Evening All,
Thank you Ken, Willem and Joachim for leaving your very kind comments. The noses of these models will be different Joachim, so I am going to leave that as the major difference between these models.
I cut the fuselage sides from 30 thou card and the top and bottom from 20 thou card because it is easier to place the thinner card between the sides and achieve a square cross section. I only added a minimal amount of internal details as they would not be visible after the fuselage was assembled. I also added strips of scrap plastic to enable the bottom and top decking to be accurately placed and secured:
I glued one side to the bottom first and allowed that to dry out. The cockpit floor, seat and a control column was put into place next: I did not add a control wheel because this was tricky to make as it was so small and it would not be seen anyway. The second side was glued in place and also allowed to set. Finally the upper decking was glued in place but only after I had cut and filed the cockpit cut-out:
The photo shows what I had intended to be Nieuport's machine with a 75 hp Gnome rotary engine. However the shape of the nose is wrong so I will have to make a new fuselage for that model. In the meantime I had assembled Chevalier's model which had the two cylinder engine but I did not photograph it until after the next stage. The joints were cleaned up with a file and glasspaper and any small gaps filled and sanded. The engine was covered by a small plate on Chevalier's machine so I laminated some card and filed the shape required from the resultant block, and cut two side pieces from 20 thou card:
The engine cover parts were cemented to the front of the fuselage, gaps filled and the whole sanded and smoothed. I made a small windscreen from card - again this was filed into shape before it was cemented to the fuselage and the gaps filled and sanded smooth:
The front of the fuselage and inside of the engine cover was painted aluminium as these were metal parts on the original. The engine was cemented into place when the painting was finished:
The model was painted in a mixture of Revell white with a tiny amount of beige (314) to cause the white to be slightly discoloured. The metal panels of the nose were aluminium:
The small details of the engine were fixed - the carburetor and fuel pipe underneath the engine block, and the brackets on the sides of the engine. The undercarriage consisted of two pairs of V struts joined by a single central rod with a spade at the front. There was a second rod which passed from under the nose to the rear V struts. The V struts were filed into aerofoil section from 30 x 40 thou strip. Plastic rod made the central parts with the spade cut and shaped from card:
I will make the wheels next.
I will provide details of Nieuport's model later as I want to finish the model of Chevalier's machine for a club show at the weekend.
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.