Colin’s Spanish Fury

[Colin Leighfield]

Hard to believe this took me two evenings! There was no way of getting the guns inside without cutting them up, sadly. I tried all roads to wiggle them in with the instrument panel in place, no chance. In the end the answer was to cut the breech blocks right back and fix them to the instrument panel. Even then, I had to relieve some areas inside to get it in, but finally, success! The rest of the cockpit should be easy now. Waiting for the pilot from Dave Banks.

[Danny Fenton]

Sadly i ended up in the same boat Colin. With hindsight, maybe the cockpit should have been fitted out before sheeting?

 

[Colin Leighfield]

35 minutes ago, Danny Fenton said:

Sadly i ended up in the same boat Colin. With hindsight, maybe the cockpit should have been fitted out before sheeting?

 

Probably Danny. However, the model’s internal structure limits the ability to match the full-size. Also, some of it will be hard to see, so I’m not going to try and do it all. 

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

It's looking good, you could always put a small Led in the cockpit to make it stand out.

[Colin Leighfield]

5 hours ago, Paul De Tourtoulon said:

It's looking good, you could always put a small Led in the cockpit to make it stand out.

That’s an idea Paul! Not so sure it would it any favours though, it’s not that good! A problem is that in the full-sized plane, the cockpit skin is the plane’s outer surface and controls are attached to that. In practice, particularly with a pilot in situ, you’d hardly see them anyway.  In the model, the internal structure is different, with the “inner sides” forming the interior. Therefore, I’ve focused on the instrument panel and gun breeches/cocking handles. I’ll do a bit more, but only what would be normally easily visible.

[Colin Leighfield]

Looking more carefully, I was wrong to say that some of the controls are attached to the fuselage surface, in fact some of them are fixed to the tubular fuselage structure. I've had another look at the 3D printed frames that Tony made to see if I might be able to cut bits out of them and stick them in places where they could be seen. However, I decided it’s not worth the trouble, when the full length pilot is in place they’ll hardly be visible. I think this is as far as I’m going to go with the cockpit interior, it’s fit for purpose. Although there is a lot of excellent detail in the  Guerrero book, I’m still not clear about cockpit interior colour. However, I struggle to believe that in the desperate, hard-working combat struggle of the Spanish Civil War, that it would have been silver. I’m happy with cockpit green. There are some amazing photos in this book, some of them here. I really think that the Spanish Hispano engined Furies were the most business-like of them all. Loads of detail, such as the exhaust stubs, louvres etc, which I will reproduce.  The last photo shows one of Tony’s 3D printed parts, I’ve failed to work out where it goes. Next step is to carefully cut the aluminium spinner to fit the 20” prop. 

[Colin Leighfield]

Here’s the 1/6 scale pilot from Dave Banks. It looks like a WW1 figure, but that’s probably ok and I can perhaps add a moustache or something! When I hold it in position in the cockpit, it looks right, albeit too wide for the seat. I’ve compared the dimensions with those on Matty B’s scale dimensions chart and they look right. However, when I sketch out a body to fit to it and make a 5’8” equivalent height, it’s clearly too big to fit in. Nor sure what to do about this, I can see why Danny has just used the bust.  

[Colin Leighfield]

Since the last post, I’ve been to the Isle of Man on my bike for the Manx GP and although I’ve been home for nine days, chaos around the house caused by building work is causing problems, so I’ve only got back on the case today. The pilot is unfinished business. I’ve given up on the idea of giving him legs, they wouldn’t be visible anyway, but decided a torso with arms should work, so I’m on with that. I notice that Martyn has a WW 2 style pilot, which fits with his SAAF choice. My pilot is closer to a WW1 subject, which might be nearer for a Spanish Civil War choice.  Some tidying up to do here, it’s a mess at present. 
I’m keen to do a good job on the spinner, so spent some time on this to get it right. The adapter nut for the spinner needed tapping out to match the 10mm propeller shaft. The thickness of the prop hub means that I’ve got to countersink it to get everything on, that’s tricky but I’m trying. 

[Martyn K]

Love the pilot Colin and cracking job on the spinner, which has made me realise I need to add that job to my list..

[Colin Leighfield]

Thanks Martyn, so much still to do. Exhaust stubs, Hispano exclusive louvres, lower wing root fairings, tailplane struts,  rigging detail. The paints arrived from Fighter Aces this week, so the ducks are getting lined up in a row.

[Colin Leighfield]

I parked this project because I was splitting my time between my bikes and my planes, getting nowhere with either. I’m on top of the bikes now, time to get back onto the planes. I’ve got all of the paints from Warbirds, so now to finish off the Spanish Hispano Suiza Fury,

[Graham Donaldson]

Looks good and will look even better once finished. Mine hasn't flow for about a year but I was really pleased with it. Maybe your saw a picture of it in a previous post but here it is again. Looking forward to seeing yours in the air.

