forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com
WW1 Aircraft Modeling => Under Construction => Topic started by: MoFo on December 17, 2014, 10:04:33 AM
-
One of the forum members asked if I'd post this over here, so... Here. :)
Way(!) overdue, but... better late than never?
Okay, so yes, I am scratchbuilding a 1/144 Zeppelin. LZ66/L 23 - a Q-Class Zepp - to be specific. Why this particular airframe? Because it was shot down by Lt. Bernard A Smart flying a Sopwith Pup, which I also intend to model. It should add an interesting story to the model and give a better sense of scale - you don't really realize just how massive the Zeppelins were until you see that iiiiiitty-bitty airplane beside it.
The build has its roots in a paper model designed by Thorsten Brand. http://jleslie48.com/zep/model_parts/Pclass_description.pdf http://jleslie48.com/zep/model_parts/ His model is a P-Class; the Q-class was a revised design that added an extra cell to the balloon for an increased payload and ceiling. My primary reference is actually just his P Class Description PDF. I ended up re-drawing everything in CAD for my plastic version.
My basic game plan was fairly simple: Make a bunch of bulkhead sections (ribs) along the appropriate station numbers. Align these along a central spine, with reinforcing spars closer to the surface, then skin the whole shebang with styrene sheet.
(https://i.imgur.com/hcCWpkH.jpg)
Step 1 in this whole process was to draw the balloon's profile in Solidworks. Thorsten's profiles list the station numbers (in metres), and the cross section shows the basic proportions. Dividing the profile into individual stations gave me the cross section at each location. I sketched out the cross section in CAD, then re-sized it to fit the height of the envelope at each station. For most of the balloon, this was a simple copy/paste/resize; at the back, I had to make some tweaks to match the tailplane geometry, where some facets blended out. The final step for the bulkheads was to add my spine and spar markings. A suitably sized layout was sketched (1/8" spar holes, 5/8" square spine), then copy/pasted in the middle of each bulkhead. I also took the time to make a sort of 'ruler' - a big ol' rectangle with the bulkhead stations marked off, eliminating the need for fiddly measuring come assembly time.
(https://i.imgur.com/OZIaEj0.jpg)
With my 36 bulkheads sketched out, I now had exact widths of each skin panel at each station. By lining these up with the correct station spacing and going back to my profile, I was able to chop the profile into individual station sections and measure the exact length of the full skin panel, accounting for the projection - one of the handy features of Solidworks. This allowed me to set the bulkhead spacing accurately for the skin; it might be 5 scale metres between station 1 and 2, but because of the curvature it's 7 linear metres of skin (for instance). By plotting the width at each bulkhead, and the (actual) distance between each bulkhead, I had a guide for the skin outline. Then it was a simple matter of connecting the dots; using Soliworks' 'snap spline to points' feature gave me the exact curvature needed. This provided a 'master' skin panel, which was copied, pasted, and then it too was tweaked to match the tail geometry. It also gave me exact locations for each bulkhead, allowing precise location on the model. The last step was to trim off the tips of each skin panel. Aligning these perfectly would be a hassle, and I had other plans. Now, line up all 19 skin panels (in the correct order!), and the covering template is done.
(https://i.imgur.com/mkENxiH.jpg)
(profile for deriving all those measurements at top, finished skin below. The rectangle just above the skin segments is my spine template - just line the bulkheads up with the lines around the spine. The vertical lines on the skin sections again show the bulkhead locations.)
(https://i.imgur.com/NcZufxf.jpg)
The final step for the envelope was to make tailplane templates. This was a simple matter of tracing over Thorsten's drawings in CAD, then ensuring they were the correct scale dimensions. Templates finished. I also duplicated each bulkhead - I was using .020" styrene sheet - good for the flexible skin (and easy to cut), but a little flimsy for the skeleton. Doubling it up to .040" would give more rigidity.
(https://i.imgur.com/a50v1sY.jpg)
Next came print prep. The CAD templates were laid out and saved as .DWG files, then opened up in Illustrator (Illustrator won't open CAD files directly). My first step here was to offset the edges of the bulkheads, to account for the thickness of the skin. Next, I filled in the skin, bulkheads and tailplanes to give me precise cutting lines: cut right along the edge of the part (rather than somewhere in the middle of each line). Finally, the layout was tweaked to fit on 4 x 3' sheets and saved as PDF files, ready for printing.
TL;DR: Math. Just lots of math.
-
Production.
