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CDW
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Once the fuselage gets framed up, the cabane wires and landing gear wires must be bent and built. Steel wire binds the joints then silver solder seals the deal. Both the cabane wires and landing gear are removeable. This thing is starting to become rather large for my modest building room/area. I could move out to my 3-car garage, but it is not climate controlled and not very friendly to wooden models nor my body. The limits of my willingness to endure the drastic Florida heat and humidity will eventually force me to strongly consider insulating and air conditioning my garage. -
Here, the fuselage sides, horizontal stabilizer and rudder are being framed up. Main construction components are balsa, spruce, and aircraft grade plywood. The fuselage sides and very light weight but extremely strong.
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Here are the framed up wings. As you can see, they are rather huge.
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The wings are generally the first thing I'll build when doing an airplane model. These wings feature a built up main spar consisting of two spruce spars and plywood sheet on each side of the spars making a hollow spar. The pictures show fairly well how the spar is built. Makes for an extremely strong but light weight wing structure. Both the top and bottom wings on this model are equal lengths. Except for areas where required, this model will be almost entirely built using Tite Bond as the adhesive. Where higher strength is needed, epoxy and fiberglass cloth. Certain areas of the main spars receive epoxy and fiberglass due to the fact the wings disassemble with a connecting plywood spar that slides inside the main spars. A model this size demands that it come apart for transport, then assembled at the flying field for flight. With a biplane such as this, it will employ functional flying wires and turnbuckles to hold it all together. Some thought is required to make it all easy to assemble at the flying field, yet strong enough to withstand the stresses of flight and maybe a hard landing here or there. I lay ceiling tiles on my building tables to allow for pinning down the wood structures when I am building them on top of the plans.
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This 1:4 scale Concept Models Fleet Biplane is going to be built to fly RC using a Saito 1.8 cubic inch 4-stroke engine for power. The engine will be converted from glow fuel to ignition/gas or possibly methanol fuel with no nitro additives. Have not fully decided yet. When I am not ship modeling, I do a lot of scale model aircraft modeling as well. I prefer large models such as this 1:4 scale model, with a wing span of 7 feet. I bought the model and the engine from private sellers on the classified section of a popular R-C aircraft forum. That's a lot of wood in that box. About 20 pounds worth. Finished model will weigh approximately 20-25 pounds ready to fly.
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Fantastic work. Looks like a challenge, learning to work with a card/paper medium, and you are mastering it for certain. Very impressive looking model in every respect.
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Beautiful work as always, Captain. Do you know what type of ink is used for their printed card parts? The quality of it looks superb. This model kit overall looks to be extraordinary and you are doing it justice.
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When I was a kid, about 11 or 12 years of age, entered my first model contest. Took 1st place with a model of a 1:24 scale 1941 Willys Coupe modeled after the Stone, Woods, and Cook, A-class gas dragster. Ended up winning several other competitions with that same model over a span of 2 years. Then took a hiatus from modeling while serving my country in the Marine Corps. After my service, got back into scale modeling and entered many regional IPMS contests, primarily to enjoy the work of other modelers, the comradery, and quite frankly always enjoyed competitive events. Somewhere in the 1990's got away from scale modeling while my career placed many other demands whose time restraints did not leave space for the hobby of modeling. Now that I am retired, have plenty of time to enjoy the hobby but am not so interested in competition any more. But I do want to attend the IPMS Nationals at least once before all is said and done. Maybe as a competitor, I don't know.
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I guess my malfunction with minor things like that comes from many years of entering competitive events where every little nook and cranny of each model is scrutinized by judges. Plus, I am my own worst critic.
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This photo serves to illustrate one of the frustrations with the Pontos wood deck included with my update set. The red arrows point out photo etch that circumscribe the deck elevators. These pieces fit into cut outs in the wooden deck so they fit flush with the deck, as do many of the other small photo etch pieces not signified here with arrows. The green arrows point out photo etch that also should be inlaid into the deck, but for some odd reason, the areas were not die cut as the instructions indicated they are/should be. As it is, I have glued the PE pieces directly to the top of the deck. Unfortunately, these PE pieces are not straight cuts, but curved in some cases, and trapezoid shapes in others. In other words, it would be very difficult to cut the deck by hand in order to recess these pieces as they should be done. I have not made up my mind yet, but am considering just leaving them as-is. It's not too noticeable as it is, and me trying to hand cut the deck may result in more of an eye sore than it helps. What do you think?