[Colin Leighfield]

Hi Graham, nice to hear from you, I think it was the LMA fly-in at Cosford when I saw you with this lovely Fury? here’s mine coming to life, at last. Although the interplane struts are made exactly to plan, they don’t fit accurately, so need some work. The error is the same on both sides. I think Danny identified this problem. I gave up with the original Master propeller and am much happier with the Xoar 20x10. However, even though I’ve countersunk the prop washer into the front of the propeller, there’s only 6mm of shaft for the prop nut to screw onto. I could really do with finding a suitable sleeve nut to fit onto the 8mmx1.0 shaft, that I could adapt for the spinner centre-screw 5mmx1.0. 

[Colin Leighfield]

I have completed the control settings. Rates set at 100, 80 and 60%, expo at 30%. Also differential at 60% up aileron, which shouldn’t be too far off. Now for the finishing touches and painting. I’ve given Pedro the pilot a beard. One of the paintings in the excellent Guerrero book on the Spanish Civil War shows the pilot flying with a red scarf flying out, I’ll give him one to mask the fur collar, which looks a bit too WW1!

[Colin Leighfield]

Fiddly detail always takes me a while. The plan says to use aluminium tube with the ends flattened for the tailplane struts. I didn’t have enough to do that, so I used carbon-fibre tube and fitted ends made from what aluminium tube I did have, which seems to work out.

I made the wing root fairings to the plan, they weren’t right, so I scrapped them and re-made, working directly to the plane to make them accurate.
One of the numerous differences between the Spanish and British Furies is the six louvres in the engine cowling, on each side. I considered trying to cut them in a piece of annealed litho-plate, but decided instead to carve them out of balsa. They look ok to me.
I have created the fairing on the tail-skid.

Also, there are two small air intakes just in front of the undercarriage legs, so I will make them next. Finally, I need to re-work the inter plane struts, to get an accurate fit. Then it is ready for painting. However, we leave for holiday shortly, so that has to wait until I get back.

[Colin Leighfield]

Shortly after writing the previous post, I realised I had fitted the cowling louvres back to front! They are there to release air, not let in! Quickly corrected.

[Colin Leighfield]

The two air intakes in front of the undercarriage legs are made and fitted. The interplane struts will have to wait until we get back. Windscreen, gun sight and leather cockpit trim will be done after painting. 

[Colin Leighfield]

A bit more done today. The Hispano engined Spanish Fury has a number of differences, including the exhaust layout. It looks as if the central four exhaust pipes in each cylinder bank are Siamesed, so there are four outlets, the middle two being larger. Also, there are small stub pipes protruding. I have made these by folding strips of 1mm Vector Board into the ports, I think it looks ok. I’m debating whether or not to fit the rib tapes, with a matt camouflage finish they will hardly be visible, and the model is hardly more than stand-off scale anyway. 

[Colin Leighfield]

I had second thoughts about rib tapes, so here we go. I’m not going to attempt knots though.

[Colin Leighfield]

If Danny is looking in, I have been having a look at his build thread and noting the rib tapes. Am I right in assuming that he has run a single tape on each rib, looping over the leading edge and then back underneath to the trailing edge? 

[Danny Fenton]

Yes, a single tape from trailing edge to trailing edge. Remember the fabric panels were diagonally cut so there is a joining seam too.

I used heavyweight tissue, no pinked edges here....

Cheers

Danny

[Colin Leighfield]

Thank you very much Danny, I was trying to work it out. I am using Mick Reeves iron-on 1/6 scale rib tape. The edges are very finely pinked, but it’s hardly noticeable. As mentioned before, under a matt camouflage paint, they won’t be highly visible anyway. One stupid mistake I hadn’t noticed when I covered the wings was that I had missed out the intermediate leading edge riblets! However, there is no sag between the closely spaced ribs, so if I apply the rib tape in those positions, no-one will ever know! I want to get to the painting as soon as I can, it’s not looking too bad so far, although far short of your standard. 

[Colin Leighfield]

Thanks to Danny for straightening out my understanding on rib tapes, something I’d never paid my attention to before. I’ve begun to correct my first attempt. I had never noticed before the diagonal tapes, which Danny told me are to cover the joins where the material had been cut. I can understand that they must have cut it on the bias, because that sets the weft and warp diagonally instead of parallel to the edges, meaning that the tapes can’t fray. I’m sure everyone else knew that already! Ah well, on we go. 

[Danny Fenton]

From the example at Duxford

 

You can see that the tapes edges are deliberately frayed. Quite difficult to replicate, silk tapes fray nicely but a serious amount of work to do.

 

Looking good Colin

 

Cheers

Danny

[Colin Leighfield]

Thanks Danny. I can see that fraying the edges of the rib tapes is sensible, they will stick down better. You can’t fray a bias cut edge though, they must be plain strips along the weft. However, bias cutting on the wing fabric would give a much stronger stitched join than one on parallel longitudinal threads, which can pull apart under tension. Something I’ve never thought about before. I think the Fury is looking pretty good in the Spanish style. I’m going to see what with I can do with my air-brush.