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Since it's taken @Corsairfoxfouruncle a few years to get this underway I think I should do more than a single quick build. So following on from my Curtiss RX-3-2 I have obtained the kit for my favourite of the Schneider racers, the Macchi 72. This unique machine used 2 engines in tandem to increase the power with each driving a separate propeller in a contrarotating set up. This matches the Fairey Gannet and the Cessna 0-2 as twin engine aircraft retaining the non asymetric single eingine layout. While a couple examples for the others I think this was unique to the Macchi. I was privaleged to have the opportunity to visit the excellent Italian Airforce museum in Rome a few years ago where all the Scheneider racers are togather in a single gallery. Great stuff! Here she is. The kit from SMER is quite old but the only real issue is that the twin propellers are handed to spin in the same rotation! This will require a bit of attention. Here's the contents of the box. The parts have quite a bit of flash and ejector pin marks, especially inside the floats and fuselage so needed a good sanding down on the mating surfaces..... This wont be a blitz build like the Curtiss, I'll take my time with this one. To be continued....

Having been a long time fan of the Schneider trophy planes I always wanted a Crusader, and right here on good ole Britmodeller @greggles.w built Karaya’s 1/48 Crusader which impressed me greatly (his build – not the kit so much!) and again got me wanting to add one to the collection. If you are so inclined, pop over and see @greggles.w's build here:- My preferred scale for race planes is 1/32 because race planes are generally tiny. And it needs to match my Williams Bros kits. So currently scratch building is the only option, although I’m sure Murphy will bring one along as soon as I finish…. At least the fuz being circular should be a 5 minute job in the lathe. @greggles.w’s build was very useful in showing how to approach the more difficult aspects. So forget all the other stuff on the bench that needs finishing, push it all to one side …… LETS GO! This is what I am talking about, any excuse to show Laurent Negroni’s fantastic sketch from his Speedbirds website again:- I had already collected all the available photos (there aren’t many!) and a couple of 3 views neither of which agreed with each other very much. I chose to use this one as my main reference:- Comparing this 3 view with photos show its not without its faults, the upper front rigging attachment to the fuselage is too far forward, the front struts should be wider and angled back a bit more, the rudder is a bit small and the floats a smidge short, but otherwise looks good. I initially had no intention of doing a WIP so took no pics of the first stages, so pay attention as you have some catching up to do! It’s a multi media model(!) the floats and fuz are made from Ureol as its easy to work with, The wing is 3 laminations of 2mm styrene as Ureol tends to crumble where the sections get thin such as trailing edges. The fuz was made with a lateral join, this means its easy to machine the wing seat on the pillar drill table. It also means tailplane alignment is easy. The upper and lower sections were pinned with wire before shaping to ensure repeatable re-assembly. Aaaaaand the fuz blank was too long to fit between the lathe centres, oh bother. So after band sawing the fuz top and side profiles, I carved the square to an octagon, then 16 sides (I just looked it up, its a Hexadecagon – every day is a school day!) I then sanded off the Hexawhatever ridges and used circular drafting templates to mark the high spots and kept sanding until it was circular along its length. After the disappointment of not being able make it on the lathe, I was quite pleased with the result. The wing laminations were left for about a week to fully cure, the outline cut with Tamiya sprue cutters, then scraped with a wood chisel to get the aerofoil – followed by a good scrubbing with 80 grit then 240 and finally wet and dry used wet. The lamination contour lines made it easy to make it symmetrical. The fuz wing seat was cut with a 30mm Forstner bit after raising the nose to set the wing incidence, the ends of the gap were then squared off. A smaller bit was used through both halves to remove the bulk of the cockpit material, which conveniently provided a positive location for the wing after a matching circle of plastic card was stuck to the top of the wing centre section. But not before slicing 75% through the centre line with a razor saw and re-gluing to bend in the miniscule dihedral. The tail seat was cut by hand with a slight neg incidence as the plan. So enough blather, here is the resulting set of parts. The float profiles were again bandsaw’ed out, the top shaped, then the underside carved with a curved wood chisel and finished with 240 grit. To be able to get the 3 main elements to vaguely face the same direction a jig was required, some millimetre graph paper was stuck to 12mm MDF. I have found the problem with sticking the graph paper to corrugated card as a jig (Tyrrell 006), is that the graph paper gradually shrinks over a few weeks and what started as a nice flat base ends up like a potato crisp making it pretty useless. The tail feathers are two laminations of 20thou card. The spine is laminated from the same stuff as the wing, - a redundant B&Q styrene bath side panel! Nothing is glued yet, just held by friction, apart from the nose which is stuck on with blu-tack. The nose did fit in the lathe, and from the blank I carved out the cylinder bases, I found it very hard to initially visualise the final shape, but by marking out and carving away a little at a time and lots of referring to the photos eventually revealed something approximating the real thing. (after cocking up the first one……) Malc.

