Three interwar biplanes: Avro 504N, Airco DH9, Vickers Vildebeest -now THE END!

[JWM]

Hi

Progress report from Vildebeest.

A desclimer - honstly speaking  I am not 100% sure about any detailing of bottom of fuselage (and not only about bottom...)

I glued bottom wings and tail

 

I removed the movable cover above site of third member of crew since I do not see any traces of it on photos (nor or drawings from Spanish book mentioned before - seen in background)

I glued floats as separate assembly

 

At the and of day I glued floats to plane

I rescribed also tailplane for early variant 

 

To be cont

Cheers

J-W

 

[stevehnz]

Looking most impressive, carry on, I'm looking forward to the finale.

Steve.

[JWM]

I have to step back from my claims about undernose cooler. What I shown in post #72 with wider unernose cooler those are all photos of prototype - with different struts of floats. The serial machines presented there

seems to have smaller cooler... Still there ARE different windows on sides...

I have to correct

J-W

 

[JWM]

Another correcion. The angle between floats and fuselage seem to be a bit  too different from parallelness. 

Mchine sits a bit on nose. I cut rear struts and shortered them by less then 1 mm.

After back glueing in seems to me that the angle is more proper

Perhaps it is better seen here:

 

I came to Canossa with surface radiator

 

Above the frame around bottom window is seen as well.  Of course a lot of small sanding correction will be done here.

 

I replaced PE bars (ledders) on float struts for streched sprue

 

Work on new propeller started

On left new, on right original. You may see here too large diameter of original prop. The spinner is copier in resin from original prop spinner.

 

To be cont.

Cheers

J-W

 

 

[Giorgio N]

More great work from you here,  this is really an impressive thread ! Your work also reminds me how pictures of the real thing are crucial to get things right, particularly for those types for which there isn't much around

[JWM]

Hi,

Time for upper wing. The slots mechanism from PE attached and drilled opening. On bottom - Hispano engine.

The rotable bearing of prop

The plane waits for glueing of upper wing

 

 

WIng glued in, positioned by Tamiya tape

 

Now 24 hours for repolimerisation of  styren (simply - drying  )

Cheers

J-W

[JWM]

Hi,

When I looked from front I baceme a bit unhappy with upper wing position

The cabane struts  goes too vertical so upper wing does not follow exactly the angles of lower wing, I have checked with calipper, that it is about 0.7 mm difference between sides and central part.. So I cut cabane struts from upper wing, cut about 1 mm from lenght of each, what altogether re-arranged the angles and distance between wings in central part:

The difference was worth this complication I think. The distance between wings is critical for whole shilouette of biplane always.

 

But there is also enxpected price for it. One of float rudders jumped out, I;ve heard a splash but had not found yet it,

 

 

If the carpet monster will be faster than me in searching for it I will to do likely both, since the difference between PE part and scratch one cannot be rather avoided...

 

To be continued

Cheers

J-W

 

[JWM]

Hi,

Now riging. Before attachement of upper wing I drilled openings with 0.5 mm drill. I used EZ line as always recently.

 

 

Now time for restoring surfaces...

Cheers

J-W

 

 

[Roger Holden]

Just found this thread. As well as the wrong prop and elevator balances, which you have corrected, the Spanish Vildebeest requires another change. They didn't have the 'bulge' on the fuselage sides running between the cockpits covering the strut attachments.  This is clearly seen in at least one of your photos.  But it'a a bit late now....sorry !

[JWM]

1 hour ago, Roger Holden said:

Just found this thread. As well as the wrong prop and elevator balances, which you have corrected, the Spanish Vildebeest requires another change. They didn't have the 'bulge' on the fuselage sides running between the cockpits covering the strut attachments.  This is clearly seen in at least one of your photos.  But it'a a bit late now....sorry !

Indeed! That is  funny (or rather not funny) that I have not noticed it despite I was watching those photos to search the differences. Now when I look on the photos this bulge seems to be introduced on Mk III. That is true - it is too late now for such important correction.  I have to go on despite it. 

Thank you for noticing this , anyway...

Regards

J-W

 

[JWM]

Hi,

I am surprised but after some time spent on searching I won battle with carpet monster!  The float rudder was found.

 Perhaps ypu can see that I tried to make the bulge less pronauced at least back from cabane struts

This can be observed on above photo and also here:

 

I was adding other details like struts controliing upper ailerons etc.. as well as tried to restore surface of wings:

 

More detailing next but we are approaching to the most waiting part - the painting!

