Building the De Havilland DH-106 Comet 4

**scon10** · #1 07-31-2008, 12:56 PM

Hi all,
Lex has designed a beautiful model of the De Havilland Comet 4C, which I downloaded from another forum. It is in the colours of British European Airways of the 1960's and is a modellers delight. I took the liberty for my own personal use to recolour it in the BOAC colors of 1959 (Lex, I hope you don't mind that) and have started to build it, some pictures will be included.
What I wanted is a silvery botom and wings, using the inktjet printable silver paper from Red River, and bright white for the roof and the cheatlines along the windows. For this, I copied and pasted the two undersides of each fuselage section together. I use Paint Shop Pro X2 for this copy and pasting and the recolouring in BOAC colours. I also resized the model in scale 1: 50, since my other models of 1950's are also in that scale The resulting sections, I printed on silver paper. I also printed the same sections on bright white photopaper. Then, I cut out the roof section, including the blue cheatlines with the windows for each fuselage section and did the same for the full bottompart on the silver paper. I cut out the windows and assembled both section halves together.
You end up with a fuselage barrel, with two seams underneath the windows. There are therefore no seams on the underside of the model. (I have always wondered why designers put the seam on the underside, instead of under a window cheatline, where most airlines have a line running anyway.)

I just started the build, so I can show you only the two sections I have finished so far. I hope this makes sense to you.

Lex, if there is a rainy sunday afternoon at your place, could you design the BOAC mid wing fuel tanks on the leading edge? Thanks!
Regards.

**Rick Thomson** · #2 07-31-2008, 03:04 PM

Looking very nice.

**Don Boose** · #3 07-31-2008, 05:26 PM

I'm glad to see someone building this beautiful airliner after all of Lex's work. It looks great so far. The polished metal finish is excellent.

Don

**Lex** · #4 07-31-2008, 10:39 PM

Thank you for building this model Scon10! The metal finish looks great!! In fact I had all the 4C parts ready, but didn't (yet) have time to colour them... If you don't mind I'll put all the different parts for the 4C here, and you could give them some colours, cheers :D

...On the issue of putting the seam below fuselage... Personally I think it's just that doing the model this way makes it easier to design -- The part is symmetrical. But you are right, it's a small deal to modify the seam on the finished part in Rhino, I definitely will keep that in mind in the future! Thanks

**Lex** · #5 08-01-2008, 06:40 PM

On second thought... Would you rather wait for the recoloured version...?

**scon10** · #6 08-02-2008, 08:56 AM

Hi Lex, I am not sure if I understand you correctly. Are you speaking of the wing leading edge tanks for the BOAC version? In that case, yes, I could wait for the recoloured version (BOAC colours). By the way, if this of any help to you: I used the following colour blue in Paint Shop Pro:
R 10 G 59 B 102.
This seemed to me coming close to the colour I have seen in the various colour pictures of the BOAC Comets in books and the internet.
I am now starting to construct the center wing fuselage attachment, and then will start wing the engine framework. After that, I will cover them in the printed silver paper and continue with the wing construction, framework and skins. At that stage, I would like to add the wing leading tanks to the wings, if you could have them available.
Of course, then I will have to stop the construction for I will have to make pictures of the wing as a passenger looking out of the window would have seen it (see my other threads and contributions under the heading Fun with Models and the DC 6B in scratch build, or Paper on Balsa. The scale is 1:50, so one wing half will be around 30,5 cm (full span circa 65 cm. Wow!). With my digicamera in macro setting, that should give a nice picture!
I will look forward to your response and hope for a lot of rain in Oxford...

Regards.
PS, I will make some pictures to illustrate what I am doing. S

**scon10** · #7 08-02-2008, 11:33 AM

Here is the centerwing construction in progress.

**Don Boose** · #8 08-02-2008, 02:29 PM

Very nice. Fine craftsmanship. Good luck to your 1/50 passengers and their camera.

Don

**scon10** · #9 08-04-2008, 05:45 AM

I have prepared the wing spars and the right hand engine frames and bulkheads, to see how Lex has designed the construction of this section of the Comet. In the first picture, I felt, that the bottom central spar needs to slip between the central keel part B24a and the underside of the horizontal fuselage bulkhead part B24, so I cut out an opening with the thickness of the cardboard stiffener I am using in this case. The two central spars are sandwiched under and over part B24, leaving a gap of the same cardboard thickness.
Next, in the 4 parts B27 and 28 a and b respectively, I cut out within the red square a rectangle with the size of three thicknesses of the cardboard stiffener. These four frames slide over the two central spars . leaving exactly a gap in which the two horizontal bulkheads parts B 45 and B46 can be slided between B27a and b for the inboard engine and B28a and b for the outboard engine.
Finally, the closing bulkheads in front and back, parts B43 and 44, form the endplates and thus boxes are formed, over which the engine skins can be applied.
I hope this makes sense, but also see the pics.
As Lex mentioned in the Instructions, all frames and bulkheads need to be cut somewhat smaller, via the purple lines, to accomodate for the cardboard stiffener thisckness. In the pictures, you can see, that I have not so done yet.
When everything fits, I will construct the engines/wing group and the fuselage central keel as a separate unit, which can be assembled into the fuselage at the end, so that I will be able to make the correct anhedral.
As I said earlier, this design is clever, and makes a modellers delight.
Regards.

**Lex** · #10 08-04-2008, 09:54 AM

Amazing work Scon!! (and great work in deciphering the very little amount of info available in the instructions...) I'm eager to see how the supports fit in the end.

--And a slight question, is it possible for you to scan/photo and send the side view illustration on the book you're using as background, I'm trying to find an accurate mark scheme for the 4C. --Also just to mention that the 4C has a slightly longer wing than the 4B, I wonder if that is or is not a problem for your re-colour...