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Caudron C.450 & C.561 1/32


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Thanks a lot for your kind praise.

 

10 hours ago, Courageous said:

My 1/72 C.714R has no detail, nobody knows what should be in there, so I may have to pinch that idea.

A little simple detail added will benefit the result, even in 1/72 I think. Maybe just thinly stretched sprue flattened a bit?

 

22 hours ago, Moa said:

Such beautiful lines, not to mention the glamor of racers per se.

 

It's an interesting era, and so many things had such lovely styling back then, even something like a simple written sign. Just look at this scan I found somewhere, just beautiful in its simplicity.

 

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Here we are fresh from the paint box, sprayed in primer. The C.450 only has very little work needed on the fuselage joint that will disappear with a light sanding on this round.

 

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The C.561 will, as expected, need a little more work, especially on the underside. Quite a few pinholes were still there, but I have filled them all and with a bit of luck I can get away with sanding this round of primer. Or it may need a second round. We'll see.

 

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I've also made a little spray test of three blue colors I found in my stock. Not sure what I think right now, or where I want to go. Comments and thoughts are most welcome.

 

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1 hour ago, Moa said:

In no way an expert, but the one to the left looks better to me.

 

What looks better is IMO often a good indication in my world. It is interesting, because the one to the left is very close to what Renaissance suggest in the C.561 instructions. When I looked at that blue can first, I thought I needed something a bit more dull blue and/or lighter blue (the reason for putting these three side by side), an impression I had no references for, I mean all I have seen are some old B/W photos and various built models which comes in all sort of blue shades. However when I put these colors side by side today I began to revert my opinion, and realized I don't know much. Again. Food for thoughts, thanks for your opinion.

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While the primer has been curing and I have been working on my Renault AHN truck I have also been thinking about the blue color, looking at what Caudron photos I can find and whatever. I have now decided to start with filling up the larger air brush jar with the blue to the left and start spraying it for real on a good test piece to see how it turns out, and if needed alter it a bit by adding a little of the blue in the middle until it looks about right for my inner mind picture and then go ahead.

 

I have also been thinking about the canopies and decided to paint the C.450 separately. The C.561 canopy comes as a large single vac form, luckily the kit comes with two to give you a spare. I think it will be very difficult to get a good enough fit of that as one piece. Also the front pieces that are fixed have blue framing while the sliding pieces seems to have natural aluminum framing, being a contrasting bright in photos. So I will try to cut the vac forms to separate pieces and gluing the forward sections before painting, and adding the sliding section after paint. We'll see how that works.

 

This morning I masked both the C.450 canopies, to use the one that comes out best. My money right now is on the original kit part that has no framing, as the engravings in the one from the detail set is a bit too deep and wide and not perfectly precise. Looking at old photos the canopy was very smooth. It took me over an hour and a half masking this, and I was thinking I might halt the work and go look through the web shops for a good cutting plotter instead. I would have done it both faster and better in creating it in CAD and used the generated file in a cutter. Nevermind, it's done now.

 

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They were then sprayed in a thin coat of my chosen interior grey. The blue will follow when I spray the rest.

 

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Now I must sand some primer and then start fitting those C.561 canopy parts.

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The primer on both machines sanded out to full satisfaction on the first round, even on the C.561 I'm happy to say.

 

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I'm eager to start spraying blue, but first I have to tackle the C.561 canopy. A small (or large) project in itself I fear it may become. And when done it must also be masked... I'm setting that aside for tomorrow and going down to look up a nice bottle of red wine instead.

 

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I almost forgot I should paint the wheel wells and the gear door insides. I have no idea what should be used there, and I felt my choice was between interior grey and some aluminum, or a combination of them, as blue seemed unlikely. In the end I opted for Alclad dull aluminum.

 

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Then I had to start fitting the vac formed canopy. After cutting off the worst excess it didn't seem too bad.

 

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Working slowly, trimming little by little...

 

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Judge my surprise when after less than an hour I had a well fitting canopy in one piece that more or less clicked into place. That was far from what I had expected, but most welcome. With this achieved I changed my mind and I'm installing this as one piece.

 

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So I touched up some interior grey and finished off the instrument panel. Now with both glue and paint recently applied I think I will leave this overnight before sealing it with the canopy, just to make sure all vapors are completely gone first.

 

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With the canopy fitted I once again had to take up my not so favorite pastime; masking. I wanted to cut the forward sections in one ready shaped piece, so I quickly drew up the basic shape in the CAD and printed. After a few adjustments I had a shape that fitted pretty well.

 

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With the paper template I could cut the shapes and apply. So far so good. With the wheel wells also masked there was not much else to do than to get serious.

 

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La peinture bleue!

 

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Thanks a lot guys, glad you like them so far.

