forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com
WW1 Aircraft Modeling => Under Construction => Topic started by: Dirigible-Al on February 12, 2015, 05:49:14 PM
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The Vickers E.S.1 (Bullet) was tiny but its almost circular fuselage and somewhat rounded shape gave it exceptional speed due to the lack of drag. This along with its manoeuvrability should have been enough to regard it as an exceptional fighter however the war in the air over the Western Front was changing. As the war progressed it became more commonplace for there to be dogfights involving numerous aircraft all at the same time. The pilot’s views of his surroundings were of paramount importance to the airmen in this theatre. Vickers improved their design with this in mind by fairing in the fuselage to flat sides behind the pilot to give him better downward and rear views but this still was not enough for the new F.B.19 (Bullet) and the aircraft was not liked. A dozen went off to serve in Mesopotamia, then a dumping ground for obsolete aircraft but even there they were not popular despite Vickers giving them staggered wings for even greater pilots’ vision. By 1917 all had been replaced by other aircraft on this front. A much bigger dumping ground for obsolete aircraft or in some cases planes that were to crap to even begin service on the W.F. was Russia. When the Vickers F.B.19 Bullet was demonstrated to the Russians they placed an order with Vickers and the Bullet went into production. Russian pilots’ opinion of the Bullet could not have been any more different to those of the British. The plane was loved by many who flew it for its speed and handling, they finally had an aircraft that could catch the German planes they hunted and considered the Bullet more than a match for their quarry. From 1917 skis were fitted experimentally on some Bullets. The aircraft went on to see action in the Russian Civil War and in the 1920’s served as a trainer in Russian Aviation schools.
Before the days of the internet the only 1/48 kits I could get were Smer offerings. This was of no issue at the time because there were no websites like this one to see how inaccurate and shoddily built my own efforts were compared to others. Since the internet and the AMS it inflicted on me the stash of Smer kits along with some completed models were banished to the attic. More recently I took out the Smer kits and saw that with a little TLC and tweeking some decent builds can be made of them, it must also be remembered that these cost peanuts so even if two or three are needed to build one plane that is still good value for money compared to Roden and Eduard offerings. I therefore began my Smer Bash. The first was a re vampted SE.5a but this was unfortunately knocked off the shelf at an advanced stage by my very elderly Father in Law who then accidently trod on it. The second attempt went much better when I converted an Avro 504K into a 504L and this is now one of my favourites in my collection. I was going to go thru a load more Smer builds but got distracted building Gasbags.
Here is what I plan to do here: I will use a Smer SE.5a (wings), a Smer Sopwith Camel (engine, cowling and rear fuselage) and Smer Avro 504K (decals). Struts, seat and various other bits will probably also come from the leftovers from these kits. The cowling is the correct width and depth but the opening is too large, there was however a Bullet that had the cowling modified to a larger opening so I will look into this rather than muck around with it too much. The rear of the camel behind the turtle deck from the flat sides down matches very closely to the Bullet so I will use this. The curved canopy above will be scratch built as will the rudder, stabiliser and rear wings. The area around the pilot will be a real challenge and I am not sure how I will do this. I could build up all the wooden runners with plastic card and skin it with 5 thou which will look the best but be as hard as hell or just carve out the shape using dense foam and heat mould plastic card around it using Harry Woodman’s method, I would then need to detail this inside and out. The front wings should be real easy as they match perfectly the SE.5a wings in chord but are considerably shorter meaning I just need to carve the ends to shape and add the ribs.
But hey this is just my plan, if any of you have any better suggestions I would be delighted to hear them. Half my plans tend to end in the world of balls up making me look for another plan and hope that works. This hobby would be really easy if I built the same thing each time, then I would only use plans that worked!
Thanks for looking in Alan.
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I am looking forward to your build! Having seen what you can accomplish on your 2 previous builds that I am familiar with, I have no doubt you will accomplish this one with style!
