de Havilland Tiger Moth by rvchima - Easy Built Models - 1:17 - balsa

[rvchima]

I just completed yet another stick-and-tissue airplane model, a de Havilland Tiger Moth. The Tiger Moth was an aerobatic trainer biplane built in the 1930s and used as a primary trainer by the Royal Air Force until the early 1950s. The model has a 20" wingspan and took 7 weeks to build, with Christmas in the middle. The kit is made by Easy Built Models, which is one of the most misleading names for a company ever.

 

The kit included some of the softest balsa I've ever used. Simply pressing a part into place often broke the matching part. I had to replace many of the wing spars and fuselage stringers with stronger wood. The parts in this kit were not laser cut like most kits today. That's OK by me - I've made plenty of models from scratch - but the lines printed on the balsa were too wide, and thus hard to cut to the correct size. The black ink showed through the yellow tissue and had to be sanded off. 

 

The plans, dated 1986, showed a general outline of the wings, fuselage, and tail, but no details of how to attach struts or anything else. Luckily I've made enough model airplanes in the past that I knew to build mounting points for everything.

 

The plans vaguely show a covered nose and cockpit area, but do not include patterns for any of those pieces. I found some yellow card stock and basically made a card model of the forward fuselage from scratch.

 

The landing gear construction is quite complicated and not at all obvious from the plans. Thank goodness for Google. The kit did not include enough wire for the landing gear, but did include some terrible vacuum-formed wheels. I used some beautiful 100 year old aluminum wheels from my grandfather instead.

 

It is always difficult to align the wings on a biplane model. It was especially hard on this one since the plans do not show the distance between the wings or the length of the interplane struts. I made some complicated jigs by trial and error to get everything right.  The rigging was also not obvious from the plans, and Google saved the day again.

 

The plans do not show the location of the center of gravity, but I suspect that mine is much too far aft. I'm not sure where to hide any weight at the nose.

 

I usually enjoy building old stick-and-tissue model airplanes, but this one was very frustrating. There are at least two other companies that sell balsa models of the Tiger Moth, and I would recommend either of them over this one.

[ccoyle]

Turned out nice, regardless.

[rvchima]

Thanks Chris. I was thinking about you and all your card models while I tried to enclose the nose and cockpit. I used canopy glue like the Pros do!

[GrandpaPhil]

Very nicely done!

[Canute]

Well done, Rod. That's a very creditable Tiger Moth, despite the materials used by the manufacturer.