1/48 CF-100 Mk IV from Hobbycraft

[Tankbuilder]

Okay; thanks to the current Frankenhawk build by fightnjoe I decided to start working again on my old 1/48 scale CF-100 Mk IV 'Canuck' (akaa 'The Clunk') that has been sitting in the drawer for a number of years now. Here are a number of images as it appeard then and now before I do any more work on it.

I bought two of the 1/48 scale Hobbycraft kits of this bird because I got them at a very low price and I wanted to open up some panels and do some weird things like open up the dive brakes on the top and bottom of the wings. I also wanted to make the two piece rudder movable and try making the canopy moveable and the landing gear retractable. By using two kits, one for donor parts, I was able to cut the openings or the parts off the actual model kit undersize and cut the donor parts off oversize. Careful filing and/or sanding then allows the parts to be mated closely with only a small gap between them rather than a larger one the thickness of a saw blade.

I kind of got carried away and decided to build one Orenda engine and to detail the radar and the radar equipment bay in the nose.

I'm also building a detachable belly gun pack. This pack had eight .50 caliber machine guns in it and by an immense stroke of luck I discovered that 1/35 scale .30 caliber machine guns are extremely close to 1/48 scale .50 caliber machine guns. I had a number of sets of the Italeri Accessories Set that has two .30 caliber machine guns in them. I was able to scrounge the needed ammo feed belts from an old Monogram 1/48 scale Huey Hog kit.

The 1/35 scale Huey UH-1D Gunship kit donated the 7 rocket practice rocket pods for my Clunk. Other kits donated other wingtip mounted arnaments. Not all of these were mounted at the same time.

There's a lot to be done on this old bird yet and I really hope that it shapes up reasonably close to the vision I have for how it should look.

I'll be painting it in the Canadian NATO camouflage pattern.

Here are some images that I hope you'll enjoy.

Comments welcome.

Cheers

Exploded View of my CF-100 Mk IV model

View of the Main Wings and Weapons

View of the Fuselage, Belly Gun Pod Guns and Belts plus the start of the scratchbuilt Orenda Engine

View of the Canopy and the Radar Equipment Housing Area

View of the canopy opened by beind slid back on its scratchbuilt rails. The clear portion of the canopy is the kit piece filed and sanded so that it is much thinner and then polished again.

View of the Itaeri !/35 scale .30 cal guns being used as 1/48 scale .50 cal guns. Also the Monogram 1/48 scale Huey Hog gun belts and 1/35 scale .30 cal ammo boxes.

View of the started scratchbuilt Orenda Engine. Lots of work to do on it yet.

Front View showing the open canopy and the front of the Orenda engine.

Front View showing the scratchbuilt canopy rails on the canopy and the scratchbuilt guide channels on the fuselage. This canopy can be slid closed or opened.

Close up of the front of the canopy showing the I beam that was modified to an upside down T and cemented to the bottom of the canopy to be the rail.

Closeup of the opened canopy showing the canopy rail guides on the fuselage. These were made from two lengths of I beam modified to be upside down L shapes. Not the grey gap between the in the channels in which the canopy rail slides.

Thanks for looking. Thanks for any and all encouragement.

 

[Ben]

I feel you've done a wonderfully, inspiring job so far. Quite a slice of Canadian Aviation history in this bird. Hope you don't put it back into the drawer. Watching close.

 

[sharkman]

I feel you've done a wonderfully, inspiring job so far. Quite a slice of Canadian Aviation history in this bird. Hope you don't put it back into the drawer. Watching close.

Wow! This should look great once you get her all together! Keep at it tankbuilder!

 

[matrixone]

Very impressive, thats a LOT of nice work done there so far.


Matrixone

 

[scorpr2]

It looks like you've done a LOT of nice work so far! You've got a lot of great ideas working on this one! Keep pluging away at it! I'm definitely watching this one!!!

William

 

[Tankbuilder]

This beastie is going to have a couple of models within a model; such as the gun bay tub and the engine. I'm deciding which section to work on next and think I'll go with the most tedious task which is opening up the dive brake slots on the wings and then cutting out the dive braks from the donor model and modifying them to fit the model I'm building.

I'm also wondering, since I still have the donor upper fuselage and canopy, if any of you want to see how I made my canopy operable? If enough of you want to see it I'll do another canopy assembly and take images of the steps I used to make the canopy rail and channel for the canopy. I think the same technique can be used on any bubble type canopy or canopies like those found on the Hawker Hurrican or on the Thunderbolt of WW@ fame.

Let me know if you want to see how I did it.

I'll post images of the dive brakes as soon as I get them cut out.

Thanks again for looking and/or commenting.

