ORIGINAL: Shihtzutan
Got this for Christmas and I'm thinking about stripping it and putting it in fabric. Anybody know where I can get a decent 3-view drawing so I can improve where Great Planes missed their mark? A source for a 1/4 scale radial engine would be nice. I though I saw one advertised somewhere. Wheels look a little small and the tailwheel is pathetic. I like what fly4real did with his pilots, . . . cut off their head and turn them? I also noiticed the shock absorbers on the landing gear, nice touch but I'm guessing there are dummys, if not please tell how you managed to do that!!! It's a good looking airplane!
FWIW, the calculated scale is 1:5.33. Weird, huh?
I am doing the same thing as Skyflyer did, in using a set of 1/5 scale Williams Bros. Pratt & Whitney dummy cylinders to make a presentable engine. The P&W cylinders look a whole lot like a Jacobs radial cylinder--Jacobs R-755-9's were used on a few Army Stearmans, and at least one Navy N2S that I happened across a photo of. See the photos below.
I fabricated a septagonal 'crankcase' from 1/8" balsa pieces, molded a hemispherical fiberglass front housing for it, and epoxied it all together. I also cut down the cylinders at the bottom enough to reduce the excess diameter of the finished engine, so it wouldn't look too large on the front of the plane. I used the two-view drawing of the Robart radial engine (modeled after the Jacobs radial) from their site as a giude for sizing the crankcase. I simply blew up the drawing to be the same diameter as the GP dummy engine--8" IIRC--and chopped off however many cylinder fins necessary on each jug to make it come out at approximately the right finished diameter. I used the provided jug flanges with the cut down jugs. I am now in the process of adding the pushrods and other scale details from the cylinder kits.
I am also about to embark on retrofitting a set of VQ shock struts to my Stearman. I can't deal with the too-wide gear that GP provides. It's a shame, as the gear cuffs are quite well done. I'll post on how it turns out (if it turns out at all).
Rick