Richard44

The tailplane is a simple card piece. There is no seperate elevator as the trailing edge was warped to provide pitch control. And if there was differential warping here, maybe some roll control as well. The vertical stabilizer has a small, fixed triangular fin and two parts to the actual rudder, above and below the tailplane. The rudder was the only control surface that was actually hinged. The rudderpost extends quite a way above and below the tailplane and rigging wires are to be attached to the top. There are also horizontal kingposts (not sure if this is the correct name) extending beyond the tailplane, and rigging is to be attached to each end. The rudderpost and the two kingposts should have been formed from rolled card as supplied, but trying to make these tubes between 2 and 3mm in diameter proved too much for my skills. I decided to use 2mm brass tube and glued small eyebolts into the ends to allow the rigging to be done easily. Rigging of the tail surfaces complete. There is a tailskid yet to be fastened to the bottom of the rudderpost. Cheers

The fuselage now has rudder pedals in the rear cockpit and seats in both. The engine is partly assembled. I couldn't form the engine cylinders from the parts supplied, the card was a little too thick for me to make a neat cylinder, so I wrapped thin paper around a styrene core. The large yellow cylinder is the fuel tank, which will go into the front cockpit just above the legs of the occupier. The small yellow cylinder is the carburettor. The pilot's control wheel is ready to be fitted. The small grey square with the brown lever is the throttle. The engine completed and in place, though not glued, as I will remove it and fix it permanently later - it looks to be very vulnerable to a knock the way it sticks up. The other parts are in place. The engine looks very bare, no pipes or wires. There is nothing in the instructions and I couldn't find a suitable photo to show me what goes where. I'll maybe add some bits later. Cheers

There are a few other models in this series - https://www.kartonmodellbau.de/kartonmodelle/?cat=24&manufacturer=422 I don't know that I have the nerve to tackle any of the others, except perhaps for the Bleriot.

I happened to see this model while browsing a website and thought that it would be an interesting build. Firstly, some information about the actual aircraft. The following is an edited version of an article in Wikipedia. “The Taube was designed in 1909 by Igo Etrich of Austria-Hungary, and first flew in 1910. It was licensed for serial production by Lohner-Werke in Austria and by Edmund Rumpler in Germany, now called the Etrich-Rumpler-Taube. Rumpler soon changed the name to Rumpler-Taube, and stopped paying royalties to Etrich, who subsequently abandoned his patent. Despite its name (Taube means "dove"), the Taube's unique wing form was not modeled after a dove, but was copied from the seeds of Alsomitra macrocarpa, which may glide long distances from their parent tree. The wing has three spars and was braced by a cable-braced steel tube truss (called a "bridge") under each wing: at the outer ends the uprights of this structure were lengthened to rise above the upper wing surfaces, to form kingposts to carry bracing and warping wires for the enlarged wingtips. Later Taube-type aircraft from other manufacturers omitted the underwing "bridge" structure to reduce drag. Like many contemporary aircraft, especially monoplanes, the Taube used wing warping rather than ailerons for lateral (roll) control, and also warped the rear half of the stabilizer to function as the elevator. Only the vertical, twinned triangular rudder surfaces were usually hinged. The design provided for very stable flight, which made it extremely suitable for observation. The translucent wings made it difficult for ground observers to detect a Taube at an altitude above 400 meters. Poor rudder and lateral control made the Taube difficult and slow to turn. The aeroplane proved to be a very easy target for the faster and more agile Allied Scouts of the early part of World War I, and just six months into the war, the Taube had been removed from front line service to be used to train new pilots.” This model is a reissue of one that was released in, I think, 2000. It comprises 13 sheets of various sizes and thicknesses of coloured card and an A5 instruction manual of 24 pages (text and diagrams). The coloured card means that no edge colouring will be required. The instructions are in German and no English translation is available so Google translate is going to get a workout. There are no lasercut pieces, and it seems that there are no tabs or strip joiners. It appears that Google has done a more than reasonable job of translating the instructions, though there is some confusion in a few places. I feel that this confusion will be cleared up once I have cut the parts out and try to assemble them. However Google could not handle (read) the handwritten notes that are on many of the diagrams and these had to be entered manually into it. So, onto the build. The basic parts of the fuselage, with the engine bay already assembled. There are also four bulkheads shown in the following photo of the fuselage. This photo shows the fuselage with the engine bearers and floorboards in the two cockpits. I added a scrap piece in the rear to strengthen this area as it was extremely flimsy. Also printed strips replicating the structure of the fuselage have been added. Cheers

