Superdetailing Lone Star Models' 1/48 Felixstowe F.2A
By Lance Krieg
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There are many fine details available in various publications. The modeler must decide to what extent the various Curtiss boats, even the H.16, duplicated the building practices of the Felixstowe. And, for that matter, how useful are the details of the Felixstowe F.5? The Flight Magazine reprint in Over the Front offers a number of excellent insights, although it was written for the F.5-L; much of the equipment carried on those large boats must be similar.
In the end, it's a compromise, and in all events I don't know where much of the detail was to go on ANY of these boats. Sea anchor, signal flags, food, water, pigeons, medical kit, tools, gun tools, bomb-site box, bilge pumps, fire extinguishers, Very pistols, Lewis drums, binoculars, maps and map cases - and these are just the extras. What about the bomb release gear, gas tanks and pumps, instrumentation? How does the folding seat work, anyway? Are there seats for the other two crew members? Where is the wireless? Did the F.2A have electric suit heaters, or just the F.5-L? Intercom, yes, but what does it look like?
During this whole process and the subsequent sanding, all the rib detail was eventually lost. Restoring the rib details was accomplished by using thread and super-gluing it to the wing surfaces on a jig - a 'laced-on' approach I learned from Tom Morgan. I used this on both sides of all wings, cutting off the thread for the plywood leading edges and the riblets on the undersurfaces. A sandable primer makes this a very suitable method of creating rib detail on a solid wing, but the embossed skin method is preferable for quicker results.
Once the wings were fabricated I faced the decision of how to represent the rib tapes. I routinely use sliced decal slivers in a slightly different color to create these, but opted for a painted representation on the wing undersurfaces. Because any rough handling will induce the rib tapes to part company with the wing surface, and I was planning to have the undersurfaces masked off for a lengthy period of time, I used the following approach: I sprayed the undersides with a darker version of clear doped linen, then masked off the rib positions and oversprayed a lighter version for the rest of the wing. I don't really like the painted ribs - it feels like it is too two-dimensional. While paint will not be lifted by any subsequent masks, it doesn't give the dimensional satisfaction or 'feel' of decal tapes. In all events, the tapes were emphasized by colored pencils, both conventional and watercolor, and I used a handy little T-square made of plastic to draw the lines. Raised tape lines could be painted, of course, but that doubles the burden of masking off the ribs - you need two pieces of masking material for each rib, and run the risk of having these resultant paint ridges be of different sizes. Chartpack tape is perfect for one-off masking, but that dooms the modeler to painted rib-tapes of one dimension.
I painted the upper surfaces NIVO, reasoning that the dark green marine paints mentioned in the references were close to this shade, and because I get mighty tired of PC10.
.015 plastic was cut into the appropriate vee-shape for control horns, and each horn was composed of two halves; this allows the extensive control wires to be securely sandwiched between the halves, and simplifies the use of monofilament rigging. The numerous pulleys, needing to be robust enough to withstand frequent banging during construction and subsequently to carry the taut control runs, were brass posts, dressed up with plastic disks.
Widening the fuselage by 3/8 inch with shims produced a reasonable compromise on the hull shape, but the stern of the boat should not be increased in beam, so relieving cuts were necessary to force the tail back into the proper shape. All this surgery, plus opening up the center section and doors, made the remaining hull shells a poor basis for erecting the heavy wings and engines, as it was much weakened and no longer symmetrical. My approach for the eventual mounting of the wings was based on filling the bottom of the hull with epoxy putty, into which were secured posts to carry the wing spars, and thereby spread some of the weight across the whole bottom of the hull.
The odd hull shape made it impossible to test this theory without first cementing together the hull with its ballast; this in turn meant that a good deal of the interior detail needed to be incorporated. Further, I needed a skid (the eventual beaching trolley) so the whole boat would sit level. I hated to incorporate this detail without having the basic edifice planned and proven, but found no alternative, even after three nights of head-scratching. This project was fraught with these kinds of 'chicken-or-egg' dilemmas.
Reconciled to gambling on the accuracy of my assumptions, I resigned myself to needing a full hull, with all its interior detail, before the wing attachment could be concluded. I commenced by hiding a half-pound of epoxy putty under the eventual floor. By cramming this substance into both fuselage halves and trying to line them up close to the eventual shape of the hull, I got a fairly sturdy base. This in turn became the foundation of the brass post and beam configuration for the amidships wing spars. The posts were epoxied through the floor into the bed of putty.
I launched into the interior details, building a real wooden floor to hide the globs of putty, and filling every nook and cranny. Much is simplified, because it is very hard to see (actually, it's impossible) when the whole thing is buttoned up, and while I didn't scrimp on the details, I made many without full confidence in their accuracy.
