pheonix

They were both large aircraft Jon. Good luck getting the window masks off! P

Evening All, I have rewritten the instructions several times as I try to work out the best way of going forwards with this one. Originally I had intended to add the interior details of the nacelle and then proceed with the ribs on the lower wing, but then I realised that the pilot's seat, the engine and radiator would stand very proud of the top of the nacelle and would in all certainty be knocked off when I try to put the wing ribs into place. So a rethink or two later I decided it was safe to put in the observer's seat and rudder bar, after the seats and rudder bar assembly had been completed. The seats were mounted on plywood sheets resting on the nacelle frame, so they were represented by thin plastic card: I am still not sure that I am happy with the seat belts - I may replace them later. The observer's seat and the rudder bar were fixed in place: The wires in the second photo are from the ribs nearest the nacelle: these have been painted and rigging and bracing wires inserted because it will not be possible to reach here later on in the build when I want to start rigging. I also inserted the next three ribs between the nacelle and the boom attachment point on both sides of the nacelle. The booms are from brass rod and were soldered to the rear boom: the ribs against the nacelle were far enough from the soldering iron and hot metal that they did not melt. I did not photograph the jig for soldering on this occasion but it is simple enough to describe. I set the nacelle sub-assembly on a block of balsa wood and placed the brass rod booms over a copy of the plan. The height of the rear end of the boom relative to the spar is calculated from the side elevation drawing as follows: a. draw a horizontal line from the rear of the rib to beneath the rudder post; b. measure the vertical distance from the bottom of the rudder post to the line. This distance is the height that the rear end of the boom needs to be above the rear end of the spar on the model. Now a block of wood or other support can be set at the correct height relative to the nacelle sub-assembly and spar and the ends of the booms placed on it. With the booms soldered and the joint cleaned the inner ribs could be slid into place and set with CA: To get the ribs accurately into place on the opposite side I had to pin the structure to the balsa block and pull the ribs over the plans: The ribs outboard of the booms could now be put on with some of the flying wires attached via holes in the ribs, as I do not wish to use turnbuckles. Personally I think that the items available on the aftermarket are too large to be realistic, and in addition trying to fix them on parts of this model, (the brass bar nacelle frame and brass rod booms), is not possible. However it does mean that I have a tangle of threads on both wings which I am sure are going to be a real pain during the build until I fix the top wing and can put them into place: Two small ribs are missing from the wing tips - these are being left off at the moment as I have decided that the brass bar alone is too thin to represent the spars accurately so I intend to add strips of 30 thou plastic to the top and bottom. If I put the last two spars into place now I know for a fact that I will have to put them on again after I have knocked them off! Thanks for looking. P

Very sorry to read your news Ian. I do hope that you can get something organised - as others have written we are here supporting you. P

Looks good Ian. Rigging on these is not too difficult except that there is not much room between those wings! P

That is looking super. Quite a feat to fix that top wing (which must be quite heavy given the span and the fact it is a modified 0/400 part. The struts look fine from here (except the inboard rear port side....) and all looks square and true. This is really taking shape and hopefully will be ready for paint before too long. P

Thanks Jon and Dennis. Yes Jon my need to practice Anglo-Saxon was alleviated by Dennis' timely intervention! Dennis: I use a small variable temperature soldering iron and clean up the joints with a file. I do however use solder sparingly, which does help to reduce the mess around the joint! P

Some would argue that they are the only aircraft to have character....... P

Evening All, Thanks to Dennis pointing me to Wyman's drawings of the DH 1A which have quite a lot of information about the cockpit details, (and from which the drawings in the DataFile were almost certainly copied), I am now able to reconstruct something closer to reality in the nacelle. This has meant that I have had to make several alterations to the nacelle frame and other changes. At least I have this information at a time when I can use it constructively without having to conduct major surgery or start afresh. The first change was to remove the vertical bar in the rear nacelle bay and replace it with a bar from plastic strip further to the rear. Before: after: The bottom frames were also added from plastic strip, followed by the lower curved section in the front of the observer's cockpit. The vertical bar in the nose was soldered to the two half-rings: The metalwork was primed, and bulkheads fixed to the rear of the pilot's cockpit and between the pilot and observer cockpits. The remaining cross members of the nacelle frame completed this structure including two engine bearers in the rear. The frame was painted with acrylics and the bulkheads with oils - the latter were coated with Revell clear orange varnish when the oil paints were dry: At last I should be able to start adding the internal details to the cockpits. Thanks for looking. P

I agree with Adrian. Having converted one of these from an Airfix Avro 504 I think that I know something of the problems involved in getting the distance correct. P

Thanks to all for the generous comments - much appreciated. In my previous incarnation as a modeller, I started to make/convert all of the pusher biplanes of British design that saw operational service with the RFC/RNAS - there were 7 in total if you count the FE 2 as one design. I had built the Revell DH 2 and started on the Vickers FB 5 and FB 9 Gunbusses but only finished them when I restarted modelling over 30 years later! I have since converted them all, and have continued with my interest in other WW1 pusher types by scratch building them: this was the latest. I have posted builds elsewhere (on ww1aircraftmodels.com and other sites), and posted pictures of many of them on this site under RFI. I have also scratch built a partial strip down FB 5 and am currently building a strip down DH1A in 1/32 scale. Personally I find them interesting types which offer different modelling challenges, but ones which can be overcome fairly readily with a little thought and ingenuity. P

