Finnish Bristol Bulldog Mk IVa

 

My latest subject is a Bristol Bulldog Mark IV. The Bulldog was originally built for the RAF in the late 20's and early 30s. By the early 30's the Mark IV was designed, powered by a Mercury radial engine similar to that which eventually powered the Gloster Gladiator. Finland decided to purchase a number of the Mark IVs in December of 1933, but various delays caused the agreement to be pushed to April of 1934. By February of 1935, Finland finally received its order of 17 aircraft, the last Bulldogs to be built.

The Finnish Bulldogs, BU-59 to BU-75, saw service in the Winter War of 1939 operated by LLv 26. Several aerial victories were claimed by Bulldog pilots, including the very first victory by Toivo Uuttu in BU-64. BU-68, the subject of my model, claimed two victories, one by Pentti Teva, and the other by Valio Porvari, both in December of 1939.

Bulldog BU-59 still exists and is on display in Finland!

Finnish Bulldog BU-59, this aircraft still exists in Finland!

And here it is
1

Anither view of BU-59.

For my model, I needed a couple of 1/48 scale Bulldogs and a Gloster Gladiator kit. You can find the Lindberg/Pyro/Lifelike/Inpact kits for this. Lindberg and Pyro, in particular can be found at very cheap prices. 

For reference, I found Data Plan No.2 by Alfred Granger to be very helpful. In addition, I found photos on line to be of help.

This project will take three inexpensive kits, references and a little imagination!

Building the Mark IV version of the Bulldog is actually a little more involved than it seems. At first blush it looks like you just have to slap an engine and cowling from a Gloster Gladiator onto a commonly found Bulldog Mk II, but this is not the case. The wing's plan forms are considerably different; although the actual spans are similar, the wingtips of the upper wing are totally different. The inner chord of the lower wing is not the same either. For these reasons, you have to graft new wingtips to the upper wing and add material to the chord of the lower.

Working on the new wing planforms.

After grafting the wingtips and adding the lower wings' chord, I had to scribe new aileron outlines and add some to the lower wings as well. I used Evergreen styrene strips to add the ribbing detail I had lost in the surgery. It took a bit of sanding and a few coats of primer to get the effect I wanted. One other feature is on the underside of the upper wing. You have to add a "point" adjacent to the forward cabane, similar to the rear one. I sliced the "bumps" from my donor wing and used them. This will actually be needed when you're finishing the wing assembly.

Adding rib detail.

Priming to blend everything together. Note the landing light housing on the lower starboard wing.

After being satisfied with the wings, I turned to the interior. I had no really good reference for the Mk IV's interior so I just used some artistic license and came up with an approximation. I used the Bulldog cockpit floor and control stick and the Gladiator's instrument panel, plus a few other odds and ends from the spares box and Eduard's PE harness.

Working on the interior. This is where I applied considerable artistic license.

The instrument panel is from the Pyro Gladiator.

One more item the required action was on the port side fuselage. It seem the Finnish Bulldogs had an extra bulge on the port side, like the one on the starboard side. I used laminated sheet styrene for this bulge.

The wing bracing on the  lower fuselage was added using sheet styrene again since the ones supplied with the kit seemed too thick.

Fitting the lower wing and adding the bracing.

The tail surfaces only required a little reshaping to match the Mark IV's.

Tail surfaces installed.

The fitting of the Mercury engine from the Gladiator only required a little plastic carving, it fit in pretty easily. At this point I realized that the cowling and exhausts were not an exact duplicate of the Gladiator's. The exhaust pipes seem to run from inside the cowl, not on the outside of it. I had to blend the pipes into the cowl for a better look.

Got some paint down! Also, the Mercury engine from the Gladiator is installed,

Now I had to start thinking about rigging. I used Bob's Buckle's eyelets on the lower wings, and cemented the rigging material into holes on the upper wing. For the cabane strut rigging, I drill tiny holes into the struts for the line. I also did that for the interplane struts as well.

The decals were all applied before any further construction. Also notice the cowling in now in place.

Next was the task of installing the upper wing, always a major point in a biplanes construction! I used a Lego block jig to insure proper alignment. This is always a challenge but it works out in the end.

After the wing has been installed, another subtle change has to be addressed; there is a second line running from the upper wing to the fuselage. This looks like a supplementary cabane strut but I believe these are actually fuel lines running from the wing tanks to the fuselage. At any rate, since you have two Bulldog kits, you can use the extra struts for this. 

Here you can see the upper wing installed and the rigging started.

With the wings installed and the main rigging done, I now turned to a few details I had been putting off. I had decided I wanted a ski equipped machine so I had to design the skis! No drawings are available, so I used photos of several Bulldog's to come up with my approximation. 

Another problem was the propeller. The Mark IV used a prop that was very different looking from the Mark II. I could find nothing close in my spares box. In the end I used a prop hub from a Roden 1/32 scale WWI kit and the blades from the Pyro kit. After gluing together and building up the joints with superglue, the finished result looked close. Some Finnish Bulldogs had a small spinner, but some did not, and I thought that having the exposed hub looked more interesting.