RAGIII
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I will be following along closely Alan to see how you put this all together, it will be interesting.
Des.
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ive seen some of your work and dont see any reason why you cant knock this out of the park. neat build
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Cheers Rick, Des and Albatros1234
I do not know about knocking it out of the park, there are alot of really good subjects in this Group Build. The bullet is a fairly ordinary looking aircraft so it will be a challenge to make it look good. I have done very little weathering as most of my stuff has an out the factory look so this will be a good education for me. I have some finishing work to do on the envelope of the Drachen I am building, once I have done that in one or two weekends time I will crack on with this one.
Cheers, Alan.
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Looking forward to following this one, Al. I know it will be brilliant.
Cheers,
Bud
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Yes! More skis!
George
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Hello Des, Rag III, Bud and George.
I thought I would start this off by doing something familiar, and that is build a Clereg engine. I want to use as many of the Smer parts as possible from the two aircraft so I can call this a Smer kit bash so rather than build one entirely from scratch or use a metal one I decided to re vamp the Smer one. Now the easiest way to do this is simply to turn it the other way round so the push rods face the back, this will leave clean cylinders that will take new push rods. I did not relish the thought of cleaning all that flash from those cylinder rings and also suspected that impatience would eventually get the better of me and I would end up carving more and more of the detail off as I went around it. Instead I cut off the 9 cylinders. The egg size nuts on the hub were removed and some heat stretched sprue was run around the edge because on the full size thing there is a rim going round the edge with 18 nuts on it. Speaking of the nuts I did a little experiment and filed longitudinally 6 sides along some thin copper wire straightened in a drill chuck. I then snipped off dozens off nuts to stick on the hub. The only trouble here was although I think the principle was sound I just could not see the dam things properly even under a magnifying glass. I put them on anyway with white glue and I am happy with how it looks but because they are just too dam small most of them are probably lying sideways rather than flat and showing their 6 sides, I probable went a bit too far with those. For the cylinders I copied one of Harry Woodman’s tricks and got a length of sprue, filed it a little and tightly wound very thin wire around it. I then stuck it under the grill for a few seconds. Both the wire and the plastic expand in the heat and press against each other with the soft plastic forming the inside shape of the wound wire. It buckled a little bit, maybe it should have been in there for less time or maybe put in a tighter wooden groove than the one I made but anyhow I was delighted with the effect when I unwound the wire and there was just enough sections of good bits to do the 9 cylinders. In fact I will go as far as to say these are the best cylinders I have ever made! Better looking than my usual method of winding wire around a cocktail stick. The push rods were heat stretched sprue just glued on. Two plastic card strips were put on top of each cylinder and to these the push rods rested. I then went on to make the hinges on the ends of the push rods but fortunately managed to stop myself because I was going a bit too far again, besides these will not be seen. For the pipes that curve into the rear of the cylinders I used copper wire spun in a drill chuck 20 times to maker it perfectly straight. I then laid it flat on a sledge hammer and hit it with a lump hammer to give it the proper flattened pipe look. I discovered a neat way of curving the ends to all the same lengths. I put a strip of sticky foil on the inside of a pincher and used the width of this to gauge how far in the copper goes. I then had 9 pipes all bent the same. The rear of the engine will not be seen so there is no point in doing anything more here.
I used the Camel engine cowl and boy the plastic is thick. What you see in the picture is one that I have thinned and another from the spares box I have not. This must have the scale thickness of the armour plating on the Bismarck! I used a shaped blade to get the excess plastic out. As you can see in the picture it now fits inside the cowl. Speaking of the Cowl this is what I will tackle next. There are 2 openings in the bottom of it and in the front opening it is strangely folded inwards around its rim. Although the opening is too large there is a picture of a Bullet with an enlarged opening and it is one with skis so I will copy this one.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Nice little Clerget, Alan! I really like your technique of winding the wire around plastic rod and heating it to leave the impression. That's a new one to me. I'll have to try that. :D
Thanks,
George
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Very nicely done with the engine Alan, a technique I have not heard of before.
