1/48 Tamiya Lancaster

Gallery Article by Shawn "phantom" Weiler on May 16 2016

 

      

This is another commission build, but a commission build which caused no end of trouble. The customer wanted a Lancaster as flown by a family member with number 12 squadron RAF. The Lancaster was around a month old when lost and is believed to have only flown 6 missions. The with weathering is much less then other Lancs I have built in the past.

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The kit itself is the well known Tamiya kit. However THIS one caused me no end of trouble. The thing MUST be from the early 70s. The plastic is very brittle. The landing gear broke at least 6 times on the port side alone. In fact it shattered as I gently put it down yesterday. It ended up that it had been patched SO many times now one leg HAD to be replaced with a coat hanger for strength. The gun barrels the customer supplied just did not look right. They were very small. In fact you could not even see them in the tail turret. Of course the nose guns broke off. I had to replace them with some spares I had laying around.

The other issue was the decals. It was no surprise the original kits ones were not usable. The other ones the customer had just looked far to bright red. Especially when beside the 12 squadron code letters. So I sourced some new roundels. The customer supplied Eduard photo Etch which really dress up the cockpit nicely. Of course I added a photo including my own Lancs. I hope the customer likes it. 

"phantom"

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Photos and text © by Shawn "phantom" Weiler