Hobbycrafts Old Tool Sopwith Camel Improved

[GAJouette]

    All,
I thought that today I'd bring one of my ongoing in progress builds for you. This project actually began in September of 2010 and was to have been my return to modeling following my stroke in August of 2010. Much progress was made until January 2011 until once again health issues put me out of action again. There have been several restarts and stops since then due to continuing health issues and once again it's now been restarted again.
  The donor kit in all it's glory. Not the best most certainly but the best available

  Here's some of the references used for this project.




    The first order of business was to rework those aweful kit supplied wings. Beaucoup sanding here folks,but well worth the effort in the end.
     The wings after mulitple sanding sessions.

     And the upper wing with new 1/16 " wide tapes.


More shortly.

[pepperman42]

Great start. Those wings are a tough correction!

[GAJouette]

 Thanks Pepperman much appreciated my friend. Love that Dr.StangeLove photo!
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[ta152c]

Nice work so far, Gregory!

I wonder if the same kit, reissued with the Le Rhone engine, would be a good basis for a 'Comic' nightfighter?

I don't do much 1:32, but that would perhaps be a nice subject. I'm looking forward to seeing your build, it will be very helpful should I decide to do a 1:32 Camel.

Regards

[pepperman42]

The box art is a favourite. My friend Ron Lowry painted that one. Not his best by any means but he taught me so much about aviation (amongst dozens of other things) so I still like looking at. 

[GAJouette]

  Part II
 The wings continued.
Laying out the inspection panels and their construction.






 Now on to my favorite bit.Building up the 3/4 Internal Frame.This was built up using plastic bar and rod stock.

 Test fitting into the fuselage shell.


  Luckily it fit like a glove.

 

[GAJouette]

....And now the painted frame.

  And of coarse adding those little details.


  A little better view of the port side.


  The completed internal frame and instrument panel.

   The instrument panel itself.

[phs Paddy]

She's coming alone nicely Gregory. I'm going to enjoy watching you apply your skills on this old girl.

Paddy

[GAJouette]

  Waterloo time or how I learn to very much dislike attempting to fabricate my own wicker seat. The seat was originally planned to be a scratch built wicker pilot seat. Having seen several others pull off this bit of Black Magic I figured sure I can do that,looks easy right. Wrong again apparently my wicker seat mojo was on vacaton at the time. The first shot was a total flop,so why try again another total flop. Sidebar is this starting to sound like a Monty Python skit or is it just me. Anyway back to the saga of the wicker seat. Now were up to the third shot with a twist "I'll use the kit supplied seat and do a little modification then start weaving. Well you guessed it flopped again. Now what to do? Well not much choice now that I've trashed the kit,go to one of my other Camels in the stash and borrow te seat. So back at square one again with a simple painted borrowed kit seat.But hey a least I didn't screw this one up and it does have some of the details intended for the wicker seat.

 I know I know a long way to go for one photo right.But the fact is the Great Wicker Seat Adventure turned out so badly that any and all offending photos deleted following a burst of foul language that surely make a Sailor blush.Rant Off

 Now back to the much less painful part of the update. The fuselage is now closed with the frame in place. All is well in the world now.

[GAJouette]

 Now for the much modified kit engine. It's really not that bad just pretty basic,but usable none the less.


 &#@# missed the second spark plug.


 Meanwhile back at the fuselage. Doin' a little wood work.

Note the Archer's Transfers Stitching. Excellent stuff by the way.

[GAJouette]

  The first painting.



 Note the exhaust channel has been reworked and now is much closer to correct rather than more like the pup.


 Well fellas that brings you up to date on my Camel project. There's more that has been done this month but not photographed just yet,that's for latter updates. As always any and all comments are welcomed and very much appreciated.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[Des]

Great to see this one back on the bench again Gregory. Your work so far has been amazing, what you are doing here reminds me of the Academy kit I finished not that long ago. You did a fantastic job on the fuselage framing and the instrument panel, and your engine looks excellent, pity most of the engine disappears under the cowl. Looking forward to the next updates.

Des.

[Chris Johnson]

Truly some inspiring work here Gregory. Your interior framework looks so clean, and square. No wonder it fit like a glove. It's also good to know that master modellers such as yourself also encounter glitches along the way and you don't shy away from identifying them. That's important to those of us feeling our way along so we know we're not alone in struggling at times. I'll definitely have to keep that Archer stitching in mind too.

Cheers,

Chris

[NinetythirdLiberator]

Wow, Gregory...much improved is an understatement!  Really lovely job.

I saw two of these build up a couple weeks ago at a Seattle show...they looked great. 

Need to snag me one of 'em...

Dan

[ALBATROS1234]

remember this inspirational build gregory, super nice buddy.