Chas's workbench

[Chas Levin]

I don't know how other folks deal with this, but I was slightly concerned at the idea that the yellow prop tips might not be (reasonably) uniform in length, so I built a quick jig, based on a rubber washer cyano'd to a piece of thick card with a hole in and some other card discs on the back, so the engine can be stood on the hole, with each prop tip lined up with some pencil marks on the card - sounds more complicated than it is, hopefully these pics make it clear (and each prop tip does align above each pencil line when viewed in real life one by one, they just look odd through te camera):

 

[Chas Levin]

Various Lancaster parts have been painted or had transfers added; there's a touch of silvering in places but suitable varnish coating will hide that:

 

[Chas Levin]

And if anyone wonders how much trouble you have to go to to stand a Lancaster fuselage with the front turret gun already in place vertically to allow for fixing the replacement rear turret guns, this is how much:



Moral? Never fix turrets in place until all gun barrels are already in place within them!