnt able to get the forward fuselage closed up tight. I will definitely be using some putty in spots. No surprise, a few of the online builds I have read had the same issue.

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Once I was satisfied with the fit, I closed up the fuselage ang cemented the forward fuselage halves together. Then I went to work on the wings... These were the complete polar opposite of the first part of the build, The wings fit together just as nicely as any Tamiya kit I had ever built, no putty will be needed along the leading edge whatsoever, just a light swipe with a sanding pad. The flaps are not only positionable, but are actually movable as well, dropping down and aft just liek the real thing. Nice work Revell. I placed the inner halves of the nacelles next, which according to the assembly guide, is required before assembly of the main gear struts. I like to paint my gear separately but the way the gear struts are made on the Mossie, they can only be put in place before the nacelles are closed off. So if I build the gear out of the kit, I can still paint it before placing it in the nacelles as long as I make a removable mask to cover the gear. I can then finish assembly of the nacelles and paint the kit with the gear in place. I was a bit weary of the gear assembly, with many fine braces and stuff to attach. Just here there are 12 individual parts, plus another 3 to place later, then still a whole other gear assembly. I was careful enough to get it all in place without it falling apart on me.

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And I couldnt resist a test fit to get a feel for the size of this kit. Should look great once fully assembled. Doesnt look all that big here but its close to 14" wingtip to wingtip.

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Withdrawing my entry from the BSC, the rubbish kit is now in the rubbish bin where it belongs. :mad:

No more Revell Germany kits for me.
 
That sucks Carsenault. Sorry to hear about it. I find the Revell of Germany stuff can really be hit or miss. Depends on which moulds they are re-popping.
 
This kit was from an all new tooling, and had some really neat detail features. But was really designed by commitee. even withing the kit there were some really great fits and detail, other areas were sadly far behind. Gonna see if I can find me a Tamiya kit in the next little while, if I do, I will re enter with it instead.
 

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