Building a Bentley

[StephenLawson]

With the advent of Eduards various 1/48 Sopwith Camel F.1 & 2F.1 the subject has arisen concerning the Bentley installations. I thought it might be good to see a nicely built 1/28 version. Thanks to our own PeterL and Daniel Silvestri.

Modelling the 2f1 verion of the Sopwith Camel involves, amongs other things, replacing the kit's Clerget engine with a British Bentley BR1. Bentleys series of rotaries began with a need to improve on the Clerget, the British built versions of which were less reliable than the French. Daniele also took the Clerget as his start point. As can be seen, considering the limitations in mold technology at the time, Revell did an outstanding job of representing the Clerget. Replacing the heavily molded push rods with steel pins or fine wire is not difficult and well worth the effort. However, Daniele needed to do a lot more than that.

Common household copper wire is the main material, stripped of insulation and painstakingly wound around each of the nine cylinders. The cylinders were first removed from the crank case which was itself increased in diametre with a ring of thick plastic card. The various flats and bevels are then filed and sanded into the plastic. Thicker wire serves as the induction manifold, whilst the steel pins used for the push rods are a clear improvement on the kit parts. The four long tubes running down the sides of each block are head retaining bolts, and again steel wire is used. Aluminium paint and a dirty wash complete the job.
http://wwimodeler.com/esc/bentley.html

http://wwimodeler.com/esc/camel.html

[GregorySharp]

You saw that Stephen? Well shucks. Did you like the kit otherwise?

[StephenLawson]

Originally Posted by EduardFreak

You saw that Stephen? Well shucks. Did you like the kit otherwise?

Your model gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. More on that later.