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Sorry for being so gabby tonight, but I am going to mention one more thing. In about another 3 or 4 weeks, I will have the bulk of this model finished with the exception of the fighter and bomber wings. Once the bulk of the model is finished, it's going into the display cabinet until I get around to finishing all the aircraft. These will be repetitive and tedious to finish. Not something I am particularly looking forward to with eagerness. Each one will be fully detailed with photo etch and some with folded wings and dropped flaps. I have some more projects I am interested in starting and will do so just after the new year.
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Wow, those guns are drop-dead gorgeous. Outstanding work,Slog. I had no idea card models could be built to this level of detail. If I were younger, I would give one of these a go, but alas, my modeling cupboard is full of many more projects than I have time to complete as it is. Cheers!
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Oh, and by the way...In case anyone is wondering when I'm going to get around to painting on the black hull boot stripe, I am going to make a decal to do that instead of actually painting it on. It's something I got into a habit of doing as it's a lot less hassle for me and it really looks just as good if not better than a painted on stripe.
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Trust me when I tell you, I cussed my way through this fiddly, goat rope of a masking job to get all these itty bitty stripes painted on today. Now, I shall go say ten hail mary's and our father's and be extremely thankful it's all done for this part. But I do have some more, less fiddly masking to do to finish the deck. It will be a cake walk compared to what I finished today, thank goodness.
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That may be an option I will use if necessary. This Pontos set is an engineering marvel, but they fall short on several key points. The instructions need improvement for sure. Yes, I realize these sets are made for experienced modelers, but they can be improved for sure. The die cutting is really bad on their wood deck pieces and their masks. If other commercially available alternatives were available, would definitely try those instead of what comes with the Pontos set.
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Just to provide an update on where I am with this Essex build, here are some pictures of the mostly completed catwalk assemblies. Still to be added is one large portion that runs next to the control tower/superstructure. I will wait until after the deck striping and numbering is completed and the tower has been attached before adding that detail. Speaking of deck striping, this is an exercise in frustration for me. The Pontos set thoughtfully includes precut masking for the delicate deck striping. Great, right? But the problem is the striping cutouts are not completely cut through the masking tape. So this requires that I recut each and every little bitty stripe with an X-Acto blade to remove it without tearing the mask. It's enough to make a preacher want to cuss. But I will get through it and paint the stripes, one way or another.
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As soon as I finish my current ship build, the USS Essex CV-9, I plan to build this 1:12 scale Tamiya Honda 250cc Grand Prix Racer. The model as depicted represents the 1966 World Champion who won 10 out of 10 races held that year. The stock model kit is quite a well detailed offering from Tamiya. But to satisfy my OCD, will add super detailing parts just to make certain I keep things as complicated as possible. The detail parts include an updated, fully detailed front fork assembly; a detailed metal link-by-link drive chain and sprockets (with an assembly jig); a set of microscopic rivets; and last but not least, a fully detailed set of metal spokes, rims, and hubs, along with an appropriate jig to assemble it all and lace the wire spokes. I can hardly wait, and it gives me motivation to get my Essex finished, soon!
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You did a remarkable job on the mast, Greg. The Pontos mast on my current build was also a difficult proposition. Seems like some sort of assembly jig would be in order, but it was challenging to fashion anything of that sort. Congratulations on a job well done.
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Looks really nice, but I know next to nothing about cameras. Looks like quite a lens on it.
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Magnificent. Do your references include detail photos on the rigging? Those have been hard for me to find.
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Wow, all those little gussets are quite an eye test. As you once stated, it is highly critical to acquire the very best fine point tweezers you can get your hands on to do work like this. Just no other way, really. Normal variety tweezers just won't get the job done.
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Hey Greg I noticed you and I are both using the Small Shop's black plexi photo etch cutting board. After using the board for a while, it gets full of nicks and scratches from cutting the etch pieces from the frets. Those scratches are raised and sometimes cause the photo etch to get stuck in place rather than sliding around freely on top of the board. By accident, I discovered you can take a single edge razor blade, holding it at about a 45 degree angle to the cutting board use the blade to scrape the board and it takes away all those scratches like magic. Makes it smooth and glass-like again. if you haven't already discovered it yourself, try it on your board and those scratches will be gone.
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