Air Racer GB Round 2

Got some fresh pics to share. 

I've gotten on a roll with the main airframe and figure to get that all built then move on to the engine as a final assembly kind'a thing.

 First of all, when I built the Williams Bro.s Gee Bee (R-1 and Z) years ago they ,I don't recall as many fit issues as with this one . But then their kits always seemed to build more like a limited edition and in some ways ,they were. Not a whole lot  more than a little cottage company.

I do applaud Brett Industries for reissuing these old kits. While challenging , they do build up into beautiful , one off from the norm , models.

First pic. No kidding. Pretty much every seam has required trimming, filling, sanding. 

It's suggested to paint and decal the model before permanently attaching the struts. But with the amount of work to get the base of the strut faired smoothly. I decided to do the opposite . I'll have to section the decals for the underside of the wing to fit around the struts.

 But it is going to be one really cool little airplane. 

To get an idea how small the racers of the day were.  The Bulldog is 1/32, the Hellcat is 1/48 and they're roughly the same size model.

On to more filling , sanding , etc.

Howard

Yes.....strut attachments and wheelpants. What's more fun about a vintage race plane?

Stage_Left

Yes.....strut attachments and wheelpants. What's more fun about a vintage race plane?

Rigging them ?

Looking good Daddy1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

vetteman42

 

Stage_Left:

 

Yes.....strut attachments and wheelpants. What's more fun about a vintage race plane?

 

 

Rigging them ?

Looking good Daddy1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Thanks vetteman. Fortunately the Bulldog doesn't have any external rigging . Probably didn't need it with those big struts under the wings. 

 So far I'm just rough sanding all the different seams and fairings. I'll start smoothing every thing out after a second skim coat of green stuff.

 The engine will require some careful cleanup on the cylinders not to damage the nice cooling fin detail. There also must have been a mismatch beyween the mold halves as the pushrods are way uneven from front to back . The intake manifold as well, but that will be in back of the motor , mostly hidden by the cowl, so not much of an issue there. The pushrods on the other hand . when cleaned up and viewed from the ends , they look like an oblong, crooked oval.

 The rest of the front cover is OK, so I clipped the rods off , to be replaced with stretched sprue , wire or something. Maybe even straight pins or needles left in the natural chrome look. I know the original push rods were gloss black, but chrome silver would make for a cool contrast to the darker black and aluminum finish on the cylinders. 

Howard

BTW- Also glad there's not much in the way of panel lines to re scribe . Having to do so much coarse filling and sanding to get everything to look right, many panel lines would be wiped out. 

Looking great Howard!! I know all the sanding and almost grinding lol will be all worth it in the end!!! I have seen what you can do with it all and it's simply amazing!! Looking forward to the primer coat!!

Stageleft,

Both the Z and the R2 were there in 2007.  According to Wiki they are both still there, but the Flight of Fantasy website lists only the Z.

Don't know if I put the Red Baron RB-51 as my build, but I'm adding this one.  1/48 Tamiya P-51 with Jay-Dee markings from the 1949 Cleveland Air Races.

got you down for both.

I've put the Bulldog of a semi holding pattern for the moment . Got a Hellcat in the paint /decal/weathering phase and having to put some focus there . 

Been smoothing out some of the sanding already done. Luckily, I only have a couple wing ribs lost at the root during the blending in of the wings. I'll probably  use narrow strips of thin sheet plastic to replace them, or mask off where the ribs go and hand brush  a coat or two of primer. Remove the mask and voile, new ribs.  

Will be back on the Bulldog with more gusto as soon as I've got the hellcat past the finishing stage.

Howard

 Haven't been able to get to the work bench a whole lot lately so my projects , while not stalled , have slowed pace. Will pick it up again soon and post more WIP pics. 

In the meantime , my daughter and I went for a Fathers Day date to Kermit Weeks , Fantasy of Flight museum last Saturday. Dads got in free.  

I remember ,earlier in this thread ,  a mention of  the GeeBee R-2 replica being at this location. Well here's pics. I've also thrown in some other Golden Age racer appropriate pics from my daughter and my day there. This is going to be a large post , hope ya'll don't mind . It'll be worth it. Enjoy the pics.

 I'm working up a group of pics of the rest of our day at Fantasy of Flight to post in the misc. section later this week.  The man has one heck of a beautiful collection of aircraft .

Howard

Wow thanks for the photos howard.

Looks like you and your daughter had a great day, Howard. So the Delmar Benjamin/Steve Wolf R-2 is there. Outstanding.....and thanks for the photos. I know the placard says Delmar Benjamin, who did indeed fly it, but the plane was co-built by Benjamin and Steve Wolf of Wolf Aircraft.

Still, it's great to know where the only flying R-2 (as far as I know) is located.

Daddy1 I am so envious you got to see these aircraft in person. You and your daughter must have had a blast wandering around them. Many thanks for sharing the good pictures of them and the great pictures of the info plaques. Miss Los Angles looks like it would be a great addition to my building collection.

I am going to be changing my builds for the group around again, family matters have really cut into my time at the bench so I havent gotten much done at all in the past 3 months or so and the end is getting close. So I will be doing the Gee Bee R1 althou not as finely detailed as Stage_left has done. Good news is I got my hands on the 1/48 Howard Pete that I will be building to go along with my already built Howard Ike. So I would like to drop the P-51D Risky Business if our leader and you all will allow it.

WOW thanks for the pics Howard!!!! Looked like a great dad's day out out with lil miss sunshine!!

vetteman42

I would like to drop the P-51D Risky Business if our leader and you all will allow it.

