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