Looks good Jim !

Are you building models of both of Kermit's Gee Bee's ? Not the two seater, but the yellow / black one and the red / white single seat planes ?

Jim @jimh, I had the chance to meet Delmar back in the 80's at Oshkosh. He said the the Gee Bee flew better in the knife edge attitude than straight and level. Made sense. In that attitude it has a perfect Tear Drop shape.

Thank you for posting those Louis, those are great shots. Really shows the size difference between the two! Delmar is an interesting guy, he test flew the Z out of Leesburg, I'm not sure if anyone else has flown it. I talked to him at the Cleveland Airshow many years ago. He said the Gee Bee was unique but not difficult...he said his Pitts time was key in being ready for the quirks. I wish I would have recorded the conversation, it was a once in a lifetime deal. Delmar is consulting on a friends Gee Bee R-2 build. Delmar gave Mac his concrete wheel pant molds and many of the drawings. Mac lives in Arizona so I have to live vicariously through his facebook posts.

I spent today at an IPMS show in Cleveland, I'll post the photos in blog article. Thanks again for following along! I got some real inspiration today!

Jim
Macs R-2, It's farther along that this, I'll post some more soon. He sent me all the materials and plans to build a full scale rudder for my man cave...one of the many projects in the pipe line 🙂

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Not much to update on but I did get the darker yellow sprayed on, hopefully the contrast will be worth it. I taped up the wheel pants and primed the elevators. If all goes well I'll shoot the black tomorrow. I assembled the cowling and filled it with Tamiya putty. I wet sanded it all the way around and shot it with black. Under a bright light the flaws really stand out. It looks like it was turned on a lathe. I re-sanded it and the first coat of black is acting as a good filler. I'll re-shoot it tomorrow. The only big job left is the engine. I cut off all the pushrod tubes from the WB casting and will replace them with metal rod. The ignition harness will be made from wire and stretched sprue.

Interesting fact which I really never paid attention to before this build...The Z model was only in existence for 75 days. It won the Thompson and was made ready for a run on the absolute speed record. It was flown to Detroit and Lowell Bayles would parish in the crash during the attempt.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

So far so good! I am happy to say the thin tape worked. There is some minor touch up to do for some things I overlooked when I taped the yellow. It won't win any shows but it certainly opens up the door to the other 2 Gee Bees in the stash. Tonight I cleaned up the wheel pants and shot them with Vallejo gloss varnish. I bought some 3000-12,500 grit pads to really fine tune the finish...I figure if I screw up the wheel pants it is easier to fix than the airframe. more soon!

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Fantastic job on those scallops, Jim!

Very nice Jim. Wow that looks nice and crisp!

I would recommend cutting the N number into individual digits on the wing. I got mine on in one piece but it was a bear of a job! Like you said, they are super thin!