Best regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

 

[stevehnz]

Looking very handsome Jerzy, I'm in awe of the skills that you bring to these kits, they're quite wonderful.

Steve

[JWM]

I started to think in details about the painting scheme

I think this is the only photo existing for this particular machine I would like to do:

There are at least two interpretations as profiles

Both colour profiles are not very accurate. I think that waves of blue and green colour (I am thinking on what I am using as standard set for Republicans: Humbroll 117 as green and 65 as light blue) are applied on natural metal/ alu dope background. On photo you can see that floats has more silver/alu then fuselage. They are a bit differently painted anyway. The red belt on fuselage looks like crossing waves - so likely was applied after the wavy scheme (?). In instruction they do not show red belt on top of wings, But there are national insignia. which were pre war markings. And they looks like overpainting wavy background. Was they then painted (re-painted) after waves? I cannot see from photo, that red belt is present or not present on top of any wing. Anyway I will do at least wing belts as decals - to make it possible to change their presence/absence if better quality photo will be revealed. 

I am painting now the alu..silver background

Regards

J-W

 

 

Edited August 26, 2018 by JWM
mispelling corrections

[JWM]

Base is painted

 

After while I will start the waves

Cheers

J-W

 

[Giorgio N]

Glad to hear that you found the rudder ! So sometimes the carpet monster CAN be defeated ! 👍

Love the correction you made to the bulge too, that sure is attention to details.

Now that scheme... WOW, that is a complicated scheme ! Can't help with the interpretation as I really know nothing of types from this era and almost nothing about the SCW, can only say that it will sure be a challenge to replicate such a scheme in 1/72

[JWM]

I analyzed photo and concluded (?- currently I think i have right, but who know how it will be in future?) that only on floats the base in silver on which we have waves of two colours  (green and blue I assumed as for Mediterranean Sea near shore in Barcelona) but the rest on the plane there are light blue waves applied on green background. 

So this is my result for today:

 

Regards

J-W

 

[JWM]

13 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Glad to hear that you found the rudder ! So sometimes the carpet monster CAN be defeated ! 👍

Love the correction you made to the bulge too, that sure is attention to details.

Now that scheme... WOW, that is a complicated scheme ! Can't help with the interpretation as I really know nothing of types from this era and almost nothing about the SCW, can only say that it will sure be a challenge to replicate such a scheme in 1/72

Thank you Giorgio. Currently I think that the interpretation that silver or alu dope background is base for this scheme is wrong, Technially, the light waves look like painted over dark background. ... At least on main part of a/c (excluding floats) . I hope it is correct. The proposed in kit form of this scheme is different

Cheers

J-W

 

[Grandboof]

Awesome work 

Martin H

[JWM]

I started to think about decals and I have to tell that from decades I have serious doubts regarding the roundels on upper wing in all camouflaged SCW Republican machines. Since before war they were painted alu dope when camouflage was applied the roundels were not-in -use insignia. The new insignia were red bands (belts?) or wingtips. So from such  pure rational reason I think that more probable are red bands on top of wing in case of Vildebeest then pre-war style Spanish roundels. Does anybody knows something about it? Lower wing, unless when stayed in alu dope has both: red belts or wingtip and roundels. This is natural, since nobody overpainted roundels. The Nationalsists overpainted roundels with black paint making black circles...

So I think that in case of Fury (for instance) such profile:

is more probable than that one:

The same in case of NId 52, Breguet 19 etc...

Regards

J-W

 

[Giorgio N]

Wow, that is an impressive paint scheme, really well done ! 👍

 

[JWM]

Current state:

 

 

 

To be cont.

J-W

 

[Giorgio N]

Looking even better now with markings in place

Interesting how the very unusual camouflage was then covered with what much have been pretty visible markings

[JWM]

I worked a bit more about the camo, Also add decals and work on softering them using micro sol and micro set solutions. Some detailing is added as well. Current state:

To be cont.

Cheers

J-W

 

[stevehnz]

Brilliant, that paint job is off the scale Jerzy, just superb.

Steve.

[Giorgio N]

Agree with Steve, really supeb finish !

I'm curious about the crown on the tail, was this  a particular marking ? I'd have expected a machine in the Republican years to have no such marking... but mind, I know nothing of CSW or Spanish markings !