pheonix

Evening All, One of the minor problems which resulted from moulding the fuselage was the rounded corners on the lower sides. These corners should be square. To remedy this deficiency is simple: I glued some stretched sprue around the edges which need to be squared off. When this was dry I applied a liberal coat of plastic putty over the sprue, waited for that to set and then sanded the corners until they were square: I learned this from another modeller who makes vacuforms where the same problem frequently arises. The lower wings were cemented to the nacelle one at a time. The first was attached, supported with a sophisticated jig, and allowed to set overnight: Next day I repeated the process with the other lower wing. With the wings in place and any small imperfections filled I was ready to fix the booms to the lower and upper wings. I have made many pushers and developed a simple technique which requires the same level of sophistication of jig manufacture as that required to fix the lower wings in place. First I use the side elevation to draw a line under the wing which touches the leading and trailing edges and continues to the rear beyond the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer. Now measure the vertical distance on the plan from the new line to the leading edge of the rear horizontal stabilizer (distance a). I use florists wire for the booms on my True Scale models and attach it to the wings by using the end of a round file to make a groove in the top or bottom surface of the rear of the wing. To locate where to file the groove, I place the nacelle and lower wing, or top wing, over the plans and trace the line of the booms on to the rear surfaces of the relevant wings. I measure how far forward the booms fit on to the wing - that marks the forward and deepest point of the groove. The florists wire is placed on the plans and four suitable lengths cut, two for each wing. (I know that this method is not 100% accurate but it is close enough in this scale that it does not matter if a boom is a couple of mm too long or short). The front ends of the booms are filed to make them flatter and thinner to achieve a larger surface in contact with the wing and allow the boom to taper forwards. The rear ends of the booms are filed to make a neat V when viewed from above and make a better mating surface. Now make the jig. First lay the nacelle and wings over a copy of the plans so that the wings align with the plans exactly and lie flat on the bench. Take some scrap plastic/wood/card and make a support which is the same thickness as the vertical height (a) and place it so that the leading edge sits directly over the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer on the plan. I use two part epoxy to attach the booms to the wings as this gives me a bit of wriggle time. When I am happy that the booms are properly set and aligned on the wing and are resting on the rear support I apply a small drop of CA to the V joint at the rear. This helps to stabilize the structure while the epoxy cures overnight. Repeat the above operation with the top wing. The booms should now be at the correct angle in relation to the wings. The upper and lower parts of the aeroplane are now ready for painting. I have made the wheels using another simple process. Cut the wheel discs from circles of 60 thou card: I cut out squares, trim the corners and finish with a file. I also file down the edges until they are about half the thickness of the card. Take a length of 60 thou rod, wind it around a paintbrush handle which is a slightly smaller diameter that the wheel discs, and immerse for a few seconds in boiling water. Remove from the water and plunge into cold water to set the plastic and leave a spiral. Cut off a length from the spiral which is slightly too long to fit over the disc, pull the ends of the cut plastic together to make them meet properly and place over the disc. By careful trimming of the end of the plastic rod a tyre can be cut which will sit tightly on the wheel disc. Hold in place with liquid cement and when dry clean up with filler and glass paper as necessary: I know that in the above image I have a tyre from red rod and a spiral from white: I used the last of an old spiral to make the first tyre. Thanks for looking. P

Many thanks for the very kind comments - I really appreciate them all. This one is taking much longer than anticipated for a number of reasons, but I do seem to have recovered some mojo recently and am less pressed for time, so I am hoping that I will be able to post a little more frequently in future. P

Thanks for the comment Frank. The information you have matches my own, it is the fuselage which is my area of uncertainty. Looking at the photos, (I can find no drawings), I think that the designers used a CI fuselage too. They appear to have turned it through 180 degrees so that the pilot sat in front of the engine and the observer in the front of the nacelle, and the sliced the old rear of the fuselage off. That at least is how I have built my own nacelle and it seems to match the photos pretty well. The booms and tail I am having to guess, based on the known dimensions. I am therefore not claiming 100% accuracy: I am not sure that anyone can given the information available. P

