Evening All,
Thanks Rick, Richie, Zac and Willem for your kind comments. They are much appreciated for reasons which will become clear when you read on. Support from people like you really does help when things seem to be destined to go perpetually wrong.
Zac: be careful when reading this because the under carriage on the Bleriot XXIII was not the same as the earlier XI: the whole design seems to have been inherently weak and Bleriot continually modified it, seemingly without success as all of this series of machines seem to have suffered from weaknesses in this department.
When I made the second pair of wings with the wider chord, I cut them too short! So I had to make a third set of wings, this time with the correct span and fix them to the fuselage....but after I had painted the models!!! Grrrrrr. Fortunately the wings are small and therefore did not take long to make but I had to remove the old pairs first and then fix the new ones into place. After that I had to paint the new wings and touch up the joints so that they do not show. After all that, when I was ready to put the markings on I saw that one of the wings on Hamel's model had drooped, necessitating its removal and replacement! As I write this I am waiting to repaint and clean up that joint... It never seems to end!
I painted the numbers on a sheet of white paper, copied and reduced them for printing and varnished them with artist's varnish to seal them. I originally used Humbrol matt enamel to seal them on the models and discovered that the varnish turned yellow after a couple of days! The old transfers were duly removed with a scalpel and new ones printed and fixed in place, this time with acrylic varnish.
In contrast with the above self-inflicted disasters making the wheels and undercarriage turned out to be simple. The tyres were 30 thou rod wound around a paintbrush handle and dipped into bioling water for a few seconds. The centres are Eduard spoked wheels. I used pieces of wire from a paper clip for the axle:
The front of the airframe formed the basic structure for the undercarriage on these machines - I had already made most of that from strip and rod:
Hamel's machine had two extra rods: I do not know what purpose they served but they are very clear in the photos:
The brackets which joined the axles to the lower part of the chassis at the front were made from 20 thou rod bent into shape. Pieces of 20 thou rod were used to make the arms which were attached to the oleos at the front of the machine:
In spite of the mild complexity of this structure, it was remarkably quick and simple to make, and it is fairly strong and looks as it is supposed to do!
Holes had been drilled in the underside of the fuselage to take the pylon and supports which carried the control cable to the wings. The pylons and supports were made from 30 thou and 20 thou rod respectively. On the original aircraft the rear undercarriage was made from wood which had been steamed and bent into curves. I represented this by using 30 thou rod and bending it to shape. First one complete length was glued into place:
When that had set hard I took the second length and cut it into two parts so that they could be fixed on each side:
Both the undercarriage and pylons have been painted and I can now start rigging the underside of the models before I add the rudders and upper pylons to the top surfaces. That at least is the plan which assumes that I do not make any more blunders that will need correcting!
Thanks for looking.
Stephen.