Another "G'day" Dindsy, this time from Gosford. Enjoy MSW and good luck with Sirius. Cheers

Welcome to the club! 🙂🙂

Your boat's looking very good. I've pulled ropes until the slack is taken out then applied PVA to the rope to stiffen it. This usually works. CA will certainly stiffen the rope, but also hardens it and I've had thin lines break because of that. Cheers

Hi David, Can't help you on the actual lengths of planks for a boat like this. Back when I started the build, MSW didn't exist, and I knew almost nothing about full-size boat building practice. So I just built the hull basically straight from the box - I did make the comment at the beginning of this log that I would have done it differently had I known better. The info about plank lengths will certainly be available, but I have no reference books. Try a cross-post in "Building, framing....". Good luck with your build, I can guarantee it will at times try your patience! 😁 Cheers

No worries Mike, it's what I did!

Why not just mark the edges of the bulkheads where the cardinal marks are? File, pencil, whatever...Then you can have chipboard-to-chipboard and not worry about the craft glue. Cheers (looking forward to your build).

Hi Mike, If I were you, I wouldn't attempt to cut out that hatch. Simply lay some thin strips on top of the deck (ie. double plank it) and add the coaming around them. Keep at it Jonas, it does make up into a nice looking model if you survive the instructions etc. I remember just how much frustration I had at times when building that kit. Terrible instructions! Cheers

Hi Jeff, So are the pieces simply butt-joined along the bulkhead? There's no joiner strip? How thick are the bulkheads? I'm watching your very nice build with interest as I'll be back making a card boat sometime in the near future. Cheers

Hi, Another one of the Dutch subs, K XII, was wrecked on Fairlight beach, Sydney Harbour, in June 1949 after breaking its tow. It became a RAN vessel in 1943, but never saw service. It was moored alongside a pier at Manly wharf as a tourist attraction, but was being moved to a more sheltered site during a storm when it broke its tow. I well remember seeing it on the rocks - Fairlight was my local beach. Cheers https://www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/5230854984

Thanks again everybody for just looking, liking or making comments. All very much appreciated. Cheers.

Hi Chuck, Interesting video and yes, he does mention the yard. But says that he will leave it up to us to figure out how to work the sails! Cheers

Well done!

Yes, it does have material that is printed for the sails. I forgot to mention that I wasn’t going to add the sails, though I may do so at some time.

So, onto the final stretch. Firstly the rudder. The rudder itself is two pre-cut pieces, plus the pre-cut tiller. All needed cleaning up but otherwise no issues. There were brass PE straps provided but no actual pintles or gudgeons. I broke one of the straps while bending it into shape, so decided that straps made from black paper would serve and would be indistinguishable from the supplied brass straps at any reasonable viewing distance. Styrene rod was used for the pintles. I also decided that the rudder would need to be pinned to the sternpost as I didn’t think the paper straps would be sufficiently strong to hold it. When the assembled rudder etc was held up to the hull, it looked terrible. There was a large gap between the rudder and the sternpost. So I got rid of the styrene rod and just used the paper straps and the pinned rudder - certainly not prototypical but the end result is fine. And now for the rigging. One mast, one yard, two shrouds, one stay and some running rigging. Can't be too hard. The mast, yard and various blocks ready for installing. The mast and the yard came ready tapered and needed to be rounded and cleaned of char. A file and sandpaper took care of this. The mast was set in place ready for the shrouds. The manual and plans are quite detailed with every line identified but there is a considerable amount of careful perusal required as some things are a little obscure. The supplied cord for the shrouds was wrapped around one of the triangular blocks and seized with thin thread. The excess cord was cut and instant disaster 😬. The cord promptly unravelled.🥴 Not happy ☹️. I tried to seal the cord where I planned to cut it, but no glue that I have would stick to the polyester (I assume that’s what it is). I had some cord left over from another build, slightly undersized (1.0mm) compared to the supplied cord (1.2mm), but close enough. This cord was then used for the shrouds and the forestay. Again, cord I already had was used for the running rigging. No particular issues with this. However once I had most of the rigging done, the yard sort of flopped around with apparently nothing to hold it in place. I found one of Olha's videos that I hadn’t seen before and it showed her lashing the yard to the mast. A careful check of the plans showed on one of them, three thin lines where the yard crossed the mast - the lashing. The shallop is now finished. The extras in the boat, oars, water barrel etc have all been added. A fairly enjoyable build, some headaches on the way, but nothing to kill the build. Thanks to all who looked in, the likes and the comments. Cheers