Absolutely first class in every way Frank. In short it is a stunning winner! P

Completely agree with Arthur. First class model/conversion. P

Evening All Many thanks Adrian, Ian and Frank for following along. I am sorry that it has been so long since I last posted but as explained elsewhere on this site I have been suffering form a minor medical condition which has made modelling difficult, and I have had a loss of mojo. However things have improved lately and the mojo is returning, so here is the latest on progress. The BE 2 was a two seat reconnaissance machine, so two wicker seats were needed. I have tried scratch building them but decided that life is too short when there is a high quality option available: step in Barracuda with their resin seats. Some may argue that the Baraccuda pattern is wrong, (wicker seats varied considerably), but photos do not show the real things in any detail so I have gone with these: The seats were mounted on frames and the frames held with wires which were fixed to corners of the fuselage frame. I made the wood frames for the seats with 10 x 20 thou plastic strip and the lap belts from paper. The belts are based on photos of originals which were posted on Britmodeller some years ago. Other interior details include the control column and rudder bar. The former was made from plastic rod, the latter from scrap plastic. Both have been rigged with EZ line to represent the control wires which will extend to the rudder and elevators later: The lower wing which has the structure exposed has had the centre spar added. This was made up from 40 x 60 thou Evergreen strip with small holes made at the points were they join the ribs and where a rigging wire will pass later: This is still not ready for paint because I still need to add the leading and trailing edge parts and the leading edge strengthening ribs, but I am avoiding them at the moment as they will only get damaged while I handle the model to add other parts. I have at last got the top wing sandwich sorted out. I moulded the upper and lower parts successfully, drilled the lower half and added the rigging wires, and joined the two parts: Note the advanced clamps used to hold things while they dried out. The joint was as usual best described as an ugly mess, but filing and sanding and the use of card filler and putty soon sorted out those problems on the underside. The ribs are 10 x 30 thou Evergreen strip with a liberal coating of Surfacer 500. I have not sanded the ribs down yet - probably two or three sessions will be needed with an application of Surfacer between each coat, followed by a Surfacer 1000 to finish them off. At least this part is now well on the way to completion at last. (The clip is holding rigging wires): I have decided to make the wooden parts of the fuselage from wood for two reasons: first I am a hopeless artist and painting plastic to look like wood is not at all easy for me. Secondly the most realistic wood effect is obtained by using real wood. I have already shown the lower fuselage surface in place: I cut a second piece for the upper decking. The cockpit curvature was cut out with a craft knife and finshed with a round file and glasspaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. The fuselage immediately behind the pilot was raised and consisted of a piece of curved wood which was supported by small triangular braces. I cut the vertical face from the same marquetry wood as the fuselage panels, and shaped the top with a craft knife and sanded it smooth. I carefully curved it to fit the shape of the cockpit opening: this was a delicate operation as the wood is so thin it would easily break, so I superglued one end of the curve to the top of the fuselage panel. When this had set I glued a short length to the panel, gently bending the wood as I did so, and held it in place while the glue set. I repeated this operation several times until I had worked my way around the rear of the cockpit opening. Finally I cut the three triangular braces and superglued them into place. The image shows the finished part - the panel is resting on the fuselage frame at the moment as I still have to add the controls and other internal details: The other part which I have made from wood was the decking between the pilot and observer's cockpits. On the original this was made from plywood which had been steamed and bent to shape, and has a marked forward slope. The curve of the decking was such that I could not bend the marquetry wood unaided, so I resorted to steaming it too. I have never used the steam bending method before, but a quick search on the net provided me with useful tutorial videos and I worked out a method. I made a mould from basswood in the same way as i would have done to make a part from plastic. This had a sufficiently large curve to allow the wood to be bent over it without breaking. A piece of wood which was larger than the final piece was cut and bent over the mould and held in place with a simple clamp and wood buffers: Steaming the wood was achieved by holding the sample over the mouth of a steaming kettle and the kettle kept boiling for about 15 seconds. The sample was allowed to cool and released to produce a nicely shaped piece of wood: from which I was able to cut the required size and shape for the model: The instrument board will fit inside the wood panel and help to strengthen it when it is fixed to the fuselage frame. The next step will be to finish the upper wing including adding the ribs and centre spar. After that I need to have a long think about what to do next as the model is going to become rather delicate to handle. Thanks for looking. P

Yes. They are thin rod and will be put in place later when I start to put the engine into the fuselage. P

