1/32 Short Bristow Crusader - finished!

[Malc2]

Having been a long time fan of the Schneider trophy planes I always wanted a Crusader, and right here on good ole Britmodeller @greggles.w built Karaya’s 1/48 Crusader which impressed me greatly (his build – not the kit so much!) and again got me wanting to add one to the collection.

 

If you are so inclined, pop over and see @greggles.w's build here:-

 

My preferred scale for race planes is 1/32 because race planes are generally tiny. And it needs to match my Williams Bros kits. So currently scratch building is the only option, although I’m sure Murphy will bring one along as soon as I finish…. At least the fuz being circular should be a 5 minute job in the lathe.

 

@greggles.w’s build was very useful in showing how to approach the more difficult aspects. So forget all the other stuff on the bench that needs finishing, push it all to one side …… LETS GO!

 

This is what I am talking about, any excuse to show Laurent Negroni’s fantastic sketch from his Speedbirds website again:-

 

I had already collected all the available photos (there aren’t many!) and a couple of 3 views neither of which agreed with each other very much. I chose to use this one as my main reference:-

Comparing this 3 view with photos show its not without its faults, the upper front rigging attachment to the fuselage is too far forward, the front struts should be wider and angled back a bit more, the rudder is a bit small and the floats a smidge short, but otherwise looks good.

 

I initially had no intention of doing a WIP so took no pics of the first stages, so pay attention as you have some catching up to do!

 

It’s a multi media model(!) the floats and fuz are made from Ureol as its easy to work with, The wing is 3 laminations of 2mm styrene as Ureol tends to crumble where the sections get thin such as trailing edges.

 

The fuz was made with a lateral join, this means its easy to machine the wing seat on the pillar drill table. It also means tailplane alignment is easy. The upper and lower sections were pinned with wire before shaping to ensure repeatable re-assembly.

 

Aaaaaand the fuz blank was too long to fit between the lathe centres, oh bother.

 

So after band sawing the fuz top and side profiles, I carved the square to an octagon, then 16 sides (I just looked it up, its a Hexadecagon – every day is a school day!) I then sanded off the Hexawhatever ridges and used circular drafting templates to mark the high spots and kept sanding until it was circular along its length. After the disappointment of not being able make it on the lathe, I was quite pleased with the result.

 

The wing laminations were left for about a week to fully cure, the outline cut with Tamiya sprue cutters, then scraped with a wood chisel to get the aerofoil – followed by a good scrubbing with 80 grit then 240 and finally wet and dry used wet. The lamination contour lines made it easy to make it symmetrical.

 

The fuz wing seat was cut with a 30mm Forstner bit after raising the nose to set the wing incidence, the ends of the gap were then squared off. A smaller bit was used through both halves to remove the bulk of the cockpit material, which conveniently provided a positive location for the wing after a matching circle of plastic card was stuck to the top of the wing centre section. But not before slicing 75% through the centre line with a razor saw and re-gluing to bend in the miniscule dihedral. The tail seat was cut by hand with a slight neg incidence as the plan.

So enough blather, here is the resulting set of parts.

The float profiles were again bandsaw’ed out, the top shaped, then the underside carved with a curved wood chisel and finished with 240 grit.

 

To be able to get the 3 main elements to vaguely face the same direction a jig was required, some millimetre graph paper was stuck to 12mm MDF. I have found the problem with sticking the graph paper to corrugated card as a jig (Tyrrell 006), is that the graph paper gradually shrinks over a few weeks and what started as a nice flat base ends up like a potato crisp making it pretty useless.

The tail feathers are two laminations of 20thou card. The spine is laminated from the same stuff as the wing, - a redundant B&Q styrene bath side panel!

 

Nothing is glued yet, just held by friction, apart from the nose which is stuck on with blu-tack.

 

The nose did fit in the lathe, and from the blank I carved out the cylinder bases, I found it very hard to initially visualise the final shape, but by marking out and carving away a little at a time and lots of referring to the photos eventually revealed something approximating the real thing. (after cocking up the first one……)

 

Malc.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Malc2

[JohnT]

I take my hat off to all scratchbuilders but in this case the wig might need to come off too. 
 

