Work in Progress

Airfix 1/76 RAF Recovery Set

Posted by huib on 28 Jul 2017, 17:51

Hi everyone!

I am going to build the classic Airfix RAF Recovery Set.

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This one. First issued in 1972, this is a 1991 boxing that I bought second hand a few years ago from a friend. The Recovery Set unfortunately is out of production at the moment. Airfix produced the Recovery Set back in the '70 to complement the very succesful Refuelling and Emergency sets, but it never proved as popular as these.
There are some issues with this kit, most noteworthy is that the Bedford tractor is too small for the scale, something difficult to adjust.

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These are the contents of the box. Quite a lot of plastic for such a small box. But then you get two quite big vehicles, two despatch riders and a traffic controller. A lot of value for your money!

The two vehicles in the box are a Thorneycroft Amazon 6x4 truck with a Coles crane, and a Bedford Tractor with a Queen Mary trailer for transporting disassembled aircraft parts. These vehicles were used by the RAF in pairs for the recovery of downed aircraft in all theatres of war: in Britain, in North Africa, and later also on the continent.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4259/35385971802_dae53b43db_b.jpg
This is a nice picture of the Coles Crane and a Bedford Tractor recovering a crashed Spitfire. Only on this picture they use a different model trailer. But you get the idea.

I will start with the Thorneycroft Amazon with Coles Crane, and leave the Bedford for later.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4285/35514835876_f6bbced7f7_z.jpg
This picture of the Thorneycroft will be my main source of inspiration. The Thorneycroft will get a wartime camouflage of SCC2 (Khaki brown) as a basic colour and SCC14 (Black) as the disruptive pattern.

So, let's start!
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by huib on 28 Jul 2017, 17:53

Thorneycroft Amazon chassis

As said I'll start with Thorneycroft Amazon with Coles Crane. And of course I start with the chassis.

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This is the chassis, and as a first step I cut of the fuel tanks. I will replace them later, after some detailing.

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After some detailing of the chassis and adding the front suspension, I cut a piece of lead and glued it under the chassis. This will add some weight to the vehicle which helps in stabilising it when lifting something later. Note the faint Airfix logo in the chassis. Some accompanying text was scratched out in the mould. Did it probably say 'made in England' before?

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Then I spent some time fixing the mudguards fore and aft. I thinned down the supports from the kit considerably for realism. The aft mudguards got some extra supports, in accordance with the real thing. The steps for the driver to enter the cab were also thinned down.

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I fixed the rear suspension and drive train as a subassembly. It will facilitate painting and, most important, will make it easier later to have all six wheels touch the ground.

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A dry fit of the rear suspension on the chassis, showing the complete drive train. You can see the piece of lead in place. I also drilled out the exhaust pipe.

On with some more details....
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by Wiking on 28 Jul 2017, 18:44

Nice, lot of detailing with bits and bobs !
Go on. :yeah:
Interesting is the place for the center of gravity to the lifted Spitfire in your b/w pic.
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Wiking  Germany
 
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Posted by huib on 29 Jul 2017, 15:09

Thanks Wiking!


Wheels

A bit of progress:

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I constructed and tidied up all 6 wheels, including hubs and brake drums.

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A dry fit on the axles.

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Ready for painting.
I'll continue with the radiator.
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by Marvin on 29 Jul 2017, 17:54

Interesting build. I intend to follow this with interest.
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Marvin  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by huib on 30 Jul 2017, 15:06

Thanks, Marvin! You´re welcome.

Details on the chassis
I spent some time making some adaptations and adding some details to the chassis.

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I adapted the base of the turntable from square (pre-war) to round (later version).

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Detail on the fuel tanks was first sanded off.......

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....and then rebuilt. Especially the longer filling pipes are conspicious.

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And what is this? This is a set of winch cable guiding rolls. They guide the winch cable neatly on the winching wheel while winching in a heavy load. It's made from plastic rod, strip and sheet.

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Turntable and fuel tanks in place.

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Cable guiding rolls in place. And some other details:
    a pulley
    a towing point attached to a leaf spring
    a taillight with cabling on the right mud guard

And now I'm working on the radiator.
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by huib on 31 Jul 2017, 14:56

Radiator

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This is the radiator from the Airfix kit. It's not wrong, but it is a civilian type radiator for prewar or early war Thorneycroft Amazons.

