Richard44

The paddlewheels could also be made as a simple version, or a more detailed version. I decided on the detailed version which has lasercut "wheels", rim, spokes and hub, plus card blades. These are all quite delicate, so to minimise the chances of damage while these were being assembled, a simple jig was devised to hold the rims in place while the blades were glued between them. This was successful and the completed paddlewheels looked very good. BUT, BUT, when I tried a test fit of the paddlewheels into the slots on the sides of the deck, they wouldn’t fit! 😖😖 What the…☹️. Everything seemed to have been assembled according to the instructions, but as I had decided to build the detailed version, I totally ignored the instructions, and in particular the printed parts, for the simple version. Big mistake 🥴, as if I had taken notice I would have seen that the blades needed to be inside the actual rim, rather than standing proud as I had made them. Now what 🥴. Trimming the blades flush was not an option, as most of the blade would have been removed, and damage was almost guaranteed. If they had been made of wood I could probably have de-glued them using isopropyl alcohol, but the fragility of the wheels and the unknown effect of the alcohol on the lasercut material suggested this was not going to work - I did try and it didn't. I therefore got in touch with Jeroen from World of Paperships and he very kindly sent me a replacement lasercut sheet free of charge 🙂🙂. So, paddlewheels, second attempt. Cheers

Hi Andrew, No, not much chance of seeing much once the superstructure goes on. A lot of models, ships/boats, aircraft, whatever, seem to have a lot of hidden detail that only the builder knows about. Sort of the modeller's curse - do I add that bit that will take much patience and a fair amount of time, knowing full well that no-one will ever see it. Ah well, it is a hobby 😁. Cheers

Thanks for your comment B.E. I've visited Echuca quite a few times, firstly about 20 years ago. I thought then that I'd like to make a model of one of the paddle steamers, but no models were available.

The paddlesteamer Pevensey was built in 1910 at Moama on the Murray River (Australia), as the non-powered barge called Mascotte, but in 1911 the vessel was equipped with a steam engine and renamed Pevensey. This turned it into one of the largest towing boats on the Murray, and it itself was capable of carrying 120 tons of cargo. In 1932 she was almost destroyed by fire, was rebuilt in 1933-35, ran a regular cargo run in 1939, but was then made redundant and tied up at Mildura. In 1975 she was slipped at Moama and completely restored. A 1983 Australian TV series called "All the Rivers Run" starred her as the PS Philadelphia. The Pevensey is now based at Echuca and runs tourist trips along the Murray. The kit from World of Paperships (from the Netherlands) has two sheets of general information (with some photos), one sheet of diagrams, four sheets of English instructions, five sheets of printed parts (some sheets are printed on both sides) and one small sheet of lasercut parts. The sheet of diagrams is complex and in places difficult to follow, hopefully this won't cause problems later. The bottom of the hull was tacked to a sheet of glass to act as a building board for the initial stages of the build. Two dabs from a glue stick sufficed for this. The sides were glued to the frames and the rubbing strakes added (forgot to take photos at this stage) then the deck was fixed in place. A portion of the foredeck had been removed and a replacement glued lower down to represent a shallow cargo hold. A cutout was also made to allow for the engine space. There are triangular supports between the underside of the deck and the sides. To ensure that the deck did not develop any waviness, a small steel rule was clamped to the top of the deck (the hull was off the glass and upside down for this step) while the supports were glued in place. Many of the parts of the boat could be made either as a simple version or a detailed version. This photo shows the simple version of the engine and its surrounding safety railings, folded up from the provided card print. The detailed version has 40 parts... ....and is the one I built. Unfortunately, I've somehow lost/deleted the photos I took of the completed engine, standing alone. A template was provided to allow construction of the main framework that is around the engine space, and it, and the safety railings, were made from 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mm square styrene stock. The framework supports the base of the superstructure that will be above it, and so had to be carefully fitted so that it was flat, even and of the correct height. Temporary "scaffolding" of wood strips and folded card was put in place to achieve this. The engine, engine space and surrounding framework (the latter is not quite complete). There is a small crew cabin just aft of the engine space. Cheers

Well done!

