Subject: Re: Avro York Article
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "Darius Aibara" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:35:08 -0700

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Darius Aibara 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 12:26 PM
  Subject: Avro York Article

  Gallery Template #05

  "1:48 Avro York" 

  by "Darius Aibara"
  --------------------

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  Whilst surfing the 1:48 model kits on eBay one weekend I spotted an incomplete Tamiya Avro Lancaster for sale - just the wings, engines, props and tailplane - no fusleage or transparencies. The possibility of making an Avro York sprung to mind - all I needed to do was scratch build a York fuselage; how difficult could that be? 

  I bid for the parts and won the auction. The easy part was over.

  My plan was as follows:-

  1. Carve a fuselage in balsa wood.
  2. Skin this with plastic card and filler.
  3. Cut off the front end just before the cockpit and use the balsa masters to vac-form two halves in clear plastic.
  4. Cut off the tail cone and use it to vac-form a plastic tailcone.
  5. Scratch build a cockpit interior.
  6. Graft the vac-formed bits onto the fuselage.
  7. Use clear plastic to skin the glazed part of the fusleage (surface painted black beneath).
  8. Scribe fusleage panel lines.
  9. Use those self adhesive circles that you get in stationary stores to mask the fuselage windows.
  10. Make the wings etc. using the Tamiya parts.
  11. Connect the wings etc. to the fuselage.
  12. Mask and paint as per a normal kit (I will probably paint the wings and fuselage separately).
  13. Vac-form the central tail using another balsa master.
  14. Make some home-made decals for the Dan Air York G-ANTK.
  15. Apply the decals and finish off.
  16. Make myself a really a long drink and relax for a while.

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  Step 1 was completed using a surform to profile the solid balsa fuselage. I used enlarged plans from the Profile Publications Avro York booklet as a guide to mark the fuselage profiles on the balsa.  It took a day to get the balsa to shape and to "tweak" it in a few areas but using the surform and a sanding block made "relatively" light work of it - although my upper arms ached for about a day afterwards!!! I then jumped ahead to step 15 and made the decals using my inkjet printer. Steps 3 and 4 were completed by cutting off the front end just behind the cockpit area using a razor saw and spit it horizontally in order to vac-form the top in clear plastic and the bottom in plain white. Before the vac-forming process I glued pieces of 2mm thick cardboard to the balsa masters to provide some oversail.  This gave me a margin to trim the parts to fit.  I had considered splitting the cockpit vertically but the main windcreen does not have a central pillar so it had to be a horizontal split. I use a Mattell vac-forming machine to do the necessary and it worked reasonably well.  The tailcone was vac-formed in one go.

  I made progress in the cockpit using photos and drawings provided by fellow modellers Edgar and Miduppergunner.  I scratch built the seats and yokes and used the balsa vac-form masters for the floor and front console as they strengthen the rather thin vac-formed outer skins. I was going to cheat and use an Eduard zoom Lancaster instrument panel but the York is much different - having both a pilot and copilot. I therefore scratch built the panel in the same fashion as I did for the Sanger Shackleton. Mike Grant's instrument decals made this a much less daunting prospect.  

          
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  The balsa fusleage was "skinned" with plastic card, the cockpit area was attached and the skinning joints filled. The central fin was carved from balsa and then port and starboard halves vac-formed.  Plastic card was also used to form the main wing and tailplane to fuselage attachment points.  The main cabin windows were fabricated from a strip of clear acetate with circular self-adhesive labels of the correct diameter used to mask each "porthole".  The vac-formed cockpit glazing was attached with cyano glue and the joints filled. sanded, re-filled, re-sanded etc. until I was happy with the joint. There was a newar disaster when the circular labels didn't want to come off.   Fortunately applying whte spirit broke down the adhesive without affecting the clear acetate beneath and so the windows survived!!

  I surrendered to the aftermarket and applied the Eduard Lancaster Flaps set to the Tamiya wings.  These were finally installed after much swearing and attaching of etched parts to fingers with cyano glue.   The red cheat line was masked and brush painted with Humbrol enamel and the black borders were added courtesy of Xtradecal's black decal stripes.  I made the cockpit sliding side windows with angle frames fabricated from plastic card and the sliding light from clear acetate sheet. This was then glued to the cockpit side. I also added the astrodome (spare vac-formed part from the Sanger Shackleton kit) and the starboard side clear blister (from the Tamiya kit).   The wings were painted and then the home-made decals applied to complete the kit. 

  Piece of cake... :)

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  Photos and text © by "Darius Aibara"