Des.
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Great build Alan... like in the old days that now have gone.
I remember those converted Smer Kits and the engines made up from screws.
There was a book about scratchbuilding 1/48 scale models in balsa
and the Felixstowe was there... it may be that also sir PJ was inspired by that reading.
I will follow this thread with attention
er me
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Will be following along on your build Alan
Terri
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Only just catching up with this. Excellent bit of scratch-building on the Clerget and I can see what you mean by the armoured cowling! This is a really exciting and original idea - never heard of a Bullet on skis - going to be very interesting to follow.
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Alan great beginning.
Martin
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Nice work on the Clerget! Looks great!
RAGIII
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Another useful tip comes out! Lovely engine, and an interesting build.
Ian
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hello Ian, Rick, Martin, L.M., Terri, Ermeio, George and Des. Thanks for your kind comments.
I managed to put a little more time into this. Engine cowl is now thinned and has the two 'cut outs' cut out. I took the propeller from the old SE.5 as I had already done a pretty good job on that the first time round, the only thing letting it down was a rather poor wood grain effect.After a little trimming to shape I painted over white then with watercolour pencils drew red lines. I then brushed on several coats of brown tinted varnish to get the proper effect of British Props which tend to be dark red/brown and brown/brown stiped.
For the rear I cut off the Camel's arse and the poorly scalloped section on the top. It nearly matches the Bullets rear end but to get it perfect I glued a couple of bits of plastic card to the sides and drew it across sandpaper until it matched. Because the Bullet's rear end is curved two ways I cannot simply skin this so I made a little jig in the shape of the profile curve, slotted a piece of insulating foam in it and ran a blade across the top. I then placed the Bullet's rear end against its underside and cut that way. I shaped it with a curved piece of sandpaper, drawing lines across it to make it easier to see if the curve is correct. There are 11 ribs running the length of it and these were made from copper wire stretched and spun in a drill chuck to made them dead straight. When they were superglued to the foam the foam absorbed the glue and the thing is rock hard now. I painted over the whole thing with thick gluppy paint and saned it down to get a scalloped effect although the wire is still a little too prowd. This does not bother me as I will just put some runny paint in the troughs later and this will give the same effect.
I have now done the back and the front, I just now have to figure out how to do the middle so they can all be joined together.
Thanks for looking in, Alan
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Great conversation now.
Martin
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Nicely painted prop!
George
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Great to see somebody making a conversion. I really like the way in which you have used wire and foam to get a rib effect too - so difficult on fuselages. Great ideas here to put into the memory cell for later use.
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Wow...
Lukas
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Thank you martin, George, L.M. and Lukas for your kind comments.
I have at last been able to put a little more time into this. I used Harry Woodman's method to mould the centre part of the fuselage except I tried insulating foam instead of balsa because it is far cheeper and easier to work with being so soft. First couple of attempts were diasters but I figured it out in the end. This is how I did it:
Carve the block out to the correct shape, slice into two halves. Paste loads of super glue over it, this will absorb into the mould and make the foam hard. The next step will avoid a disaster, a sturdy 'T' shape of plastic card was glued along the inside length of the mould. When I did this without the 'T' strip the foam warped in the heat and came out banana shape along with the moulded plastic. The rest is no different to Harry's method, I got a thin sheet of wood and drew around the mould, then cut the shape out. Plastic card was then placed over the hole and pinned in each corner. This was then placed under the grill until the plastic sagged and the mould was pushed thru the hole holding the 'T'. Keeping the moulds in the plastic I cut off the surplas then ran it a few times over sandpaper glued to a glass surface. I had more pictures of this but I must have deleted them by mistake.
