Wen Mac Dauntless so far

rsv1cox wrote:Potato chips, you can't stop at just one.

This one in much better condition with the bomb.  ebay with the correct propeller.

Strange.  Looks like an Anderson Spitzy/Baby Spitfire head!!!

Interesting, I would have never guessed the offset engine set high in the cowl non-scale, so it gets better cooling stuck out in the breeze. Overheating a glow engine is never a good thing. Another battle proven warrior, no doubt. At first I thought the second model might be a pristine copy of a different batch molded in darker blue, until I read the box labels. It is an exact scale static model.

I am used to the black smaller diameter 3-blade wider pitched but blunt flat tipped nylon propeller on later the Testors / Wen-Mac aircraft like my brother's all chrome but simpler 1966 F4U Corsair. (It had an uncovered bottom exposing the internals, including the bottom side of the engine.)

Makes me wonder if the tool marks on the head were the result of a glow plug installed too tight, resulting in head being unscrewed instead. Without the right spanner, combination pliers were used. Or, there was a concern with breaking the engine mount posts from the torque. As factory mounted, it would not take much to break the engine free from the airframe.

Without the original pilot to question, it is all speculation.

rsv1cox wrote:

Oldenginerod wrote:

rsv1cox wrote:Potato chips, you can't stop at just one.

This one in much better condition with the bomb.  ebay with the correct propeller.

Strange.  Looks like an Anderson Spitzy/Baby Spitfire head!!!

Eagle eye Rod.  I never noticed it.  Yes, strange.  Tool marks too.  I must have close to a dozen of these engines.  Will check when I get it.  

No, no.   My mistake.  I saw the first picture as showing a later Testors type cylinder, meaning tha aluminium head was just screwed in the top of the cylinder, but being early Wen Mac is has the cylinder muff, not just a head.  
My eyes ain't what they used to be.

Bob, can you post a photo of the left front side of your renovated Dauntless? I know that it is probably not the best side of the aircraft, but seeing the remarkable job that you did on all the other sides shown, I imagine that although not perfect, it probably looks much, much better than with what you started with.

Thanks, Bob, good work, it cleaned up quite well considering what you had to work with. Regarding painting, I'd rather not volunteer much as I know it is your call. Looking at some other photos, appears they may have molded the fuselage top with a darker blue, but I could be wrong. Could be possibly painted in stages accorded to personal satisfaction. But whatever you do, I am sure that it will appear after finish to be the genuine article or so close it is hard to tell it apart.

Out of curiosity, I did a search on both Hip Pocket Aeronautics and Outerzone. One could build a CL version based on the outlines of the 20" Comet rubber powered Dauntless. Outerzone has an interesting 30" free flight profile version with .020 Pee Wee power:

Outerzone Plan# oz8172: SBD Dauntless by Paul Schaaf, Apr. 1972 American Aircraft Modeler





That wouldn't be hard to imitate in modern foamboard using a KFm wing airfoil and lightweight RC.

Here's an interesting short story on the deadly effectiveness of the Douglas SBD Dauntless:

Thanks, Bob. Yes, I remember a slogan on kits 50 years ago, they called it "Flying Scale", which was used to denote deviations to a model in such a manner that it would fly successfully by most builders, if kit instructions and normal hobbyist practices were exercised. Guillow kits use "Authentic Flying Scale", which means that their changes, which they also did, for example, tail surfaces were closer to scale than some of the others but enlarged slightly, unlike your excellent example, the restored RTF Dauntless, which deviated more. At least Scientific's "stand way off scale" hollow log and built-up kits, and ditto with Sterling Beginner profile series, they did not mention "scale".







The Japanese were modest in not mentioning any scale declaration on their kits and plans.

Congrats on finally obtaining a very clean Dauntless specimen, Bob. Yes, I can see with a little clean up, it will really shine. That bomb drop feature is very interesting, I didn't know it came that that. I thought the 3rd line might have been for an optional throttle control.

As far as my kit photos, yes, they are all mine except for the Scientific Wildcat. It is one that I have always wanted to build, but I have yet to have found any plans for it. Back around 1971, I made my own profile half-A Wildcat from scaled up 3 views. I mounted a salvaged postage stamp engine, made my own sheet metal mount to fasten it to the profile fuselage.

I could clone one based on the photo and the Hellcat kit with clear top and built up fuselage. Scientific borrowed from other kits common assemblies to be shared with others. This is why the wing looks similar to the Hellcat, P-51 Sizzlin' Liz, P-40, and etc. They just changed the wing tips to suit.

Even the Cowl on the Wildcat was shared with others. I remember this cowl on my Hellcat, perfectly round. Aerowerkes did an excellent job on cloning the kit, but the cowl they used was slightly different, more narrow, firewall is oval in shape. However, Scientific was known to make minor changes midstream to kits that caused them to differ from kit photos. The idea was to produce a reasonable kit at the lowest unit cost, so people would grab them up. Simplification helps to reduce mass production costs.

I have used denatured alcohol to remove old rubber band dried residues and stains from the styrene plastic fuselages of Cox and Wen-Mac models, works great and does no have the noxious smell that carb cleaned has.

For gluing the plastic, although Testors will work, for maximum strength, I use acrylic monomer, or Methylene Chloride . These are not glues in the normal sense but rather they are plastic solvents that chemically melt and fuse/weld the plastic together.

The old square metal tanks made by Perfect work well to replace the original crumbling plastic one. . I re-arrange the brass vent tubes to match the old ones in the fuselage and mount the new tank where the old one was. Often, you can remove the plastic tank bottom and fit the metal tank inside it.

Plastex markets and sells a plastic repair kit the works well on most polystyrene RTF models. It also includes a cube of special material what you put in hot water to soften, and it can them be formed over a part to make a mold to use for replicating missing and broken sections. Plastex makes the solvent, and three different types of plastic powder ( white, clear, and fiber-reinforced black) that can be used as a filler or to duplicate parts using the mold material.