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Speedbird - Supermarine S.5


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Thanks Mike, couple of photos there I have not seen before.

Great detail of the umbilical electrical connections where they plug in to the cowling in the second photo.

Do you know which of the three S5s these photos are of?

Got any more? 🙂

 

Malc.

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Thank you so much for the extra info Malc2.  The fact that part of the cowling is the actual engine itself is fascinating.  What an amazing piece of kit for its day!

Mike, thanks too for the photos.  I have been following your build and referred back to it often when making this one.  Especially those drawings of the beaching dolly.  I've been thinking about that for some time, and how to do the spoked wheels.

 

This evening I managed to get the struts attached.  The technique of using a dab of water at the top end to hold it in place while positioning the bottom was what did the trick. As each one was coaxed into place I took a tiny bit of super thin CA on the end of a scalpel blade and let it run into the lower joint.

 

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I managed to drop the whole thing while taking this shot.  No damage done fortunately.  The offset floats worked out quite well.  I will fuss around with the joints a bit to get them looking their best.  Very encouraging though!

 

 

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Edited by Putty Animal
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6 hours ago, Malc2 said:

Thanks Mike, couple of photos there I have not seen before.

Great detail of the umbilical electrical connections where they plug in to the cowling in the second photo.

Do you know which of the three S5s these photos are of?

Got any more? 🙂

 

Malc.

 

Malc, I've just added the details of the photos to my post - captions and the book they are from.

I've recently expanded my little library with a couple of good books. The Diamond Jubilee was a local charity shop find, and is worth getting as it has some great photos of the S5 and S6. I've taken a couple of snaps of photos I hadn't seen in my google searching. I only got the Ralph Pegram book yesterday, a belated Christmas present.

 

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S5 reference by Mike, on Flickr

 

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S5 reference by Mike, on Flickr

 

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S5 N221 reference by Mike, on Flickr

 

 

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Nice!  I'd be curious to know what the Pegram book is like.  I've been thinking about it but I would have to order it sight unseen, as these things never make it into the retail shops in this part of the world.

 

Managed to clean the floats up a bit today.  Using a fresh scalpel blade I pared down the streamlined boot at the base of each strut and smoothed them down some wet & dry paper.  Some protective tape around each one helped prevent me from oversanding them.

 

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Then it was out onto the balcony in a force 10 gale to give them a quick squirt of primer.  Looks absolutely piratical now  🏴‍☠️

 

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4 hours ago, Quiet Mike said:

I keep forgetting this is 1/144, there's as much detail here as there is in the 1/48 kit!

 

I agree, this is just astonishing!!!!

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19 hours ago, Quiet Mike said:

 

Malc, I've just added the details of the photos to my post - captions and the book they are from.

I've recently expanded my little library with a couple of good books. The Diamond Jubilee was a local charity shop find, and is worth getting as it has some great photos of the S5 and S6. I've taken a couple of snaps of photos I hadn't seen in my google searching. I only got the Ralph Pegram book yesterday, a belated Christmas present.

Thanks Mike, I have a whole shelf full of books and forget to look at them as I have now mostly transitioned to electronic files for all my pictures!

 

Putty,

IMHO the Pegram book is brilliant, the effort he has put in to draw new three views for all the Schneider aircraft is amazing. (Nice update BTW!)

 

Malc.

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On 5/23/2021 at 10:31 AM, Putty Animal said:

Thanks Malc, good advice!  I was wondering what was going on and if some early versions had exhaust ports on both sides.  I was looking at a shot of N221 and noticed there was a dark panel on the right side with what appeared to be four very thin openings peeping out from its lower edge.  Are these the centre head intake ports you are referring to?

 

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Will you attempt to recreate the pilots jumper as well??? :)

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19 hours ago, Malc2 said:

Putty,

IMHO the Pegram book is brilliant, the effort he has put in to draw new three views for all the Schneider aircraft is amazing. (Nice update BTW!)

Malc.

 

The much missed modelling monk, Moa, referenced the Pegram book in his Sea Lion II build, and I put it on my wish list after that. I've only flicked through it so far but already I'm impressed.

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On 26/05/2021 at 22:27, Quiet Mike said:

 

The much missed modelling monk, Moa, referenced the Pegram book in his Sea Lion II build, and I put it on my wish list after that. I've only flicked through it so far but already I'm impressed.

 

Thanks for the tip off on the Pegram book.  I will stay on the lookout for it.  Is Moa no longer stopping by?  I hope he is keeping well.

