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Another 1:72 Sopwith double build: Revell Triplane and HR Models Pup - Pup also finished


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16 hours ago, limeypilot said:

I have made some progress, mainly on the rear end of the Triplane....

Not 'arf. Lovely work with plastic and rod there Ian. The result looks fantastic at this scale.

Tony

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Thanks gents!

 

Not much to show in pics, but further progress has been made over the last couple of days.  The elevators on both have been removed from the stabilisers and joined together with a piece of .016" brass rod. They can now be attached as one piece, ensuring the same "angle of dangle" on both sides. Here's the pair from the Triplane...

33889190350_cf3d345c2e_b.jpg

 Attention was then turned to the Pup tail, and the rudder was separated from the fin. The fin just didn't look right, despite being very close to the plans, so I added a strip of .020x.020" to the rear edge, and sanded down the top to lower it, with constant reference and trial fitting to make sure the rudder length matched the total height of the fitted fin and fuselage. A brass rod pin was then added at the front to give a better, more secure fit.

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More work was done on the cowlings, and the holes under the Triplane cowling were measured, marked and drilled out, along with opening up the Pup's cowling.....

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I did take pics of the process on the Tripe, but once again, my phone seems to have eaten the pics! Basically, they were marked out in pencil, drilled out with a small bit, then enlarged, until I was able to remove what was left between the holes with a new no.11 scalpel blade and clean up the openings with a larger drill bit used as a reamer, and the scalpel blade.

 Finally, all the holes were drilled in the wings and fuselage for the Pup's struts

34273151075_929758a6cb_b.jpg

 I think the next step will be drilling the rigging holes, before starting with painting the undersides.....

Ian

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Very good, precise progress Ian - there's some proper modelling going on here :) 

 

4 hours ago, limeypilot said:

I did take pics of the process on the Tripe, but once again, my phone seems to have eaten the pics!

 

Are you using the Flickr camera app to take the photos? I've had problems with it in past because either I forgot the last 'post' step or there was something wrong with the uploader (I've turned the auto-uploader off). If I want to make sure I wait until the picture appears in the 'home screen' and, if it doesn't, restart the phone and take the shot again. HTH

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7 hours ago, CedB said:

Are you using the Flickr camera app to take the photos? I've had problems with it in past because either I forgot the last 'post' step or there was something wrong with the uploader (I've turned the auto-uploader off). If I want to make sure I wait until the picture appears in the 'home screen' and, if it doesn't, restart the phone and take the shot again. HTH

To be honest, I didn't even know there was one Ced! I just take the pics then download to my laptop, then to Flickr. Problem is, some of them just don't appear in the camera's gallery!

 

Ian 

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 Another fruitful afternoon with not a lot to show.... however all the rigging holes have now been drilled in the Triplane. 
 I promised a "how-to" guide, so I will go into a little more detail than usual here to hopefully help those just entering the WWI modelling scene......this is, however, only MY way of doing it, not the ONLY way, so feel free to adapt it to your own needs!

 

 I started with the centre wing. The problem here being that I need to get a straight run for the flying and landing wires through the centre wing, but only have the plans and measurements from them to do it.......hoping that when the wings are in place they will match exactly! Obviously this requires careful measurement for both drilling the holes and mounting the wings. Using the Datafile plans, photos and pics from the WnW website, and pics I took myself at the RAF Museum, I worked out that the landing wires pass through almost exactly halfway between the struts - (that should be pretty straightforward to assume as the gaps between the wings are the same), and since they attach to the wing at the centre of the struts, both top and bottom, they should be drilled level with the centre points of the cabane and wing struts where they pass through the centre wing - a straight pencil line was therefore drawn to mark that point . The bracing wires from the fuselage attach to the rear spar, which also forms the front edge of the centre cutout, and the mounting point for the ailerons, so it was easy enough to pencil in a line between the two,giving me my first reference point, and they are in line with the flying and landing wires, (fore and aft), giving me my second.

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The hardest part now done, I continued with the rest of the fuselage attachment points. Care is needed, double check your references and compare from different angles......the rear bracing wires for the centre wing attach to the upper and lower fuselage longerons at the same place (fore/aft) so once one had been marked, the others had to match...check the marks by lining up a straight edge on them and making sure the straight edge is parallel to the trailing edge of the wing - if it isn't, adjust the marks to make it so before drilling the holes.

