Joystick's Avro Bison

[Dan Hayward]

Joystick's vac kit is pretty nice and includes all floors and bulkheads for the interior. That's a good thing because I haven't been able to find any interior photos or drawings so I used the kits parts as a basis for some added and refined detail.





The Bison's fuselage was made of steel tube with the cabin area covered in plywood and then fabric only from the gunner's position aft. Exterior photos show the steel tubes running diagonally across the large widow openings so I started with those and guessed at the rest. I've still got a few more lengths of "tubing" to add in the cabin and I'd like to add a few more things here and there to make the view through the large windows a bit more interesting. Still need to add a lot to the pilot's cockpit too.

Before I get too much further with the fuselage, I thought it would be a good idea to build the lower wing so I would know what size to make the cutout in the fuselage bottom and get a good fit. The lower wing's dihedral starts outboard of a wide center section so I cut the vac wing into 3 pieces and superglued it back together with the dihedral in place.

I was planning to skin the bottom of the vac wing with 10 thou plastic and thought I'd try my hand at replicating the ribs on the bottom wing surface.



After tracing the wing outline onto the plastic and marking the rib locations I used a bamboo skewer to emboss the "ribs" on the inside of the wing skin. I sanded the end of the skewer to a rounded chisel shape which worked well.



Here's what the outside surface looked like afterwards.



The skins were superglued to each outboard section of the lower wing, then the center was filled in with sheet plastic. I think maybe my ribs are a little too pronounced and I might have been better off just going with rib tapes but it will have to do. It does add some visual interest to the bottom of the wing at least.

Now I can fit the wing to the fuselage!

-Dan

[Beard]

That's proper modelling... smart.

[bristol boy]

Great work so far, look forward to following this one.

[Martian]

This is going to be one great build!

Martin

[Murdo]

That's proper modelling... smart.

Well put!

That's off to a cracking start. Looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

[Mattlow]

Nice... the ribs don't look to pronounced compared to those on the upper wing in your photo...?

Matt

[Ray S]

Hi, great start as has been mentioned. I have this one in the stash (and am practicing with another vacform before starting this one). Great work in the cockpit, and a nice idea for the underside of the wings.

I am looking forward to the progress.

All the best, Ray

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Oh, yes - great start on one of the great inter-War Fuglies. Looking forward to watching this one develop.

[Dan Hayward]

Thank you all! Fugly it certainly is, but the wings are semi graceful at least.

Today I painted much of the interior...





Again, most of what's in there is from my imagination but it helps to fill the space. Not much is visible despite the large windows, it's pretty dark in there.

-Dan

[Learstang]

Nice work so far! I used to have this kit, but lost it long ago. To fill the void, I bought Contrail's kit of the even more beautiful Blackburn Blackburn. I still need to pick me up another Bison some day. I shall be watching this build with interest.

Regards,

Jason

[Martian]

Nice interior! I might have to track one of these down to go with my Blackburn Blackburn.

Martin

[Ray S]

Martin and Jason, Hannants frequently have these in stock if it helps!

Ray

[CliffB]

Great work so far Dan. Looks like you're having fun.

Cliff

[Patrik]

Great progress so far Dan. Watching with interest as the Bison is quite high on my list.

Patrik

[Learstang]

Martin and Jason, Hannants frequently have these in stock if it helps!

Ray

Thank you, Ray! It's on my to buy list.

Regards,

Jason

[Dan Hayward]

I recently got the interior finished up so I could glue the fuselage halves together. I added some printed paper details to the radio gear and made up the pilot's instrument panel...



I tried something new with the instrument panel- it is the kit part sanded flat with the instrument locations drilled out. I painted it black and when dry I dropped it (face up) onto a shallow puddle of medium super glue spread on a piece of regular copier paper. I hit the back of the paper with accelerator and the result was that the CA that welled up in the instruments hardened very clear and glossy and the white paper makes a convincing-enough instrument face.

I managed to get the fuselage halves together without any trouble.

Once that was all set, I glued the lower wing in place...



You can also see that I've skinned the upper wing with plastic that has had the ribs embossed from the "inside", just like the lower wings were done.

Tail surfaces are up next!

-Dan

[Learstang]

Great work on the interior! It's great seeing this one come together!

Regards,

Jason

[Ray S]

I agree, great work, it is coming along a treat! That interior looks fabulous, and a nice tip with the instrument panel.

All the best, Ray

[tonyot]

This is coming along really well, the cockpit is great,.....keep up the great work,

Tony

[Dan Hayward]

I guess I'd better post an update, I've gotten a lot done!



The horizontal stab sits above the rear fuselage so I made a jig to hold it in position, then drilled holes and added brass wire pins to represent the mounting points.



The struts under the stab are very functional, the forward set are shown in position here, I later made up the rear set but won't permanently install then until after painting the blue rudder stripe which extends down onto the rear fuselage.



The vertical fin was added and the rudder was fitted temporarily.



The cabane struts were added next.



Upper wing set in place to check alignment.





Landing gear was made up from strut stock, brass rod, and scrap plastic.

-Dan

[Learstang]

Nice work, Dan! That wing/fuselage strut arrangement is rather strange, but I suppose it's in keeping with the rather 'interesting' appearance of the aeroplane in general.

Regards,

Jason

Edited August 13, 2015 by Learstang

[Martian]

Excellent progress!

Martin

[Dan Hayward]

Thanks guys, here's another update-

Everything I've worked on over the last few days is shown in this one photo. Starting at the nose, I added the two tubular intakes, made from plastic tubing. The white metal cylinder heads were drilled to take exhaust stubs cut from Albion brass tube, then they were glued in place to the recesses on each side of the nose.

I glued a length of plastic tube inside the fuselage where the external elevator bellcranks mount. I'm thinking that will allow me to glue the bellcranks to a length of brass or sprue, rig them off the model, then slide them into the open ends of the tube. We'll see how that goes!

The cockpit padding was made from stretched sprue and carefully glued in place. You can also see that I'm toying with the idea of making the boarding ladder from brass rod. I bent those pieces up just to see how hard it would be, the real hard part will be adding the rungs!

-Dan

[Brandy]

Looks more like a Walrus than a Bison! Nice work though!

Ian

[Dan Hayward]

I'm slowly adding pieces and hope to put a coat of primer on everything soon. On Sunday I worked on adding the outboard rear cabane struts and ended up remaking the inner set of struts from another piece of brass wire, the old one wasn't tall enough.



Then it was time to tackle the tail skid and its support frame. I thought I was going to have to solder something together but it turned out to be fairly easy to bend up the frame from one piece of wire and make the skid from another. There are a few more smaller bits I might add to it and I need to reduce the size of the "shoe" a little but the hard part is done.







Thanks for looking!

-Dan