Burgess-Dunne Floatplane +++FINISHED+++

[Brandy]

That lower left wing looks much better with the second coat on, seems to have worked nicely!

 

Ian

[Ray S]

Hello again.

 

Next up was to try and do something that looks like a Gnome engine. I had a pair of white metal engines from another couple of vacforms, a Bristol Scout and a Moraine-Saulnier parasol monoplane. The Small Stuff website showed that one particular engine was okay for them, but it looked different to those two. The one I needed was 7-cylinder 80hp job, so I downloaded a photo, but used the white metal engine as a rough guide for size. I ended up using 4, 2.5, 1.5, 0.5 and 0.3mm rods. A lot of the inspiration on how to make them came from this topic:

 

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235020968-curtiss-v-8-early-jaguar-radials-two/

 

The section involved is quite a way down in post  No 1. I first trimmed down some 4mm and 2.5mm rod to produce the crankcase. This took quite a few goes as no matter how I cut them, they were never level. This tells me two things: I cannot cut straight, cannot see straight and I need a mitre block (okay that's three things). Anyway, the way I sorted it was to use the pieces that had the squared bottom and then double-sided taped them to a peg, and sanded them flat. I bevelled the uppermost edge to get a bit of a curve, then glued them together.

 

 

Then I got some 1.5mm rod, cut it into 8 (one spare!) sections of just over 4mm and made a jig to give me a level to sand them down to the require 4mm. I CA'd them hard up against the vertical level, sanded them down successfully, prised them off the jig with tweezers then promptly realised they should have been 3mm! So I did them again, properly...

 

 

I then drew out a 7 pointed star with my newly bought protractor, and carefully measured out the required angles of 51.5 degrees (I know 7x51.5 = 360.5 but my drawing is not that accurate 

 

 

I glued the crankcase to the plan with some white glue, then added the cylinders trying to be careful and aligning as accurate as possible

 

I think the cylinders should be tapered, but I did leave them as they are. I gave this a good covering of Tamiya Extra Thin Cement and left it overnight to cure. This morning I added little sticky-out bits at the ends of the cylinders from .5mm rod and when set trimmed them with side cutters, then added push rods(?) from .3mm rod, attached initially with PVA then with Tamiya ETC. I eventually used 23 bits of plastic for this. I will know what it is really like when I paint it, hopefully tomorrow.

 

 

 

This shows the difference between the two engines, the metal one is from a Bristol Scout, but they used a number of different engines but sadly not the right one for me! Finally, the one with the picture from Small Stuff which I was using as my main guide:

 

 

I have not tried to show the ribbing on the cylinders, I will see if I can get a streaky effect when I paint them. I will see how it looks, if not there is always Small Stuff to the rescue.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

 

 

Edited October 7, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[Brandy]

The engine looks great! It should work nicely...

 

Ian

[pheonix]

Superb engine and excellent scratch building. The ribbing on the cylinders is so small that I doubt whether anyone would notice.

 

This is a very interesting and informative build: the variations on the wing curtains that you mention seem to be average for these early types - they really did vary from machine to machine, and sometimes machines were modified in service, so who is to argue with your interpretation?

 

P

[zebra]

Great work on the engine. I doubt the lack of ribs on the cylinders will really be noticeable but perhaps one way to do it would have been to tightly wrap thin wire or thread around them?

[jrlx]

Impressive scratch build work on the engine!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[corsaircorp]

Hello ray,

Impressive work on here with this rare bird  !

Congratulations !

I'm not ready to dare such a project !

Sincerely.

Corsaircorp

[TheBaron]

Most charming work on that engine Ray.

Bravo!

Tony

[Ray S]

Hello all. Thanks for all the comments about the engine, they are really appreciated!

 

I have had a brief respite from this, but have just got back into building it. I gave the engine some paint and it looks like this now:

 

 

It has scrubbed up reasonably well I think. Next up was fitting the wings. I needed to trim them slightly before fitting as I found that the lower wings were just slightly wider than the upper, but I suspect that was because I had not sanded down the sections which butt up against the fuselage properly. It took a bit of doing to get the lower wings, fuselage and upper wing to stay where they should when I was test fitting them!

 

 

I had a couple of sheets of balsa which I was able to use as a sort of a jig, but cut out a small section to take into account the droop at the rear trailing edge of the wings, which protrudes below the fuselage. I used Humbrol polystyrene cement from a tube to fix them, and, touch wood, they seem to be on fairly solidly. I had marked off the strut location points on the lower wings, and drilled a blind hole for their attachment, and drilled all the way through the wing for the rigging. I will keep it a secret that I had to drill the blind holes twice as I originally put them too far inboard chord-wise. The forward ones should have been virtually on the leading edge, but I put them back quite a way, as per every other biplane I have ever built! Never get into a habit! For the rigging holes, I tried using a .3mm drill, but they would not bite and go through even vacform plastic, and I rapidly broke three (never having broken .3's before even when drilling normal injection-moulded plastic), and ended up using a larger drill bit.

