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When 3 Become 1 - Converting an Italeri Ju52/3m to a Ju52/1m *** COMPLETED ***


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On 8/18/2019 at 3:41 PM, limeypilot said:

That looks as though it was a bit of a fight. People have been arrested for less restraint than that!

Nice result though!

 

Ian

Thanks Ian, for your most kind comment!

On 8/18/2019 at 5:29 PM, Courageous said:

All shut-up and you can still see the innards, looks great.

 

Stuart

Thanks Stuart :thumbsup2:

3 hours ago, Biggu said:

No worries, I just thought it might lend a little more to your build, I'm enjoying this a lot...

Thanks Mr Biggu, glad to have you following along. As an aside, I note with interest you are located in BC; I have relatives in Vancouver, indeed at least two occupy their own spots in Mountain View Cemetery! I was lucky enough, in my youth, to visit the place (Vancouver, not the cemetery) as part of a back-packing trip around North America - sadly, my arrival coincided exactly with my cousin's departure for a holiday in the UK!

 

Anyway, I digress...

 

The nose is now on, and some PPP applied which will be sanded down tomorrow hopefully:

 

RnOgD6C.jpg

 

I decided that the IP would be better fixed to the inside of the canopy, thus giving me the opportunity to fill any gaps before fitting the canopy to the fuselage:

 

0nHxslY.jpg

 

Getting there! :)

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

For a while now I have been struggling with the prop for this - or rather, the 2 two-blade props that I would need. My initial experiments with donated B29 props (the only thing large enough to match the required length) failed because I needed to make them a uniform width, and the liquid plastic I tried to use only made them weak and bendy :(

 

I then hit on an idea of making my own from thin strips of laminate:

 

TnsznPS.jpg

 

I tried coating 3 of the strips in sepia wash to try and darken them. Once dry, I stuck them together with wood glue - well, it is wood after all!

 

2AzEyra.jpg

 

Having left them for a few days whilst real life intervened, I then commenced to carving:

 

C0jJRXb.jpg

 

As you can see the sepia stain unfortunately did not penetrate all the way through the bits I painted, but it still looked ok as the thin surface coat still shows through.

 

Here's how it looks right now:

 

16pN0fD.jpg

 

Just 'rinse and repeat' and I think I'll be happy with that!

 

Thanks for watching :)

 

 

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On 8/28/2019 at 3:01 PM, Marklo said:

Nice job, I use paper laminated together with ca for my props.

 

 

Thanks Mr Marklo, and I have seen your laminated paper props on some of your projects - very effective they look too :thumbsup2:

 

I thought I'd try this method first as I had plenty of the raw material to hand :)

 

On 8/28/2019 at 5:47 PM, Orso said:

Nice work on the propeller. I am lazy so I'm leaning toward 1/48 scale Fokker D.VII propellers for my build

Thanks Björn, I guess that would work also. Although, I don't have any such props available, so I guess you could say this was the easier of the options for me!

 

Well, here's the results with both props sanded down and coated with Tamiya clear yellow (X24):

 

GZfWLKu.jpg

 

It seems to have worked out quite well, as on the reference photos the props appear to have very thin dark laminates, which is kind of what I've ended up with here!

 

I drilled out the holes for the prop shaft (which is a piece of copper wire), and set it loosely into the nose - once I'd enlarged the hole slightly:

 

wb9PPQo.jpg

 

I have to say, I am extremely pleased with that! It even spins freely when blown too, which is a long-standing benchmark for success where model props are concerned :D

 

I still need to fix the blades to the copper wire, but as a push fit it's fine right now.

 

Thanks for watching!  :)

 

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On 8/30/2019 at 7:09 PM, Adam Poultney said:

This is looking very good! Now following the thread.

Thanks Adam, and welcome aboard! :)

 

1 hour ago, Courageous said:

Love the props. It's the first time that I've seen 2-bladed props fitted this way. Learn something new today.

 

Stuart

Thanks Stuart, I am pleased with how they've turned out. They look infeasibly large, but I checked all the reference photos where I could get a meaningful comparison with the rest of the nose/cockpit, and I believe I've scaled them pretty damned close to their real size!

 

Today I managed to apply custom corrugations to the sides of the nose using my trusty combo of rubber mould and liquid plastic:

 

Bgl8kqJ.jpg

 

In doing so, I had to extend the depth to which the existing corrugations reached below the cockpit. Individual slivers of moulded corrugations were used to do this - slightly tedious, but not difficult.

 

Getting close to the point where I can foil the fuselage! :)

 

Thanks for stopping by!

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11 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

I cannot wait to see this finished. I wonder if anyone else has done a similar conversion.

I've never tried foiling a model. How do you go about such a thing?

Thanks Adam, I don't think it's been done as a thread on here before, but I do know @Orso has done some great customisations, on his website. Also, in the course of my many online searches for reference images, I often get photos of someone else's model of the same thing - but not with skis! That's what I intend doing, so in that respect it will be unusual if not unique :)

 

As for foiling, I am by no means an expert but what I do know I have learned from watching the exploits of our own @rob Lyttle and trying my best to copy his techniques, experimenting on a cheap and simple model in the first instance. The medium (aluminium plumber's tape from B&Q) has its own challenges, but the effect when it works is amazing - well on his models it is :D

 

Pinch a suitable kit off your pile and give it a go!

