Being that I really want to stay with this hobby now that I’ve got a dedicated workspace, I’ve no sooner finished my last kit than started the next.
I pulled the Williams Brothers GeeBee Z kit down off the workshop shelf yesterday evening as I was waiting for some charcoal to get going in the barbecue.
Overall, it looks like a well detailed kit, though I was a little bit discouraged by the amount of flash on some of the parts (especially the very small engine exhaust stacks). The kit comes in two gray-molded parts trees and one plastic bag containing rubber tires, the clear canopy, and some monofilament to be used for rigging wires. Waterslide decals are included as well, which are rather well detailed.
Instructions are printed on a two sided legal sheet with assembly guide on one side and paint-detail guide on the other. The paint-detail diagrams are actual size, so it will be easy to photocopy them at 100% in order to construct the masks required for the rather intricate black-on-yellow paint job.
I started in on the Wasp Jr. radial engine right away, following the guide’s color suggestions (which appear to have been well researched). Color suggestions are very specific for each part of the engine: gray crankcase, gloss black cylinders, chrome pushrod tubes, steel intake manifold (not shown in pic) and rust-colored exhaust stacks.
When it’s done, I’m thinking of displaying this one in some sort of diorama. It would be my first such display. Any suggestions as to how?
You just reminded me of how timeless those Williams Bros. kits are. They do excellent research, which is possible when you released an average of one kit every three or four years. The other Gee Bee is a real joy to build (I haven’t done the Z, but they are similar), but a bear to paint since the red scallops have tiny black “cheater” stripes between the red and white. I like the inclusion of the inner frame, and on mine I used it as a pattern to make one from scratch. I’m glad to see this company soldier on, year after year, with subjects no other maker would dare touch.[:D]
Actually, it was the 1932 Thompson Trophy race, and it was in a GeeBee R-1. Jimmy Doolittle not only flew the R-1 to victory in Cleveland on September 5, 1932, but he lapped his competitors while averaging 252.67 miles per hour. “Like a bullet.” were the words he used to describe how the plane flew.
True. Maybe one of us should write a letter to see if we can get them to kit some 1950’s through modern-day general-aviation stuff?
I assembled the two halves of the cowling today. The fit was rather attrocious, so lots of puttying and sanding needed to be done.
Thank GOSH for Mr. Surfacer 500! This is how it turned out after all the sanding and a shot of primer!
I also assembled the cockpit, which is rather simple. Eight pieces in this sub-assembly. Painted zinc-chromate, though the framework will be painted “wood” color, if I can figure out what that is.
Williams Bros. make several things clear about their kits, and these things should always be kept in mind when building. To wit: They are for experienced modelers; these kits are the basis for using your own skills to improve and detail them and lastly, the fit is not always for the squeamish. But I will swear by their kits any day and I hope they always stay in biz. Also, notice that from the first to the latest kit, the quality improves with every release. I just wish their B-10 was in 1/48. I’d give anything to build a good 1/48 B-10 in blue and yellow scheme. Anyhow, Williams Bros. – fine product, fine price, fine company. This is another co., like Accurate Miniatures, that has “made by modelers” written all over everything they do. In fact, if you have get hung up with a building problem, you can just phone them up and they’ll round up somebody who can help you out. And, no, I wasn’t paid for this endorsement.
This is really turning out to be a fast-building kit. I think the finishing is what will take the longest. From tomorrow on I’ll be back to work after a month and a half off for the birth of our daughter, so my kit-building hours will need to be cut back a significant amount.
Small progression today.
The cockpit frame fit very nicely into the right half of the fuselage. After dry-fitting and then gluing it in, I realized that virtually none of the cockpit framework can be seen through the canopy. The opening is about 1/2" wide by 3/4" long, and as I recall from reading, was just big enough in real-life for the pilot’s head! I can’t find any pictures of the real thing that show the cockpit open, and I can’t remember if there was a frame around the base of the canopy that was covered and painted to match the fuselage color. That’d be the only way I could figure a guy’d be able to get in and out of this thing! As it sits, I elected to pass on detailing the cockpit section any further.
Very minor fit issues between the two fuselage halfs. The lower intake scoop needed to be sawed off in order to accomodate the larger scoop for the larger engine and cowling. That’s the hole on the forward part of the lower fuselage.
You can see from the above photo that I’ve already begun gap-filling the fuselage with Mr. Surfacer. That will be the last step I take on the kit until I return home from work on Sunday evening.