33450620404_427e72ee9f_b.jpg

 One other very useful tool for marking rigging holes is a set of dividers These will ensure that distances are equal, especially in this scale - it is almost impossible to accurately measure with a ruler - which side of the line is 2mm....left, right, or on it? Use the dividers and make a small indent in the plastic where the holes need to be - they will be the same distance apart, and you will have a guide for the drill bit to sit in when you start drilling. You can also make sure that the lines will be positioned correctly just by sight, by placing the dividers equally either side of the fuselage centre line..

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 That's it for today, I hope the info is useful to those who need a little "push" to get them into rigging!

Ian

Edited by limeypilot
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I'm tempted for one of these rigged type beats.  The only problem is the one I really want is a 1/48 Audax, and it appears there's no such beasts available. I can't even find any decent plans to see if a scratch build is plausible

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How about converting a Hart? I know Silver Wings do a 1:32 one of those. Shouldn't be too difficult as the Audax prototype was a Hart!

Plans have been done in 1:48, but not sure whether you'll find a copy....

 

https://hlj.com/product/MMPSC2

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-48-SCALE-PLANS-Set-No-2-MMP-Hawker-Hart-Potez-630-Yakovlev-Yak-15-17-23-MORE-/371518580907

 

Jump in quick!

 

Ian

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12 hours ago, Jessica said:

I've always had the impression that only the 6 experimental tripehounds armed with 2 guns had the short "Camel" style tailplanes, and all the rest had the longer Pup type. Are you doing one of those 6?

 

Hi Jessica!

No, I'm doing "Blymp", N5493 flown by RA Little. The larger Pup style tail was only fitted on the early machines. By June 1917 (according to Windsock Datafile) the smaller tail was in use although I can't find a specific date or tail number when the change started.  The 6 twin gun machines you refer to were N533 - 538 and were all built by Clayton and Shuttleworth,  There is speculation that these may have been intended to fill an order from the RFC which was cancelled in favour of SPAD VIIs. All the Oakley built machines were also supposed to be twin gun, but that contract was cancelled due to extremely slow completion rate. They only finished 3, the RAF Museum's N5912 is one of those. The experimental twin gun was, I believe, N5445

 

Ian

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5 hours ago, Jessica said:

Learn something new every day :)

But now of course, I'm thrown into uncertainty about my plans to do the Eduard kit as Ray Collishaw's first "Black Maria". I thought that it had the early style tailplanes...

I just checked the Datafile again.....His first Tripe was N5492. Since N5493 definitely had the later tail, (there's a pic of it in the Datafile that shows it, albeit at a later date) I would feel safe to assume that 5492 did also. However....

 N5486, the Triplane in the Russian museum, has the early tail. There is a pic in the DF of N5454 with the later one,...so it's highly possible that all the N54** series were built with the early tail and converted later. .... N533, the twin gun Tripe he flew, also had the later tail.

That probably doesn't help, although it does mean that it really doesn't matter which tail you use!

Ian 

 

edit: I just checked JM Bruce's "War Planes of the First World War" and it states the following: "By mid-February 1917 Naval 1 & 8 had re-equipped, and 9, 10 & 12 also flew the type with distinction". He then states that "from Feb 1917 on a smaller tailplane and elevators were fitted as opportunity offered". I would deduce from that, that both 5492 and 5493 would have been delivered with the early type tail and retrofitted with the later one, but when is anyone's guess!

Edited by limeypilot
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Not too much in the way of progress, I've been busy planting the front bed. I finally got that done and the mulch added yesterday, and today it's peeing down so back to the bench!

 

 Work has continued on prep for painting.

 First off, I found a spare set of PE for a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter which has the nose inspection panels on it. Conveniently, the nose on the Triplane is also very slightly too narrow. I therefore CA'd the panels on, and added a thin skim of PPP over the sides of the nose to blend them in. A little sanding, repeat, etc. and I ended up with an acceptable nose including inspection panels!

