Oh! Racers! And not just that… Schneider racers! Very exciting always. A number of them are posted on this blog, and today we start the Gloster III from Karaya. This manufacturer should be congratulated for tackling a wonderful series of racers. I have built a few of their kits:
The Supermarine Sea Lion, a nice kit that needs nonetheless some help and corrections:
https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2020/07/supermarine-sea-lion-schneider-trophy.html
Their Savoia S.65 that has some visible inaccuracies that must be corrected, and its engineering could use some help:
https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2020/02/savoia-s65-schneider-cup-modified.html
And the Brown racer, a nice little kit, to which a couple minor details can be added:
https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2025/12/brown-b-2-racer-karaya-172nd-resin.html
They are resin kits, and as a media resin kits in general have come a long way. Personally, I think reaching their acme with the SBS releases. Karaya kits I would say are just behind, their subjects are great, and their casting is good.
My sample had a missing joystick (easily replaced) and a broken rudder pedal (again easy to replace) but otherwise all was good. They kindly provide a beaching trolley and a tail support structure, but the trolley doesn’t look like the one in photos (you can make it useful to space and rig the floats after some deeded adjustments, though). Control horns are provided as resin parts and those will be replaced by photo-etched items. The exhausts on the original come out of the cowl visibly from the top bank of cylinders, but the kit just has recessed moldings on their position, flattened tube may do here. Other modelers have observed that the floats are somewhat apart of what they should be, they need to be closer (thus modifying the beaching trolley and associated struts). The plans point out to a small piece of film for the windshield that was absent from my box but any thin clear plastic bit will do. The alternate bigger fin doesn’t have a rudder, thus necessitating stealing the one from the early small vertical tail. Modelers have also rightly pointed out that the two halves of the rudder (upper and lower) need to be connected around the fuselage ending cone.
Other than that, is up to the modeler, looking at photos readily available online, to add small details like the tiny radiator caps, a small L -shaped item after the cabane, a missing third airscoop on the fuselage frontal section, etc. The other small airscoops on the sides are not particularly well rendered -as photos show- because the holes are not on the fuselage skin, but part of the scoop body itself.The wing radiators are too big and need reducing in lenght and
Karaya missed the race numbers located under the wings as this photo shows:
No. 11353. Gloster IIIA (N194) Royal Navy
https://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/CarleWillard/11353.htm
Scanning the decal sheet and printing the numbers on decal paper will solve this issue
The box:
.png)
.png)
These photos and drawings show the engine as used for other racers, but the Gloster III had the top bank exhausts to the other side:
Lower wings, fuselage and floats have locating devices. They work pretty well, only one float needed adjusting. Tail feathers and struts will need metal pins. The location of the struts is not marked on the wings and should be deduced from the 3-view in the instructions and photos.
Preparing some parts for priming and painting:
.png)
.png)
A coat of primer on some of the parts revealed a very good surface with little to touch up:
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment