An RAF Cargomaster, the Douglas Durham C1

[zenrat]

Don't thand too much Kit or your fingerth will get thor...

[PR19_Kit]

        

As if..................... 

[PR19_Kit]

Making slow but steady progress on the Durham, the 'cargo', a Thor missile is done and dusted now and looks pretty neat, although I say it myself. 

Here's Thor #39 on its handling dollies ready to be loaded into the Durham to go to Vandenburg AFB for a test firing. Only the roundels are from the kit decals, all the rest are my own efforts, even the teeny weeny 105 Sqdn. badges on the nose, which are about 1.3 mm across! 



Oddly enough it looks almost the same from the other side. 



I've got the first coat of primer on the Durham's port wing, after 2-3 PSR sessions, and it'll need a few more, but it's not looking too bad. And I've sorted out the rear cargo doors by yanking  the rearmost door out from the cargo bay where I'd already glued it, chopping it down to a more correct length, and by filing it to shape to fit the larger, model B, rear doors, and then I glued it back in again.

Progress is being made, after some years...............

[Rick Lowe]

Rock On! 

[PR19_Kit]

At long last the myriad PSR sessions on the port wing are done. I thought the 7 sessions I needed on the starboard wing were bad, but it took 11 sessions on the port wing to fair those Tyne engine nacelles in. 

One wing is glued in place now, and the other will join it tomorrow, in the ,meanwhile I've glued the main gear fairings in place, PSR'd and primed the fuselage a few times too. It'll need a few panels re-scribing as the tail section wasn't a good fit and needed some heavy duty PSR in that area.

It's getting there. 

[Rick Lowe]

It's getting there. 

That's the main thing.

[PR19_Kit]

At last the Durham's all in one piece, bar the gear and props etc.

Here it is with its cargo and the Scale Reference Glue Pot.



What you can't see in this view is I've given then tailplane dihedral, which the A and B models didn't have, they were dead flat, but the test crews at RAE Boscombe Down reckoned it needed that to cure some buffeting over the fin, so the RAF's C models had dihedral tails, as well as the four RR Tyne engines.

(That's my story and I'm sticking to it..... )

In actuality the tailplanes fit a lot better if you give them dihedral, their inner faces are on a slight slant, so would need lots of filing to get them to fit perfectly. The wing joints need a bit of PSR, but not too much I hope. Then I'll need to put the main wheels on before filling that gap in the gear pods, and THEN I can sdart painting it properly. 

[zenrat]

Do you think the wings are long enough?
 

[PR19_Kit]

Do you think the wings are long enough?
 

Hehehe, just about. 

They taper so much that lengthening them would look a tad silly, they'd almost come to a point.

[NARSES2]

Big pot of glue Kit   

[PR19_Kit]

Noooooo, it's a 1/144 scale kit.

[Luftwaffe1946]

At last the Durham's all in one piece, bar the gear and props etc.

Here it is with its cargo and the Scale Reference Glue Pot.



What you can't see in this view is I've given then tailplane dihedral, which the A and B models didn't have, they were dead flat, but the test crews at RAE Boscombe Down reckoned it needed that to cure some buffeting over the fin, so the RAF's C models had dihedral tails, as well as the four RR Tyne engines.

(That's my story and I'm sticking to it..... )

In actuality the tailplanes fit a lot better if you give them dihedral, their inner faces are on a slight slant, so would need lots of filing to get them to fit perfectly. The wing joints need a bit of PSR, but not too much I hope. Then I'll need to put the main wheels on before filling that gap in the gear pods, and THEN I can sdart painting it properly. 

Very very very interesting!!!!!

[NARSES2]

Noooooo, it's a 1/144 scale kit.

  

[PR19_Kit]

I've got most of the colour coats on the Durham now, and it's not looking too bad. I should have bought shares in Tamiya beforehand though, as I used MILES of masking tape on the job!

Quite why Douglas perched the tailplane about 6" above the fuselage I don't know, but it sure made for a difficult masking job!  Either further up the fin, or actually down ON the fuselage would have been better, but they didn't ask me before they positioned it!

Still some detail painting to do, plus painting and gluing on the main gear wheel (YEEUK, I HATE that bit..... ) before I add the decals. I've had to re-design those as the blue lightning stripe wasn't going to fit the way I did it at first, but that's development work...............

[frank2056]

I know it's completely unrelated thematically, but that picture of the Cargomaster and the Thor look like they should be a panel in "Ministry of Space"