Derek_B

@Matt G, any news or updates on this project?

A quick squirt of Mr Surfacer 500 on the upper surfaces of the wings, in preparation for scribing. It turns out there are a few surface imperfections to be resolved, and there are also several small bubbles in the casting, along the leading edge, so they will be easy to remedy. And in the photo below you can see the (not yet finished) fruits of my labour on CAD, marking out the panel lines and access panels, based on dozens of photos of the Woomera. These are overlaid on a scan of a fairly basic 3-view of the aircraft. Some of the lines are actually rivet lines, but I need to play with the scaling in my CAD program so they print as rows of dots - which is how they appear on the screen. There are several large access panels on the centre section which are not replicated in the Croco resin moldings, so they will be scribed along with any missing panel lines.

OK, I bit the bullet and decided to fill the offending panel line. Now onto scribing... Yes, that's the port wing shown above, but both wings were remedied. A bit of sanding dust still on the wing in the photo above. Tamiya putty and Mr Surfacer primer being put to work. I'm also doing some "proper" research and CAD work so I can carefully mark out the lines I will scribe. More soon...

Hard to imagine that's 6 brushed coats, it looks so good Chris! Do you sand between coats? It's a fab yellow.

Working on the wings of the CA-11 again. First (amateurish) ideas on extra scribing for the wing under-surfaces. Unfortunately the line I've dotted in is already molded in and it's too far aft. I'm not sure if I will fill it and re-scribe, I may just adjust the aileron linkage access panels to accomodate it. The outer end of the centre section (just next to the silver-painted wheel well) was too thick and so I've sanded it down to match the profile of the outer wing panel.

Working from a hotel this week, finally the A20-G had some paint thrown at it... I assembled the cockpit and attached it to the starboard fuselage half before painting. Looks like I'll need to remove a little material from one side of the cockpit to allow the fuselage halves to fit together correctly.

After a bit of sanding and scribing, a shot of rattle can Tamiya Silver Leaf on the wings and empennage to see where I still need to do some work... Overall I'm pretty happy with this so far, the starboard wing will come through the "bathing in glue" episode reasonably well, although not completely unscathed...

Just a brief update... I shortened the axles so that the wheels will sit closer together. This was done on a bench grinder with a fine wheel, since the resin undercarriage legs are reinforced with wire. Of course I just needed to touch the axles gently on the grinding wheel, as this removed material VERY quickly! In the photo below (in which the reinforcing wires are obvious), the strut on the left has not been touched, and the strut on the right has had 1mm taken off the end of each axle. This leaves 1.5mm of axle length each side, which seems right when the wheels are held in place. More coming...

Nice work there Marcel, I always love seeing a Harvard come together. Your painting and masking is very clean. This will be a great-looking scheme! Which canopy mask set did you use? I have several of these in my stash.

Thanks @sandros yes, its a rare one - both the original plane and the kit. I made the retraction pivot castings from 6 pieces of 1.0mm styrene sheet. There is a 6-sided base, then a trapezoidal piece across the middle then two triangular pieces in front and two triangular pieces to the rear. Fairly simple, but I dislike working with black styrene, as it's difficult to see what's going on! It's only black because that's all the local hobby shop had in stock at 1.0mm thickness... Thanks @Ed Russell, yes a challenging kit, but I hope to bring it together in an acceptable fashion. I've decided on the overall foliage green colour scheme, to avoid masking. That won't be the case when Southern Sky release the CA-4...

The additional detail inside the undercarriage bays is now complete, and I'm ready to get the engine nacelles attached (although the nacelles will need a bit more work and potentially some re-shaping before they are attached. In the photo below you can see the finished state on the U/C bays. They've received a blast of rattle can silver paint - based on looking at lots of photos of these aircraft it appears to me that the wheel wells were painted silver but the insides of the fuselage were interior green. This adds a little interest, and is much nicer than the flat plate of the resin molding... And below is a closer view of the port U/C bay, with the leading edge at the top left of the photo. On each side I cut out the well into which the upper side of the wheels retract, and added some stringer detail. Bother, looking at the photo I realised I still need to drill a hole in the small flat plate on top of the reinforcing ribs (visible in the CA-4 photo above). Oh well, that's simple to fix! Thanks for looking!