Good idea with the struts Jon.Not as complicated as it reads - just follow the photos and it is actually straightforward. P

Excellent scratch build and an informative log. I have double double vision when I look at this - would also make an interesting subject to scratch in the true scale. P

I have got to make a batch of pulleys for my DH 1A although they will be bigger than yours (1/32 scale). Pushers do like to present the modeller with some different features! P

The last stages of filling and sanding are always the most frustrating when the end is in sight - well just! The model is looking very good though and will really be transformed when you spray it with silver finish. P

I agree with Rob - a real journey into the mysterious and obscure but an excellent result. Does this mean that I will not have to worry about double vision in future? P

laying a second transfer over the first is going to test your patience Ian - rather you than me, but form past performance I suspect that will will succeed. If you have to put one on the top wing why not underpaint the area with white first and clean up with a fine brush if necessary afterwards? P

Good to see another real aeroplane in the True Scale Dave, even more so as yours is brush painted to a very high standard. The streaking is very impressive and the pilot figure sets the model off well. It is certainly a small model but it looks very much bigger in the photos. P

A super example of first class scratch building. Excellent build log and an interesting history. P

The wing paint overlap looks good Ian as do the wheels. This will be an excellent model when finished. P

As you know Dave, I am not figure painter either because I too am a WW1 aircraft modeller, but I think the figure is very good - very realistic. Interesting base to set it off. The shield (or what little I can see of it), looks OK to me. P

Very good engine Dennis. The lack of cooling fins will not be very evident behind the cowling. P

Yes Dave. Dennis the Wonderful has just sent me some excellent detaild drawings of the interior details of these machines, plus other three views. Now I know the source of many of the other DataFile drawings too! I have studied the drawings from Wylam carefully and had to make some small changes - there are still one or two areas which are not wholly clear such as the fuel tank and the engine mounts but I think that I can work out what they probably looked like. Thanks for your assistance Dennis! P

Many thanks Dennis and Jon for the kind comments Dennis the information you have supplied is very useful indeed. The side elevation of the nacelle seems to be reasonably accurate when compared with the DataFile drawings, and the general info about the interiors of the cockpits is interesting and better than anything I have been able to find - which is not very much! If you have any other information from that source I would be very grateful to have access to it. The DataFile drawings are good good but limited, probably because reliable information on the type is limited. Once again many thanks. P

Evening All, Thanks Ian and woody for passing by and leaving positive comments. Woody you are most welcome to join the ride - I hope it will not be too much of a roller coaster! I have finally bitten the bullet in that I have soldered the lower wing spars to the nacelle frame. This is one of the most tricky parts of the assembly - if this is not completely accurate then the rest of the model will look distorted and unbalanced. In brief the spars have to be laterally dead centre to the nacelle, the centres of the spars have to be perpendicular to the sides of the nacelle, and the spars have to be at 90 degrees to the fore - aft line. Usually with wings there is a tab or interface between the end of the wing and the side of the nacelle which provide surfaces to join the wings to nacelle/fuselage , but in this case the spars are fixed to four points at the bottom and rear of the nacelle: if any of those are mis-aligned it can have unfortunate, not to write disastrous, consequences. Before I soldered the spars I had to solder a piece of brass rod to the upper nose - this represents the upper part of the frame in front of the observer - a machine gun mount and a folding split windscreen was fixed to this on the real aircraft: With this in place I proceeded to mount the spars. I put a rib on the ends of the spars to ensure that they were the correct distance apart and they could not move together or apart. I had carefully measured and marked the centres of both spars and these were lined fore-aft up as accurately as possible. The spars were placed on the bottom of the 4 vertical frames at the rear of the nacelle and the height of tips of the spars to the top of my desk measured - these had to be equidistant or the spars would not be properly aligned with the nacelle and one wing would be higher at the tip than the other. Minor adjustments were made until this was right. The the set-up was jigged so that the centres of the spars were in the centre of the nacelle frame, and that the spars could not move sideways or fore-aft while I wielded the soldering iron: Having taken several deep breaths I proceed to solder and hoped that nothing moved while I was working. The result: I have now got to write the instructions for the next stages of construction because I need to prime and paint the metalwork of the nacelle but do not want to prime the spars until later. This is that the ribs slide along the spars and strip the primer from the meta but I have to attach a rib flush to each side of the nacelle and these and the nacelle frame have to be painted first, and have holes for double lift wires drilled into them. I also need to consider carefully how and what to assemble inside the nacelle before i work on the wing ribs - which incidentally also have to have bracing wires. I intend to use my previous experience with the Gunbus, but some things are very different on this model and have not been fully worked out yet. However I am hoping that the next post will not be a bit quicker than the current ones. Thanks for looking. P

Looks good Jon. BTW - I do like your jig! p