forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com
WW1 Aircraft Modeling => Completed models => Topic started by: LT1962 on April 06, 2020, 12:46:25 PM
-
This build was inspired by the wonderful book of Jose Martinez Fernandez. But being an Aussie had to take on an Australian build.
-
Magnificent Biff. That is some great modeling.
sp
-
Some more images.
-
more to follow.
-
and
-
second last
-
last
-
Whut I said times 5 more pictures. That is just beautiful.Too busy admiring it to envy your skill.
sp
-
Wow! Where to start? That is a most amazing Bristol Fighter you've built and from the looks of it you only used about 35% of the kit. Bravo!
-
Thanks for the kind comments. I used most of the kit in fact. Only a couple of the wings omitted, plus an aileron and elevator. both fuselage halves were used but cut away at the cockpit sides and behind the cockpit. All the rest was either kit or scratch built. The WNW kit is a great place to start with this build.
-
Hi - saw this on the WNM website today: absolutely brilliant! Great work. Cheers Matt
-
Very impressive build :)
Terri
-
Outstanding build! Your scratch built sections take the Model to a different level! Well Done!
RAGIII
-
A Bristol of special magnificence :o
superb build - well done!
von B
-
Truly amazing, congratulations on finishing this mini masterpiece.
-
Brilliant result!
-
I have always believed that this Kit, one of the originals, is the best of Wingnut's offerings and it's provided many beautiful examples of the modelling art here. Your model takes it a step beyond, simply outstanding! Congratulations, this is superb!
Cheers,
Lance
-
Brilliant. That is one of the best representations of this aircraft that I have seen in model form.
Is there a build log of this anywhere?
You have given me an idea for my current build.
Stephen.
-
Strewth, absolutely brilliant! I feel like I just walked into a museum to see the real thing. A great bonus in these days of lock down!
-
Thanks for the comments. Sorry I dont have a build log but I could probably put something together, I took quite a few photos on the way through the build. But the best thing to do is to have a look at this book;
https://wingsandrigging.blogspot.com/2018/11/book-bristol-f2b.html?showComment=1560418318677#c8822671885718188578
This is a fantastic reference that will help no end.
-
I was lucky to see the Martinez' Biff in reality in one modelling show. It is a treat! But yours is as fantastic as that one. Great modelling! thanks for showing. And I would copy the question about the build log.
-
Add my Kudo to all the above !!!
Ed
-
That Bristol Fighter is one of the best builds of it's type I've seen in a long time. Absolutely spectacular. Congrats on your masterpiece.
Cheers,
Gary
-
I am happy to post some of my photos and a sort of build log here bit by bit if Dave is happy. If not I am sure he will move it to the correct place.
When I started this build I initially only wanted to open up the fuselage, and hod focused on that. I was not game to cut any of the superb Wingnuts kit until I thought that I could make a reasonable job with my skills.
I started with the rear of the fuselage behind the gunners cockpit taking careful measurements from the cockpit frames and fuselage sides to make sure it would all go together at some time. The frame was crafted from evergreen 1mm x 1mm with additional 1 mm x .5mm strips on the top and bottom of the frame.
-
I also had to check that the tailplane was going to fit squarely at this stage. The evergreen being what is is is very flexible and easy to pull out of square. Because of this flexibility I had intended to only rig the tail section using rolled wire but after a bit of trial and error later changed to a combo of wire and 2lb mono. The mono gives some extra strength which i think was necessary for when the finished model would sit on the wheels.
-
I was concerned particularly with the join of the evergreen to the cockpit frame, so I intentionally chose to use mono for the rigging between the two sections to provide extra strength. Now was also the time to work out where the tailskid would fit. The main section of the tail skid strut was cut off and replaced with 1mm brass tube to add some strength as well. Holes drilled for all the rigging and fairleads added for the rudder cables. Fairleads also added here for the tailplane incidence adjusting cables.
-
In concert with the fuselage, I had only intended to skeletonise one of the elevators. I did the frame with a combo of brass tube and shaped copper wire shaped around the kit part and soldered.
-
Test fitted to the horizontal stabiliser.
-
Another piece of 0.6mm brass tube is soldered in the elevator using the kit piece as a guide and then the ribs from evergreen (1mm x 0.25mm) are cyanoed in place.
-
It was around this time that I got my hands on a copy of the Wings and Rigging book by Jose Martinez Fernandez on his brilliant F2B. (See https://wingsandrigging.blogspot.com/2018/11/book-bristol-f2b.html?showComment=1560418318677#c8822671885718188578) With this in hand, I decided t have a go at scratch building a wing before I proceeded any further. To do this entailed buying a lot more Evergreen strips and rods and using his descriptions as a guide. The hardest thing was cutting the shap of the three compression ribs and the wing root rib. Once these were cut, filed and sanded the wing part was traced onto A4 and the wing slowly assembled.
-
The constructed lower starboard wing against the kit part and the port lower wing and centre section. To join my new wing to the centre section, I was going to use plastic rod. In the end I chose copper wire with a diameter of approx 1.5mm drilled into the wing spars. This was stronger and would allow me to adjust the dihedral of the wing later if needed.
-
You have taken the art of matching scratch built sections to kit sections to a completely new level. Amazing!
sp
-
With the bottom wing basically built I felt brave enough to cut into the fuselage. Here goes nothing.......
-
This is all we keep.
-
And as with every step, dry fitting about a dozen times to make sure this will all come out alright.
