Bughunter

Finally, it's time to work on the cockpit. I have so many things on my ToDo list, I need to hurry up!

Pic 1 There was already white primer in the first update. Now I painted linen and beige as preparation for the wooden parts.

Pic 2 The wood grain was made using oil paints.

Pic 3 I lost a picture?! After some days drying time I painted the "wooden parts" with Clear Yellow and Clear Orange. The front part was painted Dark Aluminium and got some aluminium blotches. The frame was mounted and rigged (very thin wire; the turnbuckles are 0.3mm brass pipe).

Pic 4 Here I have added the air pressure tubing, which is part of the fuel system. Some scratched brass and annealed copper wire were used. So the right side is prepared.

Pic 5 For the other side there is more work to do! Here some scratched brass parts:

- on top a fuel filter, turned on lathe

- in the middle the main shut off valve

- below a fuel gauge. I opened a brass pipe and fit a heat stretched clear sprue in. The "fuel" was painted with Clear Green. The question is: Is the tank half full or half empty?

Pic 6 Now it is the first time I use another PE set of the company "PART". Although it's not intended for this kit - it's for the older Camel kit from Eduard - I can still make good use of some of the parts.

Pic 7 The throttle and mixture control is from this set, I added only the lever in the front. The PE looks better, so I can remove the kit plastic.

Pic 8 Left side is done, with the rigging in same way and all the additions mounted.

Pic 9 The lens position must be adjusted so that the exposed glass of the fuel gauge is visible.

Pic 10 With both halves of the fuselage hold together, you can get an idea of what the viewer will later see of the cockpit.

As a preparation for the cockpit work I prepared some of the needed parts.

Pic 1 This teaser photo shows my finished Camel wicker seat.

Pic 2 This kit Edition provides parts to create the seat from plastic (see the right parts) or photo etched on the left. It is impressive that there are also two different plastic parts provided to support the PE metal plates. But these parts are NOT used!

Pic 3 But there is also a very nice accessory from the Brassin line: a 3D printed seat which I will use, the little black one in the middle. As far as I know, this is Eduard's best-selling accessory, because it also fits other British aircraft from that period.

Pic 4 Here is the crucial part in all its glory.

Pic 5 The support can be removed easily with a sharp scalpel.

Pic 6 White primer is a good base for brighter paint shades.

See teaser picture 1 for the result of painting.

Pic 7 Another additional set I will use are the Vickers MGs. There are other nice ones available, for example from Gaspatch, but the split design here allows an easier paint job. I will explain that later.

Pic 8 Parts cleaned and prepared. For safer mounting I drilled and added brass pins. PE are added too.

Pic 9 After black primer I painted the Vickers with Alclad Steel, followed by a very thin layer Alclad Gun Metal.

Pic 10 Details like wooden handle and leather cushion a painted with a brush.

Of course Eduard provides an undercarriage with the kit, but here plastic reaches its limits. The legs are partly only 0.7mm thin and too flexible for my taste. I need robust models for a safe transport to exhibitions. So I will replace the kit parts by a new fully scratched undercarriage made from metal and wood, as the original one. All metal parts are soldered.

Pic 1 The teaser photo shows the result of this update, with 26 individual metal parts. Only plugged together, so glue yet.

Pic 2 At first two stripes of veneer are glued together and cuts are made in the thickness of the axle (1.0mm nickel silver tube). Then the third layer is glued on.

Pic 3 The veneer block is sanded into a shape of a little wing.

Pic 4 The Sopwith designs use two half-axles that can pivot around the inner mounting point. I drilled from the front to insert 0.33mm nickel silver wire for mounting and act as pivot point. This image shows the axles in their flattest position.

Pic 5 And here, the axles are fully deflected.

Pic 6 Some brass parts are prepared for the legs: 0.8mm with drilled holes, 0.7mm, 0.6mm tubes and 0.5mm rods.

Pic 7 The legs are soldered together. The inner guides for the axle are prepared.

Pic 8 The new legs are already sturdier than the parts from the kit.

Pic 9 The aerodynamic fairings are made from squeezed 1.9mm brass tube.

