Canadair North Star

[Jessica]

I'm building this in parallel with a DC-9 for a "Then and Now" group build on another site. This is the Minicraft DC-4 combined with the Bra.Z Merlins with the "Canadian" crossover exhausts. It will wear late TCA markings from the long extinct Whisky Jack sheet.

The first order of business is to remove all the DC-4sih intakes, exhausts and whatnot from the engine nacelles and graft on the Merlins

And a test fit with the fuselage

Edited November 21, 2013 by Jessica

[Val]

Hi, looking great! I will be watching this with lots of interest have fun!

Val

[MikeW]

You keep your builds informative and amusing Jessica - I love following them. No pressure mind.

Cheers,

Mike

[Yankymodeler]

I love to see a good conversion take shape. Knowing your work I'll be watching this one!

Eric aka The Yankymodeler

[Tony Edmundson]

Jessica, I will be following with interest on how the engines graft onto the nacelles. I have two sets of Braz engines(the non crossover type) and haven't measured anything yet.

Model On !!!

Tony

[Jessica]

Some filler to smooth off the joins between the resin and the plastic

The Bra.Z conversion provides 4 extra propeller blades to round out the correct number required by a North Star. Unfortunately, the blades had air bubble holes in the tips. I solved this problem by supergluing in some segments of plastic rod

And after cleaning them up, and supplementing them with the plastic blades from the DC-4 kit, I have 4 blade North Star propellers

Each blade is less than 1 cm long, so it's a rather fiddly procedure to cut them off, clean them up and then glue them into the tiny little 4mm wide spinner without getting superglue all over my fingers.

[Litvyak]

Gonna watch this with interest - great subject!

[wally7506]

I'm watching this one, too. I have Dana Kopher's Merlins for when I get around to doing either a Canadian Pacific Northstar --or-- a British Midland Argo. (got decals and engines for both, but will probably only have stomach for one)

js

[Jessica]

Do you plan to convert the Heller DC-6, or are you tackling the Mach 2 DC-4?

[Viking]

Any progress to report Jessica? I've always liked the North Star and the TCA scheme on it is just about the smartest one you could do! Can't wait to see it.

Cheers

John

[Jessica]

I've been letting the filler cure while I concentrate on my Walrus. I'll be free to continue this one reasonably shortly.

[Gary]

Excellent start to your build: congratulations, and best of luck with the rest of this project!

[theplasticsurgeon]

I've seen a similar conversion to a NorthStar in FineScale modeller mag.

Can't remember any other details - but I think the fuselage also needs to be shortened.

I'll search my pile of mags to see if it could offer any additional help.

[Jessica]

I have that issue. The conversion was in 1/72 and it used the Heller DC-6 which is why the shortening had to happen. Since I have a DC-4 to start from I don't need to worry about that

[Graeme H]

Nice start Jessica, looking forward to you bringing this out of the hanger

[garryrussell]

Nice one Jess

You mention the correct number of blades but the Noth Star mostly had three bladers only some of the TCA fleet had four blades giving three and four blades in the fleet at the same time. All other Canadair fours had three blades, only TCA used four, and any of those sold on with the four bladed prop fitted.

[Jessica]

Given that mine is going to be in TCA colours, and that I got the "Canadian Crossover" Merlins from Bra.Z, 4 blades is going to be correct. TCA's 3 blade North Stars were all C54GM-1s borrowed from the RCAF and returned once Canadair had made sufficient DC-4M2 North Stars.

[Jessica]

Basic construction is now complete

And the first coat of primer

[MikeW]

And now the magic begins . . . .

[Jessica]

Well I just put 4 Merlins on it. How much more magic do you think it needs?

[garryrussell]

Hi Jes

Re the props.

I was not referring to the non pressuried M-1 but the M-2 which did have three and four bladed even after crossovers.

TCA maintained two fleets, some three balded and some four bladed. Although most did have four blades in the end they can be made with three blaed. CF-TFP is one such that had three blades and crossovers.

I only mention it as it might make the conversion a little easier for some.

Something about a domestic and and overwater fleet.

[Jessica]

Interesting. In all my reading I hadn't come across the mixture of propeller types. I've always understood that the 4 blade props were a TCA thing with their pressurised "final version" North Stars and that any 3 blade aircraft they had were borrowed to pick up Canadair's production slack. The Bra.Z conversion assumes that 4 blades are a given, since the spinner is drilled for 4 blades rather than three. You'd either need to mix and match, or fill and drill to put three blades on the kit. At this point the distinction is food for an interesting and edifying conversation but it won't affect my model given that I've finished all 4 propellers with 4 blades already.

[hgbn]

Looking great so far. This a great subject. Some day I really hope one of the mainstream Kit producers will make a high quality new tool C-54/ DC-4 in 1/72

[MikeW]

See, the magic is happening - the depth of knowledge of the subject in hand is always impressive.

Cheers,

Mike

[Tony Edmundson]

I have 2 of the Braz conversion (B4KEN1) for the NorthStar and just by luck they are for the RCAF version with the 6 stack non-crossover exhausts and 3 blade prop. The version I intended to build anyway. When I ordered them, I had no idea that there was more than one type.

I have only seen a few(very few) pics of 4 bladers in RCAF service and I think they all were with 412 Sqn.

Hopefully we'll see more pics soon Jessica.

Watchin' with interest, Tony