Thanks for your comments Egilman. My short build log has turned into a very interesting history lesson. 😁

Duh, stupid autocorrect. And I didn't see it even when proofreading! I'll correct it. Cheers

Many, many years ago I was an avid builder of plastic aircraft kits. One of them was the Monogram model of the Wright Brothers Flyer (scale was about 1:40). This didn’t survive a house move so I made a second. This too did not survive, so number three was built, and I still have it. Slightly the worse after a couple of house moves. I was idly browsing the net when I saw an ad for a 1:72 brass model of the Flyer, so I thought why not. The model is produced by a Japanese company called Aerobase (aerobase.jp), and comes in a stout box with two sheets of PE, three A4 pages of diagrams and a black acrylic display base. A cast (?resin) engine and figure representing Orville are included. The diagrams are annotated with instructions, unfortunately these are in Japanese, though they seem to be adequate - but we’ll see. The model is interesting in that most of the pieces are attached to each other with tiny tags, with the diagrams showing glue being used only occasionally. There are only 21 pieces plus the ribs, so this will not be a long build log. The first step is to form the forward framework that holds the two elevators. This framework is in one piece and only needs simple bending to form the correct shape. Visible in the photo are the tags used to attach parts to each other (one next to the point of the knife blade), these are vertical (in the photo) here, while other tags, at angles, will be used when rigging the plane. The framework with the lower elevator in place. Both elevators in place. The ribs for the wing are to be fitted into tiny slots, and the diagram shows that these slots then need to be squeezed tight. I tried this but didn’t have suitable pliers so I used drops of gel CA instead. The lower wing partly complete with a rib ready to be fixed. The lower wing complete. Both wings complete with the interplane struts ready to be glued in place. The struts have locating pins top and bottom which make assembly relatively easy. The two wings assembled together, with some “authentic” wing warping visible in places. I tried to remove the warping, but there was a limit as to how much pressure I was willing to apply to the wing. The rudders that needed only a few bends to be formed. The assembled plane, though without rigging. The plane rigged, but no pilot yet. The kit came with some normal thread for the rigging, but I chose to use one of the fine, elastic-type threads, not EZ-Line but something similar (AK Thin). Rigging was a real exercise in patience. There was not a lot of room to get thread, tweezers and fingers in simultaneously. Several breaks were required to allow stress levels to drop. Mounted on the display base. Some of the diagrams weren’t as clear as they could have been, and the order of assembly appeared to be decidedly odd with the ribs apparently being added (Step 5) after the plane was assembled (Steps 2,3,4). Not what I did, as this would have been near impossible. Anyway, a neat little model. Cheers

Ok, so Pegasus has been sitting idle for some months now. I have finally decided that I am not going to go with the masting and rigging, so here are a few final photos, and I declare Pegasus to be finished. It’s been an enjoyable build but I don’t have the enthusiasm to take it further. So thanks to all those who added likes or offered comments and advice. Cheers

Can't help on the absence of the banner, but they still seem to be in business as I ordered some stuff from them the other day and it's on its way.

Hi Jerry, Yes, the frames have to go in face down. If you look at Olha's video, about 14:30 in, you can clearly see her putting frame 22 into the jig 105 face down. What initially confused me is that you can see a laser-etched line on the back of the frame sides. Olha must have a slightly different kit to me, and probably you, as mine does not have any etched lines on the back of sheet 1P (the sheet with all the frames etc). A close look at the diagram for frame 22 on page 12 does show the position of the etched line that we don't have. I glued up frame 22 this morning and two photos of it are attached. The third photo is of the frame loosely in position on the keel. Cheers

"Olha" is Ukrainian, "Olga" is English. Her English language website identifies her as Olga. Whatever 😊. Her modelling skills are far better than mine😁. I'm following your log with interest Jerry, as I have the model as well, though I haven't started it yet. Cheers

Hi Jerry, Have a look at Olga's video, about 14:50 along - she shows the frame you are having problems with. I hope the link works. If it doesn't find the video via James' post on the shallop. Cheers

This is really for the Aussies amongst us. I over ordered some Syren brown rigging cords and no longer want/need them. Free to locals but a donation to MSW would be appropriate. The cords are all brown, 0.008x3, 0.025x2, 0.035x4, 0.045x2, 0.054x1 and 0.12x4. PM me. Cheers

Hi John, I too am in Aus and I happen to have a 12 inch three-sided Imperial rule that includes 1:48. I no longer need this so if you pm me your address I'll send it to you. Cheers