Right, time to tackle this little beasty! I have been waiting for someone else to post up a build thread, so I could learn from them, as I'm sure there are gremlins hiding in this limited run kit. This one started well, but has stalled - So picking up the batton. First step, lets open the box and see what's inside - Supermarine S5 1/48 from MikroMir by Mike, on Flickr Four sprues of quite detailed plastic. Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr PE and decals Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr These are not the smallest bits of plastic in the kit either! Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr Instructions - Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr What do Micro-Mir think the pilot sits on? I struggled to find reference for the S5 cockpit, although there is stuff out there on the S6 and varients. There is room for improvement here, although I'll make my mind up how far to go after I've dry fitted the fuselage halves together. It's a pretty small opening to get into so not sure how much will be seen. Supermarine S5 by Mike, on Flickr Other issues I need to address are that they supply a lovely little Napier Lion power plant, but I am fairly certain this can only be built into the kit with the cowlings off. I think in real life the cowling may even have been part of the rocker cover on the cylinder heads.. And beaching dollies would be amazing, but we'll see how confident I am in my scratch building abilities on that front. N220, S.5, Hanger F, RAF Calshot, 1927 by Mike, on Flickr

Many years ago I did this model of the Schneider trophy racer Supermarine S6b, but never did anything with it, so I decided to give it a go and came up with this.. It shows racer S1595 parked in front of the Calshot castle in the Solent, where the UK races took place in in late 1920's and early '30's S1595 won the race for the fourth time setting an average speed record of 340.08 mph. My scene here shows the two planes (S1595 and S1596) parked in fron of the Calshot castle, doing engine running test and preparations for the race (the wing of S1596 can be spotted behind that guy on the ground)

Here is my new project. This will (hopefully!) be a depiction of N220, the winner of the 1927 Schneider Trophy race. I started this one about a month ago and it has been progressing fairly well. Now that some of the more difficult parts are out of the way I thought it might be safe to show. It's a small aircraft - only about 47mm from nose to tail in this scale, but the shape is quite complex. So there were more than a few nights spent trying to get the outline and cross sections looking right. I started off with the fuselage outline. Marking it out on a sheet of 1.5mm styrene. The drawings date back to 1956 and seem to be the only game in town. Fortunately they compare very well to available photographs, and it looks like the original draughtsman poured his heart and soul into them. This was cut out and "cheeks" of styrene added either side to fill out the plan view. Some evergreen rod was added to form the core of the rear decking. Other strip was added for the upper fuselage fairing ahead of the cockpit and a lot of Mr Surfacer 1500 was brushed on to blend the contours in. It looks like rubbish right now, I know. But I swear... I am going somewhere with this! While the fuselage was drying the floats got a start as well. I used two bits of 3mm styrene sheet to make up the basic block. One side of the high impact styrene sheet has a hard, clear surface. I face these inwards when I laminate the pieces so it gives me a visible centre line and I don't accidentally sand things out of true. The plan view was shaped first. Once the top view was satisfactory the side view was marked out and the lower profile cut to shape and filed to the right contours. The step is made by masking off the rear section with three layers of Scotch tape (810D is best) and painting on several layers of Mr Surfacer to build up some thickness. A couple of days to dry and bit of a sand, then take the tape off. Once the underside is done it is safe to start shaping the top. I find if I start trying to shape things in the round from every angle at once it goes out of control very quickly. Doing the shape one profile at a time seems to be much less difficult. The floats got a final shaping and were scribed and sanded smooth. Extra details like the mooring points and circular inspection panels were added too. With the fuselage, I tried to keep the components separate for as long as possible. The windscreen was mocked up in solid styrene as a guide. I'll use it as a pattern for doing a clear one later. Putting things together for a trial run... Blending things in was tricky. It was made worse by the lack of suitable primer. The hobby stores round here have been picked clean, and due to covid they have not been restocked for the best part of a year. I was operating on the very last of my Tamiya primer, so I had to buy some Mr Surfacer 500 (the only stuff I could get). Unfortunately it is way too coarse for 1//144 and has a very gritty texture. Lots of work was needed to sand it back, as you can see here. I'll leave it at that for now. I hope you will like the progress so far. More later!

