airhead

Another one that lays dormant in my stash waiting to be finished. Ingenious solution for the profile error Great start! I'll be following this one.

Looking forward to this one, good luck! I love the way you've meticulously arranged your tools.

I think it turned out beautifully an is a nice tribute to air gunner Reynolds.

I'd seen your Lynx panel already and it's a real gem but I don't deserve any prize as the answer was the first hit on a Google search for Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleißheim.

You mean the Dornier 31 E-3?

As was to be expected the putty didn't tolerate the re-scribing. I did test the rendition of the radiator frame with Mr surfacer and think it is usable. Even though I was really sloppy with the application of the putty and the removal of the masking I did get the effect I'm after. Proof of concept!

I've got one of those in the stash to become an Australian MB326 one day. Since I almost always re-scribe them I actually prefer raised lines on kits

Lovely schemes. Are these Italeri (ex supermodel) kits?

Very attractive, finish well done!

Excellent job on the old bird Good thing Revell re-released it recently coss now I've got to have one myself.

You know your stuff. I took the lazy man's approach and just counted how many lines I had in one millimeter A screw with a finer pitch would be preferable as that will give a more accurate fine adjustment but unfortunately these are much harder to find. I had a shot at the radiator and it turned out an utter failure! As the radiator has a slight curve the ruler pushed it forward a couple of times when readjusting for the next line. The double sided sticky tape just wasn't sticky enough. I'll try to repair the damage and have another go but I fear the putty will be to brittle for scribing. So I may have to bin my perfectly fitting radiator and make a new one. I did do something right however. The radiator is divided into three part of about 1,5mm. I'm not even going ti try to scribe these individually but will do one line for the three. The three section will be masked after which I'm going to simulate the frames with Mr surfacer. I did a test and am quite happy with this result.

That is a good way to reproduce the effect however I would personally have used a darker color for the underside to mimic the shadow created by the ribs and spars and a lighter color on top to simulate reflected light. Something like this: When looking for pictures to prove my point I also came across this one: Which is almost exactly the effect you've achieved right now and seems to be kicking my theory's behind

Nice progress, keep them coming (please)

This is one of the reasons I hardly ever finish a model. I get lost in the side show. I forgot to post a picture of the cutter I use for the ribbons. Works way better than trying to cut them with a knife.

Because I simply can't stay focused on one area for long without losing interest I switched my attention to the upper wing mid section. Here I've fashioned the rough shapes of the gravity fuel tank (left) and radiator (right) from bits of plastic sheet. When a handmade piece fits (almost) perfectly into a handmade opening it's to me probably one of the most rewarding aspects of scratch building stuff. The emergency fuel tank is a copper box shape that looks as if it has suffered an internal explosion. The radiator is ever so slightly recessed into the wing. Both also follow the wing curvature more or less. I've been thinking of a way to replicate the radiator cooling "ribs". In this scale scribing them will probably do. But unevenly distributed parallel lines stand out like a sore thumb. Because of it's prominent place on the finished model it demands attention. So I've come up with this device. It's pretty much self explaining I guess but I'll give you the specs anyway. As a base I used a piece of 5mm styrene onto which I've epoxied two bolts with two nuts each. I embedded the nuts into the base so the bolts push against the ruler instead of passing over it. The piece to be scribed is fixed to the base with double sided tape. I used bolts with a slot head which can be conveniently used for indexing. Not only a poor picture but also a poor result. Though the lines are nice and parallel there is also an anomaly at regular intervals. And there's your problem! For my test I advanced the bolts half a turn for every new line. As you can see there's a ledge on the left side of the bolt end. In order to eliminate the effect 100% the bolt end should be exactly perpendicular to the shank. Not wanting to go to so much trouble I only eyeballed it but also raised the ruler with a few piece of scrap so it meets the bolt end in the center. So errors are minimized providing you make sure the center is the highest point. Much better. Every half turn of the bolt advances the rule 1/3 th of a millimeter. There are of course much more scientific way to calculate this using thread pitch, bolt circumference and maths but who cares. Here's the result so far. For the group on the right I used one quarter of a turn so that's about 1/6th of a millimeter giving me 8 lines in one millimeter. The dodgy one on the left is pilot error. I think this is quite usable for my purposes. I also tried the device to see if I could make accurate strips with it. Lets say one of 1.5mm. 1.5 / 1/3 = 4,5 half turns Close enough for me. You have to start with creating a straight edge before each try and of course every time you mess one up the next will be no good also. As you can see the smaller the ribbons the greater the challenge. Still some of the result is useable. The material is Solartrim a tip from the great Nobby. (where are you man, we miss you!)

I love watching scratch builds. The unavoidable continuous problem solving always brings out the best in modellers. Good luck!