I have started to detail the interior now. Dials were made by hand drawing the faces then shrinking them down on a photocopier. they were then cut out and white glued on the panel. I tightly wrapped thin wire around a nail, slid it off and sliced down it to produce lots of metal rings, these I white glued around the dials. The wooden strips on the side walls are copper wire straightened in a drill chuck. The floor hatch looks a bit crap but I will leave it as I do not think it will be seen.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Outstanding work! The model is really taking shape and beginning to look the part! Your interior is coming along very nicely!
RAGIII
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Excellent modelling. The extra cockpit detail is impressive and I especially like your idea for the instrument dials.
Great to see someone else making their own push moulds. I can honestly say that they are easier that they may appear by reading about them. I use balsa and do not cut the moulds in half - I think that that is unnecessary and in any event the halves can be trimmed and matched when they are cut out. The advantage of wood is that it is heat resistant and therefore does not bend when pushed against the hot plastic.
Please keep us posted with more information when it is ready.
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Cheers Rick
Hi L.M. Balsa is probably the best material for push moulds but being perfectly honest I have a garage half full of dense foam and a measerly stock of balsa, now almost gone. I was as much trying to find a use for my massive stash of dense foam as anything and this will be better for bigger moulds purley for economic reasons. When I was a kid the model shop sold balsa for peanuts but it is quite deer now for what it is. It did not occur to me to simply push the whole thing thru without splitting it in two, this would have negated the need to put a strengthening 'T' strip along the inside edge. Whichever way it is done I certainly agree it is easier to do push moulding than it would appear to be when described.
Cheers, Alan
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Very great work, Alan.
Martin
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All the work you are doing is certainly paying off, the model is looking excellent.
Des.
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She's really shaping up beautifully, Al. As always, I'm inspired by your work.
Cheers,
Bud
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Thanks for your comments Bud, Martin and Des.
I always love it when the two fuselage halves are closed, it feels like a major part of the build is done. I made the wicker seat by scoring plastic card with a large needle vertically then lightly drew a sharp blade across horizontally in as tight a lines as I could manage. I then put a thin coat of tan over it so it would appear darker in the crevasses. One day I will weave a wicker seat but I am behind on this and this method is very quick, the hardest and most time consuming part was putting the edge around it which I made from three thin copper wires twisted together in a drill chuck. Seat belt was made from masking tape. The pedals and joystick were all plastic card or sprue. There will be a few more bits I will sneak in there later.
Thanks for looking in, Alan
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Superb detailing of the cockpit.
Martin
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Martin has written it all - what else can I add?.
Stephen.
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Hi All
Sorry for the long delay for the update but I have done very little modelling in the last few months due to work commitments, this is very slow progress even by my standards.
I have got the fuselage parts together, I always consider this a milestone and feel it is nearly half finished at this stage. The fire wall is in and fits the front of the middle section, the rear fits perfectly. I have run copper wire over the curved rear part and filled between them with tons of silver acrylic paint, this will be lightly sanded. The turtle deck was made from the left overs from a botched attempt to heat form the whole section earlier. I kept the two wrongly sized halves knowing that they would probably work well for the turtle deck – and they did! For the gun housing I just slid a 10 thou piece of plastic card thru the inside between the outer wall and the formers, on the outside I cut the section out and built up the box section around it. I will now put strips of copper wire along the sides and fill them with paint the same way as the rear.
For the wings I copied LM’s method and glued 10 thou strips of plastic card along where the ribs should be. I did not bother sanding them down as I wanted the wings to be scalloped, Russian archive photos show these things to be a bit ropey. The top was built up with tons of silver acrylic paint then lightly sanded, this worked very well. For the underside I glued strips of silver foil over the ribs and painted over them. The next step will be to paint the ribs white on the top, black on the underside (I’m sure you know the routine) and paint over them again.
Other than it taking forever it is going OK and looks like it will all come together.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Great to see you back onto this one Alan, looking forward to following progress.
Des.
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So glad to see you back to work on this one, Alan! I'm following closely as this is a project I'd like to tackle one day.
Cheers,
Bud
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Great news that you are back and making progress again. This is an unusual subject and thus for me even more interesting. What you have shown in the photos looks really good.