My mind boggles at what you are doing here. 

[RichieW]

Hi Malc, great to see another scratchbuild underway. Great subject matter too. Following along with interest.

 

Richie 

[Malc2]

Thanks fellas, so back from a fat boy Sunday lunch, lets get part 2 underway.

The next job to tackle was the cylinder fairings. Vacform machine, hoover and an adequate supply of 30thou styrene squares:-

Waft the plastic over the hotplate, wait for the second sag, flick on the hoover with your left foot and slap the hot plastic over the former and imagine Gordon Stephens mass producing 100’s of vacform kits in one session!

12 off - thought I may need a spare or two.

Such a super satisfying process.

Actually this is the second go around, as the first were fractionally too wide and only 8 and 7/8 of them would fit round the crankcase.

11 parts made it through quality control, the upper most fairing has a flat top to match the cockpit fairing.

Next the exhaust holes, another day another jig……. Ignore the frilly edges, it’s the offcuts of a Chinese pagoda kit I got for Christmas. A model is a model is a model, yes?…….. Telling rellies thanks but I only do stuff that was designed to go fast feels a bit impolite. Wonder what I will get next Christmas? Socks probably.

Just flip over the fairing and the wooden bit with the two holes in, push the fairing to the RH and the other side ends up with symmetrical holes.

And 12 fairings with identically positioned and symmetrical holes, the reject got added back in just in case.

Thanks to @greggles.w again for the idea, exhaust blanks, there are a few missing in the photo as I need 18 pairs, 36 circles!

Next up prop assy, what looks more like alu than alu? Turned the spinner on the lathe and blades filed to shape and polished with Brasso from the same stuff – just need to integrate them together… That feels a bit hard so lets put it off for a bit….

Fore and aft spine fairings and generic seat

I decided the best way to fit the aileron levers was to cut out the ailerons and make a slot in the aileron, I seem to be going backwards and making a kit of more parts not less!

Lower wing rads scribed – very carefully with a template….. and vertical holes drilled for strutz attachment.

You can just see where I had to add a shim in the rear of the port wing root as I cut the belly fairing blank a bit too narrow… oops!

 

Feel free to leave comments or suggestions!

More soon.

 

Malc.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Malc2

[Malc2]

And finally a plea for help, the fin registration (N 226) needs black letters/numbers between 4 and 5mm (ideally 4.5mm) high.

Black with a white outline for the 2 and the 6, does anybody know where I can get transfers/decals that would be suitable? Or a kit that has them?

I could mask and spray, but would much prefer transfers for less stress.

 

Malc.

[Flintstone]

Malc,

Really, anything to excuse you from finishing that 006! 🤣

 

Looks great though.

 

P.S. Don't ask about the Bergspyder.

 

 

[dogsbody]

Larger photos would be nice. Some of old gits don't have the eyesight that we use to.

 

 

 

Chris

[Malc2]

Click on the pic, will take you to the full size.

Its a compromise which ever way, super large photos directly in the thread take an age to load and people loose interest quickly - there have been complaints in other peoples threads about this, or as I have done, thumbnails that require a click to see the full size pic.

M.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Malc2

[bigbadbadge]

Great work on this, looks flippin awesome.

Chris

[dogsbody]

Those clicked on photos aren't that much larger. When I post images from Flickr, no one has eve complained about how long it take to open.

 

Does this image take some time to open?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Vesa Jussila]

Looks impressive. Good work so far.

[Pritch]

I think the decals sheet that would suit you would be Ventura V4898 (8 inch serials, British 1920-1939( http://venturapublications.com/store/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=v4898

This sheet has black with white outline  in a number of styles, measuring out to 4.2 mm high -- which is 8 inch in 48th scale (32nd scale would be 5.6 mm)

 

 

[Malc2]

@Pritch thats a superb find, thanks for that!