Initially, I had planned to have the parts laser cut. It would be a lot more precise than hand cutting (and since the measurements were correct down to as many significant digits as I wanted, that precision seemed appropriate), and a whole lot easier. I intended to use .020" styrene sheet in a single layer for the skin, and doubled up to give me a .040" gluing surface for each bulkhead. That mean 36 x 2 x 19 facets = 1368 cuts around the bulkheads alone. Not to mention the skin and tailplanes. Unfortunately, the quotes I recieved were in the hundreds of dollars, while a new pack of X-Acto blades were $2.50. How long could it take, really? :)/>
(https://i.imgur.com/zLW4U62.jpg)
So, plan B: the templates were printed on a large-format plotter. It took two 4 x 3' sheets to cover everything. Next I picked up a 4 x 8' sheet of styrene from my local plastic supply place (pro tip: styrene sheets are DIRT cheap here - 4 x 8' is a LOT more than your typical Evergreen pack, and it was only $15). Then I used a spray adhesive to mount the templates on the styrene sheet. After burnishing the prints down and letting the adhesive dry, the long, tedious task of trimming out each component could begin.
(https://i.imgur.com/BojaIA0.jpg)
Shockingly, while it was entirely tedious, it wasn't particularly long. Because it was a simple matter of line up blade, chop, repeat, it was an ideal, mindless task to perform in front of the TV. Watch a few movies, spend a few nights vegging out and it was done. My technique was pretty simple, and adapted from Gordy from back in the glory days of MUG: carefully line up an X-acto chisel blade (in his case, a single edged razor blade), then pivot the blade up around its point, and give it a whack to chop through. This gives a nice, clean, straight cut with little cleanup required. Slicing through the plastic would leave a rougher, tapered edge. This is also why I chose .020" styrene - thicker styrene would be harder to trim.
(https://i.imgur.com/TVpzM8A.jpg)
I did, however, quickly learn that when you're making literally thousands of cuts, you REALLY need to make sure your tools work flawlessly. Wasting time having to frequently tighten up the blade on your knife, because it juuuuust slightly unscrews with each cut? Really annoying. The knurled grip that lets you tighten said blade? Blister inducing. The square corners on the blade that stick out juuust beyond the edges of the handle? Those just make mincemeat out of your blisters. A bit of tape here, a bit of padding there and gradually my X-Acto looked more and more like a shiv. But it got the job done!
(https://i.imgur.com/W5VGYLS.jpg)
Each bulkhead was carefully cut out. The square locating hole for the spine was even more carefully cut out. The circular spar holes were drilled out with a motor tool, then the spine sections were all stacked on a length of square tubing (nice, snug fit - excellent) and the spar holes refined with a file. This ensured they were all perfectly aligned.
(https://i.imgur.com/i4bnHKd.jpg)
-
Construction:
(https://i.imgur.com/q3lDSR3.jpg)
After a weekend spent trimming out the major parts, construction could begin. The first step was to join each pair of bulkheads I had trimmed out. I felt .040" would give a more secure join than .020", so I doubled them up. This was a simple matter: a bulkhead was slid onto a length of square tubing, slathered in glue, then it's matching partner slid on top and pressed firmly onto it. The square tubing kept everything in alignment. Next, I shot a 4' length of square tubing with spray adhesive, and mounted my printed 'bulkhead ruler' onto it. I then carefully trimmed the excess paper along each bulkhead location, giving me a bare plastic slot at each bulkhead station. Then it was a simple matter of sliding each bulkhead on until it clicked into place in the correct location. Nice.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ds7FGCj.jpg)
To attach each bulkhead, I built a simple tool: a set-square with some styrene tubing attached via double-stick tape. The extra tubing let me quickly set it on the spine, perfectly square and true, then by holding the bulkhead against the square, glue the bulkeads vertically.
(https://i.imgur.com/TGFvNeh.jpg)
Lather, rinse, repeat. I used a jig made from LEGO to keep my ever-so-slightly-flexible acrylic tube spine perfectly straight, level and true. This had the added benefit of supporting the assembly by the solid square-tube spine, rather than resting on the just-glued ribs. Once I'd aligned and glued each rib, I didn't want to even *look* at it until the seam had cured, lest I knock something out of alignment.
(https://i.imgur.com/xjrRjGU.jpg)
The whole process proceeded pretty quickly, though it's tough to get a detailed photograph of a 4' long tube. It DOES make a good example of parallax and the difficulties of using photos as a source for accurate profile views, though.
(https://i.imgur.com/zYCRmtX.jpg)
Lastly, when the glue had dried on the spine, I slid the acrylic rod braces in place, squared the ribs up again, and glued the rods in place. Without the braces, while they were nice and secure around the spine, each rib was pretty floppy around the edges; the bracing added much-needed support, locking everything in place.
(https://i.imgur.com/490vQf5.jpg)
Skinning.
With the skeleton done, it was time to move on to the skin. This was cut out (tediously) in a similar manner to the ribs - one chop at a time. I sliced along the rib locating lines and peeled these off the plastic, then scored along the fold lines with a P-Cutter.
