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Hannoverana, Airfix 1:72 nostalgia


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As my output of finished models is ludicrous I have decided it is time to kick myself in the behind.

Hopefully a build threa(t)d will keep the pressure on and me focused.

The victim of this endeavor will be the venerable Airfix Hannover which is not a bad kit for it's age but can be improved upon (fingers crossed).

Don't expect a quick build as I am an extremely slow builder.

It takes me more time to open the box than most of you need to finish it :blush:

So here it goes.

The mandatory box and sprue shots.

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Yes one nine six seven!

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Hmm.., seems like Airfix wants us to paint the lozenge by hand, we’ll see about that when the time comes.

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The excellent Windsock datafile will be the law during this project.

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Love nostalgia builds, I have one planned for my holiday in a few weeks time. I am very much looking forward to seeing how this one develops, especially as I have one of these in the stash.

Martin

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I'm quite partial to Airfix WWI nostalgia myself. In fact, I distinctly remember when this kit first came out. My brother got one and hand-painted all the lozenges. Too much trouble for my liking, but it was nice to see the final result. I'll look forward to watching somebody else's efforts now.

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Well, I hope you guys have a long breath because it's going to take awhile.

Here's how she measures up to the windsock plans.

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  • I think the fuselage from the observer seat forward should be on the same level i.e. raised.
  • The tail seems to have some shape issues.
  • I'm going to shorten the body in front of the tail as it is a tad long.

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Our Hannoverana is a bit chubby.

The mismatch in length is by no means as bad as the picture suggests. Somehow the (phone)camera exaggerates this in close-ups.

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We have to much wingspan which seems to be caused by the center section.

This has to go anyway since it was made of plywood and the cutout is the wrong shape.

The ailerons can be improved.

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Same with the lower wing.

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The Hannover signature horizontal double tail is probably easier made from scratch then corrected.

And of course all the exaggerated rib detail has got to go.

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So I've chopped the upper wing in three pieces.

Dumped the center piece, made some major contour changes to the wingtips.

Filled the old aileron demarcation lines and thinned the airfoil considerably.

I'll post some pictures after I've finished the new ailerons.

After that I focused on the wing centerpiece.

I made this from a piece of 2mm styrene stock.

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Here it is next to the wing it has got to conform to.

I transferred the contour with a sharp needle.

And then it's time to call in my secret modelling weapon.

A permanent marker!

Now we flood the scribed line and it's surroundings with black ink.

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And since it dries instantly and water resistant.

A swipe over a piece of wet and dry sandpaper gives a lovely clear line in seconds.

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This step is repeated on the other side and now it is simply a mater of sanding it to the required shape.

As I like to see what I'm doing I again reach for my underestimated modelling tool.

And paint it black!

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Now I start sanding and as long as you keep the appearing white facet parallel and square to all sides you're good.

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And paint it black again.

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Sand another facet a bit higher on the arc. At this stage I'm not trying to sand an airfoil just different flat facets.

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You get the point. This is what it looks like with both sides done.

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And after some more elbow grease this is the end result.

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I've actually done the lower wings already in the same fashion.

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They look better in reality but this is the best I could do.

All in all, a lot of work but done at lightning speed for my standards. :clif:

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I've done some work on the upperwings

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I planned to keep the three pieces separate to facilitate riging later on.

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So I used small pins for this purpose and to strengthen the joint after gluing.

I took great care when drilling the mating holes. I misused my calipers to scratch a datum line in the center of all parts and drew a line to help guide the drill angle.

Using optivisors I carfully made a centerpoint.

And the result is ..... still mediocre :owww:

And then there is the wing dihedral.

How does one accurately bend a piece of wire to an angle of 1,5 degrees :shrug:

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The ailerons are a sandwich of copper an styrene because I wanted a sharp trailing edge and a taper to match the thickness of the wing.

I also had to be able to bend the ends up.

I hope I'm not going to get into trouble later on with different materials having different expansion and contraction properties.

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As I have the attention span of a three year old, I switched to the body today.

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And we have a convertible!

And by courtesy of Albatros productions we go from this:

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Trough this:

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To this:

(And no, I did not pick this of the sidewalk!)

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With a delicate precision tool,

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we arrive at this:

(After numerous alterations to the base model)

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You can see another use of the ubiquitous black marker.

White milliput on white styrene isn't the most handy combination.

I'm not completely satisfied with the shape yet but I think I can make some adjustments when it is in situ.

Now to fit this onto the fuselage I glues a piece of sturdy sandpaper to it.

This way I always arrive at the shape it has to conform to.

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The observant viewer may notice this is a test piece I did earlier.

This is the final result.

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Obviously the sides have to be thinned down somewhat to match the new shell.

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About 2mm!

(Yes, black marker again)

That's it for now. I hope this is of interest to some of you.

Maybe a bit picture heavy but that is to coverup my lack of eloquence in the English language. :blah:

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That work on the wings looks impressively precise to me. I faced the same problem with the upper wings of my Dolphin. I ended up fudging it slightly, basically by shortening the lugs and enlarging the holes until it all fitted together.

And the work on the fuselage is pretty staggering as well. I like the cross-sections-and-milliput idea. I assume you used this as a mould and vac-formed the final result?

Keep up the good work.

Edited by Quentin
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That work on the wings looks impressively precise to me. I faced the same problem with the upper wings of my Dolphin. I ended up fudging it slightly, basically by shortening the lugs and enlarging the holes until it all fitted together.

And the work on the fuselage is pretty staggering as well. I like the cross-sections-and-milliput idea. I assume you used this as a mould and vac-formed the final result?

Keep up the good work.

Thanks, and yes you assumed right.

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Thanks for the kind words guys!

Today I am going to make a bulkhead, if that is a proper word to use when we're talking airplanes.

The one directly behind the engine also known as the firewall if I'm correct.

It has got to go here somewhere.

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The fuse halves are temporarily stuck together with tape and a drop of cyano in strategic places to keep it a bit more rigid.

Because I've only thinned the top of the sidewalls they are anything but flat. As can be seen in the picture.

And the firewall will also will have to fit to the upper fuselage coaming.

I actually came up with a method to tackle the problem this morning and am pretty chuffed about it :coolio:

First I cut a piece of thick paper to friction fit in the approximate location.

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Then I made a marking gauge to follow the contour of the sidewall as close as possible.

For this I use a piece of 0,5mm lead from a technical pencil and glued it to a scrap of plastic.

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Then we simply follow the sidewall curvature keeping the lead-point to sidewall distance the same all the way.

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After this I made a template for the opposite side in the same way.

Cut them out as precisely as possible and glued them on top of each other with a slow(ish) drying glue.

This way I can fine tune their position in situ.

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Now simply glue it to a piece of styrene of appropriate firewall thickness and cut it out.

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For the curvature of the upper coaming I just used the part itself as the template.

In the picture you can see me tracing it on a piece of paper but in the end I decided to draw it directly onto the firewall.

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And Voila! A not to bad fitting firewall!

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  • 1 month later...

A small update just to show the work hasn't stalled completely.

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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 :angry:

They will probably be soldered on next time which is infinitely stronger.

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I had a bit of practice building the frame for the pilot seat.

This contraption is made up of 10 tiny pieces of copper.

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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..

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Use little slices of this secret weapon as a heat sink.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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 friends.gif

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Thank you gentlemen.

And Quentin this is especially for you.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Edited by airhead
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Thanks for the detailed answer. I tried soldering the cabane of my Dolphin but made a complete mess of it and decided it wasn't practical in 1/72nd scale. You have demonstrated pretty convincingly that it is practical. I might have another go on a future project.

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