I wont allow it. Just move quicker im kidding. Ill leave it on there for now. No pressure to get it done. If its started by the time the build ends thats good enough for me. Just update as necessary.

Stage_Left

 

Still, it's great to know where the only flying R-2 (as far as I know) is located.

 It'll probably be there a long while. Kermit Weeks must be a scale modeler, one of his staffers told me,one their most difficult tasks is figuring out where to store all the aviation stuff he collects. Sounds like us with our stashes.

 I again apologize for the large post of pics , but couldn't decide which to post of those beautiful racers. That Super Solution is amazing.  Would love to get my hands on a Williams Bro.s kit when reissued as planned, or an original issue. 

 Vetteman- Randy , I feel your pain about getting time at the work bench. Seems to be a bit of that going around. I'm finally getting back to finishing up the decals on my Hellcat build so I can get back on the Bulldog. I'll leave the Wedell Williams on the roster for now but not sure if I can sneek it in.  See what happens.

Howard

BTW- If any of you end up in the Orlando, Florida area ( maybe going to Disney ,LOL), it;s well worth the side trip about a half hour / hour road trip west on I-4( about midway between Orlando and Tampa) to Fantasy of Flight . The 2012 IPMS Nationals will be in Orlando , in case anyone wants to work it into their plans.

Daddy1 no apology need at all for your pic heavy post man, none at all in my book. You could have doubled the number of them and I still would have been digging it. Again thank you very much for sharing them ALL

Scorpiomikey I will do the best I can not to let you and the others here down with my builds. Thanks for the understanding. I am hoping things will get better here but theres no tellin at the moment.

Things always get better eventually. Any day with a roof over your head and food on the table is a good one

Hey guys, those of you building geebee racers. A good movie to watch is The Rocketeer. Its got some nice shots of the Geebee in the opening scenes.

Well guys now that the health troubles seem to be in order I am back in the saddle again. After 1 heart attack and 2 trips to the cath-lab I am finally feeling better.

So if our great leader will allow me I would like to submit the " what if " F8F-2 Bearcat race #6 from " Good Ole Boys Racing Enterprises"  out of Belcher Louisiana. So without further lamenting here are some WIP pictures beginning with the box art.

Our driver who will be named at a later date

And of course the engine package, stock of course. This will be only their second race ya know, but more on that later.

The airframe went together well but was modified just a bit as you can see from all the filler used. Guns removed and fared over alone with the removal of the gun blisters on the wings, and the folding wings were modified to solid wings dont want them folding during a race ya know.

Then our driver had to check out the fit of the cockpit and the IP layout.

The windscreen is now on and the masking done for paint. I hope to have more pictures tomorrow or maybe Monday morning.

Scorpiomikey the Gee Bee Z in the Rocketeer I was lucky enough to have seen during construction for the movie at FlaBob Airport. The Gee Bee R-1 was also there having some work done on it at the time, sure was a treat let me tell ya.

V-Man,

Nothing like a good whiff of filler in the morning Great to see you building again my friend Looks like you are off to a good start with the bearcat. Is that revell or monogram by any chance?

Richard

Kermit its the 1/48 Testers kit. And thanks its good to be back.

Good to see you back, i would have loved to see that geebee being built, but unfortunatly i was only in my 2nd year of school lol. A ripe old age of 6 lol.

vetteman- real sorry to hear about the health issues, but I'm glad to see you back in the seat. Your progress looks good, and I bet the bench time felt great.

Scoripomikey yes it was cool to see it, I was in my early 30s at the time and wish I had gotten some pictures. I was actually there to look at a Starduster II I was thinking of building one at the time. I guess one could call it the ultimate modeling project. I ended up building, or I should say building the major part of a Skybolt.

Stage_Left thank you sir it is good be be back at then bench again, building is still going slowly but it is going.

Here's a few more WIP for you guys

I think I just might try pin striping on this one, a bit of practice is in order me thinks first.

Wow, i wish my bearcat would come along that quick. Although i have an idea for the white, ima try it out with my connie first though, Ive got a really pale grey which covers really well which i was going to use as a bse coat then put high gloss white over the top.

Wow vetteman- I love those colors and the design. It really makes your Bearcat pop!

Im entering another kit of the DH.88 Comet Black Magic.

Its the airfix kit, its so incredibly basic, the instructions take up 1 whole A-4 sheet.

Mike- I always thought that Comet was one cool looking airplane. 

Yeah, its a shame the only redily available injection kit of it is the cruddy airfix 72nd scale offering. Id love to see things like the GeeBee's and comets and those types of aircraft done in a 32nd range.

Thanks Scorpiomikey and Stage_Left I havent done anything other than out of box with a few small changes on my Bearcat and the kit is a very simple one so to be honest it was slow. Anyway its finished now, and I will, I hope, have pictures of it up tomorrow.

Mikey a pale gray primer should work out well under white the main thing I think would be to keep the primed surface color as even as you can. I tried using an off white primer but found it too difficult to get an even coat of white on as the colors were just a bit too close to each other.

Hey that DH88 Comet looks cool ! Cant wait to see that one go together.

Oh I think its Linburg that makes a Gee Bee in 1/32 and they also have a kit of Howard Hughs racer in 1/32. Personally I would like to see more of them in 1/48 scale just so I can add them to my race stable. I like to build in the same scale for the size differences of my builds. I mean it's kinda fun to park a 1/48 Howard racer under the wing of a P-61 or next to say Miss America.