Donnet-Lévêque Type A, Libramodels, 1:72

[RLWP]

Oh yes, I'd say that was much, much better!

The first one looks like the poor thing was bodged together from old cardboard boxes. The second shows the smooth sweep of the hull

Lovely colour too

Richard

[RAGIII]

Your Wood painting on the Hull/Fuselage has turned out beautifully! The second go really made a difference!
RAGIII

[IanB]

Thanks Richard, that's mostly just the difference that the clear orange coat makes!
Thanks Rick, there wasn't a lot changed, a couple of extra passes on one or two panels, but mostly just the clear orange coat.

 I have now added the supporting struts for the lower wing. The jig was taped on and the front struts were positioned correctly then zapped with PalsticWeld. The rear ones were glued in with ordinary plastic glue.

They were held in place during this time by slipping the wing over them to help ensure they were at the correct angle.



 Once they were dry they were clipped to size and a trial fit was made to check that all was well



 The final job today was to make new tail surfaces from .020" plastic card and mark them and the wings with ribs and spars.



 Tomorrow should see a coat of white primer to seal the pencil lines, then I can remove the ailerons.

Ian

[lone modeller]

The representation of the wood work is super. The wing assembly is also first class - this is turning into another of your gems.

Stephen.

[RAGIII]

Looking absolutely Stunning!
RAGIII

[IanB]

Thanks Stephen, Rick, I'm definitely enjoying this one!

 I gave the wing undersides and tail surfaces a quick blast of white today to seal the pencil lines and stop them smudging, then removed the ailerons and elevator with a nano saw and scribing/snapping them off.



 Unfortunately that highlighted another error with the kit. The ribs are in the wrong place!



 If I'd been modelling the wing-warper this probably wouldn't be an issue, but an aileron ending between ribs?  Oh well, only one thing for it...the rib detail had to be removed. It will be replaced in the correct place later.

 I then turned my attention to the floats and petrol tank. They were removed from the backing sheet and cleaned up, but the floats appeared too narrow and elliptical instead of circular in cross section. To remedy that I added a shim of .020" (0.5mm) plastic sheet between the halves.



 Those are drying over night before a clean up and assessment of the final shape. I think the fronts of the floats need to be thickened up a little, so the Miliput may have to come out again....

Ian

[IanB]

Today was spent mostly looking at drawings and photos and trying to work out what was wrong with the wings.
 The drawings in French Aircraft of the First World War show more ribs than the reproduction aircraft, and also show the floats (which are directly under the struts) one rib further outboard than the end of the ailerons. The struts should be at the end of the ailerons! The pic of the Austro-Hungarian machine also shows the shorter lower wings, as does the original in Paris, with the outer struts right at the end, whereas the drawings and the repro both show the wing extending out one rib further. The Paris aircraft appears to have much shorter wings though...
 My problem was to try to find where the error was - Were the wings too long or were the ailerons too long?
 The rib count was off anyway so I discounted that. The wings didn't look too long compared to the pic when held at a similar angle, and comparing the width of the tail, and where the end appeared to be relative to the wingtip, so I decided that the problem lay with the ailerons being too long. I measured the distance between the tops of the struts on the pic of the Austro-Hungarian aircraft. The distance between the main struts was 30mm and between the outer pair and the extensions it was 25mm. On the model, if I moved the ailerons 2 ribs further outboard the measurement was.... 30mm and 25mm, and it put the outer struts right at the tip of the lower wing!

Eureka!

The actual distance may not be exactly right, but the proportions were, so it would at least look right!
 So...I chopped the end 2 ribs off the ailerons and glued those bits back onto the wings.



 After all that trouble marking everything out and carefully measuring, I had got it wrong! So much for the drawings! (Of course there's no guarantee that I have it right now either, but it should at least look right!)

 Now I will need to spend a little time blending the repairs back into the wing, and painting out the extra spar that the ailerons had. Oh well, it'll keep me out of mischief!

 After that, I spent a little time humming to myself and sanding down the floats and fuel tank.....



Then I went for a beer...

Night all!

Ian

[IanB]

Today's progress consisted of finishing off the corrections to the wing and remarking the ribs, and a little more work on the floats and fuel tank.
 I've added .020" rod for the two fillers, and a piece of copper wire under the rear end for the oil feed. A small piece of aluminium tube has been added at the front and will serve as an attachment point for a piece of thin copper wire for the fuel feed line.





A quick blast of white tomorrow morning should show if any further work is required. If not, I can start drilling strut and rigging holes!

Ian

[RAGIII]

Terrific work on the wing correction and floats! Looking great!
RAGIII

[IanB]

Thanks Rick, much appreciated!

 A little more progress has been made over the last couple of days....yesterday the wings, tail surfaces and floats were all given a coat of CDL (the wing undersides only at this point). Then today the wing upper surfaces got another coat of white primer. That revealed a little more work needed on the grafts, so while the skim of PPP filler was drying I did the rudder, fuel tank, and floats. By the time they were done the filler had dried, so that was sanded down, and the white was resprayed. All is now well on the wings, so the next job will be to mask the ribs on the upper surfaces for the first coat of CDL.







Ian
 

[NinetythirdLiberator]

Beauty, Ian!!!!

That is some really sweet work.

Dan

[IanB]

Thanks very much Dan!
 I got a little more done today and have finished painting the wings and tail surfaces After spending the morning masking the ribs, I sprayed a coat of CDL, then took a couple of minutes to remove the masking that took a coupe of hours to put on, and sprayed another coat to tone the ribs down.

 Removing the masking after the first coat



and all done



 I won't get anything done tomorrow as I'm going to a show in Rhode Island, but the next jobs will be making the struts and drilling all the rigging holes.

Ian

[Des]

Great progress Ian, looking forward to seeing more.

Des.

[Bughunter]

Wow, that is a great build! Never touched a vacu form kit, this looks to me like a lot of effort, more like a scratch build.
You made really nice modules from that, and this makes me sure that the final result will be beautiful too.
I will follow your progress!

Cheers,
Frank

[JamesAPrattIII]

 the info I got on this aircraft is from the book "Austro-Hungarian Warships of WW I"  which in finding more notes the aircraft # 10 and 11 had a S added to the number in 1914 and were used as trainers until 1916.