Pic 10 To hold the wood brass stripes are soldered to the lower tube. And holders for the suspension are soldered on too.

Pic 1 The result of this update :) So the first picture is the last one

Pic 2 Dry fit of the engine - as expected it does not fit below the cowling with cylinders applied. The Small Stuff engines are in scale, the outer diameter of the cowling too. But the plastic is much to thick compared to the thin alu sheet of the real Camel

Pic 3 So I made the cowling thinner - by hand, to have more control.

Pic 4 It fits for now but I'm not sure if it is enough with valve lever and push rods

Pic 5 Now it was time to paint the engine with different Alclad paints.

Pic 6 And also the little parts are painted in different metal shades as preparation for the mounting process.

Pic 7 The intakes pipes are added to the back of the engine

Pic 8 secured with CA. The different shade is nice

Pic 9 The valve rockers are added. Those are damn small parts!

Pic 10 The push rods (0.15mm thick and made from resin) are applied between casing and rockers.

As I can only upload 10 pics at once here are some more photos which are related to this step

Pic 11 the little buggers between the 0.15mm resin rods are the spark plugs.

Pic 12 The engine looks better with the front part and 18 spark plugs added.

Pic 13 From a top view, it looks as if you can see inside the cylinder around the exhaust valve. No, rotary engines don't have an exhaust!

Although I'm a bit hampered by the incredible heat wave in Europe, I still have something to show you.

The next step is the rotary engine. The available reference photos shows clearly Clerget 9B cylinder rotary with 130hp I will use a kit from Small Stuff which is fantastic.

Pic 1 shows the kit in its Zip lock bag.

Pic 2 The folded manual shows many steps - most of them have to be repeated 9 or 18 times.

Pic 3 The engine will be build from 74 resin parts! There are even more in the kit as there are optional and spare parts.

Pic 4 The little details are fantastic, here are the cylinders. There is no 3D printing involved.

Pic 5 A good resin saw is needed for the thick casting block on the core part.

Pic 6 But for the other little parts very sharp razor blades are the best tools. For this I opened a new triple blade holder. Be careful, it's razor sharp!

Pic 7 I have to drill the engine body myself and match it to my self made bearing,

Pic 8 the cylinders could be cut using a razor blade easily without ruining details.

Pic 9 After applying Microscale foil glue I let it dry. Then the cylinders could be applied, aligned carefully and secured with CA one by one.

Pic 10 Now I have a 9 cylinder rotary.

Some more pics in a next update as they are related.

A rotary engine needs a bearing! A smooth-running one due to the relative small scale of 1:48.

So this is my solution for this problem, Attention, that are macro photos as the parts are very small!

Pic 1 I turned brass bushing on my lathe

Pic 2 The part is finished and can be cut.

Pic 3 I carefully enhanced the inside with a reamer so that the steel axle on top will run smooth in the brass.

Pic 4 I soldered a piece of brass sheet to the axle and turned it round on the lathe.

Pic 5 The axle, and brass parts

Pic 6 Now the tricky part: Put the brass sheet on the back and adjust the position for some clearance. Now solder the brass sheet to the back of the axle, WITHOUT letting any solder get into the bushing.

Pic 7 To finish the bearing I filed the end sheet and the solder down to a smaller diameter than the bushing

Pic 8 For a safe mount of the bearing I added a piece of sprue to the kit front wall.

Pic 9 The position of the oil tank must be taken into account.

Pic 10 The fuselage is plugged together without glue and you can see the bearing at the front.

Pic 1 This is the kit I use for this Sopwith Camel in 1/48: Eduard 11151, a Limited Edition

Pic 2 That are the accessories from Eduard I plan to use

Pic 3 but also some third party additions

Pic 4 The kit provides also a photo etched set

Pic 5 Small parts are cut from sprues and cleaning work has started

Pic 6 The wings are primed white now.

Pic 7 A closer view shows that the heavy rib tapes of the kit are sanded down

Pic 8 Tail plane, rudder and ailerons are also prepared and primed.

Pic 9 As preparation of painting the interior of the fuselage this is primed too.

Pic 10 Nice details outside, but I removed the plastic locks on the maintenance panels as I will use metal for those later