Clerget 9B Rotary Engine. 1/8th. Hasagawa.

[Dr Dave]

While I was doing the oil lines I also made new magneto leads. I used some very fine red insulated wire (nice and bright against the other colours), cut up some small pieces of vinyl tube and aluminium tube, 1 brass screw, and used the centre "V" of the original part. Turned out much better than the kit part. With that done, it's time to glue the main shaft into the bell housing.

[xken]

Great job on this build! Here is a reference cross section drawing for reference. If you need any other details let me know I have a reproduction of the original engine manual.

Keep up the great work! Ken

[Dr Dave]

Thankyou Ken. That original manual might have been handy when I started the build, but then again, I'm kinda glad I didn't know you had it or I would probably be making all the internal stuff. There wasn't much I really needed to know as I'm only replacing what's already in the kit, but I would like to know what metals the crank case and cylinders are made of. If I think of anything else I'll ask. Thanks Ken.

Here is the main part of the engine together. Still to go are the intake pipes and all the push rods.

Until the next update, happy modelling.
Dave.

[Dr Dave]

This is the first test fit of the incomplete engine on the main shaft. I had the crank case on there very early in the build to check that all was well before adding the cylinders. There's not much clearance between the spark plug wires and the bell housing bolts but it works fine.

The front cover is airbrushed in Alclad Polished Brass and, with the stainless bolts and washers, really stands out against all that silver. I've found, through previous testing, that this Alclad has the same finish no matter what base coat it goes over. I tried straight primer , gloss black, and gloss white base coats, and got the same result on all 3. That was after a couple of good coats, although with just a light coat you can see a slight difference.

Dave.

[Dr Dave]

The air intake pipes have a flange glued to each end. The crank case end is fine, but the cylinder end is not quite right. They have molded the bolt heads on one side and the nuts on the other side of a singe flat piece of plastic with no discerning line between the two halves of the flange. I took this as an opportunity to add a bit more. I used [B].[/B]5mm styrene sheet to cut out the missing flanges.

More holes drilled and moldings removed, a coat of primer and then a base coat of chrome silver before airbrushing the new flanges with the same titanium gold as on the cylinders. I also gave the intake pipes a base coat of chrome silver followed by a top coat of MrMetalcolor Copper. It's the first time I've used this paint through an airbrush and I was surprised to see the finished appearance very powdery. On the paint jar it says to give it a light buff after it has dried, so I did this and found that it came up with a very nice shine.

The last photo shows the difference between the airbrush finish on the 2 pipes in the middle, and the polished finish on the 2 outside pipes.

[Dr Dave]

The intake pipes can now be fitted to the engine. I'm glad I made those extra flanges, they really make a difference to the appearance of the attachment points on the heads.

[Dr Dave]

Now to dress up the front of the engine with some nice brass push rods. Yes, real brass, supplied in the kit, and hand polished with Autosol Metal Polish and an old T-shirt. My reference photos show a nut on every push rod at the cam end, so I picked out 18 brass nuts and drilled them out to fit on the rods. I'm guessing they might be adjusting nuts. Ken, would you be able to find them in that manual you have please?

Supplied in the kit are 36 push rod end caps. My ref pics show these on the crank case (they look like lifters), but not on the rocker ends, so I didn't put them on the rocker ends. I replaced them with aluminium tube cut to 2mm lengths which slip over the brass rod and attach to the rocker. The 18 caps to be used have been treated with a dose of MGM chrome powder over a gloss black base.

[Dr Dave]

The engine is now finished and ready to be mounted on the main shaft. A retaining plate is glued to the end of the shaft to keep the engine in place and the engine rotates around the shaft. Some of my reference pics have cut off propellers mounted to the engines and I thought this looked pretty good, a nice finishing touch, so I ordered a wooden prop to give my engine that same finishing touch.

[Dr Dave]

Almost finished, but not quite done yet. The in-completion of the model (with a bit of a hurry up at the end) happened to be just in time for the annual QMHE (http://www.qmhe.com/) held in Brisbane on the weekend of August 20th & 21st. The wooden prop I had been waiting 3 weeks for arrived on the 22nd . Just in time all right! I added the last little bit to it at 5am on the 20th, and with no prop, packed all the models in the car and headed off for the 2 hour drive to the show.

[Dr Dave]

Now that the show is over I don't have to hurry getting the prop on. To scale, the propeller is a bit smaller than it should be, but it does the job ok. I started by holding the prop in front of the engine to gauge a good length to cut it off at, taking into consideration the curve of the edges. After cutting the ends off I sanded the clear coating, the printing, and the sharp edges back till it was smooth and clean.

Next step was to make the hub plates and get out some more nuts & bolts. A piece of sheet styrene from the scrap box received lots of circle cutting to make the plates, then the plates were used as templates to drill the bolt holes through the prop. I have a piece of fibre glass rod left over from kite making long ago which donated one of its ends to reinforce the attachment of the prop to the front of the engine. The optical bolts I'm using here have star heads which I file down to make hex heads and then spin the flat top of the head on some fine sandpaper to give it a turned appearance.

I brush painted the hub plates with Tamiya chrome silver acrylic and let the plates and the brush half dry, then I lightly brushed again round the plates like they were disk brakes. The effect is a very subtle circular grain in the imitation metal surface but with no texture. The prop received 4 coats of clear varnish and sun dried. The finished prop turned out better than I had hoped.

[xken]

Great engine build and detailing. When you get some extra time here is a link to carving a prop that I put together awhile back.
Ken Foran : Hand Carved Props - How ToWhat will be your next project?

Keep up the great work you are doing!

Ken

[Dr Dave]

Thankyou very much Ken. That's a great tutorial on how to make a prop. If I can track down the Le Rohne engine kit that matches this Clerget I will seriously consider giving the hand carving a go, those laminated props look pretty nice. I'm hoping both engines will fit on this 8x10 inch base.

My next project Ken? I don't really know. I'm having a bit of a scratch through a few kits and looking at 3 re-builds at the moment but don't know what to do . I can also see that unfinished 1/6 Suzuki Katana on the shelf. Maybe I'll go and mow the grass and think about it later.

PS. I received a gold medal at the QMHE competition for this engine.

[modelmaker]

Beautiiful Work Dave and a well deserved gold win at the QMHE. I've been following this build over on LSP you had a great following over there.

Sean

[ipcress]

Gorgeous build- congratulations. I'll be looking closely at what you've done when I'm making mine!

Tony

[Dougritt]

Congratulations Dave on a spectacular display model. The paintwork is first class!
Thanks for sharing the play-by-play.


Doug