Tutorial Novice - Handley Page Hampden - A guide to WWII ID Models

[lastvautour]

Barry, the fuselage is the messed up Apache. As you can see I missed the point on that one.

Lou

[Peter]

Hi Lou,

Thanks for the updates. I am back to working 10 hours shift so no hobby stuff until next Monday. Enjoy the cards and the darts.

Hi Barry,

The twin boom fighter is from I believe, 1938? aero modeler magazine plan in the file section of this site. The only other thing it says on the plan is a proposed fighter plane. I was working on it before the Hampden build started. I'll post a photo of it when I get home from work.

Peter

[Balsabasher]

I remember that particular plan Peter,it was as you say a proposed design,very interesting.
Barry.

[lastvautour]

While waiting for you to come back I will illustrate how to shape the main wing forward airfoil. Start by measuring off the front of the wing into thirds and the rear into half. The photo shows what I mean. Next we move to the top of the wing and measure off one third from the leading edge. In this case I marked 5mm and 23 mm from the edge. The tip is measured approx. 5mm from the tip.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Next mark a line half way between the line and leading edge and remove the wood between those the new line and the top line in the from edge of the wing. I just remove a bit for show. Be careful once you get to the tip area. You may want to use a sanding block.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Next mark the center of both remaining top sections and carefully remove the excess wood between line 2 and 4 which actually removes line 3. Next use your sanding block to round things out. By marking and removing small sections at a time you have a better chance of having both side match. Now do the same for the bottom of the wing as the plans show the airfoil as being symmetrical. You will wind up with a flat section in the centre of the leading edge. We will take care of that in the next post. I need to get my wing up to the steps I just described.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Mark the center of the leading edge face and place another line 2mm inside on the top surface. Cut out the part between the lines but do not touch the lines. Now sand the leading edge to shape. I use the large sheet of sandpaper laid flat on my bench for this type of job. If you place a straight line running fore and aft you will see the shape of the airfoil. That will also come in handy in shaping the fuselage.

Lou

[lastvautour]

I got ahead of my camera on the next shots. Mark off two points on the center line of the wing 15mm and 30mm from the trailing edge. Mark a point 5mm from the training at the tip of the wing. Connect the dots. We already marked the center of the thickness on the training edge. Remove the wood between the 15mm line and the center of the trailing edge. Be careful as you are now cutting the grain in two directions. Small amount at a time will save you problems. You could use a wood rasp if you were so inclined. Now mark off the center between the 15mm and 30mm line and run lines to the tips at the 5mm spot. Same as the front edge remove the wood between lines 2 and 4. Check on the final shape. If need be, mark additional line to ensure you do not take off to much wood. Using the flat sheet of coarse sandpaper remove as much wood as required to get a smooth wing surface. At any point you feel you need to remove more wood, do so and repeat with the sanding process. Before moving on the bottom half, mark off 1mm below the line on the training edge rear face as making the training edge too sharp will subject it to damages when handling. If you check closely you will find that even my smaller models have a thicker training edge than what the scale calls for.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Just a small sneak peek at things to come.

Lou

[Balsabasher]

Its looking really good Lou,the Hampden makes a lovely subject for model building.
My father flew Hampden's in Canada.
Barry.

[Peter]

That's a nice connection Barry. Do you know the number of the Hampden your Dad flew?

Peter

[lastvautour]

I will make mine represent a Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron bird. It would be nice to have a serial and call letters if possible.

Lou

[Balsabasher]

Yes Lou I can assist you here,RCAF form R.96 Logbook states the following historic notes as flown by my father-No.1 AAS Manby,Canada in 1943.

Serial 5884 19-05-1943 Hampden,bombing exercises
Serial 5894 20-05-1943 Hampden,6 bombs,bombing practise
Serial 5958 27-05-1943 Hampden,6 bombs,bombing practise
Serial 5973 28-05-1943 Hampden,130 group

It appears the OTU aircraft carried large serials on the fuselage sides with no codes as per RAF aircraft at that time but codes DK,LB,OP,RO were allocated to 32 OTU as gunnery and bombing trainers so were probably used at some time,these were Canadian Victory built aircraft quantity built in Canada 150-160 aircraft.

Scheme would be the usual dark earth/dark green camouflage pattern with what appear to be light grey undersides,later aircraft sent over from the UK had standard serials,from the pictures that I have seen these look well worn aircraft with black oil streaks across the wings were the exhaust has left its mark.

Barry.

[lastvautour]

Let's do a bit of play with the fuselage.

Photo 1
Mark the side of the fuselage 1mm from the top and run the line pass the turret.

Photo 2
Using the template, transfer the outer outline of the top turret.

Photo 3
Do the same for the lower gun placement.

Lou

[lastvautour]

Photo 1 and 2
Cut vertically into the excess wood to liberate the outline of turret. Contouring will follow later

Photo 3 and 4
Mark the rear fuselage in a similar fashion and cut to a straight edge. We will contour later.

Note that the lower gun emplacement will be done after we mount the wing.

Lou