Another interesting project! The actual depth of the curve on the underside of cambered wings is usually very limited and judging from your drawings the B.E.2a is no different. While the boiling water route can yield excellent results (as splendidly demonstrated by Quentin) I would simply use a suitably thick piece of plastic card and sand it to shape. No risk of warping and you control the amount of curvature. The shape of the upper wing curvature will have to be sanded no matter what method you use. The under side is the easy part.

Hi John, there probably are plenty of similar features on all types so if you wouldn't mind sharing them that would be very helpful. I learned from the article referred to by Alfisti that the Argus is actually made by Opel. It seems there's at least one survivor in the London Science museum. And here's the rest I found of which I'm not sure about the type: And someones handy work.

The forum spell checker is my best friend. Usually it informs me with one continuous red line that I'd better revise my first input. And if words are used that are not your standard internet lingo I fail miserably. The rigging stage of my Hannover is still so far away that I haven't really given it much tought yet. Probably ultra thin fishing line though. I have seen another modeler use tiny pieces of stretched cotton buds to simulate turn buckles to good effect so I will definitely try that. Since then I've melted many a cotton bud but have not had any success so far. I guess success depends greatly on the kind of plastic it is made of. Luckily they're cheap and you can never have to much of them.

That prop came out perfectly! I actually had to Google for the definition of conker and I think that is an excellent way to describe the sheen. What no turnbuckles? I'm disappointed! I guess that means we can forget the scratch build pilot and ground crew to?

Thanks Dave, I had already come across the pictures in my searches. Nice to have the accompanying text. Unfortunately no new information on the Argus.

Glad I could be of service guys.

I'm putting my faith in you WW1 buffs for any kind of reference pictures or drawings of this engine as was used in the Hannover CLIIIa. My searches have only resulted in one dubious digital render and I already have the Windsock data file on the Hannover. Seems like there isn't much left after 90+ years. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you gentlemen. And Quentin this is especially for you. I use this highly unattractive bathroom tile that has seen better days. It does however have a smooth surface and is heat resistant. As you can see I sometimes use a fine line marker to sketch a few line to assist with lining up parts. This is easily removed later because nothing holds on this surface. In the lower left corner are the victims of this exercise. I just tape them into place. You can probably even superglue them but you have to keep the joining surfaces clear of all contamination. And yes the tape and glue will burn but as long as everything stay in place I don't care. Once a good soldering joint is made the parts can withstand a remarkable amount of misuse. (I.e. clean up) I prefer to use solder with a separate flux instead of the resin core solder. My favorite is a flux gel. With this stuff I can put a decent blob on the parts I want to join (forgot to take a picture) and it doesn't run all over the place. I think the flux is what transfers the heat instantly to the specific spot you've applied it. No flux no heat. Of course this only works when you touch the work with the tip of the iron for a split second. Anything longer and your artwork disintegrates into a mess. This is actually a reasonably successful attempt. Some joints have to much and other not enough solder but all parts are in the right place. And since this part will be somewhere in the depths of the fuselage nobody is going to see it let alone notice crappy joints. Cleaned up it looks good enough to me. As its turn to be added to the model is somewhere in the distant future we doe not want to lose it.

A small update just to show the work hasn't stalled completely. Some progress on the instrument panel sans instruments but with rudder bar and matching footholes. I managed to break both loops while handling them for the picture They will probably be soldered on next time which is infinitely stronger. I had a bit of practice building the frame for the pilot seat. This contraption is made up of 10 tiny pieces of copper. Since my brother had borrowed my "proper" soldering iron I used this 60W behemoth which worked surprisingly well. As a matter of fact I will probably use it from now on. It transfers a lot of heat very fast. So the slightest touch is enough to melt the tin, if that is proper English. The trick is of course to only touch the work for a fraction of a second. And.. Use little slices of this secret weapon as a heat sink. Next I made me a pilot seat for a diet of sauerkraut und bratwurst. I have no other explanation for the hole. But it's in the windsock datafile so it must be correct. Just so you have an idea of the size of it. The padding on the "arms" is another experiment. I'm sure you all know the use of PVA or white glue for modeling purposes. I like to use the kind that stays water soluble after hardening. It dries kind of slow but clear(ish) and shrinks like mad. In this case I like: the water soluble part (correct my numerous errors) Don't like: the drying time (need that for corrections) Clear when dry ( can't see my numerous errors) Shrinking (you have to guesstimate the amount which leads to yet more errors) So I mixed some Vallejo leather brown for color and acrylic glue (Gator grip and the like) for a faster drying time. I was afraid the acrylic glue would negate the water solubility but fortunately it didn't. Alas other then applying it in thin layers I haven't come up with a solution to the shrinking that doesn't change the viscosity. I'm pretty pleased with the stuff and am surely going to use it for other applications. This is the last bit of work I can report. The padding around the pilot's office. With stitches of course. I'm having trouble finding more reference for the engine. All German WW1 airplanes but the Hannover had the ubiquitous Mercedes DIII or so it seems. I desperately need info on the 180 PS Argus AsIII so if any of you know a source please enlighten me. Thanks for watching