Fabulous work Chris, a really nice Beau! My favourite bits are the over-painted invasion stripes and the exhaust staining… very cool!

A little more progress... I've attached the retraction pivot casting (the black thing) and I've opened up the well into which the wheels retract (I'll build a shallow box above that next). I've also added a little surface detail inside the wheel well using 0.014mm sheet. The image below shows where this is heading... a photo of the port wheel well on the CA-4 (which had the same undercarriage as the CA-11 which I'm building here) looking forwards: In the photo above you can see that the wheel wells were very wide, and that's because they were also bomb-bays, fitting two 250lb bombs, one each side of the undercarriage leg. You can also see the huge doors for the bomb bay, and the small secondary doors for the undercarriage legs. The bomb bay doors will be closed on my model, only the small undercarriage doors will be open. You can also see the hefty casting for the undercarriage pivot, which I've replicated as a means of reinforcing the undercarriage legs.

Starting work on detailing the undercarriage and the undercarriage bays before I attach the lower halves of the engine nacelles to the wings. The photo below shows the parts supplied in the kit (4 wheels, two main undercarriage legs, two scissor links and four undercarriage doors): The black "blob" looking thing sitting where the undercarriage mounts to the wing is actually a representation of the undercarriage hinge casting as fitted to the real aircraft. It's a bit over-scale, but it won't be very visible, and its main purpose will be to reinforce the attachment of the main undercarriage leg. The resin cast wheels are quite useable, but the tyre profile is a little too square... I'll try some judicious sanding to get them closer to the actual "streamline" tyre profile. The axles are a little too long, and the wheels will be too far apart if they are used at this length. It appears that the axles also have a steel pin molded inside the resin casting, so that will be good for strength, but may make it difficult to shorten the axle length. From the photo below, you can see how the main undercarriage leg is attached to the wing... and you can understand why I'm keen to provide a little reinforcement to strengthen the joint. A pin on top of the leg simply fits into a hole in the thin plate which will be enclosed within the engine nacelle. This is simple, but I don't trust how strong it will be! As-molded the hole in the wing is too small, so I drilled it out to 1.5mm and the pin fits snugly. Then I'll have a 2mm hole in the hinge bracket casting I've made and that will provide a little more support for the undercarriage leg. More to come...

Canopy finally on, some gaps to fill around the rear. Glad to find that the massive gun-sight is nicely visible, as is the modified rear instrument panel. All that work wasn't for nothing! Tail feathers are on too. Now a bit of filling for various gaps then some paint...

Nice work Juan! Great to see variations on the T-6 theme. The Hobby-Boss kits go to gather very fast, don't they... then what takes the time is all the small detailed modifications. I'm building one at the moment too.

Thanks Chris, well at least I hope they'll be impressive! Here's a view of my partly-completed CAD work, showing the general layout of the fuselage framework compared with the molding on the Croco kit side-walls... Since this photo was taken I've added the locations for seats, foot-troughs, floor, etc. The various control boxes molded on the Croco cockpit side-walls are mostly OK, but in my case I'm going to incorporate them onto the framework replica, so they have all been sanded away... there's no going back now! The base drawing I'm following is a CAC sketch by Frank Rogers, one of the company draughtsmen during the war. There are also some drawings from the manual and production drawings available on the "Friends of the CAC Woomera" Facebook group if anyone's interested (along with hundreds of photos of the CA-11 and CA-4). This framework will also match the forthcoming CA-4 Wackett Bomber kit soon to be released by Southern Sky Models and Croco, so I might end up building two of them at once. Wirraway seats and harnesses will come from the Bren Gun Wirraway photo-etch, which is mostly inaccurate apart from the seats! When my CAD work is complete, I'll post a PDF version in case any other mad builders want to go down this route... more to follow...

