Building the Armstrong Whitley Mk. I
Step by step build review of Fly's 1/72 scale British bomber.
Armstrong Whitley Mk. I - Wings, wheel wells, nacelles
Contrary to many other builds, this one I did not start from the cockpit. This time I decided to start from the wings, wheel wells and engines nacelles as they required more attention. The wheel wells are provided in resin, giving nice detail in this area. I thoroughly cleaned all parts up from flash and sprue joints using No11 blade and some sandpaper. Following the instructions, I removed about 5mm from the wing part of the nacelle with RB razor saws. Some trimming of plastic and resin parts was performed in order to get good fit of the wing sections and also to fit the resin wheel wells. Then the wheel wells were super glued in place.
When that was done it was time to close the wings. Each wing is divided in two lower and one upper parts. There was need to add some plastic card to reinforce and assure straight fit between the two lower parts of the wing. The trailing edges were a bit thick so I sanded them down to more reasonable thickness.
With the wings ready next thing was to fit the nacelles. The front part of the nacelles is split lengthwise but when closed together the front nacelle is narrower than the wing part. I cured that by spreading rear ends of the nacelle halves with plastic stock. The resulting gaps were filled with plastic strips and sanded flush. I glued the nacelles to the wings and then used plastic strips and some filler to get all nicely flush.
When that was done it was time to close the wings. Each wing is divided in two lower and one upper parts. There was need to add some plastic card to reinforce and assure straight fit between the two lower parts of the wing. The trailing edges were a bit thick so I sanded them down to more reasonable thickness.
With the wings ready next thing was to fit the nacelles. The front part of the nacelles is split lengthwise but when closed together the front nacelle is narrower than the wing part. I cured that by spreading rear ends of the nacelle halves with plastic stock. The resulting gaps were filled with plastic strips and sanded flush. I glued the nacelles to the wings and then used plastic strips and some filler to get all nicely flush.
I assembled the horizontal stabilizers and thinned their trailing edges. Then I decided to drop the elevator surfaces. For this, using a razor saw, I deepened the existing groove until almost going through. Then it was a matter of simple bending to the desired position.
To further improve the kit I decided to build the missing landing light in the left wing from scratch. Using mini razor saws I cut the required section of the leading edge. Next using plastic stock I built the walls of the housing. Using the rounded back end of a paint brush handle, thin aluminium foil and a punch I created the reflectors by pressing the foil between the handle and the punch. Then I drilled holes in the centres of the two reflectors and corresponding holes in the back wall of the housing. I made two metal rods from paperclip and inserted them in the reflectors which served dual purpose. The rods look like the bulbs inside the reflectors and helped securing them into position inside the housing. The assembly was finished with transparent cover made of clear acetate sheet.
Video tutorial on how to make this kind of lights is available here:
How to create lights for scale model aircraft from scratch
Video tutorial on how to make this kind of lights is available here:
How to create lights for scale model aircraft from scratch
Armstrong Whitley Mk. I - Cockpit and fuselage
Next task was the interior of the aircraft. I chose to build the Mk.I marking option which have no turrets so I only had to do the cockpit. It is very well detailed for the scale. The only omission was that there was no second control column which the Mk.I appears to have. I easily made one from scratch as well as a lamp for the navigator. The seats come in resin with moulded in belts giving the cockpit nice appearance. After assembly I painted everything with the base interior green colour. Then using lighter shade I picked out the raised details. To enhance the shadows I used MIG panel line wash. The instrument panel was painted in black and the simply dry brushed with grey which nicely showed the raised details. The table for the navigator I painted with acrylic sand colour, later using brown oil paint I simulated the wooden looks. As I was having the interior green in my airbrush I painted the wheel wells and the engine cowlings. Then they received the same enhancement procedure as the cockpit.
After the cockpit was ready I started on fuselage assembly. Prior to gluing the halves together I drilled holes where the fuselage meets the wings and the horizontal stabilizers. Then I made pins from paperclips and glued them in the holes. This way I ensured better and stronger joint. I glued the two fuselage halves together using liquid cement without any issues. To completely remove the joint line I used CA glue tinted with black weathering pigment which I later sanded down. The pieces that sit on the turrets places didn’t fit very well and I used plastic strips and some filler to make them flush.
