Today's post has evolved. Advanced warning that it has become rather long with a lot of pictures.
This week's blog started out as something completely different. But it's the weekend, and for the last couple of months, that means it will snow. And snow it did! We were supposed to get 1 - 3 cm. Instead, they sky opened up and dumped. it started Saturday evening, and has kept at it all thru Sunday. There was easily 30 cm of snow in the driveway this morning at 11 am, and there is easily another 5+ cm since then. To think I almost put out the deck furniture yesterday.
Unfortunately, rather than putting out lawn furniture, we spent most of Saturday afternoon at the vet with Copper, our 14 year old Sheltie. What started as severe constipation turned out to be an enlarged prostate, blocking his ability to empty both his kidneys and bowels. The vet used a catheter to empty his bladder, and sent us home with a medication to help him poop. Like in people, an enlarged prostate in dogs raises the question about cancer. The vet very kindly and compassionately walked us thru what this could mean, and what potential options could be. Unfortunately, options are limited if it is cancer, and the reality for a 14 year old Sheltie isn't very promising. For a long time it seemed that Copper didn't age, but the last year hasn't been kind to him and he has really slowing down. At 14, his mortality shouldn't come as a surprise but I am not prepared for what seems to be coming. The vet took the necessary samples to send to the lab, and we expect to have the results back in a week. In the meantime, Copper is getting a lot of pampering and love as we try and help him stay regular.
How to continue after all that? Well, I guess it I should get around to what I had intended to talk about this week. As the Alpha Jet starts to wind up, it was time to look for the next kit to build. For those not familiar with my storage system, most of my "stash" is located under the basement stairs. For no particular reason, large kits are towards the front, while smaller kits are towards the back. A Heller 1/72 DC-6B kit proudly sits near the front, a gift from my Dad about 12 years ago. I think he had the kit for at least 10 years before that, intending to someday convert it to a Canadair Northstar.With that in mind, I had to I pull the kit out to have a look at it.
Either my memory is failing - quite possible according to my wife - or I hadn't opened the kit previously. Tucked inside, along with the instructions and plastic parts, was a large Northstar drawing and a couple of smaller sketches my Dad made of the Merlin engines. Shortly after receiving the kit, I had purchased some very nice Vintage Flyer decals for a Canadian Pacific Airlines DC-6, with the intent of building it as a DC-6. Seeing the Northstar drawing and my Dad's sketches suddenly had me rethinking that. What would it take to convert the kit to a Northstar as my Dad had planned? Armed with the various drawings and a tape measure, I set out to figure it out.
Photo 1 - the Heller DC-6. A very large box
Photo 2 - the Northstar drawing at 1:100 scale
Photo 3 - my Dad's merlin engine sketch
The Northstar is a variation of the DC-4 rather than the larger DC-6. Wikipedia provided DC-6B specs, with an overall length of 105'-7" (1267") and wingspan of 117'-6" (1410").
The Northstar drawing gives overall length of 1121" and wingspan of 1410". So the DC-6B is 146" longer, but shares the same wingspan.
sketch below is a quick attempt to figure out where the main dimensional differences are. This is what I found:
nose to cockpit window - Northstar is shorter by 39.4"
nose to front of wing root - shorter by 100"
wing root tip to trailing edge - shorter by 12.5"
training edge to CL door - shorter by 40"
CL door to bottom of vert stab deicer boot - longer by 23"
vert stab deicer boot to end of tail - shorter by 15.55"
A quick check has this all add up to 145.1" vs the actual 146" from the baseline metrics. Close enough and a good check on the math.
To get an accurate Northstar fuselage, the major changes would need to be:
shorten the nose ahead of the cockpit by 0.56" actual and reconfigure the nose to a much blunter profile.
shorten the front fuselage, between the cockpit and front of the wing root, by 0.83" actual
shorten the rear fuselage, from the wing trailing edge to the vertical stab deicer boot, by 0.24" actual
Given the rear fuselage door needs to move backward by 0.32", it seemed that at least eight cuts would be needed.
two at the nose to remove the 0.56"
two between the cockpit and front wing root to remove 0.83"
And then 4 between the rear of the wing and the tail
One behind the wing root,
one at the deicer boot,
and the remaining two on either side of the door to reposition to the correct spot.
The cuts behind the wing would be complicated by the rear of the wing fairing passing thru the door area. The fairing has variable geometry, meaning a lot of work would be necessary to recreate a smooth fairing given that two cuts thru the fairing would be needed..