 

 

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3 hours ago, clive_t said:

Thanks Adam, I don't think it's been done as a thread on here before, but I do know @Orso has done some great customisations, on his website. Also, in the course of my many online searches for reference images, I often get photos of someone else's model of the same thing - but not with skis! That's what I intend doing, so in that respect it will be unusual if not unique :)

 

As for foiling, I am by no means an expert but what I do know I have learned from watching the exploits of our own @rob Lyttle and trying my best to copy his techniques, experimenting on a cheap and simple model in the first instance. The medium (aluminium plumber's tape from B&Q) has its own challenges, but the effect when it works is amazing - well on his models it is :D

 

Pinch a suitable kit off your pile and give it a go!

 

 

Might just have to give it a go one day.... I'd like to try out on an English Electric Lightning, that would be interesting. 

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On 8/30/2019 at 10:13 AM, clive_t said:

I still need to fix the blades to the copper wire, but as a push fit it's fine right now.

You are doing a fantastic job here with this conversion.

For the wood props, why not use very thin plywood stacked?

It works really well, and with one sheet from the hobby store you have a lifetime supply.

Here mine for (among many others) the Rohrbach Roland:

IMG_7999+%25281280x977%2529.jpg

 

 

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21 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

This is conversion work of the highest order.

 

Impressed of Mars 👽

Thank you sir! :)

20 hours ago, Moa said:

You are doing a fantastic job here with this conversion.

For the wood props, why not use very thin plywood stacked?

It works really well, and with one sheet from the hobby store you have a lifetime supply.

Here mine for (among many others) the Rohrbach Roland:

 

Thanks Mr Moa, very much appreciated. I think I may try the plywood approach another time, as I am quite happy with how my props are looking on this project. Your plywood ones do look very effective, though.

 

Judgement day - i.e. how well did my custom corrugations blend in to those already present:

 

UTwL5dA.jpg

 

IJjKt0H.jpg

 

Answer: more noticeable than I thought they would be in one or two places, but other than that I am quite pleased with it. Still the roof to be done, but first I need to take a deep breath and fit the canopy! Stay tuned...

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Thanks, chaps, I guess the 2-foot rule, beloved of railway modellers, has its uses in this sphere of modelling also! :D

 

Today I started to think about the undercarriage, and how I was going to make it. Well, first of all I need a large pair of skis. My first attempt at making a ski:

 

sYvlLWU.jpg

 

This is 3 strips of laminate wood glued and clamped, and with the front end forced to curve upwards as the glue dries. The jury has now retired to consider its verdict on the wisdom of this approach...

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... Jury says, "3/10, must try harder":

 

LsXRqke.jpg

 

OK, this time with the wood surface protected by a metal ruler, and a slightly less aggressive curvature at the front:

 

SumRAPE.jpg

 

... Jury says, "That's more like it!"

 

WvkuuLb.jpg

 

OK a slight indentation where the end of the ruler was, but I am fairly confident I can sand that out. I just need to do another one like it!

 

 

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21 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

A very odd looking aircraft with only one engine

You're not wrong Adam, I think the fact that they only made 7 of the single-engined version speaks volumes. Having said that, it obviously served a purpose with Canadian Airlines Ltd!

 

On 9/6/2019 at 12:48 PM, Orso said:

 

Looking good. Now you have to build the "Eiffel towers" that goes on them.

 

Thanks Björn, well wish me luck, as here I go...

 

In keeping with the philosophy of interchangeable undercarriage configurations on the real thing, I first made collets that would fit on the axle of the existing undercarriage legs, from a short length of 3mm diameter styrene rod, drilled out to take the axle:

 

uQy07hX.jpg

 

Why didn't I just buy styrene tube, I hear you ask! Simply, cost! Styrene tube is hugely expensive in comparison to simple rod :(

 

I then referred to a reference photo to try and work out the actual geometry, and I marked on the ski where the legs would contact it:

 

4G2MyrK.jpg

 

I worked out that the forward struts were in line with the support strut on the existing undercarriage leg. That kind of made sense to me, given that they would have wanted to try and distribute the load through the whole length of the support from the wing to the ski. So my measurements were all consistent with the length of the undercarriage strut (26mm) and the vertical distance of the axle from the wing (15mm). Here is how it looked:

 

GNt8Laz.jpg

 

I still have some bracing to go in between the front struts, and it needs a bit of a tidy up but it looks like a reasonable start.

 

Thanks for looking, and for your comments :)

 

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On 9/6/2019 at 6:48 AM, Orso said:

 

Looking good. Now you have to build the "Eiffel towers" that goes on them.

 

spacer.png

spacer.png

 

I wonder if those pictures, namely the  bottom one was taken in Winnipeg on the Red River. Canadian Airways had a water base at the end of Brandon Ave. in Winnipeg. There’s still a dock with sailboats that never move parked there.

Edited by busnproplinerfan
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