Another Project to sit on the shelf

[Gondor]

As the title says, this will probably end up sitting on the shelf unfinished for months or more likely years    however it's one of those things that when you get the urge to build something you simply must build it no matter what else is on the modelling table.

So for everyone's delectation and encouragement I hear-by inform the gathered members of this esteemed institution that I will attempt to construct, for the edification of the populous one of Hawker's finest never built aircraft........
The P.1027!

Having seen a few builds of this version of the Tempest and having a collection of intended real world builds of the aircraft linage, I realised that perhaps I should get around at some point to build this version of the Tempest especially as I have been building a Mk1 series II Tempest.

First this I did was locate some drawings which I found HERE as drawings 57 and 58. These drawings are as they state in 1/72 sale, if you handle them correctly. I found that I had to print the drawings off in Landscape and to fit the page while printing onto A4 paper.

So drawings: Check 

Next a kit to modify.... well I could buy off the internet as there is nowhere local for me to buy anything or I could use the Academy one I have part started in my stash. Sounds good until you read a review or two, in my case from looking at the Valiant Wings publication Airframe & Miniature No.4 "The Hawker Tempest" by Richard A. Franks, which says "the fuselage is 2mm short and it's not all up the front or back, it's mid-way. To correct it, you need to split the fuselage at the point where the rear bulkhead in the cockpit sits". Not really a problem as the nose is going to get cut off so why not make this modification as well, and 2mm is quite a large amount, 144mm/14.4cm which is roughly 5 inches off the top of my head  There are other inaccuracies that are also mentioned but are minor compared to the length issue. Anyway, that's a kit sourced too 

Propellers    contra-rotating propellers to be exact! Now the front of the Rolls Royce Eagle (1944) has quite a large area behind the propeller hub's and after looking at the Wikipedia entry for the engine decided to use the propellers from the Wyvern which was initially powered with the same engine and indeed the rear section or the propellers has the same diameter at its rear. The front part though...... A chat with TsrJoe and I ended up digging out a set of Shackleton propellers which have the right diameter as in the drawing as look as if they have the right shape too. Not only that but the front part of the hub looks to be the right shape going by the drawings! The rear of the Shackleton propeller hub will also roughly fit inside the Wyvern rear hub so I should be able to fill and shape the Wyvern part with the Shackleton part inside it, so that's the propellers sorted as well 

So that leaves working out what to do with the engine and radiators under the fuselage. Well the engine should be relatively straight forward. I have both plan and side elevation drawings which I can use for templates. The head on drawing can be used to produce a template for the rear of the engine as well. Both the plan and side templates will have to modified to fit around each other and the central tube which I will fit for the modified Shackleton propellers to fit into. Other than making up box's for the exhausts to fit into, not checked out anything to make them though I am considering using some small diameter tubing, I am thinking of using the bottom of the kit's radiator for the under engine intake in this build but I haven't checked it yet so I may have to use something else. Time will see what happens.

Right. That's the build started so it can now sit around for months on end without me doing anything else to it. Heaven forbid I actually pick up a saw and plastic and actually have a go at it 

Gondor

[Rick Lowe]

Well you have a Plan, drawings and all the parts you need, so you're off to a good start. 

[Gondor]

Well you have a Plan, drawings and all the parts you need, so you're off to a good start. 

Sounds like it doesn't it? Probably going to run into problems almost straight away as that is usually the nature of the beast.

Further ideas include using black plastic card for the central vertical and horizontal formers and then the usual white plastic for any other part. This will give me the centre line and a limit for everything else to work with. I hope that I will be able to use some of the engine covers from the kit which will save work and making some of the curved areas but I won't know if its feasible until plastic is cut.

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

I'd start with a Heller kit, despite it's age.  You can pick them up for a pittance.

[Gondor]

I'd start with a Heller kit, despite it's age.  You can pick them up for a pittance.

And I don't have one available at the moment Lee and the moment to act is now while the mojo is high!

