1/48 Gavia Westland Lysander Mk.IIISD

by Mike Williams

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Here is a short feature on the construction of this wonderful kit.  As is nearly always the case, construction start with the cockpit, this is made up of a framework and is very nicely detailed out of the box .Included are front pilots seat and rear radio operators seat ,fuel tanks, radio and pilots control column and rudder pedals and control panels and of course the instrument panel and attached compass. I painted the cockpit all interior green then picked out the various details in black and silver and brown. The cockpit construction takes up 11of the 23 construction stages!.

I assembled and painted and detailed the cockpit and put to one side whilst I constructed the engine, this consists of 9 separately moulded cylinders that attach to the main engine central block and a rear wiring ring and the instructions say to used stretch sprue for push rods ,but these are in the eduard set . The cowling consists of three parts plus a separate exhaust collector ring and exhaust. The joints of the cowling are thoughtfully split on the actual joint lines of the real aircraft which saves a lot of clean up here. The cowling connector plates are supplied on the Eduard set and they add a little more detail to this area. Next is the propeller, this is made up of three separately moulded blades and a two piece hub which the blades are glued into. The spinner can be added or left off depending on the aircraft being built, this is a two piece affair. The prop, engine and cowling are then all brought together into one subassembly which I left off to make painting easier and added later on.

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The long range centre line fuel tank and its attachments is built next, no problems with that.

Now the cockpit model is put into the fuselage and the two fuselage halves are joined together, this is where I hit my first snag in construction, the cockpit framework is too wide at the front and rear so the fuselage halves don’t meet properly, its easily remedied by sanding the sides of the cockpit frame at the front (either side of the Pilots seat) and at the rear too.

From now onwards ,construction really picks up speed, once the fuselage is together, the tail planes are added, a little filler was needed but nothing too drastic. Next the wheels are assembled and painted then put together in the wheel spats which are a good fit with only minor cleanup needed on the joint lines, these are then attached to the fuselage, again, a nice fit. Next I masked up the canopy and attached it with white PVA glue, the canopy is a 5 piece affair and needed careful alignment to get it into position.

I assembled the wings next and dry fitted them to check for fit and alignment and dihedral with the wing struts that attach to the wheel spats. Good job I did!, the attachment holes on the underside of the wing are too far out (by approx2.5mm) so it gave the look of droopy wings, I filled the holes and sanded them down, and drilled new holes 2.5mm inboard of the old ones. It all lined up perfectly then with the correct dihedral that is so characteristic of the Lysander. I left the wings off for painting and added the after I’d painted them.

Added the fuel tank, side ladder and tail wheel and got ready for painting.

I sprayed the whole thing with satin black (Vallejo modelair 057) , let it dry overnight then masked up for the camouflage, I used enamels for the camouflage top surfaces. (Humbrol 165 Medium Sea Grey and 163 Dark Green)

I then attached the wings with liquid cement and sprayed two coats of Klear on the whole airframe ready for decals. I chose the SEAC machine for a change to the RAF machines.

The decals went on without a hitch, nice and thin, nice and clear and perfectly in register, the red may be a bit too bright but overall they were fine and reacted well with Microset/sol fixing solutions.

Finally I gave the whole thing a wash wild mild soapy water and rinsed it off with cold water, all applied via cotton buds, then gave a coat of Humbrol matt cote to seal everything in..

So, to conclude, this kit is by no means for the beginner, but it has good fit of parts overall with the only problem being in the cockpit fixing to the fuselage interior, and the wing strut alignment..

The detailing overall is very fine and restrained and the ribbing detail on the fuselage and wings is very subtle .

I'm no rivet counter , so I don't go for accuracy by measuring it, but it certainly looks like a lysander to me!  

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Many thanks for all the help given to me in the forums on this wonderful sight. I wouldn't have known about the cockpit fit problems and the wing dihedral without the input from the forum.

Mike

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Photos and text © by Mike Williams