 

 

A bit more progress this week, although a lot of it was tidying up odd details and making good on a few errors of my own making.  The tail needed a bit of attention. as the trailing edge of the rudder was too tapered towards the top and would have looked funny once the rudder flashes were painted on.  A narrow strip of 0.10mm styrene was glued to the trailing edge of the rudder and backed up with CA.  I then reshaped it and blended it in with filler.  Looks much better now.

 

The cockpit interior got a coat of green.  Bit uncertain about that, as an aluminium-coloured primer could just as likely have been used there...  :unsure:    If anyone knows one way or the other, let me know!

 

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I also had a go at mixing the blue.  I think this is too dark still, but I may be in the right ballpark.  I think if I mix it with a little bit of white and Gunze H25 Sky blue I could be onto something.  As I mentioned before though - I'm colour blind, so it could be bright purple for all I know!  😰

 

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10 hours ago, Putty Animal said:

 

Thanks for the tip off on the Pegram book.  I will stay on the lookout for it.  Is Moa no longer stopping by?  I hope he is keeping well

 

 

He left of his own accord. I'm not entirely sure why so can't give any details. He keeps a very good blog though!
https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/

That blue looks very good by the way 👍

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Spent an afternoon and the best part of the evening doing the masking.  After squinting at black & white photos until my eyes began to bleed, I was about 90% certain that N220 had its forward cowling painted entirely silver, while N221 had a streak of blue running between each row of cylinders all the way to the spinner.  Unfortunately I only reached this semi-conclusion after I had already gotten halfway through the masking.  I had to pull much of it off and try again.  

 

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Eventually it was back outside for a squirt of silver, then back inside to see what it had got me.

 

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A little bit of touch up needed, but no major dramas fortunately.  Taken on an overcast day, the silver in the photo above looks a little too dark to me.  Depending on how it looks after the panel lines get picked out, I may lighten it a bit.

 

Couldn't resist making the fuselage markings. The white disk was pressed out of some white decal stock using a piece of silver tube as a die. Reaming out the inside with a scalpel gives a nice sharp cutting edge. The No.4 was cut from the same white decal material which I had run through a photocopier so the setout lines were  faintly showing.

 

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Which gets me to here....

Some tidying up is certainly required and I'll do that over the next few days.  Hopefully it will all come together in the end 😬

 

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Oh. My. Word!!! I cannot believe this, PA - I know I've said it before, but this is astounding modelmaking, sheer artistry! Either that or its one big match! :D 

 

In awe,

Mark

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6 hours ago, Malc2 said:

Thats great.

I just found a photo I took of a display of about twenty scratch built Schneider racers in 1/144 at Cosford a few years ago.

 

Malc.


That sounds amazing. If you are able to share the picture I’d love to have a look.  

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No problem, I took three :-), I like the display, which is what caught my attention, I do not know who the modeller is. Taken at Cosford model show 2015.

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Malc.

 

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Quick update:  Remasked and thinly sprayed the silver again with a brighter shade.  Looks a bit more lively now I think.  I think I'll try lightly scribing through the panel lines to expose the black primer underneath.  I tried doing an oil wash earlier, but it looked a bit heavy handed at this scale. 

 

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2 hours ago, Putty Animal said:

Looks a bit more lively now I think

Me too. Well done.

 

Have you considered a wash using a darker shade silver perhaps with a drop of raw sienna or umber? I always try for subtlety, shadows after all are not black but rather dark tones of the surrounding area. 

 

Your 1/144 builds has me thinking of trying something in scale just to get me out of my comfort zone and try and stir up the creative juices a bit.

 

cheers, Graham

 

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On 08/06/2021 at 23:49, GrahamCC said:

 

Have you considered a wash using a darker shade silver perhaps with a drop of raw sienna or umber? I always try for subtlety, shadows after all are not black but rather dark tones of the surrounding area. 

 

That is really good advice!  I ended up just lightly scribing the surface to give the top coat a bit of a key and ran a very tiny line of grey watercolor along the joint.  After about a minute I washed off the excess so just a faint trace remained.  I'll post some shots of it once I've done some more to that end.

 

Here's the other end, which I've been doing over the last couple of days.  Wasn't easy, but managed to print the codes on scrap decal film and cut them out leaving just a white outline.  The 0's were the hardest an took 18 tries before getting an acceptable result.  

 

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Every now and then there's a build on Britmodeller that is totally different and just amazing. And I found it this evening!

 

I built the Pavla S-6B in 1/72 and I thought that was small and difficult. To do the S-5 as a scratchbuild in 1/144 is just awesome.

 

Thanks for sharing it with us.

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