Mircro-Mir 1/48 Supermarine Napier S5 N220 float plane

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Phew! Good that you caught it!

Wonderful supervision and quality control at Mikro-Mir

Good work, Mike!

[Quiet Mike]

Invaluable! Thank you TorbenD!

 

[Quiet Mike]

10 hours ago, Moa said:

Phew! Good that you caught it!

Wonderful supervision and quality control at Mikro-Mir

Good work, Mike!

 

Alarm bells were ringing when I noticed several parts on the sprue that were not shown on the instructions. There is also a bulkhead going spare that I have no idea about. It's like the person making the instructions wasn't involved in the research and development process at all, and just guessed where these parts should go on the kit. To go to the effort of getting the kit correct, and then getting the instructions wrong is bizarre.
Of course you will hardly see any of this anyway once it's closed up 🤣

[AdrianMF]

Great save! Nothing worse than getting to the end and finding some parts still rattling around in the box!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Quiet Mike]

Jumping the gun a little, but just spotted this good view that shows how the floats are not symmetrical. I'm fairly certain the kit glosses over this issue, so I will have to shorten or lengthen the struts accordingly.

 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Ah! Well done!

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

3 hours ago, Quiet Mike said:

Jumping the gun a little, but just spotted this good view that shows how the floats are not symmetrical. I'm fairly certain the kit glosses over this issue, so I will have to shorten or lengthen the struts accordingly.

 

 

 

Not sure if this was mentioned, but in the photo the right wing has a larger span too.

 

[Planebuilder62]

Hi Mike

The S6B Haynes manual states the Starboard float was offset 6’’ from the centreline but no mention is made of different span wings. Had the wings be built of different spans unequal lift would have resulting so the plane would have wanted roll instead of flying level.

 

regards Toby

[mick]

great work,will follow your build 

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

On 12/18/2020 at 10:56 PM, Planebuilder62 said:

Hi Mike

The S6B Haynes manual states the Starboard float was offset 6’’ from the centreline but no mention is made of different span wings. Had the wings be built of different spans unequal lift would have resulting so the plane would have wanted roll instead of flying level.

 

regards Toby

Some racers had unequal wing spans to compensate for the torque, hence no rolling, we are talking inches. 

[Bengalensis]

18 hours ago, Quiet Mike said:

Jumping the gun a little, but just spotted this good view that shows how the floats are not symmetrical. I'm fairly certain the kit glosses over this issue, so I will have to shorten or lengthen the struts accordingly.

That is a very interesting photo indeed!

 

29 minutes ago, Moa said:

Same racers had unequal wing spans to compensate for the torque, hence no rolling, we are talking inches. 

I'm thinking along the same lines. I can't find an explanation for that photo's appearance, other than the right wing actually having a slightly larger span.

But then again, I'm no photo interpretation expert, nor an aeronautic engineer. The discussions will no doubt be interesting.

 

Suddenly I'm getting a lot more interested in building this machine...

 

@Quiet Mike Excellent work so far!

[Quiet Mike]

The Getty Archive seemed to have hoovered up all the best images, this one is superb.

 

I've got a few Supermarine books in the library, as it is a pet subject, but not so much on the Schneider Trophy; Ralph Barkers book, and the Haynes Manual on the S6B. After a tip off from @Moa I've got the Ralph Pegram book on my Xmas list. (The one with a yellow S5 on the cover?)

 

 

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/supermarine-s6a-on-of-the-aircraft-taking-part-in-the-isle-of-man-picture-id591971498?s=2048x2048

[Quiet Mike]

4 minutes ago, Quiet Mike said:

After a tip off from @Moa I've got the Ralph Pegram book on my Xmas list. (The one with a yellow S5 on the cover?)

 

 

 

It's a Gloster Napier, my mistake!

[Quiet Mike]

Finishing off the cockpit. I added a PE throttle quadrant I had spare.

 

Finishing the cockpit and buttoning up the fuselage by Mike, on Flickr

 

Finishing the cockpit and buttoning up the fuselage by Mike, on Flickr

 

Closing the fuselage up, and when that had dried, adding those tricky engine cowlings. The prop is dry fitted while I sanded the cowling to match it's profile. Having 6 pieces fitting around the propeller shaft plate meant that it ended up oversize. Some of those exhaust holes need a little work too.

 

Finishing the cockpit and buttoning up the fuselage by Mike, on Flickr

 

Finishing the cockpit and buttoning up the fuselage by Mike, on Flickr

 

And dry fitting the wings, which looks good from here, but unsurprisingly needs a lot of tidying up.

Finishing the cockpit and buttoning up the fuselage by Mike, on Flickr

[fjaweijfopi4j48]

Taking already that beautiful shape!

That kit is no stroll in the park, uh?

[fubar57]

Never heard of this kit and looking forward to the rest of the build. I can vouch for Vallejo Metallics, however....as most people have found out....they are a bit more fragile. The thing I've found is to take your time with them. Once I have sprayed a colour on, I leave the model alone for a minimum of 24hrs. When the time comes for masking, detack the bejaysus out of the tape. Spray on the next colour and then remove the masking tape....gently. Doing it this way, on three models, I may have had about 2²mm of paint removed and no bleed under. The paint removed is actually less than when I use Tamiya acrylics. Hope this helps

 

 

George

[Lightpainter]

I build the MikroMir AMP Piaggio-Pegna PC.7 in 1/48 scale so I can understand your problems. There were differences between the parts, the plan and the box art so probably they are al made by different people who never talk to each other 😉 

 

It always can be done... sometimes 😉

[Courageous]

19 hours ago, Moa said:

Taking already that beautiful shape!