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You can see this type of radiator on this picture of a Thorneycroft Amazon with Coles Crane. But I am trying to depict a later type Amazon with a simplified wartime radiator.

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Like on this postwar picture of and ex-military vehicle in civilian guise. It has a mesh front and a filling pipe protruding at 45 degrees from the front. So lets modify the Airfix radiator!

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First the top part of the grill was covered with filler.

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Then the remainder of the grille was drilled out.

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The square gap was filled with a thin sheet of plastic card and a piece of wire mesh. This mesh is ment to be used in pipes to smoke marihuana, and easily available in the Netherlands. :naughty: :wink: But I decided to try and use it for different purposes.

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The new radiator with filling cap and starter crank hole. I think the wire mesh is much too coarse, so for a next model I'll look for finer mesh. But for now this will do.

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And attached to the bonnet. In the meantime I am working on the cab for a few days already....
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by Cryns on 02 Aug 2017, 11:37

Dear Huib,

Thats what I call a real piece of nostalgia.

huib wrote:The Recovery Set unfortunately is out of production at the moment.

That makes it even more valuable to build&present it to us.

huib wrote:the Bedford tractor is too small for the scale, something difficult to adjust.

I know by now you are experienced and skilled enough to achieve such an adjustment. But yes, at the same time, you will lose the value of nostalgia and vintage items like these.

Wiking wrote:Interesting is the place for the center of gravity to the lifted Spitfire in your b/w pic.

Wiking is right, its a fascinating historic picture that you linked .
Like all the pictures you linked.

Great work on the technical details. My favorite is the 4 cable guiding roll block and, of course, the piece of lead.
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Cryns  Netherlands

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Posted by stenfalk on 02 Aug 2017, 19:36

Yes, this is model building as i like it. Of course there is no objection to modern plastic construction kits at the highest level with PE-parts, photonegatives and turned barrels, i always was more impressed about a lovingly designed small copy from older and now rare, almost nostalgic modeling kits with its own means. As you show it here in a miracolous manner... Great! :yeah:
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stenfalk  Germany

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Posted by Beano Boy on 02 Aug 2017, 21:00

An interesting scale project, :thumbup: HO-OO is Railway Scale.
A good chance to see it all put together ,and parts converted too. :thumbup:
Great Looking Topic! BB
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Posted by huib on 21 Aug 2017, 17:08

Thank you, guys. I am happy you like my modelling style.

Wiking wrote:Interesting is the place for the center of gravity to the lifted Spitfire in your b/w pic.

Yes, the centre of gravity is not in the middle, but far to the front. In fact this is not so strange. In front is a huge V12 cylinder Rolls Royce Merlin engine, and the back of the aircraft is only an almost empty aluminium shell. There are only some cables for the controls and a radio set in the back.
With straight winged aircraft, like the Spitfire, the centre of gravity is always more or less at the point were the line between the wing tips crosses the fuselage.
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by huib on 22 Aug 2017, 08:40

Cab

I spent several hours working on the cab.
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The bulkhead. The window frames are much too thick.

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The horizontal frame is removed, the central vertical frame is thinned with a file.

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Several subassemblies for the cab, ready for painting.
I didn't bother to carefully remove all the extractor pin marks, as nothing can be seen of it later.

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Cabin interior painted.

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Cabin interior lightly weathered.

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Cabin constructed. The roof is left off until the very end, so I can install the windows and the driver in the end.

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A peak in the interior. Now I'm workin' on the cabin roof, and some more exterior details to the cab and front end of the truck....
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by huib on 24 Aug 2017, 08:23

Cabin roof

Most military Thorneycroft Amazons have a wooden floor board placed on the bulged sheet metal cabin roof, and a roof rack around it to prevent items from falling of.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4218/35166901260_4a6409ab28_b.jpg
You can clearly see it in this picture.

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The cabin roof from the kit.

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Plastic strips glued on the roof to imitate the wooden supports.

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Floor with roofrack attached.