More about using Cyano Acrylate glue for modeling purposes here:
The CA glue beyond just bonding - scale modeling video Tutorial
More about using Cyano Acrylate glue for modeling purposes here:
The CA glue beyond just bonding - scale modeling video Tutorial
Armstrong Whitley Mk. I - The rest of the parts
The engines that come with the kit are provided in resin and look very good. I added plastic strips on the back plate in order to get tighter fit inside the cowlings. Engines were painted with aluminium and the push rods in black. Then I gave them a wash with AK’s “shaft and bearings grease”. I also added the ignition wires.
The gear legs had too much of the shock absorber piston showing up. I saw this portion off and, after drilling appropriate holes, inserted sections of hypodermic needle. This way I got more realistic height as well as the best shine possible.
To give the tires weighted appearance a portion of each tire was sawn off. Then the hole was blanked with plastic card. This intervention adds a touch more realism to the project.
The propeller hubs come in resin and the propeller blades are in plastic. To achieve strong joint I drilled each blade and its place in the hub and inserted a metal rod, glued all with CA glue. I also made the same type of locating pins for the propeller hub to engine assembly.
Armstrong Whitley Mk. I - Assembly, prep and painting
The plastic is quite shiny and the panel lines quite delicate. I wanted to get rid of the shininess but didn’t want to lose the panel lines. Therefore I decided to deepen all the panel lines. This task was carried out with the back of a number 11 blade and fine needle in a pin vice. Few passes with sand paper ensured that I the primer will have something to grip on (or maybe not).
I drilled holes on the wings to accommodate the metal pins that I placed on the fuselage earlier. The wings were fitted on the fuselage with a few drops of super glue just to stick them in position, the rest of the joint I filled with liquid cement to “weld” all together. On few spots I got some gaps which I filled with plastic shims. The horizontal stabilizers were attached in the same manner, only I used filler and CA glue to get rid of the joint lines and to be able to scribe panel lines over them.
The greenhouse canopy was installed after some trimming and dry fitting. I used a little bit of Milliput to fill a gap in the front section. I masked the transparencies with masking tape. Milliput was used on the vertical stabilizers joint where the fit was not perfect. Using this type of putty and some CA glue gives more strength to the joint. The tail support beams were just cleaned up and superglued in place. To finish this part of the assembly I put the engines and cowlings on and also the resin air scoops and oil radiators. After some additional filling, scribing and sanding it was time to degrease the model and put some paint on it.
After cleaning the airframe, I applied white acrylic primer. It went down very smooth and revealed just a few spots that needed some more filler. When I started to sand the filler the primer started to peel off. At this point I should have had the primer removed but I moved on. More about the issues of the primer in this article:
AK Interactive White Primer review - or why I will not use it again
I mapped the camo scheme directly on the model with pencil. My paints of choice came from Mr. Hobby’s aqueous range. For the upper two tones of the camo scheme I used H72 – dark earth and H73 - dark green, for the bottom I used H12 - flat black. To make lighter shades H11 – flat white was used. All was diluted with thinner from the same brand. I started with the base brown colour, tracing the contours of the camo scheme and filling the brown spots but only on the parts covered with metal. On the fabric covered areas I applied lightened base colour. The panel centres were faded with pretty much the same colour I used for the fabric. After the paint was dry I started masking for the second camo colour. For masking I used “worms” of tack-it (blue tack) and low tack electrical insulation tape. The green colour was applied in the same fashion as the brown. After removing the masking there was paint lifting on several spots. I sanded the areas of trouble to reduce the ridge between paint and plastic and sprayed them again. For the underside I used mixture of black and white to obtain colour more like NATO black (or lighter). I covered the underside completely. Then I tinted some thinner with a drop of H53 – neutral grey, and sprayed the fabric areas as well as the panel centres. The panel lines were post shaded with flat black. Everything was sealed with gloss coat.
