Scratch-built 1/72 Granger Archaeopteryx

The glamorous 30's

by Gabriel Stern

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What is an Archaeopteryx, besides a very good Scrabble word? Literally, an “ancient wing”.
And you know that with that kind of name…err, it will look…well, you get the idea.
Granger brothers started to build a plane upon a design of their own -refined by Latimer Needbam- that flew in the very early 30’s. It was influenced by the equally bizarre –read “beautiful”- Pterodactyls built by Capt. Hill.

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Although unusual, it has a pinch of elegance, and makes one think about a modern hang glider allotted with a fuselage. The engine used, a two cylinder 32 hp Cherub of very limited power, made take offs very…interesting.
Being a small plane of course it renders an equally small model, as you can see in the image with the quarter –which, as some of you well know, is for paying the wages of the real builders, the Modeling Brownies-.

 

The Archaeopteryx –sorry to make you read this word again- is a fairly simple scratch project, no doubt helped by the use of tiny brass “Strutz” for all of the –many- required homonyms.
The photo sequence as usual will provide you with a general idea regarding materials and construction steps, leaving out all the annoying screaming, cursing and blasphemy spent in the building process.

As this little moth-like bug flies off your book case into the eerie atmosphere of the room, it will remind you of Tinkerbell, leaving a sparky trail as it lands, with a subtle shudder, in your building board.

Gabriel 

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Photos and text © by Gabriel Stern