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Another perspective. I made the roofrack from 0,5mm Evergreen rod, carefully cut to length and glued together. Off course the thickness of the roofrack is overscale, but this was the thinnest I dared to go. Construction was very fiddly. On with some more exterior detail...
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by panzerman825 on 24 Aug 2017, 11:41

Great job adding details to the vehicles. Really liked the crane cable roller guide and electrical wire piping. Attention to detail will yield a fantastic looking model. Good luck. Bill
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panzerman825  United States of America
 
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Posted by huib on 26 Aug 2017, 22:36

Thanks, Bill!

Exterior detail

The next step is to add some more detail to the cabin and bonnet exterior to liven things up.

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I lost my two headlights to the carpet monster, so I made two new ones from sprue and evergreen. And I made two small vehicle width indicator lights for on the forward mudguards. In the kit they are only indicated by a very tiny blob of plastic.

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The headlights and the indicator lights installed. I also added a towing point to the forward bumper and two eyes below the headlights that are used to secure the crane during transport. The fasteners for the bonnet sides were enlarged. Rearview mirrors are added and handgrips behind the cabin doors. The roof is only dryfitted.

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I also added some extra supports to the forward mudguards and the footboards. Fuel level indicators were added to the fuel tanks. All in accordance with my references.

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This subassembly is ready for painting now. On with the Coles crane.....
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by Wiking on 27 Aug 2017, 18:42

Lot of nice white stuff stick to the truck.

Finally the drive is able to hide his wive`s daily given breakfast on top.
"Oh sorry this was yours"? Of Mr. B _ _ _ , co driver come now to an end.
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Posted by huib on 29 Aug 2017, 13:09

Wiking wrote:Finally the drive is able to hide his wive`s daily given breakfast on top.
"Oh sorry this was yours"? Of Mr. B _ _ _ , co driver come now to an end.

:-D Why not build a diorama around this theme?
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by huib on 29 Aug 2017, 13:12

Crane base

I started work on the Coles crane.
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This is the parts layout of the crane base.

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After glueing the basic parts together I cut three pieces of lead to size, to use as counterweight for the crane.

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The counterweight glued in position. Like the real thing!

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To prevent the interior of the crane base to look like a black hole I made up an interior with some cogwheels. It is completely phantasy, as I could not find any pictures. But something with cogwheels, driveshafts and an electromotor must have been inside.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/34/1b/e7/341be73fb1d72ca08382425168a95854--coles-custom-cars.jpg
This link shows a picture of a scrapyard Coles Crane Mk VII showing hatches on top.

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So by lack of pictures I used my imagination again and created some hatches on the top of the crane base with a scriber.

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Then I added some details: Two electrical boxes with wires, and some notches on the hatches.

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I boxed in the crane drivers position, scratched some crane controls, and installed the seat. Also an elevation indicator was added above the drivers position.

Now to continue with the jib.
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by huib on 30 Aug 2017, 14:08

The Jib

The last major part left to be build is the jib of the crane.

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The kit contains five parts for the jib. Well, actually two more, but I will replace the screw elevation mechanism with a cable and pulley mechanism.

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The jib halves clamped together. They were slightly warped.

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And according to Airfix, the jib is finished now! But not in my case. Only now the fun starts!

I used two pictures that provide good detail of the jib:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4310/35146660233_3298a15caa_b.jpg
A Thorneycroft Amazon with Coles crane with a short jib.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4300/35146659533_29c39f6196_b.jpg
An AEC with Coles crane, carrying a long jib.

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Now, halfway the jib is a box (electrical?) and a guidewheel for the cable. I scratched both....

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...and glued them into position. Now here I made a small mistake. Looking for the exact position of the box and the wheel I accidentally used the short jib as a reference. As this is the long jib it is now too much at the back. The box and the wheel should be in the middle. But as I was afraid to create damage when repositioning the lot, I decided to leave it this way. Only real specialists (and you, now I told you) will notice it.

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Then I spent several hours further detailing the jib. All crossmembers got the L-shape, like the real thing. A lot of extra crossmembers were added that were omitted by Airfix, using the reference photo's as a guide. And some sections of the jib were covered with metal sheet, that was also added.

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I discovered on pictures that there was a second wheel at the front of the jib, so that was added. Also both wheel axles were simulated with small pieces of plastic rod.

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The jib is finished. Almost there now....
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huib  Netherlands
 
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Posted by Kostis Ornerakis on 30 Aug 2017, 15:56

I love your inspiring passion for detail. :thumbup: :-D
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Kostis Ornerakis  Greece

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