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Avro 504K, 1/32, Scratchbuild


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3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

So now - I'm going to try to make an effort and help Hendie get through his coffee, ham and eggs by posting on a Saturday evening. 

 

Not bad for a first attempt, I was just finishing my Saturday morning coffee #2 before arising to face the terrors and traumas of the day.

 

3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Here I'm nutting out

 

Had to google that one Steve. In my homeland that act of nutting is usually followed up by a swift Glasgow Smile  (not quite as jovial as it may sound).  Got it though... the non violent act of cogitating to determine the most appropriate solution.  Carry on.

 

 

3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Hendie is always concerned about pilot welfare

 

In retrospect, I dunno why - they never treated me with much respect

 

3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

because in this shot the sanding cylinder looks like it's sitting still but it's actually doing about 10,000 rpm.  Look at all the bit's of sawdust flying off towards the left hand side of the shot.

 

Looks to me like you're holding a bit of wood up to a stationary dremel and your camera has loads of dust on the lens (not unlike mine).

 

3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Enjoy your breakfast Hendie,

 

Just did Steve - thanks!

 

3 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I might be able to use the vac-form as a final finishing layer to unify the look of the structure I'm going to make from the remnants of the buck, but that's not the plan at present.

 

I think that's the way I would probably approach it Steve.  You could either use slices of the wooden buck as support structure under the vac-form, or create new ones from brass. 

I think I'd be tempted to take that rearmost portion of the wooden buck and make a number of slices (5 mm thick or so?) from port to starboard so you have a number of "frames" of the correct curvature which can be spaced along the length of the deck area, and afix the vac-form to the top of those

 

 

 

 

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Got to agree with Stuart: the cockpit looks good enough to satisfy all but the most serious of stich counters. After all, could many of them build a biplane from scratch? Or out of wood, metal and plastic? I doubt it.

 

P

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4 hours ago, pheonix said:

After all, could many of them build a biplane from scratch? 

 

Thanks Phoenix. To be honest though I’m still not sure I can build a biplane either. I’m dreading sticking that stupid top wing on! 😳

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9 hours ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

Thanks Phoenix. To be honest though I’m still not sure I can build a biplane either. I’m dreading sticking that stupid top wing on! 😳

We have every faith in you.

 

Look at the positive, at least you are not getting hassle about putting lights in it like you did with the Carpathia... mind you, a motor inside the engine to make the prop spin would look good :whistle:

Edited by brianthemodeller
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25 minutes ago, brianthemodeller said:

at least you are not getting hassle about putting lights in it like you did with the Carpathia... mind you, a motor inside the engine to make the prop spin would look good :whistle:

Oh dear...

 

I greatly fear where that line of thought might lead. Don’t get the Martian involved with this! 

 

👽

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  • 3 weeks later...

Back at it!

 

There's been lots of distractions from this project lately including - finally - finishing the Carpathia thread, and helping my daughter build her 'Hogwart's express'. Have a look here if you have a few minutes - it's shaping up really well!

 

 

Anyhow now it's time to get back to the Avro and get this cockpit thing up to speed.

 

Here's where I was last seen. Seats had just gone in and I had finally worked out what to do with the cockpit openings.

7WmyGxX.jpg

 

Give the seats some cushions and cut some holes for the - very rudimentary - straps.  At this stage in aircraft development I don't think pilots generally had shoulder straps - just some basic lap straps to stop them falling out when inverted! 🙃

vMcG3SR.jpg

 

Give the control columns some handles - (why is it that I can never spell columns without a spell checker?).

D8iNAFz.jpg

 

All of which gives a slightly improved looking cockpit. 

bPJEM3B.jpg

 

Here's the instructor's instrument panel.  Made using some of 'Airscales' excellent instrument decals. Probably not a WW1 to be honest, but who's asking?

M8Bc60W.jpg

 

Stick the instructor's instrument panel onto the underside of the middle upper cockpit bit as shown. Nice and secure with some two part araldite. (Araldite! - another one of those hard to spell words). 😨

4oMeciD.jpg

 

Dry fit everything - starting to look OK now. I will draw your attention to the little brass starter (or electrical switch) just ahead of and above the instructor's throttle. This little switch came readily formed as an off-cut of a bit of brass fishing gear I hacked to pieces to make some mast fittings for Carpathia. By pure good luck it makes for an uncannily accurate representation of the real switch.

IxPDVmj.jpg

 

With the middle bit in place we can see both instrument panels - if we use flash photography. Otherwise it's a bit of a coal hole in there.

UvPHfY0.jpg

 

Looking OK - but not glued together yet.

fVoSiEc.jpg

 

Here's another close-up view of the cockpit detailing before it gets buttoned up.

