Burgess-Dunne Floatplane +++FINISHED+++

[bristol boy]

This is a new one to me, very unusual and a vac to boot! I'll be following with interest,

Cheers,

Neil

[jrlx]

Good start, Ray! Well done!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

I have started to detail the cockpit area of this plane now. the floor to start with:

 

 

The vacform parts were quite basic, but there was some quite nice detailing too. The four lumps (aka foot pedals) were sanded off and replacement pedals fitted from some old offcuts of plastic strip I had lying around. I am not sure if they should be there or not, but they are now! In between the original lumps were some blind holes where the instructions would have me drill properly and fit a joystick in both cockpit positions. If I do that, when the floor is fitted to the fuselage, the control column is way inside the cavity, and would probably be in front of the instrument panel, meaning the poor pilot/passenger would have difficulty using it. The references I have show a pair of quadrants with a lever to control the direction of flight, so I may well try to produce those instead. I have found it a bit of a minefield with these Burgess-Dunnes; there seem to be so many variations to them! Anyway, after the addition of the foot pedals and a spot of paint, I ended up with:

 

 

The pedals have now been painted too, and the instrument panels have been painted a bit more with a gloss varnish for the dials and a darker background in the dials for contrast. The vacformed seats were usable, I did pare down the sides and rear to get them a bit thinner, and will add some tape lap belts later

 

 

I have added a few ribs into the fuselage halves using some 10 thou rod, not much but it busies up the interior, and I highlighted them with some Dark Earth drybrushed on.

 

 

Then slightly out of sequence, I decided to look at the fuel tank, which is in a prominent position on top of the aft fuselage. The kit parts first:

 

 

I was not too happy with the crispness of the moulding (many moons ago I would have been more than happy), so I checked out my supply of rod and found that some 3.2mm was just about the right size for the tank. I sawed off a section, and then wrapped some tape around for the strapping, then did another with thinned strapping just to make sure I had got it right. I soaked the tape with thin CA afterwards to seal it in so it should hopefully not lift.

 

 

I think the thinned taped version is the better one, but I may redo it to get the strapping gaps a bit more accurate.

 

Well, that is it for now, more soon with luck! Thanks for checking in and the encouragement,

 

Ray

Edited September 26, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[Seahawk]

Just when I dip my toe into WW1 aircraft with an Airfix B.E.2c, the Master returns to show the sort of masterpiece he can produce effortlessly from a sheet of plastic with a few bumps in it.  I shall crawl back into my hole. 

[pheonix]

Do not be put off Seahawk - the Airfix kit is very good.

 

This is turning into a very interesting build, good detailing there. It is my experience that all of the early machines seemed to vary like the days of the week. It would seem that because they were individually built, changes were made almost from one machine to the next according to the whim of the craftsmen and the instructions of the customer!

 

P

[Brandy]

I'd be interested to see the "quadrants and levers" for the controls, do you have a pic?

 

Coming along nicely btw

 

Ian

[jrlx]

Good progress, Ray! I like the wood effect you achieved with the painting. I also agree with you that the tank with the narrow straps looks better.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

23 hours ago, limeypilot said:

I'd be interested to see the "quadrants and levers" for the controls, do you have a pic?

 

Coming along nicely btw

 

Ian

Ian, Thanks for the comment, and this is what I am working from:

 

 

It is from Flight, November 15, 1913 and is the only thing I have. I have assumed that there was one lever either side of the cockpit, rather than as shown. I removed the joysticks I had fitted, so this one is flown by rudder bar and these levers. I have not figured out where the throttle would have been, so it will be missing in this kit! To make these controls, I decided on a representation rather than accuracy. I added an horizontal stringer to both sides of each cockpit, and then wondered how to create the quadrant. To the rescue came some 1/700 photo etch ladders. These are regular squares of etch - I trimmed them to produce an L shape, bent one side to give a 45 degree angle, and fitted four of them to the new stringer, and painted them Revell Iron. They are just about visible:

 

 

I then cut out some tape to show the rather wide lap belts that were commonly used in those times, and added a bar between each pair of foot pedals

 

 

I fitted the completed cockpit assembly into the one fuselage half and added the two instrument panels and the rear bulkhead. It would be rather cramped in there if I were the pilot!

 

 

 

I belatedly painted up the rear of the instrument panels, I don't think they would have been visible, but you never know! I then got the two fuselage halves together, and needed a bit of tape to pull the parts together. After it had dried, I then used a mix of liquid poly and some of the plastic dust from sanding as filler for the resulting gaps in the fuselage. I used an old aluminium cake tray as my mixing bowl, and it just happened to have some dried Tamiya Clear orange paint in the bottom too. Well, that also mixed into the gloop, and I am now hoping it will give a good visual indicator when I sand this lot down hopefully tomorrow.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

 

PS:

22 hours ago, jrlx said:

Good progress, Ray! I like the wood effect you achieved with the painting. I also agree with you that the tank with the narrow straps looks better.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

Thanks for that Jaime, I tried using thinnish paint and deliberately dragged the paint to try and create the grain.

