Sopwith Baby

[stevehed]

Been in the to do file for some years now. One of those types you always feel should have been done by one of those manufacturers of various Sopwith types. Until you get into it and discover how different the Baby is. Then you realise why very few have bothered. The only 1/72 Baby/Schneider I'm aware of was made by Eduard and i believe they are few and far between. It was always my intention to build a Baby using Alan Hall's Avro 504 method and Will posted this link.

http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/archive/atf-5th-anniversary-gb-heinkel51-s-build__o_t__t_25500.html

There has been reference to another article that uses an Airfix Sopwith Pup as the main donor but I haven't seen this one. While the wings are probably the best available to convert for use on the Baby the Pup fuselage is very slender in comparison and I'd be interested if anyone who has done this conversion could describe how much work is required to modify the fuselage and engine area.

The Avro conversion involves cutting the original fuselage into several sections before reunification and much filler. In addition, my 504 stash is spoken for. So when I decided that an old Sopwith Triplane was destined for the spares box I thought a Baby conversion might be a good way of ensuring it didn't reside there for decades to come. I had a pair of ancient Airfix Camel wings and these basic parts were sized up to the outlines provided in Alan Hall's article and Munson's Fighters 1914-19 which are to 1/72 scale. The wing chord had to be widened as did the fuselage width but both looked feasible.

First I filed off the ribs beneath the cockpit to a depth that created a step. Then 30 thou card was fixed to the fuselage sides to increase the width. The wings had a tenth of an inch section of 60 thou card added to the trailing edge. This was superglued and filed to shape. They came off several times but got there eventually. The tips need to be reshaped and the ailerons filled and recut for the Baby.

Regards, Steve

Edited September 2, 2012 by stevehed

[stevehed]

Next step was to enlarge the cockpit by cutting out a forward section. This makes it too big so a piece of card was used to reduce the opening across the rear and filled then shaped. The lower wing has to be positioned farther forward than the triplane cut out so a 0.2ins piece was cut out from the lower fuselage. This leaves a gap behind the wing when it is fitted. While it was accessible a generic instrument panel and a coat of paint was added. New wing cut outs were made and tiny amounts of filler and glue were run along the joints between the new fuselage sides and the turtle decking. Lastly, before the lower wing was added, the cowling has the lower quarter removed to create a horseshoe and the sides are gently filed flatter to better match the Baby profile.

Regards, Steve

Edited September 3, 2012 by stevehed

[stevehed]

Had a spot of bother with photobucket tonight. Not sure if it's my old browser or more widespread. Time will tell. As far as the Baby is concerned a couple of vertical panel lines have to be inscribed before the wings are installed. Nothing flash just a couple of lines with a razor saw. When the lower wing is cemented in place a piece of 30 thou card is cut to fill the gap and continue to the engine as the fuselage bottom. The Airfix wing is level across the whole width and has ribs where the fuselage should be. These centre section ribs are filed off and the card is cemented to become the new centre section.

The fin/rudder was cut from plastic card while the tail is the reshaped tail from a Fokker DVII. Interplane struts are leftovers from a Roden D111 and the cabanes are remnants from the spares box.

Regards, Steve

Edited September 4, 2012 by stevehed

[stevehed]

Once the top wing was on and rigged the floats were next. I traced the outline onto paper and cut out the shapes before taping them onto plastic card. Using a sharp pointed blade I punched holes around the profile. After a couple of times the holes were deep enough to allow the blade to trace along them and join the holes up and score around the part. When I had all the parts cleaned up spacers were added to one side and when dry the opposite side was cemented in place. The top and bottoms were flexible 10thou card while the sides were 30 thou.

Regards, Steve

Edited September 5, 2012 by stevehed

[stevehed]

Main floats built the same way and struts cut from spares. The rudder on the rear float and the differing strut lengths confirmed this as a tail sitter. The Fleet Air Arm museum's Baby is displayed in similar fashion so happy enough with that. The wing roundels are old Airfix Spad VII and went on OK after a coat of liquid decal film for safety. Quite impressed with this product as the side roundels are over 30 years old. Painted her as French Navy as a change from PC10 etc. Silver dope is Revell 91 and Humbrol matt grey 64 and the floats are Revell wood SM382. I wasn't aware until fairly recently that the Baby was used by the French and also the Italians. Some of the French machines were built by Sopwith while the majority were licence built by Hanriot with another smaller batch by SACA. Armament could be overwing Lewis or synchronised Vickers so I hedged my bets and used a Vickers with a wing that had a cut out for a Lewis.

A bit of fun that has no pretensions other than it looks a bit like. The Airfix Pup wings would be better to use and I think the Triplane fuselage is a little easier to modify than the Avro 504.

Regards, Steve

Edited September 12, 2012 by stevehed

[Old Man]

Very ingenious, Sir.

And not a bad likeness, either. A real 'old school' effort....

[Killingholme]

Cool. Good approximation of a Baby. Never knew the French used them- that's one attractive paint scheme for sure!

By the way, the Eduard kit is one of their earliest and is tough going. I have one sitting on the shelf-of-doom. It includes etched brass struts too which need a lot of work to fit and even more to look like aerofoil section!

Cheers for posting the results of these old-school conversion subjects.

Will

[stevehed]

Thank you, Gentlemen. As ever your comments are appreciated.

I found a write up about the Eduard kit and it was enough to put me off seeking one out. As for the French angle I found a couple of references on the net and there's a link below. The French also used a Spad floatplane fighter that looks interesting although I'm a bit unsure as to what French floats look like.

http://www.ffaa.net/seaplanes/sopwith-130_clerget/sopwith_clerget.htm

Regards, Steve