Stephen.
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Alan,
Like the others I am glad to see you are back on this project! As always with your work it is looking great!
RAGIII
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Very wonderful work, Alan.
Cheers
Martin
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Cheers Des, Bud, Stephen, Rick and Martin
I have started on the struts, the four interplane ones are finished. I used cocktail sticks, drilled into the ends and superglued copper wire into the holes. They were then sanded flat each side on a flat board then sanded to shape. I used oak stain wood varnish on them then, the great thing about doing it this way is it saves time painting wood effect on them.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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That is a great idea for getting a genuine wood look - so much better than paint.
Stephen.
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Great idea using the cocktail sticks for your struts, they are easy to work and are strong, I have used them many times in my scratch builds.
Des.
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Hi All
Most parts are now made for this even though they are not joined together yet so now the scratch building is nearly at an end it feels more like a regular kit. I always thought the hardest bit would be the middle section and other than a few minor things that is now together. To do the linen parts I spun some copper wire straight and bent them around the fuselage sides. Next I bunged in some car body filler and used a curved blade to scrape it out so it would leave a slight scalloped effect. To make it all smooth I went over it 4 times with thick white acrylic paint and wet’n’dried over it. I made a mistake with the wooden runners on the starboard side. I assumed they would span from the engine cowl at equal distances, they do at the bottom but there is an extra one I missed that runs just below the turtle deck making the top runners somewhat randomly spaced. This would not be noticed on the port side because of the gun trough. If I was at this stage four months ago I would have taken the top runners out and re done them but because I am so far behind I will leave it as it is, I think it is highly unlikely anyone will notice – other than you guys because I have just told you.
Thanks for looking in, Alan
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It is a real shame that this will not be finished by the deadline, but I do hope that you will continue to post until it is complete. It is a really interesting build and fascinating how you have been using a variety of non-standard resources to solve different problems. A lot of ideas here which I will be tucking away for future reference or use.
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Cheers Stephen
I will be on this one until its completion, it will not be shelved. It is a shame but I chose this project over other ones mainly because I thought it would be the one I would most likely finish the quickest. It should move on with a little more pace now because work is quieter during the winter months and it simply has been work that has taken me from this. The only other hobby I have is making booze and that does not take up much time.
Alan.
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Very good build Alan.
Cheers
Martin
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I'm so glad you had this build moved Alan, I will be looking forward to seeing more progress on this excellent build.
Des.
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Thanks Des for shifting this one.
Cheers Martin.
Now I have done most major parts and hope that over the X-Mas period I will attach most of them together. I tackled the undercarriage next. Although I am pleased with how the wing struts came out using cocktail sticks and thin copper wire I had an issue replicating this on the undercarriage. Even using the thickest copper wire I can get away with it is still too flimsy for my liking, any thicker and they will not match the thickness of the wing struts. If I had brass that would have done a treat but I do not and don’t want to delay this just for the sake of waiting until I am able to stock myself with some. Wrapping thin plastic card around still came out too thick so I turned to a beer can. Of course I had to drink the contents first but once that was done I cut out with scissors squares of metal. The copper wire was spun into a straight rod, bent to shape and the beer can metal wrapped around the copper, this was then superglued and held in a makeshift clamp. Despite the copper being soft, with the beer can metal wrapped around it is incredibly rigid and strong, I will definitely be using this method again.
Only other addition was the leather on the turtledeck which was made out of Milliput. I will work on the wings next, it will be nice to get them attached.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Great idea using the beer can metal, it will be very strong.
Des.
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Cheers Des
I got some time off this week and put a few bits on then knocked a couple off by mistake. The wood in front of the cockpit opening was done by the method shown on this site http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=178.0 by Eric Larson. I must say this was really easy and I liked the way the paint could be moved around and mucked about with without any worry of it drying. Windscreen came from some clear plastic packaging that happened to be nicely rounded. For the two filler caps I just drilled 2 holes and stuck some copper painted stretched sprue in and trimmed off the top.