 

I then looked at my selection of exuded strut that had been supplied with the model, and to my dismay I found that quite a lot had been bent, and I found it difficult to straighten any up, but eventually managed to sort some out. I gave them a couple of coats of a brown paint then measured and cut the twelve initial struts required, and have now fitted them with the aid of CA and a set-square to try and ensure they are lined up properly. The wide angle lens does not like to keep struts true and it alters perspective, so forgive the photos!

 

 

 

That is all setting now, then hopefully it is a case of popping the top wing on - a test fit showed that it lines up okay, but I will need to mark out the strut attachment points and then the upper rigging points, so that will be interesting!

 

Thanks for looking, all the best.

 

Ray

 

Edited October 16, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[pheonix]

That reads like a set of tricky operations but they seem to have been successful. Drilling holes in the wrong place in the wing is something that I am good at doing too.......but don't let anyone else know.

 

P

[jrlx]

Good progress through some hard to do tasks. Great results in the end. I really like the colours

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Brandy]

I thought drilling the holes in the wrong place was a requirement?  I've certainly done it often enough. Coming on nicely now, although I foresee a lot of swearing trying to align all those struts at the same time........ I find it far easier to fit the inner 4 only and secure the top wing to those, then when they're dry,  pop the others in. They will bend slightly with no problem to fit them into their holes.

 

Good luck

Hals- und Beinbruch

etc, etc.

 

 

Ian

[TheBaron]

Splendid work on bringing these larger shapes together Ray: you can really start to see the dynamic looking structure of this aircraft appear now.  Good luck securing the upper wing!

Tony

[Murdo]

Starting to look really fabulous! 

 

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

On 10/17/2017 at 2:54 PM, limeypilot said:

I thought drilling the holes in the wrong place was a requirement?  I've certainly done it often enough. Coming on nicely now, although I foresee a lot of swearing trying to align all those struts at the same time........ I find it far easier to fit the inner 4 only and secure the top wing to those, then when they're dry,  pop the others in. They will bend slightly with no problem to fit them into their holes.

 

Good luck

Hals- und Beinbruch

etc, etc.

 

 

Ian

 

Ian, I would do things that way if it were an injection moulded kit - the trouble I have is that I cannot work out where the struts go on the upper wing, so the plan is to lay the upper upside down, place the rest on the struts on the wing, then mark off the rigging hole points and the strut location points, disassemble and then drill, then tack it all together with a few well placed bits of PVA (which hopefully will 'lengthen' any short struts, then zap with CA to secure). I am fully prepared to drop in the odd "oops", "flip" and "oh, I say" if needs be!

18 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Splendid work on bringing these larger shapes together Ray: you can really start to see the dynamic looking structure of this aircraft appear now.  Good luck securing the upper wing!

Tony

 

Thanks Tony, it is an interesting shape I must say, and I will need loads of luck! I am waiting until I am in the right frame of mind...

14 hours ago, Murdo said:

Starting to look really fabulous! 

 

 

Cheers Murdo! As you have probably noticed by now, I love building things that are...obscure!

 

All the best everyone,

 

Ray

[Martian]

I am liking the way this is shaping up!

 

Martian

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

I was able to mark off the rigging points after carefully placing the whole lot upside down, and drilled them out this morning. Then, heart firmly in mouth, swear box ready to go, and my good lady safely out of the house, it was time to glue the top wing to the struts! I re-checked the fit of the struts, found four which firmly made contact with the upper wing, and bravely put some CA gel onto said struts, and with a nervous tic, a quivering disposition, and shaky hands, tried to accurately position the struts where they should go!

 

 

There was just enough wiggle time to make some minor corrections (those struts are really wobbly!) before the CA set. I gave it a few minutes, then CA'd all the struts with some medium CA for a bit of solidity (I hope).

 

This has raised a few issues, but I have to admit they are ones I am not going to address. Like Limeypilot (Ian), I found that the wing ribs were not in the right places when trying to match up the top and lower wings. I am not sure where the problem lies as a set square shows the wing tips are correctly aligned to each other, but the ribs are not. This meant that some struts are attached to the top wing where there are no ribs. I also seem to have marked off the control surfaces incorrectly, as one strut is placed on that. That is definitely my error though as when I masked off to produce the span-wise rib, I masked too far inboard from the trailing edge - it is obvious now I look at it closer, so lesson learnt. Thankfully when I marked off the strut locations first off, I did them on the lower wings, so from a normal viewing angle they will look okay, but not if you look from below wing level.

 

I will be leaving this to set overnight before I try and turn it upright.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray.

 

PS - The swear box remained empty, and no inanimate (or animate) objects were damaged in the course of this construction stage!

