Wen Mac Dauntless so far

Whew! What is that stuff? Petrified rubber bands or old glue?

About the worst case of rubber band atrophy that I have seen.  

I believe that he may have been running pressure and used them to secure a balloon capsule to the side of the model? The nipple was broken off the fuel tank. I had to use an exacto to cut through them and separate the two fuselage halves then scrape the rest off.  I thought the parts cleaner would make short work of them.  Didn't, turned them to cement.

Used an aerosol can straw to fix the fuel tank and one of Jason's custom posts to repair the engine mount.







I had to make a decision, paint it and lose detail and originality or leave it as an old tired veteran of the Pacific campaign of WW-2 (or someone's back yard.)  Chose the latter.

A very good Douglas Dauntless restoration job in progress, Bob, really like your systematic repairs to broken features, refueling nipple, engine mount post, and letting this veteran of previous CL battles years ago live on in its postwar condition.

Most interesting is the balanced non-scale elevator setup, where they maintained the scale stabilizer size (tendency for overcoming modeling effects was to enlarge tail surfaces) but gave it more action for some stunt maneuverability. In the circle, it must have been slower flying than the Coxes. That is quite a bit of wing area for an older Wen-Mac.

http://sceptreflight.com/Model%20Engine%20Tests/Wen%20Mac%20049%20Rotomatic.html engine test by infamous Peter Chinn in the May 1961 Aero Modeller magazine showed that the static engine runs on ground produced 0.048 hp at 14,500 rpm on 15% nitro Cox Thimble Drone fuel.

http://sceptreflight.com/Model%20Engine%20Tests/Cox%20Babe%20Bee%20&%20Golden%20Bee.html , OTOH, the Cox .049 Babe Bee, H.R. Warring in Nov. 1962 Model Aircraft obtained 0.055 hp at 13,000 rpm on 15% nitro fuel.

Yet, the mid 1960's Cox Spitfire RTF with what I gather, similar wing area, used a forerunner of the Cox Black Widow with its Silver Bee engine that used twin bypasses like the Black Widow, stunt tank without stunt fueling/vent nipples and Babe Bee tank back.

Later when Testors/Wen-Mac upgraded the glow plug head to a higher compression glow head, obtained Babe Bee like performance.

I can imagine that the Wen-Mac Douglas Dauntless was somewhat of a sluggish dog in flight. However, it must have been still exciting to a young neophyte who got it fly successfully.
Comments?  

Good analysis George.

This thing must have been flown a lot, scars to both top and bottom of the cowl must have been flipped a couple of times. Engine and engine compartment a congealed castor mess that Berryman's took care of. Replacement Cox three blade prop replaced the single blade than came with it.

The seller included everything, old fuel lines and control lines and handles. Also included the broken elevator half. Fixing that. Learned to have trust in Testors red tube.







I'm not sure how it flew, I think the only plastic airplane that I have ever flown was the Cox Corsair, wait......the Electric Cox Bearcat too.

rsv1cox wrote:Good analysis George.

Thanks, Bob.

rsv1cox wrote:This thing must have been flown a lot, scars to both top and bottom of the cowl must have been flipped a couple of times. Engine and engine compartment a congealed castor mess that Berryman's took care of. Replacement Cox three blade prop replaced the single blade than came with it.

I would have never guessed that something as volatile as Berryman's would be the ideal ticket to clean up the hard plastic, glad to hear it did the job.

rsv1cox wrote:The seller included everything, old fuel lines and control lines and handles.  Also included the broken elevator half.  Fixing that. Learned to have trust in Testors red tube.

Sounds like you got quite a deal, considering. I didn't realize that Testors plastic glue is still available. I would have probably resorted to PVC Pipe Cement.

rsv1cox wrote:I'm not sure how it flew, I think the only plastic airplane that I have ever flown was the Cox Corsair, wait......the Electric Cox Bearcat too.

I'm not really a good judge at that either. Both my experiences back in 1965 and 1972, Cox Spitfire and L-4 Grasshopper were dismal. I suppose a fairly representative assessment would be to template the high lift undercambered aircraft wing out of corroplast or foamboard. Make a profile fuselage with a radial cowl to match the frontal area drag. Copy the tail feathers and mimick the balanced elevator action. The ballast the model to balance and weigh the same as the RTF.

However, there are enough other things to do, that being much older and less adventurous, leave it others to share their experiences.

Happy Saint Patricks Day!

I’m impressed that the Berrymans didn’t melt the thing. Pretty caustic stuff. I remove plastic floats before I dunk carbs. Good work Bob.

Cribbs74 wrote:I’m impressed that the Berrymans didn’t melt the thing. Pretty caustic stuff. I remove plastic floats before I dunk carbs. Good work Bob.

I had read that it was safe for plastics, but to check I went to their web site.

https://www.berrymanproducts.com/products/eco-friendly-products/berryman-chem-dip-carburetor-and-parts-cleaner/

I remove the basket and dump the front end minus wing, engine and all in it for about 15/20 minutes then dump that in a bucket of warm soapy water and rinse in clear water.  Cleans the engine and fuel tank too.  Clean water drains out of the fuel tank, but I also use low volume compressed air to dry it out on the inside.

The front is where all the gooey spent castor is but it also wicks down the seams so I use a soft brush lifting the Berryman's up doing all the airframe while its still in the mixture.  I have done at least three this way.

