Santos Dumont No. 18 Hydroplane 1907 by Greg Davis - Scale 1:16

[KeithAug]

All looking rather nice. It would appear that the foils were quite small.

[Keith Black]

Beautiful work, Greg, 

[Greg Davis]

4 hours ago, KeithAug said:

All looking rather nice. It would appear that the foils were quite small.

Yes, they don't seem to have a large chord. I've done my best to interpret a number of photographs and then made them with a 2cm chord - that would make them roughly a foot in reality.

[wefalck]

I remember reading the research thread, but somehow missed until now the building log.

 

I am interested in everything that happened on the Seine, after all it flows past in sight from where I live. However, judging from the background on the photographs, I think Santos Dumont must have run his trials on the Bassin d'Argenteuil, a quiet lake-like stretch of the river between two barrages a few kilometres downstream from me. 

 

Coming back to the construction material: I also would think that steel-tubes as in bicycles were used. Aluminium tubes would have been extremely expensive at that time, if at all available. There was no welding technique at that time that would have not drawn the temper from the steel-tubes. So, I think they were silver-soldered, as is the practice for steel bicycle frames.

 

Edited Thursday at 02:50 PM by wefalck

[KeithAug]

4 hours ago, wefalck said:

So, I think they were silver-soldered,

Yes - I had thought they might have been brazed.

[Greg Davis]

Here's my start on the cockpit. I've made the platform, the steering column structure and the footrest. I'll trim down the parts that go thru the cockpit after they have been attached.

 

Still to come the saddle / seat and the steering wheel (doesn't look easy at all, ugh!).

[Greg Davis]

A couple days of work on the steering wheel has gotten me to here:

First I cut and milled a piece of brass to serve as the spokes of the wheel together with a rim. Two pieces of C Boxwood with a circle cut out were used to sandwich the brass piece - all attached with epoxy. Then the exterior was sanded to about the correct diameter. Sanding the wheel to a round cross-section then followed. A few more details to add, but this is what I'm trying to mimic:

I feel that I am getting close - probably as close as my skills will allow!