Finish build of a British WWII Era Fairey Swordfish Biplane

[Neons]

Working on getting this paint work done so I can move on to assembling and some detailing. The masking and painting took up some spare time over the past week. This opens up the building to many different items I can now create to keep me going to the finish now. These pictures are just propped up to view. Nothing glued in place. The decal sheet is made on a laser color printer with laser water slide decal paper. The roundels are just about 3.25 inches.

[Neons]

 I did a few days of details here. I have installed the electric motor and it is running . All I have to do is put a receiver in the plane. If you zoom in you'll see I added a windshield, a machine gun is underneath the windshield, an oil cooler black, exhaust pipe, and on top of the cowling there's a little dipstick.

You would probably have to zoom in to see those. All the cabane strap blisters, exhaust blister on the cowling, and the machine gun blister is hammered out aluminum house flashing. The exhaust pipe is flat stock house flashing rolled out and cut on angles. The original was that way also. A machined aluminum spinner was shaped also.

There still is so much more to do yet. The cockpit has 3 crew and needs finish. Mounting a torpedo also. The final is to mount the upper wing and do all the string stays.

[Neons]

The cockpit will be a sort of standoff scale. I am not going the whole mile as the plane technically is not exact scale where as I do not have the correct plan and I am adlibing as I go with the assembly. So as I mention in another post I ordered the 3 copies of a WWII pilots halves and carefully glued them all together. I did do some sanding to get them mated together as smooth as I could. You will see only the pilot bust was not altered. The navigator is either waving or saluting and the gunner has arms also added. He is handling a Lewis gun which I hand made all out of small brass tubing. Each piece is soldered together and then painted. The gun raises and lowers also.

The next thing I did was to cut into the navigator and Gunner's plastic arms and glued in pieces of wire. I shaped some Silly putty in short rolled pieces and attached them to the wire and created rough arms and hands. I am letting the dry out and harden on there own so I can finish and paint them all. I worked on some cockpit details in the meantime like adding radio, navigation. and other dummie parts. Then I gave the 3 busts some paint today.

AS you may see I cut some scrap plastic to fit flight goggles on the crew also. Here are some more shots. No crew is glued in place at this time. I have to do some more smoothing and painting first.

When this phase is completed I will start making a magnetic torpedo mount with the torpedo. These parts are purchased from Park Flyer Plastics.
http://parkflyerplastics.com/cart/index ... page=index

[Neons]

I finished the cockpit today and moved on to setup of the torpedo. I want to mount it so I can get access to the 2 bottom hatches. I am making a mount that fits the diameter with magnets and a line up dowels. I have so far have it all matched on the edges after careful cutting and sanding the excess flashing.

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Onward today I have installed a half round piece of tin and some battens on the edge of the torpedo half to help for line up and gluing. A piece of balsa is for a couple of pins to prevent the magnet slippage while flying.

Another day goes flying by. Well today I created a mount on the plane to get the assemble torpedo mounted in such a way to do quick easy removable access to the two hatches. The use of tin, brass tube, and balsa and it is done. The magnets and a pin are holding very well. The 2 half circle bands holding the torpedo in position have the tin edge rolled over for a string or elastic further securely hold it down. Tomorrow it will all get finished. It is moving along. Pretty soon I will get the upper wing secured.

All the painting and mounting is done. I can lift the airplane with the torpedo securing magnets. Onward to the wing struts and strings for Ole Stringbag.

[Neons]

Well this is the completion. I am calling it 99% finished. I have just spent the last 4 afternoons on the struts and rigging. Added Port & Stbd. nav. lights. and lower wing dummy landing lights. It was a challenging build. A good day and I will take some in air photos next. Hope to do a flight video in the early summer.

[Neons]

I spent some time creating these last pictures for the Build Log. The plane is 100% done now. getting to the time of year to start the flying season. Next winter will be time to do more creations. I posted an unusual creation of the Swordfish in flight motion Sim-flight video. It was fun with photography being creative. I hope you take a look. See it here at this link.
https://youtu.be/736fSPFRqUU

Here are the pictures in use.