Greg Davis

Foresail and mainsail rigging done - I always like the three blocks that come together for this part. Time to start with the braces.

The last two spars are in with their respective rigging. Now I can see just how much room this model will take up. Looks like it is turning into an acceptable display model! The list of tasks to complete is shrinking: lower mast sail handling rigging braces anchors ship boats finishing touches display mounts display case The launch date is coming into view!

George I agree with you on the wing jig labeling - it appears that left and right has been given from the perspective of looking at the plane from the front and not as if you were in the pilot basket. Still waiting on the cylinder - hopefully by the end of the month! Its giving me time to finish another model that needs to be wrapped up. I haven't made any attempt to work on the fuel supply system yet. I have looked at the instructions a number of times and I was thinking that the main diagram labels are not correct. I think that along the longest diagonals you need to have HGI and IGH as opposed to HGH and IGI to keep the diagonals the same length. Greg

Since yesterday, I was able to add most of the sail handling rigging - the last bit, associated with the lower masts will be added later. A few of these lines are attached to pin rails. When I got to this part I decided to rummage thru odds and ends for enough metal pins to replace the wooden ones provided (that were badly out of scale and historical period for the ship). Now I have started fashioning the two spars that attach to the mizzen mast.

Spars and lifts for the fore and main masts are in place: Certainly will be adding the spar braces. In the meantime, thinking about how many of the sail handling lines are going to be added.

Now the starboard side ratting is also done Next up: some spars!

I started with the rat lines on the port side. I expect this side of the ship will end up against a wall when displayed, so it was a good place to reacquaint myself with clove hitches! Time to swing around to the other side and tie a few more knots.

All of the back stays are in place. Just the rat lines and the standing rigging will be done.

End of Year Update The 14 Bis will continue to stall for at least a couple of weeks 🤔. Here's the latest correspondence from Model Expo: Greg, I am here in Brazil and I picked the metal parts from the engine. Will be back Jan 10th and have it shipped. The wood parts are already in the US. You'll have it all shipped as soon as I get back. Best Regards and happy new year!

All the shrouds and fore stays are in place. Tomorrow the back stays begin followed by the rat lines!

I did - a good Holiday Season to you and everyone else!

The lower level of standing rigging (including a few stays) was finished yesterday and I'm now on the second level. More shrouds are being added currently.

Cylinder casting update: My Model Expo account says that the replacement part request is still processing - it is now getting close to 2 weeks since I was told I would be receiving the parts soon!

George - I didn't have problems with the lower ribs setting nicely in the jig; however, at the top there was a small issue. While I had done my best to have the jigs squared up nicely, there was still a bit of splaying going on at the top so that the top ribs didn't fit secure in the jig. So I used spring clamps to keep the heights of the ribs correct; but maybe most importantly, I used bar clamps to gently pull the top of the jig together. In this picture you can see a bar clamp at the outer end of the wing jig. The only issue using the clamp was that it was a little challenging to get enough clamping pressure for the clamp to stay in place but not too much to distort (or break) a rib. A better solution would be to have a pair of temporary spreaders that could be slipped onto each end of the jig. Something like this: This would be a nice addition to the laser cut parts for the jig! Greg

George - Great to hear you are making the model as well! Very interesting method for dealing with the ribs. I still am not sure I am satisfied with the ribs between the wing panels on mine. Currently I am thinking of removing them and replacing with ribs made from basswood. I've experimented with a few basswood ribs and they are holding the shape well. Once they have nodes and are painted, I don't think that the replacements will look different from the bamboo ones. I didn't come up short with bamboo dowels - I was supplied with enough to have left over material. Yes the fuel distributer installation looks to be challenging. When I get to that part (after the rest of the engine has been installed) I think that I will place a block under part G when adding the first couple of injection tubes. Hopefully it looks more tricky than it actually is! Greg

Finally got back to working on this ship. Since mid-November, I've been spending most of my building time on the new Model Airways Santos-Dumont 14bis kit: So back to Le Pouquoi-Pas? for a while - maybe straight to the end! The lower deadeyes are all attached, the masts are erected, and I started putting on the lower shrouds yesterday and today. It's nice to be reeving lanyards again.

It looks like this kit is going into a holding pattern for a bit. Much of the remaining work requires the engine to be in place, but the replacement cylinder has not made an appearance yet. While Ricardo, at Model Expo, said I should be getting it soon their website shows the request still processing; i.e., not shipping yet.

Canard is now complete. Nodes were added, wood painted, and then rigging was added. The canard 'nose' required some concentration to position / attach.

