vossiewulf

Not sure I understand the crisis, but that looks like a Dr.I aileron to me. Very nice job leaping into unknown territory and making it across successfully. And if you're interested, here's an interesting a thread on the Aerodrome from 2001 discussing the early Dr. I wing failures that killed Gontermann and Pastoris and very nearly Lothar Von Richthofen also. But the best summarization comes from my friend Dan-San Abbott who has passed away now. The reason I bring it up is that the main cause was weak attachment of the ailerons leading to flutter, which is a type of positive-reinforcement resonance specific to aerodynamics that's been the cause of death of many a test pilot. Gentlemen: The wing failures occurred when the early production Fok.DR.I aircraft were put into a turn. The ailerons had an over long balance which started to flutter as it rolled into a turn. As the flutter progressed it caused a structural failure in the aileron spar. The rib to aileron spar joint was not adequately reinforced. The fabric was tacked to the ribs. When the aileron spar failed it caused the fabric to rip away from the wing structure thus resulting in a total failure of the upper wing. The corrective action was reduce the chord of the aileron balance, to reinforce the ribs with battens, add a box rib at the end of the aileron cut-out, larger rein-forcements to the rib-aileron spar joint, and stitch the fabric to the ribs. The chord was increased from 980mm to 1000mm on all three wings. There was not a failure of the upper wing main spar. This is just skimming over the corrective action details. Blue skies, Dan-San

I need to make a "thanks Rick" macro ;-) That's basically what I was seeing. And although it would have been a little tricky because of them resonating, I think I could have at least reasonably prepared the joint ahead of time as mine were pinned to the deck. I got the other bulwark strip on and finished painting the fascia, then spent some time making an Advanced Rope-Powered Keelalator that is a basically a U-shaped construction, the arms of which reach down into the midships grate openings to grip the keel plate that will be locked down by a looping line running through four holes in the keel plate and over stanchions on the Keelalator. The reason is so I can flip the ship upside down and have it be held firmly in my engraver's block.for planking, and the line is because I of course can't glue or screw it as the planking will make that attachment inaccessible. So the line will function to hold it firmly and when done I can cut it and remove the ARPK. I'll show the pics after tomorrow's session.

Nah, I've already acknowledged that this is something I shouldn't do that with, a zillion hidden dangers that even an experienced person can easily miss. And in any case, I'll never react negatively to anyone who is trying to help. And I have a question I thought the fascia would be flat, but the angle of the outer fashion pieces seems to require a curve and I'm wishing now I totally prepared this joint before now, I didn't because I thought it would be better to wait until it was stabilized by attaching the outer bulkhead strips. Poor decision.

Thanks Rick, you're now anticipating my questions so I don't have to ask them I was thinking about that option too. that may very well be what I do this evening.

Couple more... Best tack cloth I have found. 1. Lasts forever as long as sealed in plastic bag. 2. Reusable many many times. 3. Most important, leaves no nasty sticky residue on hands or work. This filler putty is made for plastic modelers and is not appropriate for filling large areas, but it's one I still use often on wood. It's: 1. Very very smooth. 2. Does not stick to fingers and spatulas nearly as much as say Elmer's or Famo. 3. Dries at least as fast as Elmer's/Famo. 4. Water cleanup.

The hell with email addresses, call their customer service line and tell them you've been waiting weeks for an answer and you're not going to drop this call until you speak to someone who can help you. And good luck

I needed to make a decision so I was mixing last night using the Admiralty paints, I settled on a 10-3 ratio of their Eye-Blinding Super Red (Ensign Red) and their Red Ochre. It's still more saturated than I would use on a realistic finish, but since the stern/inner bulkheads are about the only surfaces being painted on this model I'm already totally violating realistic color, and this color should provide a reasonably striking contrast with the cocobolo and boxwood and holly that I'm using.

Welcome Grant, chips and salsa are on the table over there.

Looks great, and that's a real bummer when you're on a roll and then forced to stop because of a problem not of your causing. Are the strips solid or plywood?

