Eduard Sopwith Camel Engine – Clerget & Bentley (648676 & 648677 for Eduard) 1:48

[Mike]

Sopwith Camel Engine – Clerget & Bentley (648676 & 648677)

1:48 Eduard Brassin

 

 

Eduard’s newly tooled Sopwith Camel has reached our shelves and stashes now, and here are a pair of aftermarket engines in gloriously well-detailed resin to upgrade your kit parts.  You can see our review of the kit here, but remember to come back and read the rest of this review after.  The engines fitted to the aircraft were sourced from various manufacturers to prevent a bottleneck from slowing down production of these much-needed fighters.  Bentley and Clerget were the major producers, and these two sets depict the differences between the two.  As is now usual with Eduard's smaller resin sets, they arrive in the shallow Brassin cardboard box, with the resin parts safely cocooned in bags, and the instructions folded around acting as padding.  The differences between the two types are slight, but noticeable when viewed close up, mostly around the cylinders, push-rods and the exhaust collector ring.

 

 

Clerget Engine (648676)

The Clerget engine has finer cooling vanes on the cylinders and fewer joints on its exhaust collector tubing.  The main resin part includes the cylinders, bell-housing and drive-shaft, with the exhausts slotting into a keyed hole in the rear, and the PE wiring loom plus aft ring slipping over the rear.  The completed, painted assembly is then attached to the fuselage on the standard mounting point in the centre.

 

 

 

 

Bentley Engine (648677)

The Bentley engine has coarser cooling vanes on the cylinders and more joints on its narrower exhaust collector pipes, plus a slightly different construction order.  The main resin part includes the cylinders, push-rods, bell-housing and drive-shaft, with a PE ring in front of the exhausts that slot into a keyed hole in the rear, then the PE wiring loom slipping over the rear.  The completed, painted assembly is then attached to the fuselage on the central mounting point.

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

Detail is excellent in both variants, and as usual with Eduard sets the paint call-outs are given through the build in Gunze codes and colour names.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of

[Paul Thompson]

 

Mike.

 

          Very nice. One small point, what you call exhaust collectors aren't, their induction pipes bringing air from the two tubes you see sticking out of the Camel (and any other rotary engined aeroplane) side panels. On various engines they tend to be copper coloured, or black even. I mention it because it's a common misconception that leads to some people painting them burnt metal, as well as going to the trouble of inappropriate exhaust staining from the pokey out bits on the cowling side panels.

 

   In case you were wondering, the exhaust comes out of a valve at the end of the cylinder near the inlets, and just spatters out as the mood takes it.

 

Paul.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Paul Thompson
Missed a word..........................

[Mike]

Just now, Paul Thompson said:

          Very nice. One small point, what you call exhaust collectors aren't, their induction pipes bringing air from the two tubes you see sticking out of the Camel (and any other rotary engined aeroplane) side panels. On various engines they tend to be copper coloured, or black even. I mention it because it's a common misconception that leads to some people painting them burnt metal, as well as going to the trouble of inappropriate exhaust staining from pokey out bits on the cowling side panels.

Tsk... that's them old fashioned rotary engines for you.  Confusing me

 

1 minute ago, Paul Thompson said:

In case you were wondering, the exhaust comes out of a valve at the end of the cylinder near the inlets, and just spatters out as the mood takes it.

It's no wonder the pilots all came back from missions looking like pandas, and with rampant diarrhoea 🚽

[Paul Thompson]

5 minutes ago, Mike said:

Tsk... that's them old fashioned rotary engines for you.  Confusing me

 

It's no wonder the pilots all came back from missions looking like pandas, and with rampant diarrhoea 🚽

Castor oil, works wonders by all accounts. It was known as a total loss system, so the oil just flew out with the exhaust - and over and into the pilot.

 

I was happy enough with the engines in the new kit, but find these Brassin examples very tempting. Probably snaffle a Bentley.

 

Paul.

[JohnT]

3 hours ago, Mike said:

 

 

It's no wonder the pilots all came back from missions looking like pandas, and with rampant diarrhoea 🚽

Actually castor oil was never conclusively determined as the cause of the second aforesaid condition as the pilot had usually had a run in with a certain all red triplane which was an equally contributing factor. 
Source:-

My Life in the RFC with Charlie Brown

by Snoopy