1/48 Tamiya Lancaster AJ-F 

Canadian Ken Brown’s Dambuster

To honour the 65th anniversary of the Dambusters Raid on May 16 1943

by Pablo Calcaterra

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The story of the Dambusters, the famous raid on the Ruhr dams is very well known.  See www.dambusters.org.uk and www.thedambusters.org.uk.   After a few very intensive weeks of training, 19 crews specially hand picked by Squadron Leader Guy Gibson, attacked the dams on the night of May 16-17th.

Out of the 19 planes that took off, 2 had to return before reaching the target: one was damaged by flak and lost the internal communications system, critical for this type of mission, and the other one touched the North Sea surface on the way in, lost the bomb, had the tail gunner practically drowned as his turret got flooded, and was also forced to return.

Out of the 17 remaining planes, 9 made it back, 8 being shot down either on their carefully planned route to their targets, over the dams, or on their returning legs.

Two damns were breached, a little more than 1,200 people died in the subsequent flooding and the damage was repaired within 3 months (by diverting troops and workers from other areas and affecting the war effort). The effects of the raid were, we now know, of limited impact on the German war effort. LINK to effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise#Effect_on_the_war 

But what cannot be discussed or denied is the courage of the crews that took part in the raid, in those huge Lancasters, with practically no modern devices (to our current standards) to keep the height or navigate along the route. Great work done by their navigators, gunners, pilots. Courage of the highest class.

Most of the stories told about the raid are mainly focused on the 2 breached targets, but little on the unsuccessful attacks on the other dams.

A Canadian pilot that made it back from the raid carried his attack on one of the unbreached dams: Ken Brown. http://www.thedambusters.org.uk/aj-f.html 

Flying in the reserve (there were 3 waves and 1 reserve), he was directed to the Sorpe dam.  Mc Carthy had bombed it unsuccessfully and it took 8 runs, at night, flying into a valley, which had the lake and dam at the bottom to deliver his bomb (actually, it was a mine) on the right spot.  But the construction of this dam was different from the others, in this case made of compacted earth.  So the Sorpe was not breached and there were no more planes or mines left to finish the job.

What is interesting to mention as well is that his flight to and from the target was extremely eventful, attacking a train with their guns, almost crashing against a castle, being hit over the Moehne dam and finally seriously damaged when crossing the Dutch coast on their return leg.  I won’t retell the story myself, as it is better if you to “hear it” from Brown itself. http://www.lancastermuseum.ca/kenbrown.html.  It makes your hair stand on ends!

Ken Brown left 617 Sqn one year after the raid, according to 617 Operational Records. 

Ken Brown was given the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for his part on this raid, and his navigator and bomb aimer were given the Distinguished Flying Medal. 

Nevertheless, I wanted to pay my tribute to all the Canadian crews that took part in this famous operation.  And I think that there is no better way than building Brown’s Lancaster. 

THE MODEL 

I bought the Tamiya 1/48th Dambuster 16 years ago.  At that time, I did not know about the existence of Putty, airbrushes, gloss coats below decals…and I built Guy Gibson’s plane in probably less than 2 weeks. Construction skills were so limited that I only used (instant!) glue in the locating pins area. So you can imagine what it looked like… 

After several years of collecting dust, I left it in charge to a friend of mine.  Apparently someone tried to clean it and several guns, the whole right vertical surface and other items were lost forever. 

When I got my plane back, I first though about trashing it and buying a new one. In fact, I put it inside a black plastic bag (trash). But after searching for a new kit in Internet, I discovered it was really hard to find, and very expensive. Luckily, I still had the bag in the shed, took out the plane (now even more damaged) and decided to re built it. 

First task was to disassemble it. It was quite easy except of the upper and lower wing surfaces. Then I soaked the whole kit in bleach for a couple of days. I could not believe my eyes when I saw how easy it was to remove the paint with an old toothbrush. Paint just came off like colored dust. And there were no scratches or stains on the black or clear parts. It was a tip I learnt in Internet and it proved to be amazing!

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Assembly:

With all the parts now rinsed in water, I proceeded to paint the internal walls of the fuselage. By aiming in an angle, I managed to highlight the cables and structure on the sidewalls.

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One of the 2 support columns for the navigator was lost, so I had to stratchbuild it. I used the original radio that comes with the kit, but I am aware that it must not be the correct one as the planes that took part in the radio had fighter planes radio sets, instead of the standard bomber ones.

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A couple of the small windows were lost as well, and I made them using flat pieces of plastic I found in one of my 3 spares parts boxes.  