 

33663407493_b77fe9c30d_b.jpg

 

 I then got a coat of white on everything a couple of days ago and have since managed to correct the areas that needed it, so today, another coat of white to see how it all looks, and I made a start on painting the engines. I replaced the Pup engine with one I found in my spares box. I have no idea which kit it is from, but it's far crisper in detail. One of the inlet tubes broke off as I was doing a little sanding to make it fit the cowling, but it won't be seen fortunately!

  

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 They both received a base coat of Aluminium, then a black acrylic wash on the cylinders. I'm very happy with the Pup engine, but I don't think there's enough contrast on the Triplane one, so may give it another go over with the wash.

 

 By the way, these are the drill bits I now use for the rigging holes. I used to use the collared ones, but they break far to easily, and tend to screw themselves into the plastic rather than drilling a hole through it - most broke as I tried to get them out! These are much stronger and I don't break half as many!

 

34313158532_de0614d71d_b.jpg

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

Ian

Edited by limeypilot
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These two are beginning to really look the part Ian. The engines are particularly good, - personally I think the colours are about right but that is a matter of judgement of course.

 

P

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Looking good Ian, those engines are very good.

Do you remember where you got the drill bits? I agree that the collared ones do break easily and screw themselves into the plastic - a right pain!

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22 minutes ago, CedB said:

Looking good Ian, those engines are very good.

Do you remember where you got the drill bits? I agree that the collared ones do break easily and screw themselves into the plastic - a right pain!

I do Ced....and believe it or not, the company is called Mutual Screw!

 

 I'm sure you could find a UK distributor on Google, just use qualtech metric drill bits and look for jobber bits....ooh errr!

Ian

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25 minutes ago, CedB said:

I agree that the collared ones do break easily and screw themselves into the plastic - a right pain!

 

agreed that they do break easily, but I've found that (for me at least) the best way is to let the drill screw itself into the plastic, and only when it hits the shoulder do I rotate it a few times before withdrawing.  I found that if I tried to withdraw the drill before then, chances are it would break

 

 

2 minutes ago, limeypilot said:

I do Ced....and believe it or not, the company is called Mutual Screw!

 

oh dear, you just had to answer that particular forum member with that particular company name didn't you ?

There'll be fnaar's all the way from here to at least the middle of May with that one !

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Thanks Ian :)

I did do a search for 'qualtech metric drill bits' on DuckDuckGo and Google but, although it returned results from Screwfix (titter) most results were from US sites like 'Drill America' (snurf snurf). Ho hum.

 

Good tip Hendie - "rotate it a few times before withdrawing" (yop yop), got it (fweef fweef).

"There'll be fnaar's all the way from here to at least the middle of May with that one !" Oi! I resemble that remark! (Fnaar fnaar!)

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Propinquitous plastic permutations performed precisely. And I don't say that about every thread...

 

I read something recently in an autobiography that RAF rigging lines had some kind of bluish paste material rubbed onto them against corrosion. I'll see if I can track down where I came across that possibly spurious nugget. (Amusingly the autocorrect on my tablet keeps insisting I call you 'Khan' !!)

 

Nice tip on the drills Khan. I'm off to search for Mutual Scre - Oh my!

 

Tony

 

Addenda. I knew I'd read it somewhere - it's an old hardback I use to prop the tablet up against on the bench. Sir Basil Embry's tediously self-congratulatory (not to mention racist) Mission Accomplished. There is a footnote on p.61 about DH.9A aircraft in the hangar at Netheravon:

 

'As a protection against rust the flying and landing wires of aeroplanes were sometimes coated with a blue rustless paint.'

 

This was in 1928, so at what point this procedure was actually introduced I'm not sure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ced you could also try this search:

metric HSS jobber drill bits 0.3mm

 

It brought up a lot of ebay sales, plus at least one UK supplier.

 

Many thanks Baron (he says after having to Google prop....the damn word). Interesting note on the wires, I hadn't heard of that before.

 

Ian

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 Yesterday I spent a few hours sticking strips of 0.5mm masking tape on the undersides for the ribs.

34509971855_de1ebd426a_b.jpg

 Once that was all done I still had time to blow a coat of Misterkit CDL on all the undersurfaces, and later last evening, removed the masking - a much quicker job than applying it!

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and all done..

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 I hope to get a final thin coat of CDL on all of that later today to mute the rib tapes a little, then on to the upper surfaces.

Thanks for looking in!

Ian

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