So I am really happy with what I did last night, just leaving it to dry on the ship. This is what we have this evening: It had both the sheer and top line curves exactly. The fit on the ship was perfect, and therefore gluing was extremely easy and not rushed at all. I used yellow glue and clamps only at the bow, this was the only place where clamps were needed to refine the fit, and also would required adjustment hence the yellow glue. We started here with just a tiny amount of glue in the stem, very carefully applied so it wouldn't squeeze to the other side and block the fit of the second strip. I also was very careful ensuring the bulkhead strip only went into the stem piece half way, again so there would be room for the other one, and in fact this was the fiddly part that made me opt for yellow glue here to allow me time to get it just right. I then added glue for the first couple bow sections, and clamped up top plus I used some Frog uber mongo grip multi-surface tape to pull down the bottom edges that really didn't want to follow that vertical curve The rest of it was glued on with CA with finger clamping, one bulkhead section at a time so again I didn't have to rush and could be careful and make sure I added the right amount of glue where I wanted it for each section - we have to remember the bulkhead stanchions will be removed later so we want minimum glue there, just enough to force it to shape. I was happily gluing my way down when I realized I had gotten so excited about the perfect fit that I'd forgotten that I didn't like my fashion pieces' color and needed to stop, remix something better, and get them painted first. First why not make them better, so buzzed over them with wet 2000 grit paper to take them up a notch in smoothness. The mix I decided on was 10 to 3, Admiralty Hippy Bus Acid Trip Red (Ensign Red) and Admiralty Red Ochre. As usual with brush painting I thinned the paint quite a bit and added four thin glaze coats until I had the color buildup I wanted. I always end up with a much smoother finish that way Then I continued gluing the port bulkhead strip. Happiness is a one-finger glue joint, and the fit is perfect there with the strip overhanding the outer fashion piece by only 1/64" or so. Inner glue line looks good. Only a teensy bit of glue to clean up on top, and none on the bottom, but it's glued plenty firmly. Afterward this is what we have, and I couldn't be happier with it. Fit is very good on bottom edge too which worried me plus it's perfect fitting into the stem. There are a few ripples, but within easily removable tolerance. However I'm not going to smooth out those ripples now, since most are caused by a bulkhead stanchion pushing out a bit too far so if I remove those ripples now, they'll come back reversed and even harder to remove when the stanchions go away. I'm thinking of pulling most of the stanchions prior to planking the bulkhead strip, and then I could fully smooth out the ripples before doing that planking so the planks don't inherit said ripples. Next was to do the same forming step for the starboard side strip so after soaking it here we go. First although it worked out I wasn't happy with the clamping of those Amati squeeze clamps I used on the other side, or more accurately that they don't maintain the pressure. At first it feels like they're pressing quite hard, but when I was de-clamping that side I found half of them had come loose. So doubt I will be using those except for CA clamping where they don't need to hold long term. So switched to baby C-clamps (reminder: need more baby C-clamps). The first stanchion having a point facing inward wasn't cooperating, so I cut a flat in it. And here is what I mean about clamping outward, the strip didn't want to follow the right curve going into the stem piece so I'm using this fly-tying hackle plier to clamp it outwards against the caul curve. All clamped, C-clamps are clamping inward, all the small clamps outward. I did a better job with this one than other side, there are going to be almost no ripples here. Since my stern fascia piece will be painted one side and planked the other I didn't want to use the walnut piece because the open grain would need filling, so I made a replacement out of basswood. Which made me wonder why a Euro kit made in Europe had an entire sheet of pieces that are exactly 1/32" thick, but it made it easier for me. I cleaned up the inner part with rotary tool, then filled all those edges with my superfine Perfect Plastic Putty. It's made for plastic modelers and filling small spaces so it's not a good option for giant fills, but it's 1) amazingly smooth, 2) water-based, 3) dries at least as quickly as Famo or Elmer's, and 4) doesn't stick to fingers and spreaders nearly as much as the other two. I'm going to post it over in my tools thread, I think everyone should have this in their tool arsenal. After the filler dried I sanded everything, and gave it a few coats of clear flat sanding sealer. That needs to dry along with the starboard bulkhead strip, so called it a night.

You're braver than me, when I saw the way they were bending I felt like I had to fix that immediately. I may end up with that also, but remember this is a first build and I'll want to experiment with planking techniques to find the one I prefer. I also already bought a plankling bender so it's going to get used at least once The only technique I'm sure I don't want to use is those crimping tools, the idea of partially crushing wood on one side to make the other bend the way you want is not something that appeals to me, even if it is effective.