Besides, there is not a huge amount wrong with the kit that can't either be reasonably easily corrected or ignored and as I said in the initial posting, that 2mm short fuselage is getting cut up anyway so adding that 2mm is not going much further along the butchery road.

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

The least cutting work on a fuselage, the better.  More cutting means more capacity to go drastically wrong.  Been there too many times.

[Gondor]

Nothing done to the plastic today although I was cutting out pretty shapes from the drawings only to realise that its easier to draw centre lines and areas to be cut out when its part of a sheet of A4 

So I thought no problem, just print off another couple of sheets! Wrong  My modem decided that it would not allow me to connect wirelessly to my printer which is in a different room 

It's late and I am not going to go rooting around playing with lengths of electric string to reposition the modem/router so I can easily access it in the future and hopefully sorting out the connectivity problem at the same time.

Isn't technology wonderful    Problem solved, at least as far as printing off additional sheets by copying some of the extras I made 

Gondor

[Rick Lowe]

Yeah, late night isn't condusive to clear thinking... 

[Gondor]

Well no plastic has been harmed so far, other than cutting a section of plastic tube for the propeller shaft, or should that be propellers shafts as its a contra-prop? 

Sorted the problem with the printer. A button on the side of the modem/router had been pressed switching off the Wi-Fi  The modem/router will be moved over the weekend to a more secure location so the same problem does not reoccur.

Drawings have been amended and are about to be cut out as I type this so the mayhem will start this afternoon 

Gondor

[kitnut617]

I found when I built my P.1027 that the radiator duct in the side view was very similar to the duct found on a P-51H.  I have an abandoned Beechnut P-51H which has slowly donated various parts to other projects with the ducts still there, you can have it if you like

[Gondor]

I found when I built my P.1027 that the radiator duct in the side view was very similar to the duct found on a P-51H.  I have an abandoned Beechnut P-51H which has slowly donated various parts to other projects with the ducts still there, you can have it if you like

Thanks for the offer. However I have parts of a Revell Mustang III that was donating it's nose to another project so I will give that a go. Thanks for the idea 

Gondor

[Gondor]

So after ages brain storming the build I have eventually put saw to plastic! And scissors to paper too!

The templates were cut out of copies of the drawings which I have found are not symmetrical then they were stuck to some 20thou black plastic card using some Liquid Polly glue so they wont go anywhere and also so that I don't have to transfer details from the drawings to the plastic.



I still need to trim them a bit but that's due in the next step once I put parts of the fuselage back together as it's now in pieces    I had previously started this kit, painted the cockpit Interior Green and glued the wings together and that was as far as I had got with the build before running out of steam, now that helps a little as I don't have to work on the wings much 



Part of my plan is to make the whole engine as a plug in replacement section while using as much of the kit as possible. The horizontal cut in the rear fuselage was made by scoring along a panel line which when replicated on the other side of the fuselage should mean that the rear of the fuselage moves cleanly rearwards by 2mm or in this case by two laminated pieces of 40thou plastic card which my verniers tell me is 1.1mm thick.
Yes I do realise that that is 0.2mm too much, however I did measure the thickness of the saw blade and that matches the difference 

So on with the cutting and glueing 

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

Cockpit interior should be black - all Hawker Siddley aircraft had black cockpits from 1942 onwards.

[PR19_Kit]

........I have eventually put saw to plastic! And scissors to paper too!

Careful Alastair, that way lies madness...... 

[Gondor]

I actually managed to do some work on the project. Not much admittedly but at least it was something.

I probably should have taken a picture of the black plastic formers prior to gluing them together but I forgot, however I did find a discrepancy or two in the drawing between elevations    Some may say, "It's a what-if, it doesn't matter" but really it shows poor workmanship not to match dimensions between elevations 

Anyway, here are some pictures of the nose section so far





The white tube is for mounting the propellers into and will be fitted into the front of the engine where the tuning fork gap is once I decide what I am going to do to resolve the discrepancy between the front elevation and side elevations.

Gondor