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Writer's pictureKai Reckstadt

Back-Office detailing and painting

Hi again in my blog. Today I want to continue with the description how I detailed and painted the rest of the crew-room.


There is a beautiful panoramic walkaround from Harald Joergens of Lancaster "Just Jane" in storage at East Kirkby which can be found here:

The pictures are really amazing. Take your time and go through it ! It's worth the time !


The crew-room behind the main spar of the wing is only rudimentarily detailed by HK.

I want to keep the crew entrance door open because there is a light above the door. Therefore it is necessary to add some further detailing for the illuminated area which can be seen through the door.


So here is a list of things I added:

  • Yellow handrails on both sides of the fuselage

  • Control-rods to the rudder and elevator on the left side of the fuselage

  • Some metal covers on the left side of the fuselage

  • Heating-Pipe on the right side of the fuselage

  • Weathering added to the inner structure


I started detailing with the painting and weathering of the fuselage-sides:


Weathering was done with a mix of black/ umbra oil-colors.



Next was the painting and weathering of the crew-sofa:


To simulate the structure of the leather I painted on some irregular pattern on the brown with

black oil-colour:




Next thing added were the handrails which helped the crew moving through the plane when in flight:


Left side:

Right side:



Then followed the big heating-pipe which runs along the right fuselage-side and behind the master-compass.


For the pipe I use a drinking-straw glued together from several pieces and painted with the flour-method, because the piping in real has a rough surface (thanks again to Sven for his tipps).


Basic pipe:


Painted and treated with flour:


Finished and assembled:



Last but not least I had to paint on the anti-slip-covering of the floor:


Masking was a bit complicated since I forgot to paint the covering already on the single parts.

Sometimes you have to go a longer way... :-)

This is how it looks like painted and weathered:

I also wrongly painted anti-slid on the cover of the Elsan-Toilet, which I discovered later and changed, because it was not allowed to walk on this cover (like in your home... :-).


Last details I added to the left fuselage were the control-rods to the rudder and elevator, which run along the left fuselage-side:


This was really time-consuming since every rod had to be cut and glued separately and had to be aligned. I also added the covers in places where the rods and other things had to be protected:




Finally everything got a coat of flat varnish and the back-office was complete:




In the next post I will show you how I detailed and painted the bomb-aimers office and how I scratchbuilt the special bomb-aiming-device used by most of the crews who flew the Dambuster-Raid. So stay tuned !

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