(https://i.imgur.com/T3jAqwJ.jpg)
This left me with a large, floppy, unwieldy mass, so the single skin sheet was trimmed into three individual sections - the single belly panel, and a left and right side. The belly panel was attached first, very carefully, to give me a baseline for aligning every other section. Alignment here is critical - get it out of whack and every other panel will be out of whack.
(https://i.imgur.com/GtHvN3j.jpg)
With that on, I started attaching the two sides. Here, gluing and aligning each seam was less of an issue than simply wrangling all that styrene sheet, flopping in your way and getting tangled up at the ends. The solution I came up with was to use chopsticks to hold the excess skin out of the way. It did feel a little odd though, as the two sides came together. The more I glued, the more the balloon began to resemble a biological illustration of a dissected reptile.
(https://i.imgur.com/GRL3RFi.jpg)
After a long evening's work, the skin was on and for the first time I had something which actually resembled a Zeppelin Or a cigar. I probably should have photographed this. Whoops.
-
All that trimming and construction stuff? Yeah, I had to do it twice.
Mk.1 was at this point in may. Except, I'd glued the skin on with the spray-mounted templates on the outside. So they had to be removed. No big deal right?
You'd think.
3M list mineral spirits as one of the recommended solvents for their spray adhesive. Which I used. Freely. Too freely. Mineral spirits doesn't get along with styrene in heavy doses. When you soak paper towels with it and let it sit on a styrene Zeppelin for a few minutes to soak through the paper templates so that they'll peel off, then use more thinner-soaked rags to wipe off the remaining glue, styrene kind of sort of loses it's plasticity. It gets really grainy and brittle. So when you go to pick up your Zeppelin to remove some more templates, the styrene skin just sort of cracks away under your hands, between the ribs.
All.over.the.entire.$%#*ing.airframe.
And because it's full of tiny gaps and cracks, because you haven't done any filling and sanding yet (obviously), that thinner gets inside the structure, where it's impossible to clean out, doing more and more damage, so that even if you run down to the large basin in your basement, fill it with soapy water and try desperately to rinse off the mineral spirits and flush out the insides... all that styrene is still going to be ruined.
So I built it all over again.
-
Sanding; or, that time my arms nearly fell off.
Sooo... with the skin glued on, obviously there was a lot of refining to be done with all that gluing. It was most prevalent around the nose and tail tapers but needed to be done pretty much everywhere. Truth be told, by the time it came to refining the seams along the nose and tail on my second build, I got a little lazy, and rather than carefully trimming for a perfect seam, I just kind of hacked away with reckless abandon.
The Zepp is 4' long. It's 20' around. That's roughly 6 square FEET of filling to do. Obviously a tube of squadron green wouldn't cut it, so I hit up the auto body shop for some alternatives. In the end, I went with a two-part polyester body filler. You scoop out a blob of putty, squeeze on a line of hardener, mix the two together then spatula it onto the model's surface. The benefit of this kind of filler is that it doesn't shrink, and cures quickly. The down side is, mixing can produce bubbles, and it dries pretty hard.
It's sanding, so there's nothing really exciting to say about it. I used *coarse* paper (80 - 100 grit, usually), on a sanding block to knock the putty back relatively quickly, while maintaining the balloon's facets. A large plastic tub full of water meant I was able to wet sand, which made a horrendous mess (luckily it was nice outside ;)/>/>). When the rough filling was done, I used a lacquer-based spot filler (automotive) to fill in the pinholes, gouges and sanding marks. It was a week of 3 - 4 hour sanding sessions. It sucked.
This is the sanding dust from a single, dry-sanding session, maybe 1/4 of just the nose section:
(https://i.imgur.com/yz2hRor.jpg)
Which doesn't even include the dust, which got *everywhere*.
(https://i.imgur.com/8yqZtLa.jpg)
For those of you keeping score at home: the yellow stuff is Tamiya's polyester putty (awesome stuff; just a shame it was too expensive to use everywhere). Grey and blue are various mixes of the polyester auto filler. Red is the auto spot filler. White is styrene. You can also see a few dark spots, which is CA in a few areas where I sanded through the styrene skin.
(https://i.imgur.com/8aQ3Myy.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/sJTwg6Z.jpg)
I went through 1/2 quart of polyester filler and about 1/2 pound of spot filler, and spent at *least* 12 hours sanding. The next time you feel like complaining about how much of a putty hog your current model is? Don't. :P/>/>
But! The filling is basically done now. I've got a few coats of a high-build filler/primer on, to take care of the last few pinholes and sanding swirls, to level out the surface and get it ready for paint. I've actually gone through a couple of cans of primer, so far. I'm probably going to put another can on for good measure, before wet-sanding for a final smoothing, and then it's on to paint.
Wheee!
Now I'm working on the tailplanes and should have some pics to show by the end of the weekend. I have started mucking around with the gondolas and other ancillaries, but I'm taking a different approach with them. :whistle:/>
-
Well since the skin is already done...