Back to the CA-11... I've built up the cockpit internals using the parts supplied in the kit as shown in the photos below. But this was really just an academic exercise to see how it looked, as there are numerous inaccuracies and I'm not actually going to use these cockpit internals. First a view from the front: And a view from slightly to the rear: The instrument panels are almost reasonable and the armour-plated pilot's head-rest is usable, but most everything else is unusable because none of it existed in the real CA-11. The seats are the wrong shape entirely (they should have round-topped backs, some side panels and no padding). These parts are just tack-glued in place to see how they look, but they will all be removed and my alternative will be coming along soon... The actual aircraft was basically an enlarged Wirraway, so just like a Wirraway it had a massive steel-tube framework supporting everything, and no floor. The kit does have a simple representation of the steel-tube framework molded on the inside of the fuselage, but not quite in the right places. The CA-11 used Wirraway seats (at exactly the same distance apart fore-and-aft as in a Wirraway!) and the pilot and co-pilot's feet were supported by troughs suspended above the lower frame tubes. There was a small section of flooring behind the co-pilot's seat (which could be rotated to face aft) but this is not provided in the kit. So I've spent some on CAD drawing up the framework and I'll be scratch-building it, the same as I've done for my 1/72 MPM Wirraway. More coming...

Nice detail work on the rocket rails! What diameter was the brass rod? I need to do the same on my build for A8-1...

Progress continues on this "3-way comparison build" of the CAC Woomera... enter the A-20G Havoc! Here are the three wings for these twin-engine bombers: The Havoc is the Special Hobby "Low Altitude Raiders" kit, and it will be finished OOB as A28-78 / 43-22148 which was an A-20G-45-DO on loan to the RAAF from the USAAF. Longer wingspan, but less wing area. You might also notice the Beaufighter has received some colour, and I discovered that "early" DAP-built Beaufighters had black interiors for the cockpit - hence the black at the front.

Enjoying watching this come together, it's looking great! Got some tips for mine too!

Back home after a week away for work, some little parcels starting to arrive in the mail for this build. I mentioned that I might consider some "after-market" engines, and I think I've settled on the P&W R-1830 Twin Wasps made by Metallic Details. First, below is a shot of A23-1 in the CAC factory, showing the visible detail of the starboard CAC-built Twin Wasp. The magnetos are mounted on the rear of the engine and there is a governor mounted on top of the gear casing. This is the same engine which CAC used in the Boomerang. Next, here is a comparison of the resin engine from the Croco kit (lower), compared with the Metallic Details 3D-printed replica (upper) which provides a lot of additional detail compared with the Croco kit engines. The Croco engines seem to have the front-mounted magnetos. So the Metallic Details engines will go into this build. More to come...

Thanks Martin, different indeed, when offering this privately-funded torpedo bomber to the Australian government, Lawrence Wackett had to come up with something "out of the box" since the government was hell-bent on producing Beauforts and Beaufighters at the time. Thanks Roger. I saw your Dallachy build (and Chris's), since I looked up all the recent Beaufighters builds here. I know nothing about Beaufighters (apart from having the privilege of sitting in the cockpit of A8-328 at Moorabbin several years back) so I'm on a steep learning curve! Thanks Chris, always appreciate your encouraging words! Thanks Mark, yes I was actually surprised that the wing planforms are SO similar. The wingspans are very similar (Beaufighter 57' 10" / Woomera 59' 2½" / Boston 61' 3½") and when Wackett was offering the design to the RAAF he showed performance comparisons against the Beaufighter and Beaufort... with the CA-4 mostly coming out on top (of course).

Zac, did you ever finish this? I’ve just started one of the Croco resin kits released last year by Southern Sky Models…

Then I got to thinking, why start just one new kit? Since the Woomera was cancelled in favour of purchasing Beaufighters, I figured it would be interesting to build a Beaufighter alongside the Woomera... Here's how the two wing structures compare... clearly Airfix had a bigger tooling and design budget than Croco, lovely engraved surface details and highly engineered carry-through spars, and all parts just dropping together! OK, it's not fair to compare a limited-run resin kit to a big-name injection-molded kit. This is the Airfix Beaufighter TF.X which will receive a couple of mods along the way to become an Australian-built Mk.21. We might see an A-20 make an appearance here too, since it was also a big radial twin that did similar things!