Cheers

 

[nsmekanik]

That's a lot of work you've lined up for yourself there mate. I'm all good with the canopy rails, although some clearer pictures might be beneficial, excellent idea . That Orenda is turning out pretty nice, I have few pics of one if you are interested.

 

[Tankbuilder]

That's a lot of work you've lined up for yourself there mate. I'm all good with the canopy rails, although some clearer pictures might be beneficial, excellent idea . That Orenda is turning out pretty nice, I have few pics of one if you are interested.

Thanks.

I think I'm good for the Orenda engine images for this build. Years ago I was at The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at Mount Hope just Outside of Hamilton Ontario. I got some nice shots of an Orenda engine there = each side, front, rear and top views. They have a CF-100 Mk V there that was painted in the black colour and markings of the prototype CF-100. What is really ironic is that the CF-100 Mk V at that museum is the same CF-100 I worked on at Central Technical School in Toronto when I was tgaking aeronautics.How's that for going full circle?

Cheers

 

[moon puppy]

 

[MrT]

 

[fightnjoe]

:yipee

sitting back with my feet up looking forward to what you do with this.





joe

 

[Tankbuilder]

:yipee

sitting back with my feet up looking forward to what you do with this.

joe

Progress is going to be very slow opening up the recesses for the dive brakes anf then modifying the dive brakes from the donor kit to fit tthe recesses. I might just glue them in position instead of trying to make them postionable. We'll see. Not much room there to get the tip of a fine saw blade into.

Thanks and cheers

 

[Tankbuilder]

Hi there.

I've finally got back to working on this beast.

The big holdup was the dive brakes and to be honest that''s where I got hung up. What I've decided to do is build this aircraft as a series of models within models so the task of building the entire model doesn't get overwhelming. Sometimes, like the dive brakes, just the thought of something is enough to put it back on the shelf.

The dive brakes on the AVRO CF-100 were located on the wings top and and bottom. Cutting these out required two models. One model was a donor for various parts such as the dive brakes.

I started by cutting the dive brakes away from one set of wings to get the required 4 dive brakes. Next I have to cut away the dive brakes on the wings I'm actually using on the model. Then I have to cut away all the slots in the dive brake itself. This is extremely tedious and very delicate work.





Here's a partially cleaned up dive brake in position on one of the wings just to show how it'll look in the open position. The brake needs to be thinned a lot but I'll do that after all the excess plastic is removed. That way there's a lot less chance of breaking a dive brake.





This model will have a number of sub-assemblies including the cockpit, the radar and the eight .50 caliber machine guns belly pack. Then i'll be building the rocket pods so that the ends cfan be removed to show the rockets inside.

Thanks for watching. Updates will be more frequent now. Also, comments are welcomed. Actually, sometimes the comments are the main reason we can keep on plugging away on some models.

Cheers from Peter

 

[ij001]

The fact that you're investing so much effort in the speed brakes simply indicates to me, that a magnificent project will ensue. Good-on-ya as the locals here say !!

Ian.

 

[Tankbuilder]

That's a lot of work you've lined up for yourself there mate. I'm all good with the canopy rails, although some clearer pictures might be beneficial, excellent idea . That Orenda is turning out pretty nice, I have few pics of one if you are interested.

I'm finally back 9on this model.

Here are a few images I took just a few moments ago of the canopy assembly. Please be aware that the front of ttyhe canopy is NOT glued to the cockpit yet as I have to build a gunsight for it first.

These show the rails on the cockpit walls.







Here's one showing the canopy in the closed position.


Comments are really welcomed.

Cheers from Peter

 

[Tankbuilder]

Hi there.

Since I was set up to take images of the canopy I thought I might as well pull the canopy off and get a few images of the 'I' beam on the canopy itself that slides along the channel on the cockpit fuselage. The rail on the cockpit is simply two pieces per side made by removing one side of a sideways 'H' beam. By glueing two of those modified 'H' beams with a tiny space between them to the cockpit a channel is created for a small 'I beam' canopy rail to slide into and along that channel.

Here's the closed canopy showing tthe rear of the channel on the cockpit.



Here's the canopy removed and the 'I' beam visible.


Here's a sharper view of the end of the canopy showing that 'I' beam canopy rail.



Here's a side view of the 'I' beam canopy rail with the canopy out of the channel.




I imagine that this technique could be used on many other aircraft where one wanted a canopy that can be positioned.

Comments are always welcomed. I'll answer any questions you might have that I can.

Cheers from Peter

 

[moon puppy]

Great details in here Peter, this is going to be interesting to see how you get those speed brakes thinned and fitted.

 

[Old Dog]

After viewing all of this I think I'm going toss my partially completed kit ! Great work

 

[jknaus]

Cool stuff. The Clunk is one of my fav Canadian a/c. I did my ABDR course on them and also did transient servicing on a few. So cool.
James

 

[Gator]

Very nice work!