Richard44

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.

Thanks for all the comments and likes. One tool that I found to be very useful was a set of Micro Mark micro punches https://www.micromark.com/Micro-Punch-Set. (I bought mine from Hobby Tools Australia). These were good for punching small holes or for punching out discs instead of trying to cut them. The photo shows a couple of discs punched out of one of the printed sheets from Christiaan Brunings. I found that sometimes thin CA dripped onto the back of the proposed disc before punching out made for a cleaner cut. Cheers

Thanks for the praise B.E.. Funny you should ask about a waterline setting. World of Paperships actually has a free download of a jetty that CB could be moored to. I've got the file and will make it up in a day or so. I'm intermittently following your build of Sphinx and continue to admire your skills 🙂. Cheers

Thanks for the likes. There are four davits amidships and one at the bow. All are provided as prints or lasercut. The photo shows a midship davit, the image on the left being the lasercut version while the printed one is on the right. The lifting tackle is shown as lines on the latter, but as a solid “bar” on the lasercut one. The appearance of neither appealed to me, so I decided to rig some actual tackle on the lasercut davits. The “bar” between the tip of the actual davit and the hook at its end was removed and thin thread was used for the tackle. Not easy and the results were not quite as I had hoped. The following photos show one of the rigged davits and all four in place. The bow davit was left unadorned. Finally, the mast. This was fashioned from a length of strip wood, following the provided template. The base is made up of three printed parts, and would allow the mast, on the actual vessel, to be lowered before passing under a bridge (as was the funnel). The masthead light was made and rigging added. I found a photo on the net which showed the rigging more clearly than did the kit illustrations. So that’s the finish of this build. A little bit difficult in parts, the instructions are vague in places and the illustrations could definitely be improved. But I enjoyed it. Cheers

Thanks for the likes, and the comments Captain Slog, Chris and Ian. Not much to tell this time. The funnel is in place. This was a simple rolled tube with a joiner on the inside. The whistle that is alongside the funnel was made from a dowel as suggested in the instructions. A printed version came with the kit, but trying to roll a long, three mm diameter tube, proved to be beyond my skills. In particular the actual whistle at the top of the tube looked weird as it was an integral part of the print. The latter was therefore made from a short length of dowel. The completed whistle was attached to the funnel using small brass eye pins. The three guy ropes are elastic thread and the one running towards the stern is attached to a hand winch used when the funnel needed to be lowered. That winch is a card tube with the handle made from styrene rod. Also visible are two bench seats that were laser-cut. That’s it for now, not a lot more before it’s finished. Cheers

Ahhhh, I just realised after looking at that photo that I've left off the bits that represent the outer drums!!! I'll have to fix that tomorrow. Thanks for that photo Jan.

Thanks for all the likes. The next job was to make the cowl vents - three of them. The kit provides three choices for these - a simple folded version, a slightly more complicated version with a cylindrical body and a simple hood, or the complicated one with the hood made up of individual segments that have to be folded and glued together. Two of them as printed are shown here. I went for these. Bending and gluing the segments was an exercise in patience. To make it a little easier, the vent was held down on a steel rule with a small modified alligator clip (the teeth had been flattened). A finished vent, and the three of them in place. Next thing to be made was the bow winch. Again the kit provides options, simple and detailed. On the left is the detailed version with the simple version on the right, and again I’m doing the detailed one. The only guide to building this is contained within the red square (no actual instructions), and it hasn’t helped to find that some parts are mis-identified. Nevertheless, it was completed and glued in place. Cheers

Thanks for the likes. The wheel house, cabin and boiler room loosely in place. I forgot to take photos of the next stage, so skipping ahead a little…The parts for the searchlight and the completed unit. This photo shows the printed parts for the navigation lights. The boat with most of the deck fittings in place. Also visible are the navigation lights, the searchlight and roof vents. The nav lights are not quite as I would like, but as they are only 4mm high, they’ll pass. The kit provides duplicates for the windows, doors, hatches and gratings and these can be overlaid on the basic printed part to add some depth. Cheers

Thanks for that video Jan.