Thanks for the comment Ken, and for all the likes. There were 35 parts for the 7 cylinder rotary engine, plus another 10 parts for the propeller. The blades of the propeller are stiffened with short lengths of 1mm brass rod (and I should add here that there are templates provided for all the wire/rod parts). An interesting exercise in assembling the engine, and the diagrams had to be studied carefully in order to do this correctly. The engine parts, the completed engine and the engine plus propeller. The tail skid is made up of a bracket and leg that support the card skid itself. The leg is 1mm rod, while the bracket has two parts of 0.5mm rod which I silver soldered together. This was my first attempt at silver soldering, and after attempts two, three…I finally managed to achieve an acceptable result. The undercarriage is typical, two V-shaped struts plus axle. There are an additional three V-shaped struts through which the cables that controlled the wing warping run. One goes from the undercarriage to the bottom of the fuselage, the second downwards from the bottom of the fuselage at a point level with the rear of the undercarriage, while the third is on top of the fuselage immediately in front of the cockpit. All of these struts have a rod core with a card skin. I need more practice in doing struts such as this as my attempts are not as neat as I'd have liked. There was a choice of how to build the wings. Either cut out 22 individual ribs, assemble with a “spar” then add the skin, or laminate a core then skin it. I went for the latter, easier method. The photo shows the four parts that are to be laminated plus the two 1mm diameter wire spars, one of which passes right through the fuselage. The tail surfaces are simple card cores that are skinned. The elevators have a rod joiner and there is a rod at the leading edge of the rudder (there is no tailplane or fin as such - the surfaces are all-moving). The main components of the aircraft ready for assembly. When the engine was slotted into the cowl, it was apparent that the propeller could not be attached to the engine without a spacer between the two being added. There was no way that the engine could be moved forward or the propeller moved back - the cowl was in the way. So a spacer was added. Attaching the wing to the fuselage was easy enough - the two wire spars ensured accurate location. The tail surfaces though were difficult. Both the elevators and the rudder need to be fixed to the very end of the fuselage, a gluing surface of about 10x2mm. There is also the problem of the horizontal rod of the elevators and the vertical rod of the rudder both being attached, to the fuselage and effectively to each other, by very small pieces of card representing the hinges. If I’d thought about it much earlier, I probably would have attempted to silver solder the rods together and then make the elevators and rudder, thus making the rear surfaces a single unit. I had to use epoxy and fake the hinges. The fuselage rear from underneath. The control horns were added. All rigging was done with heavy EZ-Line. It is noticeable in places that the line is twisted as it is not round in cross-section but rectangular. I saw this too late to fix while rigging and decided that trying to correct it later was likely to cause damage. The finished aircraft. Quite a nice little model. Not too difficult to build. My apologies for the brevity of the log. I sort of got tied up with the building and forgot to make notes or take photos. Cheers

Hi Edward, You've convinced me to actually do a build log of the WAK Morane-Saulnier G, a model I completed some weeks ago. The log is here. You're doing really well with your Sopwith. Cheers

Ok, so Edward has caused me to get off my backside 😁, and add this build log of the Morane-Saulnier G monoplane that was built around 1912. A minor confession - I actually completed this model some weeks back, and the build was not as quick as this log might suggest. The plane is a free download from the WAK site. A Google search shows that the “G” model was actually a two seater, but this kit is for a single seater. So exactly which model the kit represents is a bit of a mystery. The kit depicts an aircraft in the service of the Russian Empire, and was probably used as a training aircraft as no armament was fitted. It would have been obsolete by the time WW1 broke out. Once printed, there are three sheets of parts and three sheets of diagrams, but the only instructions are those indicating which parts need to be laminated to thicker card.The contents of the kit. The basic parts of the fuselage that have been cut out after laminating onto 1mm thick card. The diagrams indicate that these should all be glued together as the next step. This would have made it difficult if not impossible to add the inner skins and details in the cockpit area. So the skins were added to the sides and floor, then the seat, joystick, rudder pedals etc. were added. The fuselage was then assembled. The outer skins on the fuselage. The cowling ring and cowl in place. Not as neat as I would have liked, and some damage is evident. Cheers

No idea, but perhaps the ropes were added at some much later date, and actually have nothing to do with the gun itself. Given that this is Gibraltar, maybe for the apes to swing on?? 😁😁 I'll retire quietly now.

Thanks Chris. I had assumed that this was what you did. Very neatly done.

Absolutely outstanding Chris. Are the control cables to the elevators and rudder made from EZ-Line? You mentioned in an earlier post that this stuff could be difficult to glue. Cheers.

Well done Andrew, it looks great.

Nicely done Andrew.

Keep at it Mike, you're nearly at the fun stuff. 😁

Yes, but this sort of madness keeps me sane! 😁 Looking good Andrew.