stevehed Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 With another month still to run I've had a look at the Eastern Express HB W29 in the stash. This is the monoplane that was developed from the biplane W12. According to Windsock there are four major production variants. The first two have the short fuselage and the last two the longer one that was adopted for the W29. Some batches were powered by the Benz engine and sported a car type radiator while others had the Mercedes and had a Hannover type nose and wing mounted radiator. I think all versions are doable but I'm going to stick with a long fuselage, Benz engined aircraft so hopefully the main task will be the scratch the wings. Regards, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted May 29, 2013 Share Posted May 29, 2013 Great that you're going for another float plane Steve Cliff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Rogers Posted May 29, 2013 Share Posted May 29, 2013 Good luck Steve, sounds like a great project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted May 29, 2013 Author Share Posted May 29, 2013 (edited) Thanks Guys, Here's the boxart and kit alongside the source material. This time I have the Windsock complete with plans for both short and long fuselage versions and plenty of pictures. The white bits will become the wings. I used 40 thou card that had been bent into a circular waste bin and subjected to boiling water. You can see how it came out. It's the same method used by Quentin for his Sopwith Dolphin. Just finished the edges. Regards, Steve Edited May 29, 2013 by stevehed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted May 30, 2013 Author Share Posted May 30, 2013 (edited) Got the wings cut out and shaped. Ran off a couple of plans to save the book and cut out the wing profiles. Stuck them on my blanks with masking tape, narrowed the chord and filed to shape. The wing cut out was made by gently pushing the point of my knife through the paper into the plastic to make the curved outline. Then I enlarged the holes until they joined together and the shape could be repeatedly scored until it came away. Marked the rib positions and ailerons in pencil and scored with knife. Just need the gravity tank now. Hope to get away with a piece of 10 thou card. Regards, Steve Edited May 30, 2013 by stevehed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 1, 2013 Author Share Posted June 1, 2013 Not the tidiest of pictures but I have been pottering on. Internal fittings will be OOB and any that can't be seen past the crew will be saved for other projects. Frames and forward cockpit are wood and the rest is CDL. Nice engine and it will receive my last Aeroclub rhino horn exhaust. Wings are blue at the moment on the upper surfaces. The lozenge I have is three colour by Print Scale and I thought a blue undersurface would help to confuse the eye and blend in any mistakes. The slot to allow the lower wing to fit into the lower fuselage has been cut out at the second attempt. Silly me cut it out from the leading edge first time but luckily it fitted back in with a little help from CA gel. Floats went together ok but needed a tab of filler along the nose joint but nothing serious. Regards, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 3, 2013 Author Share Posted June 3, 2013 (edited) Lower wing is now sorted and positioned. I replicated the W29 method whereby the seat, controls etc are fixed to the wing centre section and located from below. My wing had to be thickened in this department and an oblong of 30 thou sufficed. The kit centre section is wider than mine and a gap remains to be filled. Wing walks need to be added and the port gun trough filled in and then, hopefully, on to the top wing. Regards, Steve Edited June 3, 2013 by stevehed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 9, 2013 Author Share Posted June 9, 2013 (edited) Been catching up with the hidden bits lately. This version of the W12 only has a single mg to starboard so the port side locating slots and part of the mg cut out had to be filled and blended in. The remaining mg received a cartridge shute, nothing fancy just shaped card and the engine was treated to another water pipe that I noticed in some of the Windsock photos and thought looked quite neat. The acetate for the windscreen came from my shirt collar. Then it was on to the top wing. Contrail strut for the interplanes and the cabanes are metal. Once I was happy with the positioning all the strut joints were secured with superglue. It was only after the top wing was on that I realised that I hadn't added the lozenge to the upper rear fuselage. Never mind, should manage it without breaking anything, says he. The last job was to reduce the early type tailplane supplied with the W29 to W12 size. Taped a cut out onto the part and cut and filed to shape. Regards, Steve Edited June 9, 2013 by stevehed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 (edited) Got the rear upper lozenge on ok after filling a gap created by reducing the tailplane. Marine number added before tackling the floats. The location slots on the W29 are a little further apart than the W12 but after a little to-ing and fro-ing they look all right to me. The remaining float struts are too long and need modifying, that is shortening. Not far to go now. Regards, Steve Edited June 11, 2013 by stevehed 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 Just caught up with this, looking good. I like the camo job, nicely done, Sean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Rogers Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 That's looking really good Steve, great work on that lozenge transfer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killingholme Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Looks the biz! Could I ask what colours you've used on the floats/struts and painted fuselage? WIll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 Thanks Guys, Comments much appreciated. Hope to be finished this weekend. As for the colours I used Hu91 Matt as the Dark Grey, Hu64 Matt as the light grey for the underside of the fuselage, and Hu148 Matt as the CDL under wing surfaces. The float/struts are now HU91 and the inter/cabane struts are HU64. I first used this combination a few years ago on the W29 and then the W4 but when they are compared to the W12 I think I must have added a touch of white. But it's not too bad a match to the frontpiece of the W12 Datafile so I'm happy enough with it. Regards, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 16, 2013 Author Share Posted June 16, 2013 I'm ready to call this one finished, I think. I'll post the final pictures in the Gallery during the rest of the week. Here's a before and after to end the build thread. It proved to be a very nice conversion project with the added advantage that, like the later Fokkers, the Hansa Brandenburg seaplanes carry hardly any rigging. I'd recommend this conversion to anyone fancying something different. If you can build the W29 monoplane then you have the skills to make it into a biplane. Regards, Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarLos Posted June 17, 2013 Share Posted June 17, 2013 Great model, Steve! Very good indeed. Carlos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natter Posted June 18, 2013 Share Posted June 18, 2013 Nice bit of reversion, proper modelling. Top job Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 18, 2013 Author Share Posted June 18, 2013 (edited) Thanks Guys, Much appreciated. I've been trying since 4pm to upload more pictures to the Gallery and have finally given up. Photobucket seemed to take over and freeze my admittedly old system and now I'm getting told by You Tube that I'm deprecated and need to upgrade. Typical that it's the bits I don't use that are affecting my use of BM. I'm going to try and post the rest of the photos here. As usual the camera shows up errors that don't appear when looked at by my Mk 1 Eyeball. Regards, Steve Edited June 18, 2013 by stevehed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killingholme Posted June 21, 2013 Share Posted June 21, 2013 Much prettier than the monoplane in my opinion. Cheers for the pics Steve and bravo once again on some 'proper modelling'! Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehed Posted June 21, 2013 Author Share Posted June 21, 2013 Thanks Will, Think I agree with you. The biplane does look better. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Top result Steve. Cheers Cliff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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