Ditto.

 

Stuart

[Quiet Mike]

@vall has set the bar very high with this lovely build! Well done Alain!

 

[newvall]

Thanks Mike,

 

yours starting well so far.

 

For mine I didn't glue the cowling to be able tighting the rigging

 

 

The conter part was to adjust, the cowling once evreything was almost done, it was maybe not the best solution!

 

The next "nice " step will be the floats assemby and then rigging.

Take care about the instruction step 13 , there's miostaka in the parts number.

 

I found easier to glue the strus on the float before assembling them together, I used a jig, and I took the opportunity to to modified the struts length

 

 

Rigth alf with its streched stuts :

 

When glued together I drilled holes and inserted micro tubes from the "arrival" of trheads and the foats bottom in order to tighten them, then I did some touch up.

 

 

Hope this feedback helps.

 

Alain

 

 

[Quiet Mike]

Brilliant, thank you Alain. Unfortunately I have stuck quite a few bits of this together now that I am starting to regret! Alas my mind can't work two steps ahead, which would be invaluable with this kit!

 

After much heel dragging I finally designed and assembled the jig to hold the floats and the 'plane in the correct position, using a plan I found online. I hope I haven't over complicated this process, I kept it as simple as possible. Fingers crossed this will work!

 

Next job is to lengthen the starboard float struts, by 2.5mm I think.

 

Now, if I could backtrack to the beginning, I would seriously rethink how to rig this kite, as @vall has done. I have already closed the fuselage up, and both the floats. (Which I weighted at the front as well) I am now thinking how much stronger the kit would be if I could run loops of continuous rigging from the cowling at the top, through the wings, then the floats, and then joining up. Well, maybe this is still possible ...

 

Building a jig for the S5 by Mike, on Flickr

 

S-5 drawing by Mike, on Flickr

 

Building a jig for the S5 by Mike, on Flickr

 

Building a jig for the S5 by Mike, on Flickr

 

Next up I think, once i have decided on how to rig everything, is to get some paint on. As much as I love the Venice race number markings, the pull of portraying it as it flew from my local Calshot is very strong. R.A.F. HSF markings I think, so a weathered working aircraft. Time to dig out something I can use as a paint mule to try out some of these new silvers.

[Quiet Mike]

On 12/27/2020 at 5:47 PM, vall said:

The next "nice " step will be the floats assemby and then rigging.

Take care about the instruction step 13 , there's mistake in the parts number.

Alain

 

I didn't notice 😳  But my faith in the instructions has been quite low from the start, so I went by where the rigging points were on each float rather than what number they were on the sprue. 😌

[Dunny]

Coming along nicely Mike - impressive jiggery pokery!

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[Quiet Mike]

Decided to test the new metallics I got just before Christmas. (These are on a semi gloss Tamiya black, not gloss, because I misread the bottle.🙄 )

The Duraluminio on the end has a lovely deep warm finish too it, definitely my favourite of these four, but I think a tad too dark for the S5. The lighter Aluminio Blanco next to it it a better shade. Maybe I'll make a 50/50 mix of those two?

 

Testing my new batch of silver paints by Mike, on Flickr

 

And adding a base coat of black over the grey primer. Again, semi gloss not X1 🙄. After I took these I went back and added X1 to certain parts - the floats and struts, cowling, radiators, propeller. I'm not sure it will have any effect but a bit of extra shine to these parts would be good. (I think the wings are silver painted plywood skinned.) Oh, for reasons I'm not sure of, it splattered out of the airbrush like no ones business. Hopefully once it's dried it won't be so bad.

 

Getting a bass coat on the S5 by Mike, on Flickr

 

Getting a bass coat on the S5 by Mike, on Flickr

 

Getting a bass coat on the S5 by Mike, on Flickr

 

I had to add the line for the propeller spinner, which wasn't easy!

Getting a bass coat on the S5 by Mike, on Flickr

 

I'm looking forward to getting some silver on it tomorrow morning! Plan is to give it an overall coat of silver. It would be great to try and show the heat discolouration on the cowlings over the (or rather part of) the rocker heads. Research is interesting, as there were of course three S5 types, and all were used and adapted over the late 20's with the High Speed Flight as they tried to eak more speed out of these brutes. (Poor old N221 was lost in March '28, with the pilot Kinkhead loosing his life, attempting to break the World Speed Record)

I keep finding superb images but then realise they are either N219 or N221 ... This is a good early shot of a pretty clean N220 at Calshot though.

 

[Planebuilder62]

Dear Mike

I have found that misting one shade of Alclad over another is an easier way of getting an intermdiate colour od NMF. Maybe that would work with your brands of paint as well?
 

Tamiya grey primer works very well for the Aclad colours except the Hi Shine types like polished aluminium. Maybe that is an alternatve to your black primer?
 

regards Toby