As of now, I’m off to have lunch with my wife and pack for my four-day trip! More next week, if you’re interested!!
As I recall, the R2 kit has a cutout for a door. It should be on the Z as well. That’s why I went ahead and detailed my cockpit. I had the door hanging down. It needed a framwork on it, because it was fabric, but it shows off the cockpit well.
It wasn’t mentioned on the R2 either, I don’t think. It was simply engraved on the inside of the left half of the fuselage. Very prominently. Maybe it’s not there on the Z. I had the kit, but never got around to it before the flames did.
Does anyone know of any reference that would give detail photos and interior colors of these Golden Age racers? I remember building my Williams Bros. Gee Bee R2 and found some reference that said entire interior was aluminum laquer, including fabric inside areas. But it was vague at best. As CaptBrazilia says, if you don’t open that door, or have the door, you can’t see a bloody thing inside, even in that big 1/32 scale. But I would not trade Williams Bros. cataloge of kits for anything. Reasonable price, no promises. That’s their philosophy. You are given a great starting point and then left to your own best skills. They build up beautifully, partly because they’re based on beautiful subjects.
This morning, I coarse-grit sanded the seams of the fuselage. I’ll be polishing them off later with successively finer grits so that primer goes on smooth.
Remember the scoop I sawed off the bottom of the forward fuselage? I replaced it with the larger scoop for the bigger engine. Here’s two pre-Mr. Surfacer shot.
Post Mr. Surfacer, pre-sanding pic next. I plan on trying to blend the new scoop into the fuselage as much as possible…at least at the rear portion.
I also cemented the wing-halfs together and puttied the leading and trailing edges.
Waiting for them to dry now before I continue with what little more work I can do today.
Mr. Surfacer is produced by Gunze Sangyo in Japan and exported. It comes in spray form and liquid-in-a-bottle form, and with a varying fineness of suspended particulate (i.e. 500, 1000, 1200). I use the bottle-form of Mr. Surfacer 500. It seems to do quite well for just about everything I need.
This stuff is basically a thinned Bondo, as near as I can tell. I spread or dab it onto a seam with a paintbrush or toothpick, let it dry, and sand the seam down with varying grits until the seam is perfectly filled and smooth. After a piece is primed, it should appear that no seam existed in the first place. This stuff works great, but patience is required. Spray-priming the piece will allow any tell-tale blemishes in the seam to be found after using Mr. Surfacer.
Right now Mr. Surfacer is difficult to find in the States for some reason. I managed to score three extra bottles of the stuff recently, so I’m set until whatever’s causing the delay passes.
I managed a little build time this morning while my wife and daughter were snoozing on the couch. [:D]
I’ve finished the blending and detailing of the new air scoop. It turned out pretty well, I think. Go back and take a look at what it looked like before puttying and priming and you’ll see what I mean.
This morning I began the assembly of the landing gear. The rubber tires that are included with the kit, though a nice touch, tend to pick up EVERY spec of dust around them due to static electricity. They’re going to be a bear to keep clean as I finish the seams on the wheel-pants.
Landing gear after assembly and puttying:
Joined the wings and horizontal stabilizer to the fuselage and prepared the seams for finishing today, too.
So now it sits overnight for the putty to cure. Tomorrow will be a bit of sanding and polishing followed by priming for paint. Since I go back to work again on Thursday morning, tomorrow will be my last build day for the week.
Looking great. I haven’t seen a Williams Bros. kit build in progress EVER. So thanks. And thanks for turning me on to Mr. Surfacer. Sounds like just the ticket, if we can just ever find any. BTW, I happen to like those rubber Williams Bros. tires too. Nice and fat and bald like the originals. When you lightly sand just the surface of the circumferance that touches the ground, it turns to the perfect texture and color.
They sell Mr. Surfacer in my lhs, but only the spray type I think. I need to look again next time I go back. I’d love to have a jar of it.
This is a really great looking build Cap’n. I need to show it to my girlfriend, as I’ve gotten her to start building the old Hawk Gee Bee racer. She just loves that plane. I can’t wait to see more pics later.
My hobby shop had little news about the availability of Mr. Surfacer as of this morning. They aren’t having any difficulties getting other Gunze Sangyo products, though. Just the bottles of Mr. Surfacer are tough to get. They were speculating that there is a “reformulation” occurring. We’ll see.
