It's been a long time since I updated this. The last update was about my attempt to rescue the top wing that had gone horribly wrong after a bit of rough handling and some pretty approximate modelling. It looked OK at a passing glance but from the side it looked like this;
BE2c top wing fail by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
Every time I looked at it I hated it even more and quitting the fags robbed me of the necessary mojo to start again so I began another project which needed some home made decals. Whilst at it I made some for this one too. Some of you will have seen this picture on my L'Oiseau Blanc build
Home printed BE2c decal. by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
I was so chuffed that my mojo returned and I decided it was time to remake the top wing. Making the wing ribs was a hugely time consuming business last time so I did things a little differently this time.
The brass template was used to drill the holes in the styrene blanks and draw the shape, each strip of 1x3.2mm styrene yields 7 rib blanks. These was then cut roughly into shape with my Xuron clippers and pinned together with brass rod. These were then tacked together with superglue at each end and sandwiched between the templates.
I have noticed that using Zip Kicker makes superglue more brittle which can be a real pain in the backside but in this case it makes separating the ribs easier.
20230817_142253 by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
After a bit of scrapery with a new scalpel blade
20230817_144444 by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
These blocks of ribs are then threaded onto brass rod and block sanded. I used a glass nail file because it is completely rigid and gives a smooth surface.
20230817_152704 by
Richard Williams, on Flickr
Because the rib blanks were only glued at either end it is easy to inset a blade between the in the middle and separate them. I wish I had done it this way before, the whole process took a morning instead of a week. Live and learn!
I'll be back with another update soon, I aim to finally finish this project by the end of September which barring any more mishaps, loss of mojo or silly blunders should be possible.
Thanks for reading
Richie