Beautiful! Both how they look and that you got there with the shortest route possible. Glad I could help

Same thing exists in pretty much every modeling field, in WWI aviation there are death struggles over the "real" color of British PC10 and PC12 brown/khaki that was painted overall on all British aircraft. And it's basically impossible, first because different batches drifted some, and then it also rapidly faded due to exposure to sun and rain. So really, the color it was painted with can't be determined with total exactness, and then it faded once applied such that literally every single day that aircraft was a slightly different color than it was yesterday. I fully understand those issues and am not looking for a single color but a range- I know the hue range of PC10, and also its saturation range. And names of colors don't help at all here, you have to generate numbers - I'm talking I know the colors in a Hue/Saturation/Lightness (HSL) model typically used in Photoshop. If I had to guess, the red gunport sill/bulkhead color, if they were using their "real" red vs red ochre, would probably be an HSL range (on a 0-255 scale with zero being pure red) of H:3-8, S: 90-120, L: 180-200. Does that sound correct to you Frankie?

Thanks Welfack for the GV links. For the broader goup, all of my needle/riffler files are either Grobet or Gardon-Vallorbe. I can't recommend them enough, all I can say is the performance differential between these and hobby store versions easily justifies the cost, and they'll become tools that someone is going to have to pry from your cold dead hands if they want them.

Hmm would have to see that as I'm not sure why that would take a steadier hand than what was required for what I just did, at least the rotary tool part, and also am thinking there should be a way to make a fence for a rotary tool with a router base to follow. Anyway, thanks for continuing to look in Rick, all the advice and help is appreciated.

To be a little less terse, I suggest starting with raw sienna and white, and have a mild red and a mild yellow like Naples yellow on hand to tweak the color. According to what I've seen, it should be very slightly redder than the pure tan you'll get from raw sienna. The yellow is on hand just in case you go too red but can still save it with a little yellow.

Thanks again Rick, that's what I'll do then. And yes inner stern faces and bulwarks will be painted, one of the few places I'm sure I'm going to paint. You saw I already painted the fashion pieces with red ochre from Admiralty and come to think of it I need to stop and address that first, since that seems just too orange and would blend in too much with the overall mostly browns this thing is going to be. I want the red to be a point of contrast so I need to mix a red I can live with and repaint the fashion pieces that color. But it will be somewhere between red ochre and the eye-blinding pure Admiraly Ensign Red. So first this evening I finished the rabbet on the port side, I did a bit better this time and I worked it a bit longer in practice for doing the final planking rabbets that need to be dead on. I'm good with this, although I look forward to doing a ship where the keel is correctly left off until after planking as cutting those rabbets will be trivial in comparison to this little bit of micro-surgery. Following your suggestion I soaked the bullwark strips in warm water for about an hour and then test-fitted, no pics as have to move quickly bending drying wood. I found there was a problem I should have anticipated, it wants to bend too much at the gunports where there is much less wood and not enough where there aren't gunports. So I was going to need to clamp both ways, clamping in against the bulkhead stanchions and also clamp out the too-much bends at the gunports. So I decided to make a caul, that would let me do both. So I went and looked at my scrap plywood and couldn't find the 1/2" I wanted but found something better, a warped 1/4" piece. The warp would help it follow the deck sheer of this little ship, and I could just CA glue two pieces together to get my 1/2" piece. Traced the pattern. The yellow tape is Frog delicate surface masking tape that works great for taping things on plans, it holds quite well while coming off without doing any damage. And it still works well for masking, at least straight lines. Glued pattern trying to use glue only on the waste side, so theoretically the paper mostly just falls off after you're done cutting. I put in a couple of flats in case I needed heavier clamping. Slightly concave and that is perfect for a caul, just clamping the center will generate some clamping pressure across the whole strip. This is a final dress rehearsal dry fit. The caul worked well in that I could clamp it fully into the correct line. However, I found I had to move much more quickly than I like to when gluing something very important like this, and even though the top view line is perfect, I wasn't sure wheter it was aligned vertically exactly as I couldn't see the bottom line in some places. So instead of moving ahead with gluing this, I decided to leave it clamped like this overnight to dry and set to this shape. That should mean I can glue it without the caul and just use normal clamps and I won't need to move as quickly. So I know this method will work, but it's more complicated than I think it should be, so with the other one I'm going to try my plank bender. And that will be tomorrow, since I also had to do some other things and didn't have much time.