Next up is a comparison of the fuselage windows. The kit's windows comprise a block of two windows behind the cockpit, a space, a block of nine windows over the wing, a space and then the rear door, a space and then a block of four windows. In comparison, the Northstar drawing shows one window behind the cockpit, a space, six windows over the wing, a space, the rear door, a space and then a block of four windows. So the big difference is the front two vs one window, and the nine vs six windows over the wing. Visually, the kit's rear block of four windows looks okay. Leaving this area alone would also mean no work to repair the rear wing fairing. The nine windows over the wing would need to blank the first two and the last window. A cut between the two front windows would sort out the front windows and should get something visually appropriate.
If you ignore the dimensional differences behind the wing, focus on shortening the fuselage ahead of the wing, adjusting windows in the process, then the conversion gets a lot simpler. The nose to cockpit work would likely be the hardest, because the fuselage diameter is not constant, but no show stoppers yet.
Merlin engines are available commercially, intended to convert the 1/72 Revell DC-4. Hannant's has them in stock, and there are at least two sellers currently on eBay. Alternatively, once my 3D printer shows up, they could be designed and printed. Still no show stoppers.
Time to look at the wings. Wingspan is the same and the wing root dimension is pretty close - 212.5" from the drawing vs 225" on the kit. But things get ugly when the engine spacing is measured. The kit's wing root to CL inboard engine delta is a scale 25" too large, while the CL distance between the engines is a scale 45" too large. So the inboard nacelle would need to be moved outwards by 3/8" actual and the outboard engine would need to be moved out by 7/8" actual. Makes sense given the DC-6 used significantly larger, heavier and more powerful engines., but a major pain in the butt for modelling purposes. I have read articles about people cutting and moving engine nacelles. It is a lot of work to get a decent result but is possible.
So how to move forward? There have been a lot of changes in 25 years, and today it would be much easier to convert the Revell DC-4, using aftermarket engines. I have specifically avoided buying the Revell DC-4 kit, even though conversions are available for both a RCAF Northstar, as well as either of the TCA/CPA Northstar, including the correct exhaust crossover. My hesitation has been that the plane would be rather large, as demonstrated when I opened the DC-6 box, and I don't really have the necessary space to display it. On top of that, I have three 1/144 Northstar kits already, with one recently finished in TCA markings, so the Northstar is already well represented in my collection. Does the DC-6 meet my self imposed modelling requirements that the plane is Canadian designed and/or built, or was in Canadian service? It does, and the DC-6 was significant to Canadian Pacific's operations. CPA has an interesting history, but in short, the Canadian Government hindered its early growth in order to protect Trans Canada Airlines, effectively restricting CPA to Western Canada. The Government eventually, and very reluctantly, permitted one daily flight between Vancouver/Toronto and Vancouver/Montreal. They wouldn't approve Canada to Europe flights but allowed flights to the less profitable Asia/Australia routes not flown by TCA. The DC-6 was essential to both, providing coverage until the Britannia's proved themselves on the Canadian routes, and giving the company the range to profitably serve the Asian routes. So it meets the significant Canadian criteria.
Again, how to proceed? Converting the kit could create a reasonable facsimile of a 1/72 Northstar, but it would take a lot of work and it would have a number of large dimensional errors. An easier, and more accurate, approach would be to start with the Revell DC-4, still relatively available, with PM Hobbycraft showing a C-54 in stock. Aftermarket engines are also readily available, simplifying the process further. So. I am going to build the kit as a CPA DC-6 and I will think about that Revell DC-4.
Time to get started! Here is the kit.
And here is here is the start. Cockpit went together nicely, with reasonable detail. I added tape belts and painted the seats blue - potentially fictional but dark blue was one of the actual colour options. The third photo shows the kit taped together to figure out how much weight to add to prevent a tail sitter. It ended up being 16 pennies and the two largest fishing sinkers I had. Far more weight than I have ever added to a plane. I hoope the gear can support it.
The kit gives the option of clear cockpit and fuselage windows. The cockpit has adequate detail, but the cabin is an empty shell. I don't intend to put any detail back there as it would be too dark to see anything. The Vintage Flyer decals includes windows with curtains, and I haven't decided whether to use the clear parts or the decals.
Alpha Jet
The Alpha Jet is finished! I am happy with how it turned out.
This is the real plane, photographed at the 2016 Cold Lake Air Show.
And here is my attempt at duplicating the picture.
The finished model.
Cosmo
Great progress on the Cosmo this week. At least until I had unmasked and had finished the touch ups and applied the gloss coat. That was when I noticed that the putty in the port aft side was missing. Likely pulled out when the masking was removed. Naturally it was at a three colour separation to increase the repair complexity. Nonetheless, the putty has been restored and the white has been restored. Grey and black are next.
Photo 1 - gloss white applied. A perfect finish!
Photo 2&3 - painting finished. I hadn't found the missing putty at this point.
That's finally it for this week. Thanks for reading if you have hung on to this point. Time to go shovel again. Stay safe!.
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