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


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On 6/7/2017 at 4:54 PM, TheBaron said:

Quite seriously lovely in a fabulous kind of way Ian.

 

Even in this raw-rigged state you already get a sense of how appealing the finished result is going to be.

 

Splendid stuff!

Tony

Many thanks Herr Baron, I must admit to being quite chuffed at how well it's coming together!

 

On 6/7/2017 at 5:19 PM, Old Man said:

That, Sir, is freaking professional....

 

Damned impressive.

Wow, praise indeed! Many thanks OM!

 

On 6/7/2017 at 5:23 PM, Martian Hale said:

The rigging not only looks great but the method you are using will add no end of strength to the model.

 

Martian

It does indeed, which is why I stick to drilling and threading whenever possible. There is still not much strength in the upper wing though, particularly fore-and-aft as there are no drag wires to support it.

 

On 6/7/2017 at 6:02 PM, CedB said:

Great job on the rigging Ian, especially those angled double ones... very well done that man! :D 

Cheers Ced!

 

On 6/7/2017 at 6:11 PM, Horatio Gruntfuttock said:

Haven't been paying much attention of late but , on catching up, am gob-smacked at the wonderful job you have done on this one. That jig looks both very fiddly and very useful at the same time. I had not realised what a nightmare those middle wings are.  Very impressive work.

The jig is fiddly, no question, but it's also invaluable, especially when making my own struts and needing to make sure they fit properly!

 

On 6/7/2017 at 6:54 PM, hendie said:

 

excellent geometry skills at work there Ian.  Very impressive

More luck than judgment, but it worked!

 

On 6/8/2017 at 1:23 AM, John D.C. Masters said:

Nice rigging work.  These are going to be two very nice little craft!

Thanks John! I'm looking forward to seeing them lined up next to the other Sopwiths in the cabinet!

 

On 6/8/2017 at 8:00 AM, Courageous said:

Absolutely fantastic work Ian, and in 1/72 too!

Thanks Stuart!

 

Work is starting to pick up now, so no modelling time last week, but I did get a bit done yesterday in preparing the Pup for the upper wing

 The jig was adjusted and the Pup entombed in its cage..... I then added all the rigging wires to the lower wing and fuselage.

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 I decided it would be a good idea to thread the lines through the upper wing before adding the struts, as some of the angles are quite tight and it is far easier to thread the lines without the struts in the way.

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 They're not tightened yet, that will be done when the struts are in place. I then started to add the cabane struts, and discovered they are all a tad too long. The gap between the upper wing and the top of the cowling should be 6.5mm and it was 7.5 so I'll have to shorten them all slightly That will be the next job.

Thanks for looking in,

Ian

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43 minutes ago, Courageous said:

Good rigging skills there Ian.

 

Can I ask, why do you drill 'through' holes in the top wing as opposed to the bottom wing?

 

Stuart

It's simply a matter of preference. The top wing is usually one colour and has no rib detail to worry about, so it's much easier to touch up afterwards, and by not drilling through the lower wing (which I did until very recently), I have fewer repairs to do! That, plus the flying wires are usually attached to the lower fuselage and not the lower wing, so the only way they can be tightened is to drill through the top wing. If I'm lucky, those holes will also coincide with the cross/cockade, which help to hide the repairs too.

 It's not a hard and fast rule though, so I'll change where I drill through according to the particular aircraft - lozenge presents another problem altogether, but again, the holes can usually be repaired easily enough by careful application of either matching paint or decal patches, or even leaving the upper lozenge off completely until after the rigging is done!

 

Ian

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8 minutes ago, limeypilot said:

It's simply a matter of preference. The top wing is usually one colour and has no rib detail to worry about, so it's much easier to touch up afterwards, and by not drilling through the lower wing (which I did until very recently), I have fewer repairs to do! That, plus the flying wires are usually attached to the lower fuselage and not the lower wing, so the only way they can be tightened is to drill through the top wing. If I'm lucky, those holes will also coincide with the cross/cockade, which help to hide the repairs too.

 It's not a hard and fast rule though, so I'll change where I drill through according to the particular aircraft - lozenge presents another problem altogether, but again, the holes can usually be repaired easily enough by careful application of either matching paint or decal patches, or even leaving the upper lozenge off completely until after the rigging is done!

 

Ian

I do it this way as well on the basis that, when tidying things up it s easier to sand a convex rather than a concave surface. Just my little whimsey but there you go.

 

Martian

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 I came home from work today and decided to tackle the task of shortening the cabane struts.  The front two went easily and were left clipped in place as I did the third, which also slipped into place nicely. When I put the jig down I noticed that the two front struts had fallen out. One was lying right in front of me on the bench, alongside the fourth strut, but where was the other? I searched everywhere, cleared the bench, scoured the floor, checked my clothing, even checked the jig itself to make sure it wasn't caught up in it somehow....3 or 4 times, but still couldn't find it. I decided it had gone, and the only solution was to make another, but I didn't feel like it at that moment. I went and took a shower, came back and decided to replace a couple of wires which had pulled out while fiddling with the struts. Duly done, I put the jig back on the bench.....and there were 3 struts sitting there...the fourth was were I'd left it, clipped into the wing! I have no clue where the strut had been on its little sojourn, I find it hard to believe that it had fallen into the cockpit as I was holding it upside down when they fell out! I guess I'll never know the answer to that one!
 Anyway, now I had all 4 struts again, I continued with my original plan and finished the adjustments, then glued them in place......

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 The wires are clipped in place to stop them pulling out, but they won't be tightened and secured until the outer wing struts are in place. Hopefully a job for tomorrow!