 

On 9/26/2017 at 4:56 PM, Seahawk said:

Just when I dip my toe into WW1 aircraft with an Airfix B.E.2c, the Master returns to show the sort of masterpiece he can produce effortlessly from a sheet of plastic with a few bumps in it.  I shall crawl back into my hole. 

 

Seahawk, come back out I tell thee! I still have to build my B.E.2c and I am sure you will do a better job than me!

[pheonix]

Thanks for the info re-the quadrant controls: that is most useful. How pilots controlled these early aircraft is a minor mystery to me!

 

The interior is looking very good. Looking forward to seeing more of this build. 

 

P

[malpaso]

I've been aware of the Burgess-Dunne aircraft since I was 8 or so!  There are three photos in Martin Caidin's "Golden Wings" a truly fantastic book to receive at that (or to be honest at any) age.  The captions refer to the photos as of an AH-7 and AH-10, presumably implying the USN also had at least AH-1 to -6 and AH-8 and -9 as well?  The AH-10 at least has a more cigar shaped nacelle than the plane you're modelling.

 

Well done with the work so far, it'll be great to see the finished model.

 

Cheers

Will 

 

[jrlx]

Good work on the cockpit. Waiting for the next instalment

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

The first next steps were to try and sort out the seams. I found I needed more filler at the aft end of the plane, so out came some Squadron white filler and it was smeared liberally on.

 

 

I also needed to slather a lot on the underside seam too. That was easy to sand down, as I used the wet'n'dry that was taped to my desk, and the underside was flat so that made the job simple. Before I did that though, I discovered this:

 

 

I am not sure how this dimple occurred as I do not remember seeing it before. Perhaps I had held the fuselage half a bit too tight when trying to sort things out. Anyway, it was filled and all looks okay now. Next up was the float. This was in two halves, upper and lower. The upper half was moulded as a full, straight unit, but there was a diagonal score mark which showed where I needed to trim it to produce a wedge shape. I scored the line and snapped the plastic off, then used my scissors to trim the fore and aft ends, and sanded the rest down. In the past, I have found this type of join a bit of a problem due to moulding inaccuracies and thin plastic sides. To try and get over this, I glued in some plastic strip as a strengthening strip and fitted the top part of the wedge to the float base. It just clicked together like an injection moulded pair of pieces! Hats off to the mould maker (I think it was Les Cooper). I was well chuffed! It was glued together and PPP was used to fill the usual gaps.

 

 

 

Then I turned my attention to the wings. I had read a tip in Aeroclub's Felixstowe vacform kit where it was suggested that a heavy duty file was the best thing to use for getting rid of excess plastic when sanding down wings, and that it would save hours of time and effort. Well, I found my large metalworking file, and twenty minutes later I had a nice thin wing ready! I had to remove some moulding pips from the upper surface, and score on the control surfaces to the under surface. The other lower wing and the upper 'V' wing soon followed.

 

 

I did wonder how to represent the ribs underneath. They would not be easily visible on the model unless it was to be picked up (and it does not look as though it will be easily lifted when built), so I decided to try and experiment. I do not have an airbrush, only the honourable hairy sticks for painting. I marked off the rib stations, and ran a 4H pencil along the rib lines, and then, on a piece of spare plastic, painted a light Revell Beige over the pencil marks. I was not sure if the lines would smudge, nor as to how many coats would be needed to dull the pencil lines down. I eventually found that six coats would do the job. What do you think?

 

 

Don't forget, these ribs will only be on the underside of the wings! Anyway, here are the components ready to roll...

 

 

A dry assembly shows that the wings upper and lower will align when positioned one over the other when the fuselage is in place. I now have to try and do something that may make or break the build. I have to apply 'gentle heat' to the rear upper centre section, and the rear inside edges of the lower wings to bend the trailing edges down into a 'curtain', and that is to be trialed on scrap plastic from the carrier sheet as that should hopefully react the same as the wing plastic.

 

I am also going to try and scratch build the Gnome 80hp engine.

 

It may be a couple of days before I update, so wish me luck please!

 

All the best,

 

Ray

 

 

Edited September 29, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[jrlx]

Great work, Ray! Very precise and well planned! Good luck for the next steps and hope to see an update soon.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Brandy]

Coming along very nicely!

I would use a light (white) primer for the wing undersides, before the linen colour,  and a darker (tan) undercoat for the upper surfaces to give a lighter appearance underneath, and as few coats of linen as possible to ensure the difference is still visible.

I bit the bullet and bought a Small Stuff engine for my Donnet-Leveque build.....

 

Ian

[Ray S]

Hello all.

 

I have tried to create the droop at the trailing edge of the wings. I got some spare plastic from the carrier sheet, cut it to an upper wing profile and thinned the 'trailing edge', and did my experiment. I had a lit tea light candle, and just wafted the 'wing' about 2-3 inches above the heat source for about 5 seconds, and found that the plastic had become pliable and was able to fold it down onto the V shape curtain required:

 

 

Feeling quite happy about proceeding, I marked up the lower upper wing for the wing ribs, and upon checking the images I had of the replica from Canada, I dutifully remembered the span-wise ribs too!