Evening All, The wings are now pretty much finished - the ribs have been rubbed down and primed to make sure that all is ready for painting later. I have not taken pictures as there is little to show. I have carved a male mould for the fuselage nacelle from balsa. I used plywood for the female mould (basically a hole cut to the shape of the side profile), and made the nacelle halves from 30 thou Evergreen sheet styrene: As the shape is simple it did not hurt my shoulder too much! In the above image I have cut one half of the fuselage from the sheet - the other has still to be cut out. You can see that it is very much like a vacuform and requires similar techniques to cut out. After sanding the edges of the halves I was able to achieve an acceptable pair of nacelle halves: The second image shows that the joint underneath is good enough and will only need a small amount of filling and filing. The cockpit interior was basic as I have no details of what it was like - it is loosely based on an Albatros CI from which the nacelle was probably derived. Everything was made from card. The interior of the cockpits was painted in brown as the nacelle was made from wood, the rear was black because the engine will occupy that space and nothing much will be seen. The cockpit openings were cut with a knife and finished with a round file. The small pieces of plastic on the bottom are to help join the nacelle halves and fill the minor gap in that area: I have also scratch built the cylinders for the engine and added a valve cover on the top, and cut an exhaust mainfold from card: The next steps will be to assemble the nacelle and clean it up, instal the engine and fit the lower wings to the nacelle. Thanks for looking. P

It may be more expensive but try using 30 thou clear acetate. I moulded some canopies for a fellow modeller recently and was surprised how easily it moulded, especially when compared with white styrene which I usually use. P

That certainly looks good. Bet you are pleased with the replacement props - saved all that filing/sanding work! P

Another super build. P

Excellent progress with very good details. I have never tried the core method of wing construction as I tend to use single sheet plastic. P

Certainly an attractive looking aircraft. I bet it went fast too! P

Absolutely superb. P

Superb piece of scratch building - well up to the standard that we expect from you. This project is clearly going to be a success. P

Good to see you back with a very interesting project OM. I agree that making the most difficult parts first is a good policy, and you seem to have got over that hurdle so the project should be a success. I for one will be following along with interest. p

Another of your projects well on the way to completion before I was even aware of their existence! I too did not know of these designs but they certainly look very business like. Good work being done here - looking forward to seeing more. P

I have only just found this and it is nearly finished! Still it made an interesting and enjoyable read - just thoroughly impressed by the speed and quality of your modelling. P

How you can be working o several models simultaneously is beyond me.... I struggle with one (although at the moment I am working on two because of this GB). I am new to these types - some am learning as you go along. Excellent progress thus far. P

Only just found this Stuart. Looking at the "fun" you are having with this kit I think that I will stick with scratch building as it is easier! The one big advantage that you have is that this is an unusual type and not kitted in another way so you will at least have a unique model when it is completed. It will also be a real eye-catcher. P

I too have never heard of this type (although I do know of some Thulin types). Thanks for the background to the man and his company - very interesting. You have made a good start - especially the moulds which look super. Good idea to use an engine from the spares as they can be awkward to scratch build. Looking forward to seeing more of this one. P

Looking very good, and different! P

If you do use the strip method as described, it is worth running some cement over the strips after they have dried to make sure that all parts of the strip are properly fixed. In the past I have not done this and found that in places the strip was not firmly held and started to lift when I sanded it. P

It really is quite simple Col. If you can trace and cut out a part from plastic sheet, mark the rib spacing and apply the strip with liquid cement, and then sand gently you can make wings without many problems.

Evening All A belated thanks to Thom, Col and Stuart: I hope that the final result will meet with your expectations. Well Thom I decided not to make a box after all - I just put the materials in a drawer and pull them out as and when needed...! I have cut the wing blanks as I have accurate plans for these so they are straightforward to make. 30 thou card inserted into a waste pipe and very hot water poured in. Drain the water and after 20 seconds pull out the card - it has the right curvature to represent the aerofoil of the wings. Blanks were cut from the card and ribs added from 10 x 20 thou Evergreen strip. When this is set I sand down the ribs so they are almost flat on the wing surface. The three stages are shown below: bottom right: the ribs have been added but not trimmed bottom left: the ribs have been trimmed but not sanded top: ribs sanded and the trailing edge of the wing sculpted with a round file. Sanding and filing is causing problems with my shoulder so progress will undoubtedly be a bit slower than usual. In addition I want to try to keep on with the BE 2a which I am making - hopefully this will improve my motivation which has been lacking of late. Thanks for looking. P