Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

[Second Air Force]

Courtesy of Eduard (and No.1 for sending the kit to me) the new R-2800 engine kit will be reviewed here. This is specifically engineered for the Eduard F6F Hellcat line of kits but could easily be adapted to other manufacturers models as well.

Typical of Eduard products, the kit comes carefully packed in a sturdy box with lots of foam padding and a nice instruction booklet:

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

Here are all the resin parts unpacked and the second photo shows the PE fret:

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

Following along with the start of the build, I removed the pour stubs from the various parts and then cleaned up the remaining flash, which is quite minimal with the casting method used. The cylinders were left on the pour blocks for ease of painting and I'll cut them off just before installing them. Even the complex exhaust stacks were easier to prepare than I had thought they would be:

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

The final step this evening was to trim the VERY thin cowling sections from their pour blocks and then remove the appropriate sections from the kit cowling. This cowling is a left-over part from the Eduard Hellcat I recently built so it's being modified for this engine project:

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

Next will be to start painting!

[No.1]

Great number of parts, this will be so detailed

[Second Air Force]

After cleaning up the small amount of flash on the forward cylinder exhaust pipes I sprayed the cylinders with MM Aluminum and the crankcase and reduction gearbox with medium grey. Later the exhaust pipes and induction tubes on the front cylinders also were painted the appropriate colors. After the paint was dry small holes were drilled (the indentations are provided by Eduard, just need to drill them through) in each cylinder baffle to allow the PE spark plug wires to penetrate.

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

[No.1]

As well you have seen this engine in live, painting should not be problem for you

[Sall]

Soooo many parts on this small engine!!

[Second Air Force]

Sall, I can comment on the number of parts--they fit together so well that this is actually a relaxing thing to construct! The only tedious bit is having eighteen cylinders to paint with different colors. Also the ignition harness routing will require patience to complete, but this will all be worth it in the end. I've built a few resin radial engines and they generally don't include the pushrod tubes as part of the castings as Eduard has here. That means cutting many small pieces of styrene tubing to the correct lengths--THAT can be very boring and time-consuming!!!!

No.1, I've actually worked on a few real R-2800s and this small version is definitely more fun (and a LOT cleaner!!!!).

[Second Air Force]

Tonight I was able to install the eighteen cylinders onto the center section. They fit nicely with positive positioning into the crankcase and the cylinder baffles fit together on each cylinder just like the real thing!

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

[No.1]

It look like complex but I guess it is pleasure to do

[Sall]

 

[Second Air Force]

This is really not hard to do but it is quite repetetive. One thing I did do was to install the cylinders first with "regular" glue instead of CA so that some movement could still be done before the glue dried. That idea was only partially successful and I had to re-glue several cylinders with CA later.

[Second Air Force]

In this latest installment I took on the ignition harness assembly. Eduard thoughtfully sends along two complete harnesses but I was able to get the first one installed without breaking it. The holes I drilled in the black baffles on top of each cylinder now come into play as the rear plug wires for each cylinder are routed through these holes. Sorry I didn't take any "in progress" photos of the process, but it is relatively easy. I simply removed the harness from the fret and glued the ring onto the crankcase mounting tabs with all the wires still flat. After the CA glue was dry, I used a tiny point tweezers to route each of the 36 wires into the proper position.

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

Also, after the harness was complete, I glued the reduction gearbox into place. The next procedure will be to install the intake tubes on the rear of the engine.

[No.1]

Nice to see this small jewel growing

[Second Air Force]

Now the actual engine is nearly complete after adding the nose case lower tube and the two distributor pressurization tubes, these parts being provided on the PE fret. The exhaust system sections are painted but I likely won't install these permanently until I mate the engine to the aircraft for final fitting. The next project will be to add the PE parts to the kit cowling halves but I may wait to do this until the kit arrives as I have no ring cowl to set my dimensions.

Eduard 1/48 P&W R-2800-10

[No.1]

And I hope yu will have kit soon to complete project

[Sall]

Me too!