1/72nd Supermarine S6B, Pavla kit. Finished!

[Mr T]

As the P1A has about reached the finish line and the Meteor in the STGB awaits paint, I am looking at another build. This going to be the Pavla kit of the Supermarine S6B, the winner of the final Schneider Trophy air race in 1931. It is a short run injection moulded kit with some resin for detail parts, cylinder fairings and beaching gear. Going to be fun, as basically no location tabs etc at all. The plastic parts have a fair amount of flash. This kit is going to be interesting.

[Courageous]

Gotta love these Schneider Racers...

 

Stuart

[Col.]

Excellent second subject choice

[bigbadbadge]

Nice choice, looking forward to seeing this unfold.

 

[Mr T]

1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

Nice choice, looking forward to seeing this unfold.

 

To be perfectly honest, so will I! I made a bit of a start with sorting the main components out and drilling some holes for rods to support the wings and tail. The surface detail is nice, but I am not sure how it will survive. I have a plan to use the trestles and beaching gear provided as a jig to line up the floats, together with something to take  the weight of airframe when attaching the floats. Also made a start on detailing the interior. Fortunately, there is not a lot of it. 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Welcome along with a great aircraft. 

[Mr T]

The P1A is finished and the S6B is now underway. The cockpit has been detailed. The kit gives you a nice resin seat and forward bulkhead. Both turn out to be too big for the width of the fuselage. My guess is that the designer forgot how thick the plastic was. I have added some detail, but there is not a lot in the real thing.

Put a float together, then after the cement had set realised

a) I had stuck the wrong halves together as I misread the instructions

b) Failed to add any weight as the instructions suggested.

Fortunately, as there are no locating pins, I was able to separate the halves with minimal damage. The fuselage is together and the less said about the fit the better. I will photograph it once the Miliput has been sanded down. This kit is going to be fun.

[Courageous]

Nice to see this coming together.

 

Stuart

[Col.]

Sounds as if this one is putting up a fight but your cockpit looks great.

[Mr T]

After SMW and a non Covid chest infection, work is slowly progressing on the S6B. The floats and fuselage are together, and the wings and floats have holes drilled for the eventual rigging. The fuselage was not fun to get together. It consists of two halves and a bottom piece, The halves were a mediocre fit and the bottom part was poor. Might have been me, but I took a lot of care with cleaning up etc. Anyway, The fuselage is in one piece and the massive fairings that cover the type 'R'cylinder banks and come as resin parts are in place and any gaps filled. The beaching trolley and supports for the floats have been assembled and primed, but I am not sure about colour. The instructions indicate wood, but I find it hard to imagine that the interwar RAF would leave something unpainted, especially if it is going to get wet. The next challenge will be the wings and tailplane. 

[Malc2]

Looking good!

There are some great images in the Getty archive showing the beaching trolly, not easy to determine the colour though!

 

Malc.

[Mr T]

Thanks, I have looked through most of what I have and started on the Internet.Even the clear photos aren't very helpful, other than showing something that doesn't look to be plain wood. I might look at photos of bits of prewar RAF woodwork in museums to see how it was painted. Prewar even the railway companies painted the inside of their wooden open wagons to protect them, and they had well over a million between them all. 

[Col.]

Well done getting those disparate sections to form a fuselage against their will. Tidy work.

Perhaps the beaching trolley would have been varnished? Or the same blue-gray most RAF equipment was painted?

[Mr T]

Looking at photos, I am trending towards varnished wood on the grounds that there is no one left to tell me different. 

[bigbadbadge]

Great progress,  although it seems to be fighting you a bit.

 

Starting to look the part though.

Great work. 

Chris

[Mr T]

Thanks Chris, not a kit if you are used to and expect Tamiya standards of fit. The wings and tail are attached and being cleaned up. The wing roots are of different thicknesses, which did not help lining up the wings. Miliput has now hardened so hopefully the joints cleaned up tonight, ready for some primer. 

[Mr T]

Now that the main airframe is together, thinking whether I can get another model into this GB. Thinking of the Mikro Mir AW52. It is out of the stash and is one colour. However I have never seen one made up, specifically looked around SMW to see if one was a branch or SIG stand. Looking at it, could be a challenge, but I am from a time when men were men, women were women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri (apologies to the late Douglas Adams). 

[Col.]

I'm liking the sound of this plan Mr. T

[Mr T]

Well, two steps forward, and one step back, so they say. I did some work on the S6B yesterday, when I noticed that the fuselage had a crack in it down from the forward edge of the cockpit. What had happened, I am not sure, the Pavla plastic is not the best I have come across. Anyway, some superglue and a bit of pressure seems to have done the trick. A coat of primer has naturally revealed some defects that require further filling. The beaching trolley and trestles are also being painted. In the end, the woodwork is being painted to look something like the Supermarine Southampton hull in the RAF Museum.

I'll get there in the end.

 

[Col.]

Still moving forward

[Mr T]

Thanks Col, much appreciated. Some more work tonight, re primed and a couple of areas still need a bit more work. Cleaned up the float struts and drilled holes and put some brass rod pins in as Pavla would have you just glue them to the vague location markings. Also the resin mass balances had all lost their arms and so they have also received new brass rod ones. 

[CliffB]

It sounds like this is going to be a real 'looker' when it's finished and on its beaching trolley 

[Mr T]

Thanks, seems to be a bit of a slow mover at the moment. Cut out the vacform windscreen, which is an indifferent fit. A fair number of niggly bits being sorted at the moment, and hopefully it will all come together. 

[Mr T]

Paint on at long last! The Haynes guide has some discussion of the shade of blue the S6 was painted in. The S6B in the Science Museum appeared to have been repainted in a darker shade, and it is thought that the blue on the aircraft at the Solent Sky Museum is nearer the original. I have used the Vallejo Royal blue in their standard colours This has been brush painted and then a coat of Klear before I mask off to spray the 'silver'

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Very nice shade of blue, will look great with the silver/aluminum.