Hi Robert, You’re making good progress, but no, you won't catch me now 😁, I've finished, see post 🙂. As for the rigging of the yard, I've gone with the details on the plan sheets. I have no idea how the sails would be worked when the boat is tacked, maybe there's someone here who could tell us. Your illustration - have you colourised it? My plans are black and white. Cheers

I came across this website which sells card for models - there may well be other sites as well. https://papermodeling.net/index.php?route=product/category&path=79_86&page=2 Edit. Found another. https://modelik.pl/tektury-astralon-c-101.html Cheers

Didn't know that. But every 3 view I could find showed no sweepback at all. Maybe designed that way but later built with no sweepback as was easier. Edit. A side view in "Jane's All the World Aircraft 1919" (facsimile copy) suggests that there is no sweepback. The root and tip chords are shown for both wings. Unfortunately no wing plan. Cheers

Chris, As usual, I'm thoroughly enjoying your superb build. However, the lower wing seems to have a small amount of sweepback. Is this intentional? Cheers

And happy holidays to you too Allan! I've used Casey Brass Black in the past with mixed success. I've cleaned the brass etc etc, used the solution diluted, but it doesn't always seem to work. I suspect the composition of the brass has something to do with it. Perhaps too much zinc relative to copper. Cheers

Chuck, Here's the close-up. You can see the chain, and if you look carefully, you can see the retaining pins at each end. The leeboard doesn't flap around as much as you might think as the lifting tackle restricts it somewhat. Still, it's definitely not fixed and moves easily if touched. I used paint on the iron work - I've never had much luck with using chemical blackeners. Cheers

Thanks guys, for the discussion about the leeboards. I'm going to go with what the kit suggests, and hang them from chains. The leeboards themselves were easy enough to assemble, all the parts were pre-cut. The iron reinforcing bands needed a little care to position them, but no dramas. The chains though. These are supposed to be made up using the supplied PE. And these bits are tiny! I didn’t like my chances. Sure enough, "ping" and one piece headed into the clutter on the table - found it though. But, a few minutes later "PING" and this time the piece flew off probably with enough speed to embed itself in the wall - never did find it. I had some chain that was close to the size required, except the links were round not flat, but this was what was going to be used. I had managed not to lose the tiny end plates that go through the leeboard and the inboard support, so got those onto short lengths of chain. Before fitting the assemblage onto the boat, I thought that putting the tackle for raising the leeboards in place would be useful to do now. The photo shows the tackle loosely in place and the leeboards with the chains lying on them. The leeboards were fitted in place with the chains passing through them and the inner ends passing through the inboard supports. Tiny retaining pins (supplied PE) were pushed through the end plates to keep everything in place. Now, as the leeboards are basically just hanging off the chains, they are very vulnerable to damage - don't ask 😖 - and the chains are the weakest link 🥴. Sometime later, when repairs had been made and calm restored, I completed rigging the tackle. It looked good. Then I thought I should put the boat onto the display base and promptly found that I hadn't tightened the tackle enough, as a result of which the leeboards hung too low and fouled the base 😬. The tackle would have to be redone. Not a big deal, but a nuisance anyway, and after a few deep breaths, I tackled the tackle to get it right. Cheers