Ongoing build-Short Shetland flying boat

[Balsabasher]

At long last a start made on the Short Shetland flying boat,one huge block of timber receiving attention.
Barry.

[Balsabasher]

The shaping of the chine and step areas proved quite a challenge,I had to make a special bench stop to avoid damage to the fuselage while the shape evolved,once this was done it was then time to draw in the sides so that they sloped towards the upper portion of the fuselage,a very distinctive feature of the Short Shetland design,as can be seen the overall effect has now been achieved,my best source of reference was my Dinky Toy model to 1=200th scale produced in small numbers around 1950,this clearly showed the lines that I needed.
The Shetland was not a C-Class flying boat but one intended for use both in civil life and by the RAF fitted with fore and aft turrets,only two were built.
Barry.





Starting at the front I marked the curved line to work to,then I cut the step carefully down to the rear step position and treated that as a separate area which it is,it was all too easy to ding the front and rear of the fuselage as I chisselled and planed the shape eyeing up frequently from the front.



Close up of the first step.










And the distinctive rear fuselage lower.



Sides shamfered,a pesky wood shake which I had not noticed before had to be sealed and filled,just look at that magnificent grain,the days of pre seasoned timber went years ago.



Just admiring several hours work to get to this stage,this is a long term project being built in between other models,it kept me warm all day working outside in the lean to !

[Mark Braunlich]

Magnificent Barry.  What is the source of your 3-view?

Mark

[lastvautour]

Don't forget to post a completed picture to the Flying Boat cook-up at http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/SMF/index.php?topic=47.60
So far it is looking great. I am guessing somewhere around 1/72 scale??

Lou

[Balsabasher]

Magnificent Barry.  What is the source of your 3-view?

Mark

Plan is by 'Veri-Tru' I placed this into the archives fairly recently Mark,see update on the construction today.
Barry.

[Balsabasher]

Thanks Lou I forgot entirely about the cook up,yes to 1=72nd scale,in 1940 this was one of the largest aircraft flying,how things have changed.
Barry.

[lastvautour]

There are other plans of the Shetland at http://www.seawings.co.uk/

Lou

[Balsabasher]

These were the original plans as used by the draughtsman at Veri-Tru to produce their drawing,there are some first class detailed plans on there of rare types,excellent find Lou.
Barry.

[Balsabasher]

All that I had this morning was a fuselage,now the wings are in place after a extensive carving operation on that deep aerofoil,now there lies a tale because at 3 pm today there was no wing because I did not have any timber thick enough to cope with that rib section,so I had a walk around the trading estate to see what what could be found waiting to be pressed into service,there is a lean too that is used by the junk shop lady who does not work on Sundays to store firewood so I had a rummage around and can settle up with her tomorrow,in amongst the rotton timber and branches was the remains of an old wardrobe,the bottom had been on the ground and was rotton but the top portion yielded some beautiful well seasoned straight grained timber enough to build the Shetland wing from,I dragged it out to the workshop around the corner and set to work removing the various old screws and nails so that my equipment did not suffer any damage.
Next a template was drawn up and before long the plan view was transferred to the timber,see picture below,next the taper was marked up and planed in,then the aerofoil a modified Clark Y section with some incline at the lower half trailing edge was whittled and sanded in.
The decision was made to cut out a portion of the fuselage and sink in the wing,there is a marked few degrees of incidence a characteristic of the Shetland design so that worked well.
Finally I mixed up some Araldite epoxy and added the luxury of a single woodscrew to firmly lock the wing into place,not often that you can do that but this is a beefy model.
After everything was checked for alignment the assembly was put aside to cure out.
Barry.

[lastvautour]

Anything that works is great. I am not that hard up yet. I have a few pieces of clear pine remaining but I am careful as to which projects to undertake. Small 1/72 models are no problems, but the larger 1/72 and 1/32 are getting harder to finance. Perhaps I should look at cutting logs on my property but the drying out time would be horrendous without a kiln.

Lou

[Oceaneer99]

I'm waiting for remodeling season here, where lots of people are tearing out old-growth wood and sometimes leaving scraps of new stuff -- the better remodels use nice spruce (SPF) dimensional lumber (I used this for the hull of my Comet PT boat model), but most use the more common (for the Pacific NW) wild-grain hemlock ("Hem-Fir"), which is useless for models.  There was some nice old stuff at the kitchen remodel I mentioned in the Ping, but I had to leave in a hurry, so didn't take any of the 80+ year old well-cured pine from the cabinets.

Garet

[Balsabasher]

Today I made up the centre section plug,the tailplane and the large fin assembly.
The centre section plug was done using the shadow method,for those not familiar with this technique here is how it works,first cut a piece of wood infill the length needed ie between the cut outs in the fuselage where the wing fits nice and snug,next place the block level just resting on top of the centre section of the wing ideally a tight fit,lay your fingers against the wood on the wing with one finger just touching and creating a shadow onto the projected part,between your thumb and first finger have a sharpened pencil just touching the infill block,now draw your hand across from left to right noting the shadow and at the same time following with the pencil,the method works really well and can be used to re-create a curve on any surface as long as you can create the shadow guide and the pencil following,this is just a trick that I found one day by accident,judge for yourself the accuracy as the block as shown required very little attention after marking up.
I find a piercing saw ideal for cutting out such pieces,tack glue a piece of wood onto one surface if it is not at perfect right angles,then when sawn remove the wood,it also helps to hold it when doing the sawing.
Barry.

[Oceaneer99]

That plug looks like a perfect fit.

[Balsabasher]

It is good when you get it right,but as you know sometimes with biconvex shapes it can be a compromise situation.
Barry.

[Balsabasher]

The wingtip floats were tackled today,after a careful study I made two blanks from the same piece of timber then cross profiled them to incorporate the miniature steps,the sequence was carve the front step first,then make a razor saw line where the next step appears,then carve that portion finally shaping the oval top surfaces,for mounting I used my favourite method sharpened oval nails of the right size,these will be padded out with strips of whitewood then sanded to section making the huge 'V' trusses that take the strain of the floats as they hit the water,the beauty of those nails is that they can be ground up nice and sharp and then a small barb filed in with a Swiss file to add strength and gluing integrity,I used cyno first then this will be re-inforced with epoxy adhesive fillets for maximum strength,they can be very vulnerable to damage if precautions are not taken.
Next job is making four replica Bristol Centauras power eggs,quite looking forward to these and the allied challenges in fitting them.
Barry.