Silver Wings Gauntlet II

[mozart]

Progress with painting:

 

 

Purists might note that the roundel colours are the slightly more dull WW2 version, and they would be right, but getting reliable references to interwar roundel colours, never mind then matching a paint colour to them, is beyond me!

 

Christopher has again come to my rescue, this time with a radiator picture from a contemporary Flight International magazine:

 

The Silver Wings PE oil cooler is a bit thin, I had already backed it with a piece of aluminium cut to size but I've now added two strips of plastic to raise the whole thing slightly proud of the fuselage surface:

 

 

Here in its approximate position but not yet trimmed.  Still working on the Townend ring to get the burnt effect.  One drain pipe and two filler caps added.....getting there!

 

Edited December 23, 2022 by mozart

[Fanes]

Great work Max, I'm enjoying and taking notes for the time I dare to start my first all resin kit.

How did you paint the Townend ring?

[mozart]

So far Joachim it's a base coat of MRP silver followed by MRP brass, then a thin dusting of MRP copper.  When dry I applied some red and blue pastel dust (which hasn't worked very well so far) but last night I did a very thin wash of MRP (non-acrylic) red+field blue.  Needs a bt more concentration of blue/red around the centre rim.

[mozart]

And breathe!  The aforesaid starboard front area is just about finished:

 

 

and I couldn't resist placing the front cowling roughly in place:

 

It's noticeable from photographs that the cowling is a different "silver/grey" to the doped fabric of the aft fuselage, so I used MRP duraluminium to get the flatter finish.

[scvrobeson]

Very nice work.  I'm guessing the silver front is foil?  Very pretty cowl ring.

 

 

 

Matt 

[mozart]

10 minutes ago, scvrobeson said:

Very nice work.  I'm guessing the silver front is foil?  Very pretty cowl ring.

 

 

 

Matt 

Bare Metal Foil Matt.

[Gazzas]

Looks great, Mate!  I love shiny planes.

[RadBaron]

Gorgeous work!

[mozart]

Thanks chaps.....and on to more musings from the muddled modeller!  Major(ish) mods needed following thoughts about "the black hole" that exists on the Silver Wings model beneath the tailplanes.  I knew from building ICM's excellent Gladiator that this "open" internal rear fuselage area contained the mechanism for anchoring the horizontal tailplanes and for hinging the elevators, not very clear picture but you get the drift:

 

 

but Silver Wings don't provide anything to go here.  So looking at ICM's instruction sheet for their Gladiator:

 

 

My plan is to manufacture something along these lines and try to "wedge" it in place somehow......this of course should have been addressed before closing the fuselage up but hindsight is a wonderful thing.  But then looking at the picture above that I took of Duxford's Gladiator tailplane made me remember that the tailplane isn't actually fixed to the fuselage for most of its length, there's quite a large gap.  I assumed this is so with the Gauntlet, and enlarging the picture of the unfortunate crash proved so:

 

 

 

The question then remains about how to secure the tailplanes firmly in place and I guess the answer is pretty much as the real thing; metal rod through e fuselage at the front end and through the structure that I'll be adding at the aft end.  Accurate drilling required 

 

Moving right to the front end of the Gauntlet, my attention was drawn to the cowling fixing arrangement by a chap on Britmodeller who is making a 1/72 scale Gauntlet.  Whilst photographs clearly show "catches/latches" on the port side of the cowling on the midline:

 

 

......none show a corresponding fixture on the starboard side, though Silver Wings understandably has assumed it to be there.  I don't think it is, so I intend removing them from my model:

 

 

SW provide two small frets on the PE sheet for the surrounds for the "footwells" on the fuselage but I avoid using PE wherever I can so I imported a clear picture of a Gauntlet into Silhouette and quickly produced vinyl alternatives, no messy CA to deal with:

 

 

 

There were flaps on each footwell but I can't decide whether to leave the vinyl in place or just have the surround, perhaps when painted things will be clearer.

 

[geedubelyer]

The multi-hued texture is looking superb Max. 

That collector ring has to be one of the most challenging things to recreate accurately. 

Keep at it. 

[mozart]

Thanks Guy, one of life’s many challenges!  

[mozart]

Well it's not very pretty but it's functional!

 

 

I carved a piece of resin "sprue" so that it fitted into the back of the fuselage recess and drilled a hole to accept the elevator pivots.  I tarted the resin up a bit with a nut and bolt either side, but once it's all painted and the tailplanes are in place not much will be visible, but it's better than an empty space!

 

[monthebiff]

Looking very sharp indeed Max, superb workmanship! 

 

Regards. Andy

[mozart]

Thanks Andy. This is a funny old Silver Wings kit; they seem to have deliberately pulled back on many aspects of detail that they are usually known for, like the cockpit being quite spartan, this empty tail area etc, but I’m enjoying the build all the more because of it. In fact I’m quite surprised, but thankful, that SW produced a Gauntlet given the lack of accurate drawings available and that there’s only one modified one in the world…..research must have been a problem for them. 

[RadBaron]

Beautiful work, Max, truly inspirational stuff