Rick is there any reason not to add the stern fascia after adding the upper bulkhead strips? As far as I can see just prevents you from letting deck planking run long and trim later, and I don't see that as a big issue since I plan to add waterways and to toggle in the deck planks. I hate the fashion pieces hanging out in space begging to be broken, adding the fascia would stabilize the inner ones until we add the counter after planking.

Thanks Pat. And Rick yes, good point, it could have been worse Hardly tragic anyway, will fix it this evening and hope to get the bulkhead strips installed at least.

Are they going to be painted? If so cut them off, make new square tops, drill matching holes on each side and glue with dowel or better yet carbon fiber rod Even if you're not painting should still be doable, get matching grain pieces and get a good nearly invisible glue joint, that is perfectly possible with just two square (angle not shape) ends to glue together. It will be made all the more invisible by the change in shape, we expect grain to change when the shape changes significantly.

Too red. Needs to be moved toward yellow a bit, and too saturated. That's to match what is on the ship now, not what my opinion of the color is.

Also whoever said bulkheads were white, as far as I know that only started to become common in the late Georgian navy, they finally realized that extra light in the lower decks was more important than tradition. Prior to that the standard was red and I think red remained common on top deck bulkheads.

Being an optimist I'll assume the silence means the first rabbet looks ok. Got paged for a work crisis not long after I got home and had to get the team back online to deal with that, so I only had about an hour this evening. I marked out and was quickly moving through doing the other side when one of my checks noticed something odd, and lesson for the evening turned out to be that if you're going to use where each bulkhead bottoms out as a reference point you should check that this side matches the other side first. One of six wasn't symmetrical, it was almost 1/32" short. Was odd because I thought I had checked for symmetry repeatedly through the previous processes. So will have to be finished tomorrow.

The advanced model will have a small level in the front piece to keep yourself straight.

More the merrier But I've seen your build, the only ideas you're going to get from me are wood choices ;-) So anyway I got to cut a planking rabbet for the first time this evening, and I have one side done and will finish the other tomorrow. Will go much quicker tomorrow; since I'd never done this and as you folks have seen I'm a heavily armed modeler with eleventy zillion tools, I briefly tried a series of options before I settled on what was a very good solution (for me), However first, I've been looking at my Admiral Paints Ensign Red and thinking it's (on scale 0-255) hue is about 3, saturation is 255, value 255. In short about as absurdly bright as modern chemistry can make red paint and it simply is not conceivable to me that that's an accurate color. I posted a question about it over in the paints forum. will see what they say. In the meantime decided to try out their red ochre. Although it's probably too orange, it has a saturation and value much more in line with what I would expect from 18th century ship paints. It's the fashion pieces we're talking about now, I'm about to add the upper bulwark strips that glue to the outer fashion pieces, so from here they just get more inaccessible and I decided I wanted to paint them now. First I hit them with a couple coats of a clear flat sanding sealer and smoothed down all the MDF fuzz. Then gave it three thin coats of the Admiral red ochre. I just wish the hue was a less orange. Marking rabbet. Notice my stem piece glue line was really not good on this side, not sure how but at least it's straight. Very disappointed with that, may have to fix it. As noted tried a few tools briefly but closed in on this- a small square end mill in my Nakanishi turning at 40k RPM to rough out and just one riffler file to finish. I'm not sure I would try this with a Dremel, way too bulky and heavy with way more runout and vibration. Also this is a good quality and relatively new end mill, so there's almost no resistance from the wood allowing a very light touch. Only trick here is having the end mill be orthogonal to the end of the frame to cut the right angle and smoothly transition between those angles along the run. I did not come anywhere close to trying to cut it in one pass, this was very light touch slowly working down with lots of shallow passes, I find this rotary tool easy to control but it's a rotary tool which means you still can completely screw up your work in zero seconds flat so slow and careful is the watchword. This is what the stern looked like after the rotary tool work. And this particular riffler file is perfect for this application. I wish I could point you to the set I have but Otto Frei has changed the Gardon-Vallorbe riffler set they carry and the choices are a bit different. My set's made by GV and was about the same expense and I will growl at you if you get close to them. Still not perfectly straight but well within limits for first planking and I know I can make the second perfectly straight with just a bit more work. Remember the plan is separate rabbets for each planking layer due to thin keel and thick planking, that's why the rabbet at the stern ends well short of the rudder post.