 

11 hours ago, Courageous said:

The paint work looks lovely too. What colour did you decide on in the end?

It ended up with a mix. I started with the darker blue to the right in my test shot (Dupli-Color 8-32) and brightened it up adding the lighter blue to the left (Motip 45100) until I liked what came out, guess I added 25-30%. I can of course not claim this is a correct blue for any of the machines, but it reasonably matched some inner feeling I had. A thin coat of semi-gloss clear will follow after decals, should end up slightly less glossy than now is the plan.

 

11 hours ago, Jo B said:

This is a great build. I really love the subject matter. I have the Williams Bros. Caudron and I can't wait to get to it, but....I really need to get my hands on a C.561. Easily one of my favourite aircraft of all time.

I think the Renaissance kit is worth it in cases like ours, it's been a pretty joyful experience so far. I was very happy when it was released, as before that I was stuck with the older 1/48 kit from Phenix in the stash...

 

 

 

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Decals have been applied.

 

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And we have racing numbers! The old Williams Bros decals also worked perfectly, not a problem anywhere.

 

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The wheel covers on the C.450 have a distinct little cover(?) over the wheel axle centers with a small hole(?) behind it, that is not present on the kit parts. I chose to draw a simple pattern for these and used my Alps with its dedicated XP-system to print it as a decal.

 

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Thanks Stuart, the decals do set them off.

 

I have sprayed the photo etched cooler grilles with Alclad aluminum. It seemed the most obvious choice.

 

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With the decals settled and well dried I went ahead and sprayed a coat of semi gloss clear on everything blue. I will peel the masking a little later.

 

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The masks are peeled. I'm always nervous when building aircraft as that usually means waiting for different paints that are firmly dried before this can be done. Not to mention sealed canopies and cockpits with no good way to reverse a disaster... But so far so good. I have a minor touch up to do on the C.561, but it's easy. Of the two canopies for the C.451, as expected I will use the original kit part, the one to the right. I could have done a better job on the left one, but that would have compromised the sizes of the screens and still left rather deep engravings. So the old kit part it is.

 

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The C.561 looks a bit strange here, when it's still missing the aluminum framing on the rear section. I plan to use this strips of Bare Metal aluminum foil to create this.

 

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With the paint cured the finishing touches can start. It's slow work.

 

There are few reference pictures of the C.561 to be easily found, and none of them are very good. This is my interpretation of the canopy framing, with the rear section done with Bare Metal aluminum and black foil.

 

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Unlike the C.450, the fasteners for the engine covers on the C.561 are visible in high contrast. After some thinking I decided to try Bare Metal foil. I cut a syringe needle flat and sharpened the inside to make a punch tool, then pressed out small circles of the foil.

 

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After some patience improving work the nose came out like this.

 

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The wheel wells also got a wash while the black paint was out.

 

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Building a propeller with separate blades and iffy part's locatings... Well, with only two blades it was at least easier than the last time I remember doing it, which must have been on Miss Ashley II.

 

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The C.450 also got some work done. I remembered to install the compass. Sadly nothing will be seen with the canopy on.

 

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The gear was glued and aligned while drying. This will have to settle overnight before fitting the wheels.

 

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Thanks Moa, I'm glad to hear that. I had a quiet day ahead today and thought I might wrap up the final assemblies.

 

With the canopy installed most of that interior in the C.450 disappears as expected. Something of the seat and belts is still visible but not much more. It might be a little better with a very thin and very clear vac form, but it gets dark in there with this layout. I just fitted it with a thin joint of Kristal Klear.

 

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Propeller and exhaust stacks fitted.

 

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The last part on the C.450 was the oil cooler grille.

 

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Over to the C.561 and the landing gear. I tacked the door pieces together with Kristal Klear to see where this would lead. I realized some tweaks would probably be necessary.

 

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While thinking about the gear doors I fitted the exhaust stacks and top and bottom cooler grilles.

 

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In order to get something reasonably correct it was clear from what little can be seen in old photos that the doors would have to be cut to be tilted forward. Doing that seemed to improve the situation, so both was modified and paint on the edges touched up.

 

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In the end the parts were arranged like this to make it reasonable. If you're building this kit you should probably pay more attention to possible modifications, I'm not sure that geometry of the legs is correct as it is, for example, apart from the fit of the doors. But it doesn't look too bad when the model sits on its wheels.

 

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A little fun detail, the turned metal pitot tube is actually hollow.

 

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I rigged the model upright so the propeller could rest on two thin distance pieces and be aligned while the epoxy cured.

 

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That wrapped up the C.561.

 

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Here they are tonight. I may run lines of slightly darker blue along the control surface lines, but I will probably not do much more. I think.

 

C129.jpg

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