Very nice !!  Love the color.

Thanks Thyme...
I don't how the guys flew these Golden Age Racers...must have been a bear to land...

Got some more work done on the C.561 Caudron...
Nose block and prop...I'm not quite satisfied with the spinner/hub.  When moving to the new model room I must have bumped the table on the drill press...and drilled it crooked...straightened it and filled it with bamboo skewer...but kept causing the drill bit to wander...so will probably make a new hub/spinner...just took me most of the day to make it but it was the second one,  first was too pointed..."third time's a charm"


Had to trim the blades to fit the chin of the noseblock..


Got some tissue applied and just have to finish under the chin and ventral fuse lage below the wing...

Here's the rest of the pics of the tissue...just domestic tissue applied wet with glue stick...the dye in the tissue turned my hands blue, but cleaned up easily with rubbing alcohol...didn't tighten up as well as I would have liked but will do...afraid on this light structure to shrink too much.







This has been a fun project...making the plans from the 3-View and then building this bird...
Tom

Hi All,

I've been building a Caudron Racer of the 1930's for a Cook Up on SFA...but I'll be posting the build shots here and just major progress on SFA.
 
History
The extremely refined C.561 was the end of a famous and successful line of racers designed by Marcel Riffard and his colleagues at Avions Caudron in the 1930's. Lamentably, although it was the best looking of the series, it was also the least successful. It failed to qualify for the 1939 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe; the 2,000 km race around a long triangular course established in 1933 by Mme. Suzanne Deutsch de la Meurthe for airplanes with engines displacing not more than 8 litres. The plane was not entered for the 1937 race due to slow development of the engine; a displacement reduction to 6.5 litres for 1938 rendered it ineligible.
The wings, tailplane and undercarriage of the C.561 and its six cylinder sister-ship, the C.461 were identical with those of its predecessors, the C.450 and C.460. The fuselage, though, was a totally new design providing a flush hood for the cockpit doing away with the windscreen entirely. Consideration was given to attempting to raise the World Air Speed Record with the C.561 but this idea was abandoned along with development of the 8 litre engine.




I made my own plans from an enlarged 3-view using the box style fuselage construction with dorsal and ventral former over the box fuselage sides. Construction is basically 1/16 sq balsa for the major components with 1/16X1/32 stringers.  The nose is wrapped in 1/32 sheet balsa on the first bay back from the nose block.  The cowling scoop and scalloped cockpit viewing panels are from bond paper.  The vertical fin and rudder outline was made from laminated 1/32 X 1/16 stringers and white glue around a foam board former and left to dry over night.  Here's the pics so far...
Here's my plans...

Fuselage being construction...

Nose sheeting being formed over the fuselage structure...

Top view of the first mockup...

Nose sheeting is completed and the bond paper cowl with intake scoop and the cockpit windscreen scallops are applied...

pics of the 1st mockup with wing made with cracked rib construction...wing has a dihedral of 2 inches with one panel flat on the table...






Tom