I took the parachute of one of the crewmember figures and attached it behind the bomb aimer position, as per the SAM Publications reference book, which proved to be invaluable for this project.

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parachute

 

The fuselage was closed, sanded, puttied and sanded again. I closed the top turret opening with the part supplied by Tamiya. The front turret was masked and fixed in place. At this point I realized that I had lost (during my trashing phase) the nose turret fairing. Luckily, when I built the kit several years ago, I not only kept the original box (because of the artwork) but also all the unused parts. One of those is the replacement for the nose turret for the Grand Slam version. I took this part and cut it, sanded it and shaped it so it could replace the fairing. The cover for the hinge to remove the turret was also scratch built. 

The bomb aimer Plexiglas supplied in the kit is not the correct one for the Dambuster version as it is the flat one. I bought the Falcon vacuum formed kit and used this one instead.

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Horizontal tail surfaces came next, followed by making another right vertical surface. I had the left one, so I made a mold with rubber, cast 2 or 3 pieces with resin and proceeded to transform a left side into a right side vertical surface. To do this, I had to close the original locating hole, open one on the other side, and cut out the round structures from one of the other pieces, sand them and glue them in place on the external side. The ones on the internal side were sanded out. I also had to rescribe panel lines and rivets.

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This is the first time that I use a riveting tool. I used for all the surfaces that I erased while making the fit better (wings, fuselage, tail).  

Another technique I used in some other areas that are difficult to access with the putty and the sandpaper is the following: apply white acrylic base using an old brush on the areas that have gaps and need to be filled. Allow it to sit for a couple of minutes and then, using a damp cloth, remove the excess of base. Sometimes you have to redo some spots, but it dries faster than putty and you don’t scratch the surface. The key here is to move the cloth perpendicular to the line you are filling, with little pressure. Else, you will remove the base from the gap as well! As it is a white base, it is very easy to spot imperfections. 

The pitot tube and the L shaped tube below the cockpit had been lost so I scratchbuilt them. Same goes for the two little windshield sprays. Some actuators for the ailerons and rudders had to be made in resin (again after making a mold based on parts that had survived). 

I then moved to the wings, where the landing gears were reassembled. The engines were a nightmare to make them fit. It took lots of patience and putty to get a decent (thought not perfect) fit.

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As I had lost some of the position lights on the tip of the wings, I cut some large chunks of clear plastic to shape, glued it, filled it and used several layers of Future to try to fill some gaps.  

Wings were attached and the plane was ready for the paint sessions. 

Painting:

First, Dark Earth and Dark Green from the Humbrol range for the top camo. I used rolls of Blue Tac to separate both colors, and masking tape for a sharp division line with the black undersides.

Then, I airbrushed the gloss black for the undersurfaces, propellers (I had previously given a hand of black to the frames of the canopy and turrets). 

The plane was not finally ready for the coat(s) of Future. Once satisfied, it was decaling time. 

Decals:

As I mentioned above, this is a tribute to all Canadian crews that flew in World War II. I decided to depict Brown’s plane because there are lots of Dambusters built with Gibson’s or other very famous members of 617 Sqn codes, but a few, if any, with one of the least famous pilots (and Canadian, eh?) 

Decals used were Extradecals (letters and codes) and Techmod (stencils and roundels). Also for the first time, I used Set solution (I had only used Sol till now) because if found the Polish (Techmod) decals to be pretty thick and wanted them to follow the surface of the plane. Well, I lost the count of the number of coats I had to use for the roundels. But finally, thought it is not a perfect job, details below the decals can be seen. One problem I had is that in some areas, where the Set run over the Future, it attacked it creating wrinkles and silver areas. The wrinkles were sanded out; Future was applied again (this time, with a brush). The silver area was easier: a simple coat of Future took care of it.

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Serial numbers and code letters were a little bit more challenging as I had to play with the what I had available, cutting them and creating the letters I needed.  

A coat of satin varnish sealed the decals. 

Final details:

The landing gear legs were painted with a brush; propeller tips painted in yellow, wheels were puttied, sanded, painted and attached. Landing gear doors were glued in place. 

The lost gun barrels were also made in resin (I had some left to make molde in rubber), glued and brush painted. Same goes for some of the screens before the little intakes on the sides of the engines.

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The bomb was attached under the fuselage and the navigation lights were painted using a mix of Acryl colors and Future.

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And the final touch was to put the tail turret in it place.

Pablo

Thanks to Jeremy Graves and Mike Parry for their help with this project.  

Post Script: the tail gunner of Brown’s plane during the raid, Grant McDonald, will sign one of the pictures that I took of my model!!

 

Photos and text © by Pablo Calcaterra