More Clyde than Bonnie

[The Wooksta!]

"You didn't know I was going to do that, did you?"

As I reach the "well, it's together" stage of the current project, the Buckingham PR.2, it's time to look at the next one.  Actually the next but one - there's a Spearfish fuselage together that needs sanding - but really, I'd rather not fight a third Magna kit in a row and skip to something that could be a wee bit easier.  Another Wyvern.  But this time, I only have to do some minor surgery and rebuild the nose, plus reshape the tail. 

It's time to tackle the Clyde engined Wyvern.

I blew up a rather good set of plans last week and contrary to my earlier belief, it's easier to start with a Frog Wyvern and work backwards than an Eagle one and work forwards.  The Frog one has the fuselage heightened to allow the cockpit to clear the exhaust gasses from the turbine, which is where I made a fundamental error.  Anyhoo, having dropped the Frog kit over the plan, it's almost bang on.  I mean, the tail will need backdating - or perhaps not, had Rolls continued with the Clyde, would Wyvern have had the same airframe mods that the Python one received - and the nose needs some minor lengthening and reshaping.

Someone, TsrJoe very likely, mentioned some years back that when he'd done his jet Wyvern (which is also on my planned list - and there's two, I have the plans for one and will blow up the plans for the second soon), he'd used the Maintrack Eagle conversion as a base and just added a Matchbox Meteor intake on the front end.  That seemed like a reasonable place to start, so I dug through my Meteor box and dragged out several intakes.  The wide breather one was close but no banana - not wide enough - so I decided to just cut one down.  The width of the nosecone on the plan was 15mm, so I took a brave pill and hacked the front end off one of the smaller intakes.

Then it's just a case of using what's there to build a base structure.  The actual front of the kit is fine, it'll just get buried under filler.  The nosecone fitted over the prop base mount like it was made for it.  I used the mount for the prop, the bit that you don't glue so it spins, but inverted it.  It's quite a tight fit, so it's easy to use the friction to keep it where it needs to be.  The spinner for the Eagle prop looked about right.

So here's where it all is so far, taped up and blue tacked for proof of concept.

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Close up of the modded Meteor intake and a resin spinner.  You can just about make out the frontispiece of the Frog engine.

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And over the plan.  Looks close enough to me.

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Looking down.

So, other than a bit of reshaping and a lot of sanding, this looks like it could be relatively easy.  It might work better with a Trumpeter or CMR one, as I have a part started former and a very cheap latter.  I did think of using the Sign one (Czech resin kit from the late 1980s that used a warmed over Frog kit as a master), but the fact that the wing is moulded integral with the fuselage made it a non starter - I'll have to check the fuselage against the plan whilst sanding the nose and the wing will get in the way.

[PR19_Kit]

The Clyde's an interesting engine, combining both centrifugal and axial flow design ideas. But it fits the Wyvern a treat, even if the pilot's bum will get a tad warm....... 

[Dizzyfugu]

That looks promising! 

[The Wooksta!]

"I thought so. Look, what are we really doing here? Really?"

When I was searching in the loft a few days back, I'd found a part started Novo Wyvern.  TBH, I've known it's been there for some time.  It didn't get much further due to a lack of a tailplane.  That and I wasn't happy with the build.  So knowing that the Clyde project was a goer, I decided to use it rather than yer actual proper Frog one which I'd rather use for the jet one (whichever of the two projects I go with.) I also pulled down the Sign one that's to salvage and an abandoned Trumpeter one.  I test fitted the cut down meteor cowling and it fits with the Trumpeter one too, so there's another possibility.  Plus it gives me a Wyvern spinner for one of the Tempest projects.


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The sacrificial victim.  The cockpit internals are a bit wonky, another reason why it got abandoned.  But they're going to get painted black anyway, and I need to put some plastic card in there too, but that's for later.

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After some cutting and sanding to reshape the tail.  I'm not sure if it's right, but it's reasonably close.  I've yet to do some rescribing to define the rudder.  I need to remove most of the awful Novo era raised panel lines.  The mould must have had some damage at one point as the panel lines are different to those of the Frog original.  I've also glued in the prop mount and the new cowling is in place.  It's time to break out the P.38.

To the Shed!

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The last of my P38.  I'd gone through nigh on a full tub on the Contrail Ju 390, this was the very last of it.  It's liberally applied, on the grounds it's easier to remove than build up, but undoubtedly that will happen.  I've also applied some inside (not seen) to back the two intakes at the wing roots that aren't there on the Clyde Wyvern.

So now I have a lot of sanding and carving to look forward to...

There's also a Clyde engined Firecrest project.  I have the front end of a Wyvern fuselage that had been cut at one point - I think it was one I'd bought in a Mastercraft box at a show for 50p - so now I know how to do it, I can make another.  I've got to get through this one first, but I have another project lined up. 

[Gondor]

It's always nice to use parts from one kit in another project and so on.

[The Wooksta!]

"But it says here, Michael look, "Ensure machine is clean, and free from dust"!"

So after a good half hour with various sanders, the hedge trimmers and the drill, the nose is looking a lot better.

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I've sanded back the intakes at the wing roots, although they'll need more tweaking when the wing goes on.  Some of the P.38 wasn't mixed properly, so a skim of normal filler should cover it.  Failing that, superglue.

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You can just about make that out in the first shot now that the primer is on.  It's also revealed a few tiny pin holes or air bubbles that popped out, so again, a skim of filler.  I need to add some to the fin to fill the hinge line from the S4. That still needs more sanding but for an afternoon's messing about, I think that's some fine progress.

[The Wooksta!]

"I'm afraid I couldn't find any needles, so we'll have to use 6-inch nails."

The odd area on the port side, with the uncured P38 was affecting the Revell filler, so I took the drastic step of cutting it out.  All of the uncured P38 has been removed and backfilled with Revell filler.  I did briefly think about my usual go to in these situations, but I'm largely happy with the rest and didn't want to do more sanding than I had to.  I've also given the tail fin more of a sanding too.

As for the errant tailplane.  That's long gone, so the ones that were to have been used on the Eagle one have been repurposed, given a strip of plastic card on the leading edge and are now in a bath of silicone rubber.  It was just easier this way.

[NARSES2]

I admire your sanding mate