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White Knight - Short Crusader


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Some jiggery work this evening, hacking into it with the razor saw..

 

Crusader _17.7.27_1

 

And a scrap styrene bit shaped to fit the curve of the underside of the fuselage where the rear struts will join..

 

Crusader _17.7.27_1

 

Which slots in like so, with the long outriggers to help with levelling it into position..

 

Crusader _17.7.27_1

 

The aim being to assist with trimming off the tops of the struts, which to date have been only approximately lopped.

 

I'm planning to keep each float, with struts, as separate subassemblies for painting.  Therefore this junction where they will meet the painted fuselage needs to be well prepared.

 

In these pictures you can just see the stubs of brass which will need to be removed, above the curve of the template..

 

Crusader _17.7.27_1

 

Crusader _17.7.27_1

 

But not tonight ..!  That's my lot for the day.

 

g'night all.

 

 

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44 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

Fantastic, really glad to see this one continuing,

 

Thanks Pat!

 

45 minutes ago, JOCKNEY said:

Keep the Jig you have made it will be really handy for your next Schneider build  :wicked:

 

.. so the seed of an idea is planted!  It may be sacrilege, but I have considered my entry to the floatplanes group build later this year could be (no commitment yet!) this:

 

Crusader_17.7.29_1

 

.. converted to Schneider Trophy winning CR-3 by fitting a set of surplus R3C-2 floats, with brass struts fashioned this same way ...

 

But my next build is spoken for:

 

 

& it's no coincidence that it has NO floats & NO rigging!! 😁

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46 minutes ago, greggles.w said:

 

Thanks Pat!

 

 

.. so the seed of an idea is planted!  It may be sacrilege, but I have considered my entry to the floatplanes group build later this year could be (no commitment yet!) this:

 

Crusader_17.7.29_1

 

.. converted to Schneider Trophy winning CR-3 by fitting a set of surplus R3C-2 floats, with brass struts fashioned this same way ...

 

But my next build is spoken for:

 

 

& it's no coincidence that it has NO floats & NO rigging!! 😁

 

Oooooooh that's looks good, I think I have buried very deep in the stash the Merlin RC3-2 in white metal :door:

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/154385-merlin-models-wm-1-curtiss-r3c-2

 

Having now done my first Vacform it can't be that bad can it ? :shrug:

 

My brazing skills are a little rusty so I might need to practice on some scrap metal first  :banghead:

 

cheers Pat

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Strut / fuselage junctions done!

 

Crusader_17.8.7_1

 

Crusader_17.8.7_1

 

All looks fine hidden in the shadows, hopefully to remain acceptable when all white!

 

And a set of mooring eyelets for good measure ..

 

Crusader_17.8.7_2

 

I think this lets me get back to re-riveting these things before final priming ..

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22 hours ago, limeypilot said:

Surely the pilot's head is too large...his bum must be on the floor!

 

Ian

 

Thanks Ian.  And that is a question I find I'm repeatedly asking myself .. & I've checked more than once, putting my vernier callipers over his nut (I am at risk of being called a rivet-counter in any case, so why not admit to a bit of phrenology!).  The figure is 1/43rd, but smallish at that scale, so pretty much right on size at 1/48: a couple of cms over average width, and pretty much average length.

 

So I think you're absolutely right to suggest the pilot sat right down in the base of the fuselage.  The Solent Sky museum website has a page 'the fastest failures' which quotes an unnamed pilot as describing flying the Crusader as like being "nailed into a iron coffin".  So it was definitely cosy in there.  I speculate this is why it has a door on both sides of the cockpit - to get the pilot's shoulders out!

 

It's also worth remembering that unlike other radial engine machines, the fuselage diameter is not set by the whole engine size, but merely the diameter of the crankcase, excluding pistons.  Having said that, Dave in his IPMS Bent Throttles article suggested the kit fuselage diameter may be a little too lean (I chose to ignore that!!).

 

Few useful photos for reference, this here being the best to illustrate the issue, with a mechanic in place for engine warm-up:

 

Crusader_17.8.8_1

 

And here's mine for comparison .. so a case of strange but true?!

 

Crusader_17.8.8_2

 

edit (tell you what do look too large in that last image above are those mooring eyelets .. might redo them half the size at least .. hmmm)

Edited by greggles.w
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8 hours ago, greggles.w said:

 

Yes, buyer beware!

 

... I will finish it, I will finish it, I will finish it ... !!

I admire your perseverance with this kit, a lesser modeller might well have binned it by now, even given it Pocopius' rubber mallet treatment. Much as I'm looking forward to the final showing, it's cured me of Bristol Crusaders for the meantime. :)

Steve.