A little scratch building was needed for the ski landing gear and the prop.

Landing gear is installed and rigging almost done.

Final assembly came at last! Setting the skis turned out to be a little trickier than I expected, but they finally fell into line.

This was a fun exercise. I feel more confident in my conversion ability now. I have something a little more ambitious planned for my next build. Stay tuned!

Encore/Roden 1/32 scale S.E.5a

 

Roden/Squadron Encore, 1/32 scale.

My latest project is James McCuddan's S.E.5a in 1/32 scale. The kit is the Encore reboxing of the Roden 1/32 scale "Hisso" S.E.5a. 

As the S.E. is one of the standards of WWI aviation lore, I needed one for my collection. The best kit out there would be the Wingnut Wings S.E. of course, but those are rare and expensive. The Encore kit is a little more common, although now out of production. Also, Roden still offers the Hisso and Viper powered versions that can be easily found.

The Encore kit is really a bargain, because you get the Roden plastic plus three frets of Eduard photo etch, some resin parts which include include a 4-blade prop, (very much appreciated!), and a nice set of decals. I was able to get a couple of these kits for really reasonable prices, so I have an extra for a future project. I also have a Roden Viper powered version in the stash, so my supply of 1/32 scale S.E's is pretty safe!

References for the S.E. are also pretty easy to come by, I've got several plus numerous links on the internet! James McCudden was Great Britains 4th highest scoring ace of WWI. His was an interesting career, starting as an aircraft mechanic, then becoming an observer and then a pilot. His fighter piloting career started in DH-2's. An interesting side note was that his aircraft was apparently Von Richtofen's 15th kill! He actually made it back home after being shot up a bit! He flew a Sopwith Pup for a short time and then made it to the famous 56 Squadron, where he flew the subject of my model, #B4863.

Among the resin parts included in this kit are the control surface pulleys, which are viewed through clear panels on the wings and tail surfaces. You have to cut out triangular holes to fit them into the kit's parts.

All the resin bits installed and filled.

Reading various reviews of the Roden kit, I found that there was a problem in the fit of the nose panels over the Hispano Suiza motor. Sure enough, it took some work to get the panels to sit down properly.

Pre-fitting the motor.

The rest of the build was proceeding nicely. The interior is well detailed with additional PE bits added. 

Now I had to install the upper fuselage covering the cockpit...Encore supplies a resin replacement for McCudden's S.E. but it didn't look quite right to me, the expanded cockpit side seemed a little too tall. Also, the thickness of the walls of the part were very thin and did not look like they would form a good bond to the kit's plastic. So, I decided to use the kits part and graph the expanded sidewalls from the resin part onto it, carving them to a more appropriate height.

The kit's part.

The resin part.

Here's the kit's part with the resin sides grafted on.

With that accomplished, I assembled the fuselage and added the cabane struts.

Then I began the painting process. After priming, I masked of "rib lines" and painted the wings and tail surfaces with a dark brown. Then I removed the masking and sprayed a thin coat of Tamiya Dark Yellow, (XF-60). This gives a nice effect.

Then came the upper coat. I found Tamiya Khaki Drab, (XF-51), looks like a pretty convincing representation of PC 10.

The pulleys looked pretty nice until I tried to glaze over them.

The wing pulley before I tried to fill with super glue for a glass effect. That failed when the super glue dried in a weird dappled finish. Oh, well, there wasn't anything to do but press on.

Time for decals! The Encore kit's decals are just great. They went on easily and responded well to a little Micro Sol.

Now the challenge of fitting the upper wing! I started out trying to use the biplane jig but found some problems with the cabane strut alignment which required a little more force. I ended up going back to my old standby; Lego's! I was able to force the wings into a good alignment and adjust the cabanes this way.

Lego's to the rescue!

Now the real work began...the rigging! The S.E. and most other English aircraft of this period, have a huge amount of rigging. There were some really tricky areas here, especially the rear cabane strut braces and the doubled flying wires. I used Bob's Buckles tiny eyelets with Modelkasten 0.2mm elastic thread. I did not bother to color the thread this time, leaving it black.

After rigging the main wings, I attached the landing gear and added the rigging there. I added a couple of stretched sprue "spokes" to the inside of the wheels which are visible through the hole in the wheel cover.

Finally, with the rigging done, I was able to begin final assembly. This included the final rigging of the tail and installation of the prop and the Lewis MG. The Lewis, by the way, was a hybrid of a Gaspatch Lewis and the kit's gun. 

Finally completed! This build took a very long time, I was away from the bench for nine weeks for an extended road trip during the summer and other stuff so it seems like I've been working on this for a year! Well, it came out okay, I still have lots of room for improving my technique for sure.

Here are the glamor pictures!