The only new techniques I tried on this interior are the use of raw brass, suitably turned, to create magneto switches and lights, and brass wire to simulate interior tubing. I created a jig to turn out Lewis magazine holders, needing a bunch of them, and cast some rather nifty fire extinguishers from resin. Various boxes and shapes, most with decal details added were stowed in all the corners of the plane, and the brass-tube fuel tanks, complete with their load limits, were perhaps my favorite touch.
Otherwise, it was the standard plastic sheet and rod, with instrument faces and bezels from the usual aftermarket sources: Copper State, Tom's, Reheat, and Eduard. Those five-spoked control wheels (just try to find some of those!) are model railroad parts, with most of the original spokes removed. The maps at the navigator's station are from Verlinden, sliced down to scale.
Once the hull was closed up, the long and tedious process of shaping it properly presented itself, as the combination of obsolete plans, widening by 3/8 inch, and soft vacuformed details conspired to leave the model a long way from accurate. I again used a generous slathering of epoxy putty across the bottom, in an attempt to build up the proper depth. Because the bottom shape was wrong, as were the chines and fins, the whole hull needed to be re-skinned over the roughed-in shape.
Cutting contour gauges to match the sectional profiles from the plans gave me a target to help build up the putty base. Once the putty had hardened into the approximate shape, I used .020 plastic, cut to four sections, to recreate an accurately profiled hull. By using .010 plastic on the fins and fuselage sides, I was able to create good sharp edges and so overcame the typical vacuform "soft corners". I bent a suitable piece over the hull top in front of the cockpit, and faired this, along with the nose, with putty and gel CA and sanded them to shape. This free-hand shaping of compound curves is very tedious and necessitates much trial and error to get a suitable result.
Once the basic fuselage shape was achieved, I started back in on the details, particularly the steps on the bottom of the hull, which were needed before I could construct the beaching trolley cradle that would hold the hull level and upright. The handbooks on the Curtiss H.16 and F.5-L were indispensable in figuring out the proper shape of the steps and constructing them in the same fashion as the originals.
Adding the roof to the hull, a fairly traumatic event, completed the disappearance of months of work, as the vast majority of the interior details are now completely invisible unless one is using a proctoscope. When the guns and canopy were added, this phenomenon was exacerbated. Ah, well!
With the doors and their tracks installed, all but the small details that would await final assembly were complete. I oversprayed the entire hull and fuselage with clear flat and proceeded to weather the craft with washes of oils. These were in a variety of neutral tones, but some greens and yellows were used, and quickly wiped off. I always find this process traumatic to apply - deliberately defacing the pristine finish - but it is appropriate on a much-used craft, and seaplanes are particularly exposed to the elements.
One of the problems associated with this large project was determining the proper order of construction; one needs an accurate hull to commence the building of an accurate trolley, but a good trolley is important to achieving that same accurate hull. It is an absolute requirement that one have a solid, square basis to begin working up from the tabletop, as the high-hull mounting of the lower wing deprives the builder of the usual cruciform fuselage/lower wing base so one may place the model flat.
I used basswood and plastic to build a cradle per the Stair plans, and pinned the structure together with lengths of steel wire to support the glue. I very carefully tweaked this basic shape to sit level, plumb, and true, as it would be the foundation for all that followed. I used the unadorned cradle for over a year, until all the elaborate geometry of the hull and wings was fixed, and then returned to detail and paint it as a part of the finished model.
Recognizing the need for strong struts to support the wood and plastic upper wing, I immediately dismissed the plastic that came with the kit and substituted more robust replacements. Using 1/64 music wire as a core, I scored a suitable groove in planks of 1/32 basswood and laminated the planks around the wire. Using a generous soaking of CA to fix the wire and the wooden fairings together, I carved and sanded suitable interplane struts. I built a quick plastic jig to hold the struts, and ensure that all were exactly the same length when finished. I glued three suitable widths of contrasting plastic to the strut jig, and used this to make sure that the simulated fabric wrappings were properly spaced and aligned.
The vee-struts for the engine assemblies are a little tricky. While the engines are mostly white metal and so relatively heavy, I deemed plastic a convenient medium and opted to use this. I strengthened these with brass pins for positive alignment in the wing locating holes. I concocted a couple of basic cutting/cementing jigs to make sure that the vees were of the proper angle. Then I built a construction jig that would assure the strut assembly would be square and fit the wings. The struts were assembled using epoxy, and epoxy was used to cement the engine bearers to the strut tops. These work, though in retrospect I would have much preferred to use Strutz and soldered these together - but the decision was made before this project drove me to learn to solder.
Needing British roundels of an unprecedented size, and wanting to use the ultramarine for the distinctive décor, I mixed up suitable batches of VB2 Blue and VB3 Red, and sprayed large amounts on the clear decal sheet to create a palette from which to cut out the appropriate hull stripes. After some fits and starts, these proved to be a useful and expedient way to achieve this look, and the hull was given its stripes, the rudder masked and painted, and the roundels created using an Olfa circle cutter and Frisket masks.