Barker's Camel 1:48 Eduard

[Bluesfan]

Eduard's 1:48 Clerget Camel, in a William Barker scheme. I wanted to represent Barker's famous B6313, which fascinates me as many think it was probably the highest scoring individual aircraft of WWI. According to the Osprey volume I have, its total was 46 (plus or including, apparently, 2 by another pilot), which is way ahead of Woolett's D6402 with 23. Barker made various adaptations as time went on. One I didn't know about before was the fitting of extra large air intakes on each side of the fore fuselage. I wish Eduard had moulded these, instead of obliging me to scratch them, it was quite a fiddly job! A contrast to what you find elsewhere in the kit, which is well researched and highly detailed, and fits very well thanks to smart design. (Um... Except for one area which caught me out badly, but to be fair, my fault for not paying attention. I'll explain in the next post)

Anyway, what a comprehensive kit, with a multitude of alternative parts, eg for the instrument panel. You're not compelled to use PE, for the most part, and I often didn't. I especially appreciated Eduard providing two little devils - ie Barker's famous replacement gunsight, the nose thumbing red devil. I just looked at one point and saw it had vanished, not so securely superglued as I'd thought. So, second time around, that's why I positioned the propeller as I did, as a protective guard.

[Bluesfan]

Here are two angles on the interior. Eduard give you plenty to do, and despite all the content, it fitted together without too much trouble. Except for a couple of things I should mention. One is to do with the filler caps behind the pilot, which are meant to end up in the openings moulded in the fuselage. I felt this was optimistic, and ended up cutting one off and gluing in place - what's inside there won't be seen. But maybe it'll be a breeze for a better modeller

My major mess up with this kit had its roots here, in what is in fact a clever idea by Eduard to ensure that the bottom wings have the correct dihedral. It's quite an extreme angle, designed that way by Sopwith to make the manufacture of the flat straight top wing much easier. Eduard moulded prominent spars here at the correct angle. That's great, though you can see in these views the two channels (under the pilot's seat) the spars go into, and also see that they're formed by the assembly of the frame and seat structure on top of them. All you need is for some part of this to be ever so slightly out and there are knock-on effects for the rest of the geometry as you build the wings. The result here is the the top wing is slightly askew, yes, once you see it you can't unsee it. Oh as usual my pics are all from flattering angles - I couldn't bring myself to take a pic which fully demonstrated my ineptitude I didn't notice until I was already rigging the plane, with a drill through method (for monofilament) which pretty much meant I'd have to start the whole kit from scratch to solve it. I wouldn't rule it out, because these Eduard Camel kits really are beauties in my humble opinion.

The cockpit opening is restricted and you won't see much, but I actually did enjoy my time spent here - instrument panel, seat etc. And I added most of the control lines, almost invisible on completion, but I liked figuring it out. The extra plastic piece on the right, in the fuselage behind the seat, is for anchoring the cables.

[Bluesfan]

B6313 was mostly seen in a standard finish of metal cowling and wooden panels, but I liked this alternative offered by Eduard - for part of the time in Italy I think(?). As for the decals, it's extraordinary to my eyes at least, what's there on the sheet - not just the Palmer cord lettering on the tyres, but the tiny legend around the filler caps. And I did appreciate the separated roundels, which included holes for the control horns. I think most modelers will want to cut away the excess decal film in various situations. Though am I being ignorant here - are you meant to be able to peel it away from the decal itself, did I read that somewhere about Eduard's new decals? I didn't investigate because I wasn't going to experiment.

Like I say, a very nice kit indeed, which invites extra attention and detailing as per your inclination. I hope Eduard will continue to look at WWI every now and again, or at least continue their practice of reissues with new markings.

[bobs_buckles]

Very nice Camel, Bluesfan.
Congrats on a lovely build.

BB

[DaddyO]

Lovely Camel and I'm glad you managed to add the second little red devil

Eduard's 'new' decals are interesting.
Apply as normal (I've found them pretty impervious to Micro Sol/Set with the varnish on) and after at least 24 hours you can carefully pick up an edge of the varnish using a sharpened wooden cocktail stick so you don't damage the paint. It's then just a question of peeling the varnish off and pressing down with a soft tissue pad (All mine have come off in pieces rather than one large piece) The surface it's applied to needs to be glossy or the decal itself will lift with the varnish. Try one of the spares on a scrap test wing to get the feel of it first 

Paul

[NigelR]

Nice job, a very good looking result despite your niggles. Now that you've found the things to watch out for, there's no excuse for not building a few more.....

[Bluesfan]

Many thanks for the comments, gents.
And thanks for explaining Eduard's new decals, Paul, glad to know I wasn't imagining it, about peeling off the film. This needs an experiment or two 

Cheers
Mark

[FokkerFodder]

Lovely Camel! I?m building 2 of these now and will experiment with removing the film this weekend. I?m going to try white spirits - a technique suggested on The Modelling News website. Apparently it softens the film without attacking the ink, allowing it to be removed relatively easily. Let?s see!

Cheers
Matt

[macsporran]

Excellent Camel. Love the replacement Red Devil!
Sandy

[KiwiZac]

Beautiful work, what a gem! Lovely work all round.

[Brian James Riedel]

Awesome! (and thanks for the heads up about the problems encountered!)

[lone modeller]

Superb model, especially with the red devils. Congratulations on persevering with the various problems - the result is well worth the effort.

Stephen.

[Richtrad]

Very nice Camel. Well done.

[Borsos]

Great Camel. These new Eduard kits really look good.

[Bluesfan]

Many thanks again for the comments.

Brian I shouldn't think any modelers here needed warning about problems, I mostly made them for myself     Patience and common sense will do!
I think my solution would have been to take a very small amount from the front and/or rear faces of the lower wing spars. Very small. Then I could have adjusted the front or back angle as required.
Anything else? - Maybe another time I will use the PE version of the Rotherham pump, the plastic moulding doesn't look so great now. I was being lazy!
Thanks Matt for the tip about white spirit. Might experiment, with caution 

Cheers, Mark