-
At this point I realised that I would have an imbalance issue when the model was finished if I only had one skeletonised wing. So I set about making the port upper wing stripped back as well. This process was quicker since I had experience in making the bottom wing previously.
-
Then it was on to building the cockpit. The cockpit frames had to be strengthened with pieces of evergreen in places (no photos of this step unfortunately. In addition the fuel tank had some evergreen added to hide the join on the port side. The control column was cut from the original elevator control rod and a slightly longer control rod made from brass tube. Cables added for the gun trigger and pipes added for the pumps and fuel lines. Turnbuckles made from 0.5mm brass tube and copper wire were added to the rudder pedals, and a linkage for the tailplane incidence control on the starboard side of the fuel tank was added. Fairleads for the rudder and incidence control cables were added to the cockpit frames at the lower rear of the gunners compartment.
-
Then dry fitting the fuselage pieces again after the cockpit frames were in place. Once this was all adjusted for fit, the fuselage was painted and glued in place.
-
Rigging on the scratch built rear fuselage was commenced on the top and bottom sections of the frame using rolled 0.12mm aluminum wire with 0.3mm brass sleeves, cyanoed into place. Side rigging was left until the two halves were joined so there would be room for me to run the rigging from the cockpit to the rudder, tail skid and tailplane incidence control horns.
-
The two halves were then joined together. Rigging between the two halves is 2lb mono with 0.13mm brass eyelets. Good tension on the rigging adds significant strength to this join.
-
Rigging of the rear fuselage has continued. After the upper and lower sections were rigged with wire, the cross bracing was done with mono. Strips of evergreen are added around the cockpit and gunners compartment where the fabric covering would be fixed. The horizontal stabiliser has been painted and tested for square/fit while the rigging is going on. Rudder and tail fins also painted in preparation for installation.
-
The brass rudder stem has been trimmed in preparation for installation of the control arm and associated rigging.
-
Tailplane fixed to fuselage, fins and rudder also fixed. Rigging still to come on the tailplane. Tailplane incidence brackets have been installed and rigged. Rudder control arm made of evergreen installed and rigged. The undercarrige legs and lower wing centre section have been painted installed and rigged. At this point there is only two unfixed rigging lines for the ailerons. It must be time to add some more.
-
Elevators have been installed as have the control arms either side of the cockpit (hence the longer control rod modification earlier in the build). Tailplane has now been rigged with mono and same for the elevators. Turnbuckles are made from brass tube and copper wire eyelets.
-
Rigging now completed either side of the cockpit and gunners compartment. I used 0.1mm aluminium wire for this. Now its onto the engine bay and engine. Engine mounts, gun tube and radiator painted and dry fitted.
-
After adding some pipes to the firewall, construction of the engine has commenced. There is excellent detail already in the kit so only a few additions are done. Firstly, spark plug leads from the magnetos to the spark plugs with 0.1mm aluminium wire braided. Holes added to the magnetos to connect later through the firewall.
-
Some additonal engine harnesses run from the firewall affixed to the engine bearer with 0.1mm aluminium wire. Then its time to fit additional oil lines, oil tank and magneto harnesses. Finally fit the radiator and gun tube and a little oil staining using burnt sienna oil paint. Control linkage for the radiator shutter has been added to the radiator cowling and the cockpit side for later rigging.
-
Engine underside and side. Now to look at fixing the wings.
-
The solid wings have the ribs marked out with pencil and then sprayed with CDL on the lower surfaces and white on the upper. Wooden skeletonised wings were sprayed with Humbrol 121, then sprayed with a thin coat of raw sienna oil paint for the wood colour. Finally a coat of Tamiya clear orange and then a satin varnish. The skeletonised wings were then rigged with their internal bracing and holes drilled for the aileron cables and pulleys.
-
Rigging for the upper wing centre section is pre added to the fuselage and then the cabane struts glued into place.The wing centre section is then glued into place with careful checks to make sure everything will be square and aligned when the wings are added. I gave this plenty of time to dry before moving onto the next steps. After the glue had cured, I secured the rigging of this section into place using 2lb mono. Once done this was quite a solid structure.
-
The roundels were stencils cut from tape and fixed in position and then sprayed with tamiya paints. Once dried and the tape removed, the wings were given a mist of tamiya smoke to tone down the white in particular. The wings were then given a final satin coat to seal it all.
-
With the centre section rigging complete, radiator shutter rigging in place and exhausts added it was time to add the lower wings. Port side was easier with the poly glue, starboard was done with cyano which grabs fast so no wriggle room there.
-
With the lower wings now set in place, I made sure that the upper wings would fit in place and line up without any issues. In the photo without struts both wings are just sitting there. I found I had a very slight twist to the rear on the starboard side with the upper wings. So when I fitted the struts I fitted them firstly on the starboard side to let them set first and used the rigging to help bring the twist out. This bought the wings into perfect alignment.
-
With the starboard upper wing in place, a quick check to see that the final model will sit on the wheels with no balance issues. Then the port upper is fixed in place with cyano, so once again make sure it is a good fit before applying the glue. Rigging is done with 2lb mono starting from the fuselage working to the outer edge of the wings.
-
With the wings in place and rigged it was just small items to finish. Firstly the gunners compartment, bomb rack rails and propeller.
-
Propeller painted with Humbrol 121, raw sienna and clear orange for wood effect. Twin machine guns fitted to the gunners compartment when all the photos of this aircraft only showed a single. I just wanted to do a kit with twins in the gunners compartment, all my previous kits had singles so I just took some artistic license here.
-
Finally done!!