McDonnall F2H-3 Banshee Canadian Navy 1:48 - Early Jets

[lastvautour]

Nice carvings Fraser. RCN colours I assume?

Lou

[Gearup]

Thanks Lou. That whittling magazine artical sure helped😜. I am going to paint it as s/n 126334 on display in Calgary. That is the same aircraft That was at the tech school for "jet system" training. I think there was a hydraulic flight control system training aid for the Banshee there as well. Of course if you go to school today, they get retired 737-200's and any number of old corporate stuff that still runs to play with.
I use Vallego model paints, so I'll have to find out what grey colours work.

Fraser

[lastvautour]

Vallejo has an extra dark sea grey for the upper surfaces. Sunward Hobbies has some from Trucolour of the same colour.

Lou

[Boomerang]

 
Coming along very nicely.
Gordon

[Gearup]

Thank you Gordon.
Made some progress with fairing in the aft part of the engines, canopy shaping, initial fuselage shaping and inlets.

I glued in the ailpipes and used small quarter sections of bass to fill in the gaps. They look rather like small cowlings when I was putting them together. I drilled a piece of bass to the same diameter as the tailpipes, cut the squared tube off and split it into quarters. I then shaved them down to fit close enough to fill the large gaps. After carving them to fair in to the surfaces, I used wood filler to complete the install. More work is required to refine the fairing and sharpen uo the exhaust cut outs in the wing. Also the trailing edges have been left a bit thick to sand down later: less delicate for the handling of the wing for now.

[Gearup]

Started to shape the fuselage. I am using the reference holes to pin it onto a narrow scrap to hold it while I shape it. The pins are 3/32 soft aluminium so if I nick them with the tools, no harm is done. Also I can flip it over and end-to-end to position it as required.

The Banshee has four 20mm cannons so they have to fit somewhere in the fuselage. Not so evident on drawings and only if you look at enough pictures taken in the right light can you see them. Essentially they are cheeks on either side of the forward fuselage that need to be carved. Rough carving and then refining the shape and fairing into the fuselage started to make the cheeks make sense . The guns are mounted in pairs, one above the other. Wing is still only dry fit and not glued to the fuselage.

Now to the canopy for something different.

[Gearup]

The canopy is from spruce and the blnk was stuck to a 1/4 wide x inch high stick to allow carving. I use a strong double sided tape called "sookwang" available from scrapbooking suppliers. Widths are available from 1/8" to 3/4 inches.

90% of the shaping was done with a stick mounted strip of 120 grit sandpaper. I used two lights either side of the project about 2 feet apart to give a strong shadow. It definitely made the work easier to visulize. Having just the flat shop lighting was not going to help my eyes or the shaping. What looks like pencil shading  on the canopy is actually the shadow cats from the lights. Both sides are evenly lite, but the shape shows up nicely.

In pictures 243-246, I passed a wire just above the canopy and cast a shadow line with the lights at either end. Moving it along front to back,  the shadow shows the symmetry of the carving really well so adjustments can be made. Sort of like a scanner

[Gearup]

Couple of shots how I finished up today. Nothing glued yet, but I got the intakes roughed out. That went easier then I thought it would. I had drilled two rather ugly holes to start with andI then just traced an offset line to define the inner- lip and used a pocket knife and small "V"  gouge to shape it.

Any questions let me know!

Fraser

[buccfan]

Excellent progress Fraser, and detailed progress report, regards Paul J.

[lastvautour]

Awesome tutorial Fraser. I would never have thought of using a wire to check symmetry.

Lou

[Gearup]

Working on setting up the horizontal stabs. Which of course have an 18* dihedral...not quite horizontal. So mounted the aircraft in the cradle I used for the Mosquito. The pins allow for the rubber bands to hold it down tight. The wedges keep it lateral tight and centered. I mounted a plywood reference plane and a couple fixtures to hold the stabs at the correct angle. By Sliding the stab up or down on the fixture, it positions the root of the stab to the correct height to the fuselage. It is all loose right now. I may use pins to secure the fin and stabs.
Fraser

[lastvautour]

Nice jig Fraser. Making those are all part of the enjoyment. Thank you for posting those details.

LOu

[Boomerang]

Fraser,
I like the way you explain things . Model is looking great.

Look forward to the next update.

Cheers

Gordon

[Gearup]

thanks Gordon. Work may have to slow down a bit as we are experiencing some cold weather here in Vancouver.
5 degrees c....I know it's not that cold, but my little space heater struggles to heat up the shop if it goes much below 8 c. Working on minor fairing and hole filling right now.

Regards Fraser

[Gearup]

A bit of progress this few days in the shop. I mounted the tail surfaces. I wanted to pin the parts onto the fuselage so i needed to drill the stabs and align them to the correct angle  So I used my dremel to drill into the stab roots using the DIY dremel holder. I then made up some transfer pins using the same diameter brass rod with a blob of solder on one end. Using the dremel as a small lathe, I turned the solder into a cone. The purpose of the cone is really to hold the pin from pushing into the holes and to give a nice point to mark the other surface. With the pins in the stab I slid it down the previously aligned fixture to mark the pin locations on the fuselage. I freehand drilled the fuselage holes and the brass pins held the tail quite well. I glued the parts in place. Without the pins it would not have been a very strong joint.

I also fabricated the main landing gear from brass stock. The picture shows how the gear was built up. I didn't think it would go very well trying to solder it all at once so I built the lower leg first using the wheel diameter to scale the parts. The axel and the strut were initially left long. The upper leg looks like a thing I would not like to step on....It is a 3/32 brass tube cut to length with a drag strut, side  brace and scissor link attached. The braces were cut long and soldered together with the side brace held by a soldering "helping hand
'clip vice. After cleaning them up I touched the assembly to a belt sander to level off the side struts to the top of the 3/32 tube leg. Inserting the lower strut into this assembly allows it to be mounted and aligned on the model and then the two will be cyano glue locked together. The little triangle represents the scissor links. It is solid one piece and it think i'll paint it to look like two pieces.

Still have to make the nose gear. Apparently the aircraft did not have a steerable nose gear. It castored like a shopping cart and relied on differential braking and thrust for steering. Must have been a bit un-nerving taxiing on a crowded carrier deck!

Regards,
Fraser