ZgptqsO.jpg

 

Prior to final assembly and gluing though, I need to sort out the colours of these struts. At this point they have just been sprayed with some Tamiya 'Dark Yellow'.

KPAsuK4.jpg

 

Now get a bit of burnt Sienna oil paint and an old brush and smear a few irregular streaks of oil paint over the acrylic. 

1ZZEqCY.jpg

 

Then even it out a bit while still leaving some brush marks. This is a quick, easy and surprisingly effective way to simulate wood grain. The only drawback is that oil paint takes forever to dry so you need to let them dry for at least a few days before doing anything more with these bits.

gePr6nb.jpg

 

Now the struts get locked into place with the front bit of the cowling. Even just held by friction like this they are surprisingly firmly held. But of course I had to stick to some two part araldite in there just to make sure.  It's hard to spell, but it's probably the best all-round glue there is for this kind of work. 

Fbero9I.jpg

 

And here is some more araldite holding the side panels in place. These panels caused me major issues earlier in the build so I was very pleased to see them glued and...

5ILPxgJ.jpg

 

held in place once and for all. 

jgFKOOP.jpg

 

Now the top middle bit of the cockpit decking had to go in and I was worried that it would put up a fight and not fit properly. I am very happy to say that the brass walls had just the right amount of 'spring' in them to firmly hold the piece in position.  Another couple of drops of araldite and the cockpit was done!    Halleluiah!   :yahoo:

NQpSvtq.jpg

 

And this was what all the fuss was about.      :sleep_1:

9hdxpmo.jpg

 

Not much to see really, but it is another one of the most challenging parts of this build complete.

 

Next up - undercarriage. 😱 

 

Bandsaw Steve,

Happy to be back on the aviation pages!

 

 

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Excellent update Steve. The cockpits look very realistic and the whole assembly will be super when painted. Complex construction indeed but all problems solved with Araldite and a little lateral thinking!

 

P

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  • 2 weeks later...

Standing on its own five feet

 

So far this poor old model has had to spend its entire life lying flat on it's belly, how humiliating. Let's give this thing some legs so it can sit up and look around a bit.  The main undercarriage structure on an Avro 504 K is quite complex and at first glance looks like a model builder's nightmare. However having studied it in a bit more detail I think this might prove to not be too bad..

 

Start by carefully measuring the angle between the vertical centreline of the aircraft and the main  weight-bearing undercarriage struts. Here the angle is shown to be 13 degrees.  Sorry about the rather rough graphic on this occasion.

Tek4qQy.jpg

 

Now I must set my drill press to 13 degrees and drill a couple of holes in the bottom of the aeroplane.

Qrr2nhW.jpg

 

This will allow  some 1.5mm carbon fibre rod to slip into the hole.

CjltUY0.jpg

 

Now drill the second hole - also on 13 degrees from centreline when viewed from the front, but also dead parallel to the first undercarriage leg when viewed from the side. 

0hOsmqI.jpg

 

Woo-ho! :clap2: Now it looks like one of those weird fish that walk around on the bottom of the ocean on the tips of it's fins.  A gurnard I think? Perhaps this is the 'long oleo' Avro 504 - adapted for aircraft carriers.

kNRndGE.jpg

 

Carbon fibre is very strong and tough - but this good set of scissors snipped this thin rod without too much worry.  I have however learned the hard way to carefully select which tools to use on carbon fibre. It's harder than it's flexibility would suggest and it can be very damaging on some edged tools. 

ge1Jf9J.jpg

 

The photo above looks like a good start - but the Avro does not have a single strut in each UC leg. As shown below, the single strut from above enters a little box arrangement (where the shock absorbing rubber sits?) and then splits into two.

tdUG3YN.jpg

 

So let's make those little boxes. This will need to be made from very strong wood because all of the forces involved with transferring the weight of the model from the one strut to two will pass through these blocks. Here I'm using Sapelli which is the same hard-wood I used to construct the wings. 

UZ4UykM.jpg

 

Drill one central hole in the top of each box...

xgvpstT.jpg

 

and two offset holes in the base.

GrfUVqM.jpg

 

Cut the little blocks out, sand them to the correct shape and glue the struts into place using two-part Araldite. 

p4BXiBg.jpg

 

To create these.

lMmIHiK.jpg

 

Which fit nicely into the previously drilled holes.

WL7j7ui.jpg

 

So here it is. An Avro sitting on five little feet. Two at the bottom of the each of the main undercarriage legs and one tailskid - made a long time ago - at the rear of the aircraft. The 'stance' looks much better now.

