First up thanks to geo for posting to me the 'windsock " camel book, which is an excellent photographic and written record of the Camel. It contains vital information for a build like this.
ive made some progress, and am generally happy. first up I decided to replicate at least some of the internals as I said I would. There is a limit to what I can do at this minute, as I'm still waiting for some of the parts Ive ordered, specifically the new guns and some of the IP decals. the bezels arrived on Friday.
First up, I got rid of the injector marks that are just allover this kit. There are 14 on each half of the fuselage alone, The pilot seat has nice moulded wicker and wire effects, basically ruined by two whopping injector pin marks smack in the middle of them.. disappointing...
after surface prep, which included some internal panel lines (which promptly bled through a day or so later after I had applied the oil stain) I applied a base coat of Tamiya dark yellow and then attempted to apply my woodgrain effects by applying an even more yellowish top coat in oil with a brush and then removing it with a sponge. It worked, there is some graining but I did not achieve the outstanding results I was hoping for. I probably should have redone the whole thing at that point, but it looked better when I first did it....my beefs are that the plywood simulation (basically everything forward of the fuel cell) is too yellowy and the grain effects hardly visible, .
I then decided to emulate some of the internal framing and wire bracing, emulating the following details . The real thing looks like this.....
My interpretation of that came up with this......
Note the injector marks I missed! Should be alright as they wont be visible I'm generally happy with that, even with the panel lines bleeding like that. I also drilled out the fuel filler cap and will probably do the same for the breather spout once I work out how it was finished.
Ive also started the the IP and fashioned the main fuel tank. Neither of these elements are finished yet.
I'm still tossing up whether I want to attempt the fuel feed lines. I need to scratch build the hand fuel pressure pump and the mechanical fuel pump as well as the throttle control mechanism. But here are the Incomplete scratch built IP and main fuel cells
ive yet to work out how the hell I'm going to tackle the pilot seat (are there any after market replacements for wicker seats that anybody knows about..... and I'm not sure ive left enough room for the auxiliary fuel tank
Here are some shots of the fuel system schematic and the throttle control mechanism....
A few of the things I'm thinking about......