Thanks for the likes and your comment Rob. The next job was to glue the cap rail onto the top of the bulwarks. As supplied, this was in four pieces, but unfortunately, it didn’t fit, especially at the stern. Slight differences in my build would be the reason. So a new cap rail had to be made. The immediate problem was to get an accurate pattern of the top of the bulwarks. I couldn’t see that trying to trace the outline of the hull onto paper was going to work owing to the sheer of the deck and hence the bulwarks. The hull was not going to sit flat on the paper. So I decided to try photocopying the hull. The first photo shows the result of doing this and the second shows the new cap rail in one piece. Two attempts were required, the first not quite fitting. The cap rail in place. Also visible are six black fairleads on the rail - these are laser cut pieces. Next was the boiler house. The photo shows the partially complete unit, additional bits yet to be added and also the parts for the funnel. The latter can be made either fixed or pivoted so that it folds down aft. This was to allow the boat to pass under bridges. I decided to make the funnel fixed. The completed boiler house. The funnel is to go on top, and the rod that allows it to pivot is at the rear of the house, and the counter weights to balance the funnel are the large circular pieces on the end of the arms. Temporarily in place. Cheers

Thanks for the likes and Rob, you’re very welcome. The bulwark supports are laser cut and quite delicate. One is shown below. The waviness of the port bulwark is apparent in this photo. Also shown is the strip of pre-bent wood I used to hold and straighten the bulwark before gluing the supports in place. Those on the starboard side have already been done. A few small deck items have been placed. The strip of wood clamped to the port side with a few supports in place. The hull with both sides complete. Cheers

The Christiaan Brunings was commissioned in 1900 at an Amsterdam shipyard, with luxury accommodation (including a marble fireplace) and was apparently used as a “directorate ship”. It was also suitable as an icebreaker. The initial engine was compound steam, replaced in 1998 with a Scottish twin coal-fired boiler. After the war, it was used as a measuring vessel by the Dutch Government until 1968. It was then offered to the Dutch Historical Maritime Museum Association, and since then has been a museum ship. The kit from World of Paperships contains seven pre-printed sheets of A4 plus one sheet of laser-cut details. Some of the sheets are printed on both sides, making backup tricky. There are two and a half sheets of instructions and two illustrated sheets. The printed sheets look to be very good, the instructions we’ll see, but the illustrated sheets lack some clarity. The first photo shows the bare hull parts cut out ready for assembly, while the second shows the basic hull assembled. The hull with the two piece deck in place. The hull sides are in two pieces, within some obvious compound curves at the stern. The stern done. Some minor deck details have been added as well. Both sides are complete. The bulwarks are somewhat wavy, hopefully this will be corrected when the bulwark supports are added. Cheers

Try here if you're not in a hurry - somethings are out of stock. https://www.kartonmodellbau.de/catalogsearch/result/?q=Arizona

Thanks for all the likes and comments. B.E., with your skills, amply shown yet again with your Sphinx build, you would have no problem in building a card model. Chris, your models inspire me. I'll later be following your paper trail with HMV's Waratah, though at the moment it's been stuck at Frankfurt airport for a month now.😙. Cheers everyone.

Thanks for the likes. After a break of some weeks, I've managed to get back to AlexA, and complete the build. The railings around the upper deck were done first. There are ten sections of printed railing but only six laser-cut sections. So my choices were to go with the printed ones, mix the printed and laser-cut or scratch build new ones. I didn't particularly like the printed ones, the mix would have looked odd, so I went with scratch built. I used styrene rod, 0.64mm for the horizontals and 0.50mm for the uprights. This photo shows one of the rail sections being made. This piece goes onto the forward part of the deck, and the kit has it in three sections. I have carefully bent the rod so that I have one wrap-around section instead of three. I did the same for the aft railing. All railing sections were then glued in place. Several of the verticals were kept long enough below the bottom rail to locate in holes very carefully drilled (with a pin vise) in the deck. The rudder was glued and the steering chains, which lie along the deck, were extended to the aft edge of the rudder. The minor amount of rigging was done and finally, the tables, seats, BBQ etc were glued in place. The finished Alexander Arbuthnot. Cheers