Edited October 19, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[Ray S]

Hello all! I decided to crack on with this after lunch, rather than let it set overnight. I measured up the cabane struts and fitted them into place, initially using a dab of PVA then fixing securely with CA when they were aligned 'correctly'. I lined them up on the centre-line of the wing (it is incredibly obvious) and then found that the centre-line was slightly offset, despite looking spot on from above. I still cannot work it out! I had drawn the centre-line rib so I knew where it was, but it is still offset.

 

 

I then trimmed the side planes and got them fitted between the upper and lower wingtips, thankfully the gapping was just about spot on, so only one side needed a modicum of persuasion:

 

 

 

 

It all seems fairly robust, but hopefully tomorrow I will be able to start rigging, I am planning on using EZ-Line for that so it should be straightforward, as long as I have not accidentally glued up the rigging holes!

 

Thanks for looking, and all the kind comments and suggestions.

 

Ray

 

PS - I have a plan for attaching the centre float and struttery, I will let you know if it works or not, but that is likely to be a few days yet.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2017 by Ray S
Added extra info!

[TheBaron]

By Jimminy but that's a futuristic looking piece of the past. I love this aircraft more and more with each update Ray. 

[Brandy]

Lovely job getting that top wing on. I wouldn't have noticed any problem with the centre rib.....

 

Ian

[jrlx]

It looks excellent from this side of the net! I love the shape and colours! Really well done

 

Looking forward to the rigging!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

[pheonix]

Got to agree that this is a most interesting shape. I am intrigued to lear how you will put on the float - that will ceetainly give it an even more unusual appearance. This one is now definitely on my to do list (in the wheeled version as used by the RFC).

 

P

[Ray S]

Hello all! I have started the rigging now, but I am taking it slowly just at the moment. I am using EZ-Line, I had wondered about using fishing line but I need to do some quite complex runs and am not convinced it would work well. The EZ-Line I find is pretty good to use, but even that I find has issues. It does seem a bit inconsistent in diameter, and I find it can curl quite badly at times, but not at others. Yesterday for example I cut out six bits for the cross-bracing, and three were really curly, but the others were perfect! I find that the line will not always thread through the rigging holes, and it tends to stick to a pair of clean tweezers at times too with is occard. On the other hand, it sticks to CA like a limpet, and usually rapidly too.

 

Anyway, I started on the cross-bracing on one wing yesterday, successfully threaded the line though and secured with CA on the top wing, then threaded it through the lower wing, attached a peg to the line and let gravity do it's job, pulling the line taut before CA'ing it tight. The peg produces an interesting pendulum effect which made positioning the CA interesting, and was doubled when I had two pegs fitted!

 

 

I needed to be careful putting the plane down when pegs were attached, as I did not want it to do a wing-over and go into an irretrievable flat spin into the depths of the carpet way below! After a while, I reinforced the CA spots with more, then trimmed the excess line with a fresh razor blade, always fraught with danger - you always hope the CA has done it's job and you are not left with a saggy line. Today I did the other side so all cross bracing is done and trimmed and taut.

 

I have also started on the float. I used some flat plastic strip to form the skis which sit on top of the float, and formed the upturned front around a Sharpie pen which seemed to be the right size, then attached them after marking the position out on the float. There is a raised section midships on the skis, and they were added with some excess that had been trimmed from the skis earlier. I then painted the float, I used Revell 382 Wood Brown acrylic. I found that I had forgotten to properly clean one of my wide, flat brushes. I used this one and painted the float, brushing a couple of times while the paint was still wet, and it ended up reasonably well I think. I gave the float a couple of coats, then a covering of brush painted Satin varnish (Humbrol 135 acrylic) to seal it in. The skis have got an initial coat of Dark Earth H29 at the moment, but I will give that a coat of Clear Orange when I get some, hopefully Tuesday.

 

 

 

17 hours ago, pheonix said:

Got to agree that this is a most interesting shape. I am intrigued to lear how you will put on the float - that will ceetainly give it an even more unusual appearance. This one is now definitely on my to do list (in the wheeled version as used by the RFC).

 

P

 

Phoenix, my plan is to cut out a suitable spacer of balsa wood, tape the plane and float with wedge in between, then add the float struts, then remove the wedge. Thankfully there is a taper, the float slopes downwards forward, so it should be able to be pulled out without destroying the struts. The cross brace rods just above the float seen in the photo will be added if this goes according to plan. If I am making an error with this assumption, can someone please let me know! I will not be getting to that point for a few days, so there is time to re-think!

 

It will be fabulous to see you do a wheeled version, the plans I have show it to be somewhat...complex!

 

All the best everyone, and thanks for the comments again, they are always really appreciated.

 

Ray

Edited October 21, 2017 by Ray S
Added extra info!

[jrlx]

Excellent rigging work so far and the float and skis look superb! I really like the wood effect you achieved, very well done!

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[Murdo]

Ooooooh!!! That looks so gooooood!  

 

Love the wood effect.