 

No real issues encountered with undercarriage so far and I am hoping that the rest will go together without too much hassle.  At this point it is looking like most of the weight-bearing structure will hold with no real worries, although I still have to work out how to deal with the wheels. :confused:

 

I think that will be the next post.

 

Best Regards,

Bandsaw Steve

 

 

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This has made huge strides (and I’m not talking about trousers, for any passing Aussies) since I last looked; fabulous stuff.  

 

Did the 504 have the “split axle” so characteristic of the period (see Pup, Camel et al for details)?

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Nice simple, but effective, approach to the legs. How are you going to join all the various bits of undercarriage together, as I assume you can't solder carbon-fibre?

 

Ian

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1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

 

Did the 504 have the “split axle” so characteristic of the period (see Pup, Camel et al for details)?

TBH, I’m not sure but I would guess so as I think it would make ground handling much easier.

48 minutes ago, limeypilot said:


How are you going to join all the various bits of undercarriage together, as I assume you can't solder carbon-fibre?

 

At this point I am planning on simply gluing with araldite.  I believe there are specialist glues for use with carbon fibre, so if the araldite is no good I will look into those alternatives. Probably no soldering for a little while now.

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Looking very sharp ( I mean that metaphorically btw) Steve. 

 

I hate doing wheels but have come up with a wonderfully lazy method using buttons> 

 

48313380647_f87353fdc5_z.jpg

These are for my 1/32 Bristol racer. 

 

Find the right diameter button (these were off ebay) mount them on a dremel and turn the tyre  to the right shape/depth. Make a slightly oversize  disk from thin card, slit it and glue it into a cone. Glue this to the button, fill any unwanted seams paint it and and hey presto a WWI style wheel.   (ignore the black bits they're just sharpie marks from my very crude marking out of the plastic sheet) Sounds difficult but way easier than the alternatives. Of course you could probably just buy an aftermarket set or 3D print them , that would be the easiest way. 

 

Now if you want spoked wheels, you're on your own :)

Edited by Marklo
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8 hours ago, Marklo said:

 

Now if you want spoked wheels, you're on your own :)

Cheating I know as far as true scratch building is concerned, but if you want spoked wheels Gaspatch supply them at reasonable cost and very high quality indeed. See my Gunbus build if you are interested.

 

P

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On 01/08/2019 at 18:42, Marklo said:

 

 

Find the right diameter button (these were off ebay) mount them on a dremel and turn the tyre  to the right shape/depth. Make a slightly oversize  disk from thin card, slit it and glue it into a cone. Glue this to the button, fill any unwanted seams paint it and and hey presto a WWI style wheel.  

Good suggestions! Thanks very much, am trying this method tonight. Next major post will cover how it goes - good or bad! 👍👎

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Just caught up. Very nice cockpit indeed, and I like your approach to the undercarriage. When you were setting up the drill I thought "why doesn't he just bend some wire?" but I guess you can't do that to carbon fibre! Looking forward to continued instalments over breakfast (or some meal, haven't worked out the time zone).

 

Regards,

Adrian

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2 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Looking forward to continued instalments over breakfast (or some meal, haven't worked out the time zone).

 

I can thoroughly recommend Sunday morning coffee - but he can be a bit inconsistent

 

 

 

PS I'll type more when it doesn't hurt to ty....

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Wheels and Whoops! 

 

Whoops - Somehow while pre-loading all of the images for this post I've accidentally hit the 'submit' button. Now I'm having to write this whole post in the 'edit' function.

 

A shame really as I thought this one was going to be quite good. Oh well, I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking.  This is how my little Avro got some wheels...  Starting with buttons as suggested by @Marklo

 above. Thank you Marklo - it gave me a chance to go and see that haberdashery sales assistant that Hendie seems to be obsessed with. 

Qk2nfdc.jpg

 

 

Q77yrL3.jpg

 

 

neBJA0a.jpg

 

 

JXBXMUU.jpg

 

 

w5CVtDj.jpg

 

 

QKqlOZM.jpg

 

 

fPj3Pvw.jpg

 

 

RPh8Bfc.jpg

 

 

vGHHkUX.jpg

 

 

RoKk3Mf.jpg

 

 

2jCSldZ.jpg

 

 

CgwN146.jpg

 

 

iCuURNq.jpg

 

 

xlGJFEi.jpg

 

Cut this tiny thing in half to make two tini-weenie little things that will hold the axle and the UC struts together.

4NvaMgX.jpg

 

 

00fxDgp.jpg

 

I'm happy with this! It's all friction fit at the moment - no glue used at all in this post and yet the structure holds the weight of the model.

 

I might do the nose-skid thing next. Can't be sure.

 

Bandsaw Steve

 

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