Looks Better ! I hate to pop your bubble But i don't think the straw from aerosol can will let enough fuel through , if any ' to let the engine run . May be a test run i love beeing proved wrong !

getback wrote:Looks Better ! I hate to pop your bubble But i don't think the straw from aerosol can will let enough fuel through , if any ' to let the engine run . May be a test run i love beeing proved wrong !

My bubble has been popped so many times Eric, there isn't much left to pop.

You may have seen the end crimped where I cut it. I run a length of music wire down it when I cement it in. Keeps it straight and stable and expanded. Used original Wen Mac fuel line when I connected it up. Done this before with good results.



Front wing attachment post was broken off. Used one of Jason's replacements to fix it. Drilled a 9/64th hole in the broken post after cleaning it up with a Dremel and red tubed it in.

Found the old broken machine guns in the bottom of the fuselage stuck in old castor. Made new ones out of music wire and glued them in with 560 canopy glue.

Thought the previous owner was pretty professional using a fuel pressure system until I discovered the lead-outs he used were safety pins.

rsv1cox wrote:I had read that it was safe for plastics, but to check I went to their web site.

https://www.berrymanproducts.com/products/eco-friendly-products/berryman-chem-dip-carburetor-and-parts-cleaner/

I remove the basket and dump the front end minus wing, engine and all in it for about 15/20 minutes then dump that in a bucket of warm soapy water and rinse in clear water.  Cleans the engine and fuel tank too.  Clean water drains out of the fuel tank, but I also use low volume compressed air to dry it out on the inside.  

The front is where all the gooey spent castor is but it also wicks down the seams so I use a soft brush lifting the Berryman's up doing all the airframe while its still in the mixture.  I have done at least three this way.

Interesting, I'd never think that Berryman was safe on certain plastics. They must have reformulated it. The old stuff was very caustic to all plastics, but good and thorough on removing encrusted grime (and paint) on metal. Just like Ron said, with the old stuff and maybe even with the new stuff, the particular plastic of the carb floats might not survive. (But some of the later stuff may be a special type of hardened surface foam.)

Works well but doesn't remove all the staining. Would have to sand that out and it's not worth the effort.

About average but not the worst that I have done.

War horse:

Bob, do you paint walk stripes in black on wings?

HEy! when you're a nine year old, wanting to fly your airplane and you don't have the "professional" clips to fix the lines to the strings,the next best things are Safety pins. After all they have "Safety" as part of their name! And, didja ever have one break??

The wings are etched for it Levent but my hands are not steady enough.  Nice picture.

The Dauntless, the unsung hero of the Pacific theater. Great story here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Kleiss

Norman "Dusty" Kleiss has been profiled on the Smithsonian channel among others.

About finished on the WM Dauntless.  Added the tail hook, a simple hook snap up affair that the flyer must unhook if he wants to do carrier.  






Box is next.  Cereal boxes are the same thickness and the fold is perfect.  Cover with color action scenes printed on sticky backed paper.  Add a window.

Marleysky wrote:HEy! when you're a nine year old, wanting to fly your airplane and you don't have the "professional" clips to fix the lines to the strings,the next best things are Safety pins. After all they have "Safety" as part of their name! And, didja ever have one break??

You know I buy these old junk models and have seen some incredible things done to them which makes me think - Why? But I come to the same conclusion that you did. They just want to fly like right now, not tomorrow, and I must admit, in the past I have done the same.

A Dauntless model weathered in real! Perfect looking!

Levent Suberk wrote:A Dauntless model weathered in real! Perfect looking!

Yes, I love that picture, saved it. I bet that you could duplicate it.



But those castor stains on mine are wearing thin. Debating whether or not to paint it. The paint that I used on the cowl of my P-26 would be perfect, but again I would lose originality and would never be able to fuel it up again and fly it. Opinions, paint it or leave it?



Three wire system on the Dauntless too, one for the bomb drop which is missing.



Last week I got these insignia's, seller included unadvertised additions.

This grabbed my attention, I was always under the impression the red center roundels ended prior to these aircraft entering service. I tend to associate the blue field and white bar insignias with the Pacific fleet. Am I incorrect? I might be but I don't recall ever seeing the round red center roundels on those type of aircraft.

History of National Insignias on US Military Aircraft gives a brief rundown on when the red circle was dropped and white bars added during WW2. It had to do with mitigating friend fire.

The red circle was dropped when US entered the war in the Pacific. The bars were added to mitigate the roundel, mistaken for the Japanese circle where at distances and available light color was not discernible.

That roundel has been used till May 1942.

It's quite easy to find the stars and bars, a little more difficult to find the red center roundels and near impossible to find the star only on any background.  I try to replace with the style that came on the model.  

Thanks for that history George, I bookmarked it.

Yeah Kim, I think "Carrier" would be neat catching a wire with the engine at full throttle.  4X8 sheet of plywood cut to duplicate an aircraft carrier and elevated a couple of feet, four wires spaced at intervals.  There is a Carrier event for model aircraft, will have to look that up.  Seems like it would be super difficult to do.

Edit:

Found this among others.

https://brodak.com/carrier_flying#:~:text=Navy%20Carrier%20was%20first%20flown%20at%20the%201950,rules%2C%20but%20the%20basic%20intent%20remains%20the%20same.