Evening All,
Thanks William, Rick, Ken, Alexis, Frank, EBF, and Richard for leaving your very kind comments. Richard: I will not be taking any flights around the aerodrome at the moment because the pilot's seat dropped out the other day and I have still to put it back in - it can wait until I have nearly finished now! After that I might consider giving you a lift - for a suitable fee!!
Putting wings on biplanes is, I know, one of the features that deters many modellers from building them. Rigging is another deterrent for some, so in this post I will try to reveal some of the (dirty) secrets that I use to build multi-bay biplanes. On this aircraft the struts were at 90 degrees to the wings so mounting them is a straightforward process, provided that they are put in carefully using the following simple procedure:
1. I cemented the 4 centre struts to the lower wing - two in each side of the nacelle;
2. I cemented the two centre struts to the tail unit;
3. while these struts were still setting and therefore able to be moved I laid the upper wing sub-assembly on the bench and put small drops of cement into the locating holes in the underside of the wing and tail unit;
4. I gently lowered the lower wing sub-assembly on to the upper wing adjusting the struts as necessary to fit into the holes on the wing and tail unit;
5. I adjusted the assemblies so that the lower wing assembly was exactly over the top wing and then held the lot in position with a standard Mk 1 jig:
Provided that the wings and booms are correctly aligned this jig will work well because it keeps the leading edges of the wings parallel and square and supports the tail unit at the same time. I left this overnight to dry out thoroughly. In the morning I could carefully invert the assembly and handle it without fear that it would fall apart:
Clearly this is not the strongest of assemblies, so to help stabilize it I added the outer wing struts. I put drops of cement on to the ends of the struts and gently push them into place making sure that they are in line with the other struts and are vertical when viewed from the front. A little weight was put on top of the wing to ensure that the joints are held together while the cement sets:
With the wings secure I put the front struts into the tail unit because that helped to stabilize the rear of the assembly while I added the radiator. This was cut form 60 thou card and scoured to represent the grille. It was suspended on wires between the rear inner wing struts just in front of the engine - I used thin copper wire which I CA'd to the sides of the radiator and bent the wires so that I could CA the ends to the srtuts. I wanted as much space as I could have while doing this - hence the remaining wing struts were left off until this task was completed. The water pipes were made from rod with the outlet from the engine to radiator cemented to the top of the engine and the lower pipe extended to the water pump on the front end of the engine. Unfortunately I was unable to get good pictures of this assembly because I cannot get the camera into the tiny space and have enough light to see things properly:
Having put the radiator in place I rigged the centre struts and front bays of the tail as these will be difficult to reach later:
Rigging with rolled copper wire is easy. The length of wire needed is measured directly from the model by using a pair of dividers. The wire is measured with the dividers and a length cut from the spool. This is rolled between a piece of brass strip and a block of wood which had been sanded flat. The wire is held against the model to check it for length: I usually cut the wire a fraction too long before rolling it out so that I can trim it if necessary. If the wire is too long I use my Mk 1 eyeball and experience to judge how much needs to be removed. I place a small drop of CA on the model in the two places where the ends of the wire are to be attached and gently place the wire on to the model. With a little practice this can be a fairly quick and easy method.
Next I added all of the remaining struts on the wings and tail unit, and rigged fore-aft between the wing struts, the rear of the wing struts and the remainder of the tail.
There is still much rigging left to attach, but with these areas done I do not have to worry about access and knocking small pieces off later. Most of what has been attached is unlikely to be damaged when I add the remaining sub-assemblies and details.
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.