[Malc2]

So bearing in mind Dogsbodys comments above, would the urban cookie collective prefer full size pics in the thread with a potential for slow loading or carry on as my OP?

 

M.

[stevehnz]

Images up to about 1024 pixels wide are a good size to view & cause no issues with slow loading in my experience, when images get up to about 4000 pixels wide then yes, they do slow things down a lot, the difference between 400 kb & 4mb file size.

Steve.

[dogsbody]

Using your hosting site, I can post images this thumbnail size:

 

 

 

or this full size:

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure how large the big one is, as your site doesn't give the size numbers, unlike Flickr does.

 

 

 

Chris

[Malc2]

Chris, Yes I know how to link my pictures thank you.

I have already explained my reasons for linking the way I have and I would appreciate if you would stop cluttering up my thread.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Malc2

[SprueMan]

Nevermind the spammer.

The rest of us like your work and would like to see more when you continue

 

I love your multimedia approach; using whatever tool and method is that is best always works.. best.

[RichieW]

Please don't delete your thread Malc, I'm learning so much from your methods and am enjoying your work.

 

I can see your photos just fine and they show clearly everything I need to see.

 

Richie

[Farmer matt]

Another vote for continuing Malc. Excellent choice of subject, great work, great thread.

Matt

[Chaotic Mike]

What they all said. I'm loving all the scratchbuild action going on. I can't do it myself, but it's great to see the art of the possible. 

Mike

[Phoenix44]

On 11/04/2023 at 07:15, Malc2 said:

So bearing in mind Dogsbodys comments above, would the urban cookie collective prefer full size pics in the thread with a potential for slow loading or carry on as my OP?

 

M.

Lovely work so far and I'm not sure slow loading is a thing with broadband these days is it? 

[Malc2]

Right, Illegitimi Non Carborundum as we used to say at work😆
 

So to join the fuz to the floats we need Strutz 4 off, for the use of. Two lams of 30thou sanded to shape, 0.5 wire as joiners. The top angled wire joiners are loose here.

And its on its feet for the first time, this has highlighted a design flaw in that the struts are not strong enough to stop the floats splaying apart, (the wire is just at the ends not all the way through). So I’m going to make a beaching trolley and the rigging will have to be functional (PEtch) RAF wires, which hopefully between them will keep the floats from goin’ all goofy.

 

The doghouse slides down over the two uprights on to the jig, it supported the fuz initially and makes a drill guide for the angled strut holes in the floats and then to hold the struts at the right angle for bending the wire connectors to the wing.

Start of the trolley, the phrase reminds me of Victoria Wood asking – “is it on the trolley?”

Wheel rims with roughed out tyres.

And assembled

It now just needs some fishplates and bolt heads and paint, another design flaw has shown in that it’s a tail sitter as I don’t have a scale 430Kg of Bristol Mercury 1 up front, so as the real thing there will have to be supporting chocks.

Finally free of the bonds of the earth, ….. well the jig at least…

S’all a bit wobbly as apart from the trolley its all just held together by friction blu-tack and a prayer.

Whatever you do don’t sneeze.

Forgive my indulgence with so many pictures, but this is a major mile stone for me, my first proper scratch build.

I’m glad I separated the ailerons as I can pose them to give it a bit of life

I think I will separate the tail surfaces for the same reason. Its all sat back a bit far due to the fuselage and wings being a bit too heavy for the struts.

Hopefully strut cross bracing will fix that.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Malc.

 

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Malc2

[RichieW]

1 hour ago, Malc2 said:

Forgive my indulgence with so many pictures, but this is a major mile stone for me, my first proper scratch build.

I'm completely astonished by that revelation! You've progressed through it at a cracking pace and it is looking fantastic. 

 

Richie

[stevehnz]

That is looking really good, I've long like the look of the Crusader, such a pity its time was cut short by carelessness, it has a slightly outlandish look to it that really appeals to me & you're catching that wonderfully. 👍

Steve.