Last night and today I spent time rigging the fuselage / nacelle assembly. Here is the fuselage rigging - it is a pleasing amount of cross-bracing. This is what the lower portion of the nacelle now looks like: The 'turnbuckles' are photoetched brass and are very fragile. In the above picture the engine mounts can also be seen.

Yesterday and today I spent some time smoothing the engine casting and then started to paint the cylinders. Here are what the seven painted cylinder castings look like now: They seem to bear some resemblance to the ones pictured a post or two ago. Why seven pictured as the engine is a V8? Well, I need to have a replacement one sent to me as one of the castings had an incomplete exhaust pipe: I hope this can be supplied soon as, unlike the missing wood parts, I'm not as confident on repairing this piece - but if time goes on too long, I'll give it a go here as well. When I found this incomplete casting I went thru all the castings for the kit. In general I feel the castings are quite well done - for example the amount of detail on the cylinders is really nice and I don't think that one could ask for more in a soft metal kit casting. The only other casting disappointment was that of the fuel tank: I think the mismatch may be too extreme to be corrected via refacing. It very likely that after some facing, they will be joined and then the seam gaps will need to be filled. I see this as more of an inconvenience as compared with a fatal flaw since the fuel tank will be painted copper before adding it to the model.

I also have assembled and installed the pilot basket. Really nice laser cutting on the basket weaves! It took a bot of coaxing to get the basket in place. I couldn't drop it straight down as the base was larger than the upper fuselage rectangular opening. I finally succeeded in putting it in from the side and the letting it rest on the basket mounts. Even this maneuver was tight and I wasn't sure it was even going to work. In retrospect, it would have been better to load the basket from below, hold it up with a clamp on a side piece, and then add in the basket mounts before dropping the basket into place. In the picture 'bracing anchors' can be seen in each of the cross-sectional slices. The fuselage bracing rigging will pass through the holes.

Been doing some miscellaneous work / jumping around a bit. I've drill holes and added most of the 'bolts' to the nacelle. Really the only major things left up front are related to getting the engine in place and a bit of rigging in the landing gear area. I will work on the engine portion before the rigging so that I have more places to put my hands for a while. The big issue right now is to be able to install the engine mounts. This a place in the instruction manual where things are a bit out of order / not well laid out. The instructions have the motor mounts being made on p21, before the fuselage is made p22 - 26. On page 26 the motor mounts are shown in place, but back on p21, one is instructed to use the motor to set the height of the mounts so the propeller shaft lines up properly. The engine assembly is addressed on p33. It would be really good if there was some cross-referencing placed in the instructions! Considerations from above have led me to starting the engine assembly. Here are the relevant castings as supplied. Compared to other Model Airways engines, there are very few parts to deal with. For the most part the casting don't have too much flash and/or mold lines to clean up. The engine, an Antoinette V8, was a liquid cooled, gas fueled (with fuel injection), 209lb engine, that produced 50hp. Here's a picture of an actual Antoinette V8 that is displayed at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan. I will be using this as a guide for painting parts of the model. Copper pipes and brass cylinders with a touch of black for the spark plug harness. The castings are already fairly close to the rest of the structure. Cleaning up and painting the castings is coming up next.

Sounds good - I think you will find that sheets 05 and 06 are exactly the same; each containing 4 spars, 2 for the top of a wing and 2 for the bottom of a wing. The longer spars are the bottom spars and the shorter are for the op of the wing. My guess is that you are OK with those parts. It's really the sheet 01 that you need; i.e., half of the parts for the nacelle. Hopefully they can get the parts into the country and then shipped to you soon!

Joon - I think that you are correct that there should be 8 sheets - but two are identical. Sheets 05 and 06 contain the spars and are exactly the same. Is it possible that you have either two 05's or two 06's? It was sheet 01 that was missing from my kit, and appears to be missing from many (all) kits at this time. I recommend that you contact Model Expo and ask for them to supply you with the parts you are missing. It is their policy to do so. I completely agree about the quality control issue on this model. I have numerous ship and plane kits from Model Expo and in the past I have had no problems with pieces being missing. I think the problem here is that the Santos Dumont 14 bis model was not actually manufactured by Model Expo, but instead by Nauticurso; however, I am surprised that when a kit was opened up for pictures of the content that no one compared with the instructions. Again, think about contacting Model Expo via the Parts Request link at the bottom of their web site's front page. Greg

Before getting started on the drilling and pinning job, I couldn't resist clipping the wings in place to get an idea of what the overall project was looking like. From the front: From the back: The canard bamboo still needs its nodes and brownish paint. My wife says there is a slight color variation between the wings and the fuselage that needs attention! Now wondering about a display location for the finished product. In some ways, this takes up more space than a midsized ship model.