Ian

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 The wing struts were trimmed this morning, then installed. This afternoon the landing wires and all the cabane rigging wires were tightened and fixed in place using thin CA applied with a sharpened toothpick.

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 Getting there, slowly......

Ian

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Looks good, Sir.

 

If you don't mind a story. I was doing an SAAF Fury in Kenya, white right, port night undersurfaces. Matchbox had made the undercarriage legs in a cream color plastic. I wanted to tweak the gear arrangements and trimmed the uprights off, figuring to use these and scratch the rest. One of the uprights slipped out of the tweezers when being attatched, disappeared entirely. Looked everywhere, floor, bench, seat, nothing. Scratch-built new uprights, finished the undercarriage. When I set to rigging, I noticed the kit upright I had lost, stuck to the right underside of the upper wing near the interplanes, its cream plastic blending nicely with the distressed white....

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Its the sort of thing that befalls all of us Ian. Perhaps if you ask him very nicely President Trump will sign a presidential order outlawing the carpett monster. I shall write to Her Majesty asking for the British equivilant to be put in the Tower.

 

Martian

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If I thought it likely, or even remotely possible, that he would ever do anything useful, I would indeed. But I fear t'would be a waste of time.....

 

Ian

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  • 4 weeks later...

Unfortunately I've been busy with work lately (it's that time of year!) and also had to go out to Wichita, Kansas, for a week for annual recurrent training. Between that, trying to keep the garden (yard for Americans!) tidy, and reposting all my old PB pics to Flickr and updating all my old threads, I haven't had any time for modelling for a while.
 However, I did decide to forgo the garden work today (my excuse was it has been too humid. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!) and finished the rigging on the Pup. I drilled through the lower wing at the inboard end to pass the flying wires through to the undercarriage mounts and then fitted all the flying wires.

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That's going to be left until tomorrow when I hope to get it all tidied up.

Ian

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20 hours ago, Old Man said:

Rigging has come out quite nice, Sir.

 

Well done.

Thanks OM, much appreciated!

 

18 hours ago, CedB said:

Very nice Ian... crikey that's fine thread! Your poor eyes :) 

It is! I often find I have to dab the end with a black marker so that I can see it, it helps when trying to get it in the 'ole.........ooh err...

 

14 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

That is looking very smart!

 

Martian

Many thanks Martian!

 

8 hours ago, Fritag said:

Rigging seems to me to be dark art.  Think I'll stick to jets for now.  Looks beautiful.

Not really: drill hole, thread it, secure it - voila!

Good to see the Hawks back on the bench too, welcome back!

 

I tried to tackle some of the work that needed doing outside, but had to stop cos I couldn't see what I was doing....way too humid..... so might have another update later!

 

Ian

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Well, Gents, I finally have another update!

 I took a look at the undercarriage as supplied by Messrs Revell and HR (Puffinstuff?) The Pup's is useable, although I'll make another spreader bar and axle. The Tripe's however, is not

 

The Tripe's is the lower pair shown below, after I had already attempted to modify one of the kit legs to see if it could be made to work....

 

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Unfortunately, the legs are too long and the angle between them is wrong. Apart from that, they're not too bad...

 

So I made another pair using my usual method of brass rod and plastic strip. Here is the new pair, along with the old, plus the kit spreader bar and replacement...

 

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Somewhat of an improvement I think!

 

 After faffing around with those for a while I decided to finish off the tidy up of the upper wings following the rigging. They have now been painted and I hope to get a gloss coat on them tomorrow

 

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 While I had the airbrush going I also cleaned up the wheels and gave them another coat of colour.

 

Should be all downhill from here.....

 

Thanks for looking in!

 

Ian

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Colour and structure are all working wonderfully as those two near completion but I'm so glad you're not rushing Ian, there's so much to savour at this stage of a build.

:thumbsup2:

Tony

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Like your attempted save of the Revell kit legs, you gave them the best chance they'll ever get, and it would have served if the angles were right.

 

What thickness of strip and gauge of wire do you use on the strip and wire sandwich? I just may hook that technique myself....

Edited by Old Man
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15 minutes ago, Old Man said:

What thickness of strip and gauge of wire do you use on the strip and wire sandwich? I just may hook that technique myself....

The wire is usually  20 thou brass rod and the strip will be .020 x whatever it takes to get the right depth to the leg. A little Mr Dissolved Putty to hide the join, sand it down and voila! It's really simple and very strong (and usually looks 10 times better than whatever came in the kit!). The other benefit is that the wire is always at the front of each leg so the curve is right, and the rear edge of the strip can be sanded to whatever edge is needed.

 

Ian

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I've come to this late, but what a pleasure to catch up! Great modelling & appreciate how you document the setbacks along with the successes.  Makes the latter all the more admirable!

 

And I do love a good jig- your triplane setup looks all at once tremendous & torturous!!

 

 

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Many thanks Ced and Greggles!

 

The last couple of days have seen the last 2 major jobs completed:
 first the remaining decals were added on the wings

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 The little black rectangles that are supposed to represent the inspection windows will be covered by silver coloured decals to make them at least a little more convincing. I did think long and hard about adding clear sprue inserts to both aircraft's wings but decided it really wasn't worth the effort: there are 5 on the Tripe's wings and 4 on the Pup's.

 Then today the elevators and rudder posts were fitted and painted, followed by the undercarriage.

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 They'll sit until at least tomorrow now to ensure that the undercarriage is solid before anything else is done.

Thanks for looking in!

Ian

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