Assembling plastic parts

[GGB14]

I'm building the Sopwith Camel for my grandson's birthday but I'm confused about the plastic parts included in the kit. First off, the direction for how to assemble them are vague to say the least. Take to propeller for instance: I don't understand how I am supposed to glue both sides together when there is virtually no surface area to glue to. It would almost be easier to use what has been provided as forms, fill them with resin and glue both halves together. How are other dealing with this?

[heywooood]

What kind of glue are you using? It has been a while since I last built the Camel but on the Guillow Stearman kit # 803 I used the kit provided plastic prop. The two halves when cut from their plastic sheet look unrelated to each other and unlikely to use in any way. However, working from the middle of the prop out toward the tips, one blade at a time, the super glue or CYA medium viscosity adhesive works. What I do is try to fit the rear half inside of the front half of the prop..or pilot..and more or less ‘fill’ the seam with adhesive. Once it is dry you can sand the seams down with 150 grit on a sanding block. Just be careful not to go through the seam. Just clean away the excess plastic and dried adhesive. If you do sand through part of the seam just use liquid plastic cement (like Tamya or equal) and piece of scrap plastic from the sheet you cut the prop halves from - insert the scrap into the gap and let the liquid cement flow all around it to melt it into place. Then sand smooth again when its dry.

[GGB14]

Thanks. Kind of a jenky set-up but I'll give it a shot.

[heywooood]

it is janky - much better to make your own props than use the kit provided vac-formed ones but that can be daunting and take a while to become adept at.
I have made my own propellers a few times now - the most recent was a replica of the Hamilton Standard used in the mid 30's - made it for my Flyline Stearman elsewhere on this page.
It is a completely different type of propeller to what you need for the Camel however - so the youtube video I posted of 'how-to' won't likely help you much.
here is one of the vids anyway..if you want to see more (there might be 4 or 5 just on making the prop - I got carried away) just poke around on the channel - it's free https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbGuaPDrlws
I can say however that the method I described for assembling the kit plastic prop does work, and you can paint it in wood tones that should make it convincing enough.

[GGB14]

Thanks! This is just a display model to hang from the ceiling so I'm not worried if the prop's performance or weight.

[BillyG02]

Before I started re doing my house to sell I started the p51 mustang and it when finished will be just a display I went to the local hobby shop found a correct prop and spinner a lil redesign on the way to mount it on the plane it came out very nice and works with the rubber band