halifax update: exhausts and flame dampers
this somewhat awkward photo of what is presumably a groundcrewman shows the details of the exhaust system of the halifax (even a V in this case) clearly. each engine has a row of 6 exhausts on either side in line; the rolls-royce merlin was in fact a V12 in-line engine. the exhausts come out into a tube of sorts, which functions as a flame damper - you wouldn't want bright flashes being emitted from your airplane as you're flying in the dark avoiding german nightfighters. anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the photo illustrates quite clearly all the detail the matchbox part is lacking:
The solution to add more detail is simple, only a little time consuming. (what's new)
this photo above shows the base material, the "flame damper" and a piece of styrene rod of about the same diameter.
next, the piece of styrene is filed so that less than half remains.
the flame damper itself is dealt with next. first the locating pins are cut off
and then with a small round file, the flame damper is hollowed out.
result:
the piece of styrene is then glued onto the flame damper
the whole unit is then sanded. and this whole process gets repeated 8 times.
I also wanted to add the exhaust stubs that are clearly visible. for this I used the exhaust stacks I had left over from the hasegawa Lancaster I had built 2 years ago. the lancaster and the halifax were powered by the same type of engines, so that worked out great.
all the ends were cut off, so that they could be glued to the flame damper unit
after that they were glued on, and this was again repeated 8 times.
the last step of this sub-project was to cut out space for the exhausts in the engine covers. first the area was marked...
... cut...
... and after sanding, here we have the end result
the openings I made in the engine covers are a bit too big, but it's not very noticable.