A new thread! A new cardboard jig! Fresh solid, weighty resin floats already with cheeky white socks & sturdy stance white metal struts! Test fit with horizontal radiators doing an impression of a wing... Test fit with shapely curved cowled fuselage! And I'm underway with my next Schneider Trophy racer!!

My first pre-quarantine build is 1927 Schneider Throphy winner the N 220 S.5 flown by Flt. Lt. Webster, A.F.C. produced by Ukrainian AMP. I bought this kit right after its release on Ebay and started building it immediatelly. This kit is very challenging. Put simply, it has loads of extra plastic seals and burrs as any othter ordinary short run kit has... I admire R. J. Mitchell's lifework of aircraft constructions and this one just fits in the line leading directly to the Spitfire. (I hope the Ukrainians will continue with other types such as S.4 and S.6...) Here is just a small peek at the machine: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/supermarine-s-5/ So the internet search was held for the purpose of gaining valuable study material. Then I started with the wings, which needed loads of grinding to achieve the smoothenes and the sharp trailing edges. I also removed the upper positive ribs and replaced them with a simple dual line of rivets (as seen on the original). I took care of the elevators too. Then I started working on the floats. But at that moment the progress stopped until now. My friend #Dusan R has just started his own S.5 from AMP and he found out a few mistakes this kit contains. For instance the float's width is smaller in comparison with the drawing and also with the photos. The starboard float struts should be longer than the port ones and there are some other issues with the engine cowling (which will be presented during the build). That will be all for now with the S.5, thanks for reading and have a good model building time during the lockdown. Cheers! Andrew

Short Crusader 810hp / 604kw Bristol Mercury 1 Built for, but not entered into, the 1927 Schneider Trophy race in Venice Maximum quoted speed 270mph / 434kmh 1:48 resin kit by Karaya , with a few modifications; White metal pilot by Phoenix Figures, again with a few modifications; Resin Bristol Mercury (crankcase & half of one cylinder only!) by Vector; Timber plinth by Jim's Bases; 'Sea Blur' plinth graphic by Coastal Kits. A tortuous long-winded account of the build lives over here Can't believe it's done! Please forgive the mobile phone photography, my camera is .. somewhere in a box.

Hooray, Hooray I'm underway, here begins my first BM Work in Progress post! I have this last week just started on this Crusader. Nothing to show in this post, but more to follow very soon. For now, a test first image: All going well you should see a finished model - however not mine. Instead, as the caption says, it's a photo of Short's original wind tunnel model. I hope it inspires you as it did me! If not, then I defy you to tell me this wonderful drawing does not excite: All going well, more soon ... g.

Hello all, I’m looking forward to having fellow travellers again on this long journey of mine ... Hopefully you can tolerate me still doddering on with this one! I have a long-running build thread over here ... ... but I propose transferring the tortured narrative back over here for the duration, taking up Enzo’s offer to roll-over builds from the last floatplane group build. My current status, in summary: A collection of subassemblies - including the requisite floats - primed in white ... ... since embellished with a flourish of blue to the fuselage spine ... ... & most recently, back in the tailplane jig after accidentally snapping off the starboard stabiliser - sigh! So, I’m hoping there’s an outside chance I might finish this time around. We shall see ...

So this should be the perfect forum for this question: Soon I will be marking & painting the fin flash on my Short Crusader. I’m looking for an authoritative reference to confirm what order the colours should be in - front to back - R/W/B or B/W/R? The reason I ask is because I recall seeing some discussion on this issue pass me by some time ago on BM (unfortunately I am having no luck w search function) in which I seem to recall that someone stated that at some point in the inter-war years (mid to late ‘20s?! the RAF reversed the order ... The Crusader was painted up ready for Venice in 1927. I thought I might look to its more famous teammates that year - the Supermarine S5 - for guidance ... but unfortunately I seem to return coloured profiles of the exact same machines with the colours in opposite order to each other! Any assistance much appreciated! g. p.s the kit decal has red at the front, but I’m reluctant to take their word for it. p.p.s could I be right that the 1927 S5’s have blue at the front, which was then reversed to red at the front for the 1929 S6’s?

The Gloster VI in 1/48 A fellow member of IPMS Austria friend of mine designed the kit. And for some kit I gave him, I got this kit as Thank You! This kit is from the Wiener Modellbau Manifaktur Gloster VI how to buy It is resin with etched parts. Nice made and a unique model too. Happy modelling

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Pux4uBHM4