1/72 Hasegawa Lancaster Dambusters

[StuartClark]

The Avro Lancaster like the Spitfire and Hurricane is an instantly identifiable aircraft to most English people and aviation enthusiasts the world over. Thousands of aircrew flew the four engine heavy bomber during the war and many of them did not return.

One notable squadron was 617 which undertook the famous ‘Dambuster’ raid against several German dams in the Rhine region. The goal was to breach the dams and disrupt industrial output in factories in the Rhine area.

There have been many kits of the Lancaster made over the years, but at the time that Hasegawa released several new ones in the early to mid 2000’s there had not been a good offering in quite some time.



I picked up both this Lancaster Mk III special and another kit in the mid 2000’s. The Lancaster has always been on my ‘got to build it’ list and not only did I pick up the kits but I picked up Eduard ‘Big Ed’ photo etch sets for both aircraft. In my defence I think they were on all sale.

As many of us know sometimes larger projects like this end up in the stash until we are comfortable of our skill let to undertake them. In my case this and life in general delayed me getting to this kit.

Many other people have done excellent reviews of this kit so I’ve only done a brief video showing some of the parts and photo etch. And I feel that the photo etch will be the challenge here.

[StuartClark]

As with any kit I build, I start by scanning the instructions and have a inspection through the sprue’s and other parts in the box. As I’m doing photo-etch as well I’ll also review the instructions for those sets as well.

I then grab a pencil and will indicate on the main instruction sheet where aftermarket parts are going to included. This insures I don’t forget anything during a build step. For the most part I usually assemble the kit via the suggested order, but there are times I’ll build something out of sequence particularly if it aids construction or finishing.

The key to these larger complex kits is to consider it a series of subassemblies. I’m going to start on one of the smaller ones but the most complex and time consuming, the cockpit area.

The Eduard interior set has reasonably clear instructions but there are times when careful review of the instructions and the part is worth the extra few minutes. One thing with pre printed photo etch you have to have a plan, as some parts you will want to install first, then do the painting, then add the remaining pre painted parts.

I started by snipping the 2 main fuselage halves off the sprue and starting work on the cockpit area. Some sanding away of existing detail was required before adding some of the p/e here.



I started attaching some of the photo-etch using the Ultimate Modelling Products Photo-etch placing tool. This is a wonderful tool allowing one to precise place small pieces of photo-etch.



I also assembled the pilot seat as well as the crew table.



With these parts done it’s time to apply some primer. As the cockpit is black with interior green, Vallejo black primer will be the logical choice.



Next part will be post primer and starting to paint and weather the cockpit area.

[StuartClark]

Job hunting and other things have taken alot of time away from model building. Slowly but surely getting there. Here is the latest YouTube video of the work in progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V0-Z8ZjBrs

Hopefully will have another video and a further build report showing the cockpit area done over the holidays.