1/48 Hobbycraft Canada (Turbo) Beaver

by Chris Parsons

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First of all, thanks to those who encouraged me to submit my Turbo Otter conversion.  Then, thanks to those of you who sent me the kind words upon seeing it published on ARC.  Well, I'm back. This time it's another De havilland Canada product.  My rendition of C-FOEF.  I apprenticed as a AME. while working with this airplane at Athabaska Airways, but enough of that.  You can find pictures of this plane by Googling it's reg. (C-FOEF) and it's ultimate fate...I built the kit pretty much out of the box...well, no, I guess I didn't.  I used the airframe from the wings back except for the fin, rudder and ventral stabalizer. 

Everything in front of the wings is new also.  I added some length to the forward fuselage, this was required to maintain the c. of g. on the real conversion but it also had the added convenience of adding more doors, which I used to full advantage by building up a fairly complete interior.  I did up seats, seat belts, extinguishers, instruments, etc, etc, as can be seen in photo's 4 and 5 (If I've submitted them in the right order.)  After I had the lengthened fuselage roughed in I epoxied a block of pine to the nose and began the carving to get my turbo beaver nose. Once I had cut away everything that didn't look like a turbo beaver, I broke the nose off and did the silicon rubber and resin thing. I made the exhausts from squashed and bent aluminum tube, the spinner from a drop tank and propellor blades from the very very very old Cessna 180 kit. (which was another conversion to a skywagon 185...but later...maybe)

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

Photo 3 

  

Photo 4 

  

Photo 5 

  

Photo 6 

I built the floats as is, adding only the spray shields at the bows, water rudders, paddles, and some rigging.

Picture 6 shows my small fleet of Beavers CF-AEB (at the back) is a desert conversion with the carb. air intake moved to the upper right side of the cowl, and wing tip tanks, this one is still in service. C-FJKG (on the right) Lost in the bush in northern Saskatchewan early in the '70's. and C-FOEF on the left.

 

I changed the positioning of the front cabin doors, which seemed too low to me. Because these kits are moulded in clear plastic I had to paint it inside and out. To prevent it being translucent. I used Gunze acrylics and my homemade decal concoction on the model with the cheat lines in black foil. The real plane's flaperons would sag quite quickly after parking so mine did as well. Once again she's parked with the props in the full feathered position.

Chris

Photos and text © by Chris Parsons