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7 hours ago, greggles.w said:

 

... & if I were to do so .. (never mind the production technicalities, which I would need to learn) .. would there be interest?!?

I would! A lot! With the SBS Macchi M.72 in 1/48th coming and the hint of a supermarine S.4 as a possibility... I would gladly skip the Karaya Crusader, my abilities/information/tools are not up to correcting the karaya kit (I'm already working on their 1/72th Savoia Marchetti and really don´t know if I will be able to pull this of). So Please keep in the loop if you produce a kit of this plane!

best regards,

 

Antonio Rivas

ps. you really are putting some inspiring work on this thread, awesome work!

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A belated change of plan .. I've decided I need a one-piece wing.

 

This decision has come about because I finally put my mind to the issue of how to add the detail of the underwing surface oil coolers, which are absent from the kit.  They can be seen here, just..

 

EB4 - Copy

 

.. and here, after salvage..

 

5_2

 

I plan to scribe them, but they straddle the wing to wing root junction.  Those junctions will definitely need to be puttied & worked after joining, and logically scribing should follow.  I couldn't quite see that happening easily ..

 

So this evening I've sawn the wing roots out of the fuselage to form a wing centre section:

 

Crusader_17.8.12_1

 

Next a jig to set the correct dihedral as I join the wings.

 

Hope I don't regret this ..!!

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Wings!!

 

The Crusader had a '1 in 90' dihedral, so I layered up some sheet offcuts, stepping up at the requisite intervals towards the wingtips like so:

 

Crusader_17.8.13_1

 

Double-sided taped to the smooth level surface of my all-purpose marble slab sample (which proves itself useful over & again).

 

Then on with the wings:

 

Crusader_17.8.13_1

 

Plenty of blending required at the newly glued junction before I can declare it done.  I'll also need to shim the edges of the new fuselage junction to compensate for that which was lost to the saw. And then there's those underside oil coolers to be done ..

 

Nevertheless, there's something so very fundamentally exciting about wings on a plane that I couldn't resist cobbling together a rough test fit:

 

Crusader_17.8.13_1

 

 

Crusader_17.8.13_1

 

Off to bed I go ..

 

:pilot:

 

 

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1 hour ago, TrojanThunder said:

This is looking great Greg. Hope to see it in the flesh when it is done.

 

 

 

Thanks Ray, I was contemplating following your lead & bringing the work-in-progress to the Wednesday evening meeting.. if that's the done thing?

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1 hour ago, greggles.w said:

 

Thanks Ray, I was contemplating following your lead & bringing the work-in-progress to the Wednesday evening meeting.. if that's the done thing?

 

It certainly is, people love to see what others are up to. I am sure you will stir some interest with all this correction work you are doing. I will have a couple of mine with me again.

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  • 3 weeks later...

You're doing a very good and thorough job on this Greg.

 

When I first saw that you had cut the wing centre section out of the fuselage I was quite :door: ,  but now I can see it's going to work.

 

Great stuff; keep it up :thumbsup: 

Best regards

TonyT

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On 04/09/2017 at 0:59 AM, TonyTiger66 said:

Great stuff; keep it up :thumbsup:

Thanks Tony, guilty of neglecting this build ... I've diverted myself a bit into my Curtiss CR-3 for the floatplanes group build,  but haven't forgotten this completely- will get back to it for sure!!

 

On 04/09/2017 at 10:54 AM, limeypilot said:

Those wings are a very unusual shape. Almost like a pregnant Bristol M1C!

 

Ian

 

They are indeed Ian. Thanks for the introduction to the Bristol - what a fascinating machine! One you have built?

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2 hours ago, greggles.w said:

They are indeed Ian. Thanks for the introduction to the Bristol - what a fascinating machine! One you have built?

One I had to build!

Here's the post...

 The 1:72 Pegasus kit, built about 3 years ago. A lot of corrections required but it built up ok...

 

36428173690_16282ffc40_c.jpg

 

36428173500_3fedfb25cb_c.jpg

 

It's such a shame that a design that was so far ahead of its time, and so superior to anything else at the time, was relegated to minor fronts simply because of a distrust of monoplanes that dated to pre-war years.

 

Ian

 

Edited by limeypilot
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26 minutes ago, limeypilot said:

A lot of corrections required but it built up ok...

More than OK I'd say! Very nice!

 

27 minutes ago, limeypilot said:

such a shame that a design that was so far ahead of its time, and so superior to anything else at the time, was relegated to minor fronts simply because of a distrust of monoplanes that dated to pre-war years.

 

It's often the case that muddled-thinking conventions blind people to simplicity of thought when it presents itself. Very interesting thank you!

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