AK Interactive White Primer review - or why I will not use it again
I mapped the camo scheme directly on the model with pencil. My paints of choice came from Mr. Hobby’s aqueous range. For the upper two tones of the camo scheme I used H72 – dark earth and H73 - dark green, for the bottom I used H12 - flat black. To make lighter shades H11 – flat white was used. All was diluted with thinner from the same brand. I started with the base brown colour, tracing the contours of the camo scheme and filling the brown spots but only on the parts covered with metal. On the fabric covered areas I applied lightened base colour. The panel centres were faded with pretty much the same colour I used for the fabric. After the paint was dry I started masking for the second camo colour. For masking I used “worms” of tack-it (blue tack) and low tack electrical insulation tape. The green colour was applied in the same fashion as the brown. After removing the masking there was paint lifting on several spots. I sanded the areas of trouble to reduce the ridge between paint and plastic and sprayed them again. For the underside I used mixture of black and white to obtain colour more like NATO black (or lighter). I covered the underside completely. Then I tinted some thinner with a drop of H53 – neutral grey, and sprayed the fabric areas as well as the panel centres. The panel lines were post shaded with flat black. Everything was sealed with gloss coat.
Armstrong Whitley Mk. I - Decals and weathering.
There are not so many decals to put on which, for me, is a good thing. In general the carrier film is thin but the way colours are printed makes the markings unevenly thick. This way after applying the decals and soaking them in softening solution part of the decals conformed in the recesses nicely but other parts just stayed flat. To address that I used my scalpel blade and ran it along the panel lines under small angle. Keeping the blade as close to perpendicular to the surface as possible reduces the risk of decal delamination and therefore chipping. Another run of softening solution made all parts of the decals to get in the panel lines.
Using white tinted thinner I faded those parts of the decals which are laying on the panel centres. With black tinted thinner I made a few passes over the panel lines covered with decals. To enhance the appearance of the ribs on the wings I cut very thin strips of masking tape and placed it on top of the ribs. Again tinted thinner was gently sprayed over the tape. After the masking was removed the ribs were just a little bit more prominent and the large wing surface less monotonous. Using whitened tones of the base colours, using sponge, I applied chipping and wear on wear prone areas like the leading edges. Using the same lighter shades I painted some of the access panels (mainly fuel caps). To simulate fuel stains and streaks I used AK’s “shaft & bearing grease”. For the panel lines on the top surface I used MIG “dark green grey” panel line wash.
To give the black colour on the bottom of the model more weathered look I used MIG “sky grey” wash but only on the tail section as it is close to the ground. Using grey watercolour pencil I made chipping effect around panel lines and bomb bay doors. Initially it looked too stark but the satin coat reduced the effect.
To further enhance the dust accumulation I sprayed very, very thin brown colour on the tail section, on the wheels, on the nacelles and inside the wheel wells. The exhaust stains were made in two layers. The first layer, representing rich mixture staining, was done with heavily diluted flat black. The second layer, representing lean mixture staining, was created with white. Everything was sealed with MIG satin clear.
To further enhance the dust accumulation I sprayed very, very thin brown colour on the tail section, on the wheels, on the nacelles and inside the wheel wells. The exhaust stains were made in two layers. The first layer, representing rich mixture staining, was done with heavily diluted flat black. The second layer, representing lean mixture staining, was created with white. Everything was sealed with MIG satin clear.
The propellers were fist painted with aluminium, then the tips were sprayed with insignia yellow. After the tips were masked off, I put a coat of flat black. To give the propellers more weathered looks I made horizontal streaks across each blade using grey watercolour pencil. Then using my scalpel blade I chipped some black paint on the leading edges to reveal the aluminium undercoat.
Armstrong Whitley Mk. I - Final assembly
I assembled the gear legs with the tires and glued them in place in the wheel well. I left the tires free to rotate so their flat spot can sit properly on the ground. With the self-made locating pins, installing the propellers was very simple task. The positioning lights were provided in resin. I drilled holes in their places on the wings and glued them in. Then they were painted with silver and transparent red and green. To install the antenna masts I used the same drill and pin procedure. For the antenna I used 0.12mm fishing line painted in black. Other small things like the rudders counter weights were installed at this point.
With that done my 1/72 AW Whitley model was finished.
The complete VIDEO BUILD series you can find here:
Armstrong Whitley Mk. I - Conclusion
While this is not “shake and bake” type of kit and at some places requires more than average skills it was enjoyable and rewarding build. I am happy with the final result and I was not fed up with the build at any point. Forward to the next project...
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to FLY Models for the review sample.