The fuselage and wings had the internal structure drawn on with a 2B pencil and I then painted over it to leave its faint outline underneath. I noticed on photos that there is dark shading on both the top and bottom of the wings, this may be because the snow underneath reflects up just as much light and what shines down so I replicated this with the pencil and painted over. Although I am delighted with the result you cannot see it very well in the pictures. The rib tapes are a darker colour and are very proud so I put strips of masking tape along where they should be and painted darker beige in between using thick paint so it had some thickness when dry. Stitching was done with a pencil but after seeing it in these photos I thought it was a bit strong and washed over it with beige to lighten them.
The gun came from the scrap box and is either an Eduard or a Roden piece. I have no idea what the stick and ball thing is that protrudes out of it but I made that from copper wire and the ball was made by repeatedly dipping it in super glue and then finally in silver paint. On the real thing there is some kind of metal plate stuck over the gun trough. I used sticky backed foil for this, first I dulled it up to match the other silver bits by rubbing it with wet ‘n’ dry.
I attempted to do the red star with masking tape and spray gun but cocked it up and ended up just painting it on. On the underside of the wing I pencilled the star and painted over though this does not seem to show up on any of the photos. The window in the top wing is also clear packaging plastic cut to shape with strips of coloured masking tape for the wood bits. A load of turnbuckles were put in and then on went the top wing. To get it on straight I made some cardboard right angled triangles and glued them on a base. Once it went on I realised I forgot to put in the exhaust outlets so that will be a hell of a job now. Another boob was the knocking off of the rudder and stabiliser which has left some tidying up to do.
Thanks for looking in,
Alan.
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Hi All
Other than a bit of tidying and tarting up this is finished. This last stage was not that difficult because most of the parts had been done and it was like putting a kit together. The only bits still needing scratch building were the skis and these were made out of plastic card. The red stars came from a Smer decal sheet from the Avro kit and were then cut down to size and painted over (although I wish I had just painted them on like the ones on the wing because their scale thickness makes them look like steel plates). Control horns are copper wire with tiny triangles of plastic card glued to them and the rigging is fishing line. The exhaust outlets are made from the interior part of a disposable pen heat stretched to the correct thickness.
This is now the second Smer kit bash that I have completed although I must say in this case it may have been quicker if the whole thing was scratch built since it was so radically different from the SE.5a and the Camel. The only real downside is the time it has taken up, it was about 2 years ago when I completed my last aircraft and that took nearly a year to build. The lesson I will take with this is that a small subject does not necessarily mean a quick build. I still look forward to the next kit bash but that will be a more simple conversion and as to scratch building I will in future attempt larger subjects so I get more value for my time.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.
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Awesome results on a difficult kit bash! It may have taken a while but I enjoyed every update!
RAGIII
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Only just found this - that is a real little gem. I do like conversions in any scale - although this may have taken a long time the effort was well and truly worth it. A great model and a very different topic - a winner all round!
Stephen.
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Like Stephen, I just stumbled across this and I'm in complete agreement. Very clever work, and a terrific result!
Chris
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Thanks Rick, Stephen and Chris
This is the first build I have completed on Des's site so I certainly did not want it to be a lemon. I will now move on the Drachenballon I started 2 YEARS AGO! that one also needs to see its last post.
Thanks to everyone else for your input over the last 17 months, Alan.
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I'm a little late to the party Alan, but add my compliments for a nice job on a difficult Build. A rare subject to add to your collection and, as Stephen has said, "a real little gem". Well done!
Cheers,
Lance
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Brilliant work on an unusual subject. Well done, Alan!
Cheers,
Ernie :)
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very nice,this was quite a creative solution to the lack of model for the vickers bullet. i like it quite a lot.
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Sorry I have been off-line for a bit.
Thanks Albatross1234, Ernie and Lance for your kind comments.
Alan.