 

 

Then, heart in mouth, I tackled the heat-attack on the wings proper. The two lower wings went really well, but the upper wing needed quite a bit of coaxing to get into shape, but it went okay in the end:

 

 

I will need to thin the edges just a little on the drapes to make it look a bit better, but I am very pleased with what could have been a bit of a disaster!

 

On 9/30/2017 at 3:10 AM, limeypilot said:

Coming along very nicely!

I would use a light (white) primer for the wing undersides, before the linen colour,  and a darker (tan) undercoat for the upper surfaces to give a lighter appearance underneath, and as few coats of linen as possible to ensure the difference is still visible.

I bit the bullet and bought a Small Stuff engine for my Donnet-Leveque build.....

 

Ian

 

Ian, thanks for that tip. I have sprayed some Halfords White Primer onto the lower surfaces, I have given them a couple of coats each and it has toned down the ribs quite well, so hopefully I should not need too many linen coats.

 

 

I also checked out Small Stuff for the engine, and their 1/72 Gnome 80 hp engine looks to be a beauty. I am going to still try and scratch an engine though, as I do not think that this will really benefit from such a superb moulding, the difference between my work and Small Stuff's would be too great! I will bear them in mind though if I am unable to produce this myself!

 

Thanks for watching and for the comments and suggestions, always appreciated.

 

Ray

Edited October 1, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[Nigel Heath]

An interesting project, I'll follow along if I may.

[Ray S]

6 minutes ago, Nigel Heath said:

An interesting project, I'll follow along if I may.

 

The more the merrier Nigel!

 

Ray

[jrlx]

Good work on the wing bends and very courageous too

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[Xmald]

An interesting project indeed!

Your way of representing the ribs showing through the linen is the good one. You won`t have any problem with pencil smudging. I use it for a long time (using an airbrush though).

I would make the ribs and spars a little bit broader. You can use a dry brush to smudge the pencil slightly after you draw the lines - it`s a shadow after all.

If you want to represent it on the top of the wings too you can cover it with one coat of the colour you`re using for the linen. Then paint the ribs with almost white (the same you did with a pencil) and overpaint it as you did with the bottom.

Keep up the good work!

[pheonix]

Excellent work on those wings. Bending plastic in that way is always a heart-in-mouth job but you have achieved a first class result. The sweep back on those wings is truly amazing: the more reason for me to give this one a try  in the future!

 

P

[JOCKNEY]

Outstanding job Ray, I admire your bravery when plastic meets tea light candle !

 

cheers Pat

[Murdo]

Great stuff, and using a lit candle on a vacform?  Wow!

 

[zebra]

A very interesting project. I'll be following along and looking forward to seeing how it progresses and hoping to pick up a few tips and tricks along the way - this is the sort of build I could learn a lot from.

[TheBaron]

Top work on that heat-shaping. The results speak for themselves sir.

[Ray S]

Hello all, thank you for all the above kind comments! I have to admit that I married vacform plastic (and a rare one to boot) and candle flame with severe trepidation, and it did my heart condition no good whatsoever, but thankfully worked a treat. 

 

I have continued apace (snail's pace but apace nonetheless) and made up a pair of vertical pieces which will attach between the upper and lower wingtips. Yet again references show a huge amount of variation in these 'curtains'. some shots show they extend below the lower wingtip, others do not. I am going to see how they fit! Here they are in comparison to one of the kit parts:

 

 

I have not decided whether to add rib tapes from Aizu tape or not, or even by using a thin line of paint to create the raised detail. Meanwhile, on the wings front I masked the upper surfaces with some .7mm Aizu tape along the ribs and span-wise spars straight over the unpainted plastic:

 

 

The idea behind this was this.

 

On 9/30/2017 at 3:10 AM, limeypilot said:

 

I would use a light (white) primer for the wing undersides, before the linen colour,  and a darker (tan) undercoat for the upper surfaces to give a lighter appearance underneath, and as few coats of linen as possible to ensure the difference is still visible.

Ian

 

On 10/1/2017 at 10:18 PM, Xmald said:

 

Your way of representing the ribs showing through the linen is the good one. You won`t have any problem with pencil smudging. I use it for a long time (using an airbrush though).

I would make the ribs and spars a little bit broader. You can use a dry brush to smudge the pencil slightly after you draw the lines - it`s a shadow after all.

If you want to represent it on the top of the wings too you can cover it with one coat of the colour you`re using for the linen. Then paint the ribs with almost white (the same you did with a pencil) and overpaint it as you did with the bottom.

Keep up the good work!

I tried to do a combination of the two suggestions. I painted the unmasked areas Revell Flesh, then removed the tape and painted the whole lot with Revell Beige 314. Doing it this way altered the colour of the beige, darkened it a bit and left the ribs lighter in tone. This is the first time I have tried to highlight ribs, and I am not sure whether it is a success or not. The results:

 

 

 

The lower image show the bottom left wing after its second coat, the others on had one at this time. I think it is okay. They have all had two coats now, and have been satin varnished.

 

I have also done something else , but I will post that next.

 

Thanks for looking and the encouragement,

 

Ray

Edited October 7, 2017 by Ray S
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