I briefly considered Monokote. The big drawback is, it's designed to be ironed on to a framework. Kind of tough to iron onto styrene. It would also have required greater precision in construction (you can't putty over any flaws) and been less robust long-term. Plus, you can't scribe it (which I need).
Oh, and work on the detail parts continues apace:
(https://i.imgur.com/0q6poIB.jpg)
It also occurs to me, I haven't really shown just how massive these behemoths were, so here's a view of a 1/144 Sopwith Pup next to a rough test-fit of the various components. It could probably take off - and land - in a shorter distance. Now imagine you're alone, in the dark, above the clouds, trying to shoot one down with your piddly little machine gun - it's like a flea trying to take out an elephant!
(https://i.imgur.com/xewCc54.jpg)
-
Right: how to make a fin in five steps.
First, what you'll need. I've printed out my fin templates (see the first post for a view of the templates). I've already trimmed out the fin's cross section; rather than trying to cut out all the individual ribs in-situ, I'm just replacing them with some styrene square rod:
(https://i.imgur.com/XqYYBTA.jpg)
Step 1. Loosely trim your lengths of styrene rod, and tack them down to the template. PVA, contact cement, spray adhesive, CA... even a dab of liquid glue will work, as the plastic adheres slightly to the paper's surface. This sets your alignment and spacing.
(https://i.imgur.com/csuTgli.jpg)
Step 2. Lay your styrene outline, or cross-section, on top of the rods. Use a sharp, single edged razor blade to trim the rods so they fit inside the cross-section; with careful trimming, it should be a nice, snug fit. Add a dab of liquid glue to the end of each rod to join it to the cross section. This gives you your finished fin cross-section, complete with spars:
(https://i.imgur.com/UpZDp0u.jpg)
Step 3. Trim out the skin panels for each fin (2x each). Glue to the fin's skin to the skeleton, then place the assembly under a heavy book until the glue cures - you don't want any warpage! If you use liquid glue, as the solvent works on your styrene sheet, you'll get a nice, realistic sag around the framing.
(https://i.imgur.com/fLrhLdJ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Zl1D91N.jpg)
Step 4. Pop the glued assembly off your template. The skeleton is a delicate assembly, but once the skin is on, it's nice and secure. You'll probably have to give the exposed framing a light sanding to remove any stray bits of paper or glue:
(https://i.imgur.com/sZLJUwR.jpg)
Step 5. Glue the remaining skin section to the exposed framing, again placing the assembly under a heavy book while the glue dries. This will ensure a nice, flat assembly. Once the glue is cured, you can fill any imperfections and round off the edges. Also, while you CAN drill or notch holes for some locating pins BEFORE the fin is all sealed up, the finished assembly is actually translucent if you hold it up to a light, so it's just as easy to mark these off later.
(https://i.imgur.com/eUkrLl5.jpg)
-
Second can of primer is on. Well, 2/3 of a can, anyway.
But first... the gun platform.
For self defense, Zeppelins were armed with a number of machine guns; each gondola had a pair of gun stations, and there was an open-air platform on the top of the nose, accessible via a ladder from the front gondola. I get the willies looking at the pictures of Zeppelins launching, imagining being on that lonely platform 50+ feet up in the air. I can't even imagine standing on top of that massive, floating balloon at several thousand feet. If you thought WWII turret gunners had it rough, at least they weren't standing outside. And had parachutes...
Incidentally, the gun platform just happens to be almost the exact same size as the Sopwith Pup I'll be building along side the Zepp, so again, if you're wondering about how big this thing is, scroll up to the tiny airplane in front of the Humbrol tin, then keep that in mind when you look at the gun platform.
Anyway, my pics of the actual build weren't great, so here are some renders showing the process.
Step 1: Mark off and cut out the required skin sections. Luckily this falls between along two bulkheads, so it's easy to find the cut lines.
(https://i.imgur.com/IhR4GSn.jpg)
Step 2: Inlay a section of styrene sheet to fill the hole.
(https://i.imgur.com/BZEr3CO.jpg)
Step 3: Realize that you've mixed up the measurements for the platform size (d'oh!), so you have to replace part of the skin. Not a hard task: I just printed out the relevant section from my templates, chamfered the edges then glued/filled/sanded in place. Always frustrating to have to fix your own stupid mistakes, though.
(https://i.imgur.com/Mqsq5mO.jpg)
Step 4: Cut the platform itself out of styrene sheet, using templates copied from the paper model. This gave me the overall dimensions of the gun platform, as well as the cross-section pieces which let me align it easily: aligning a flat piece of plastic card is fiddly; aligning the vertical edges is much simpler. Just cut out the overall shape, scribe along the fold lines and the styrene folds cleanly.
(https://i.imgur.com/hrmyVW8.jpg)
Step 5: Fill the gaps at the front with styrene sheet. Again, the edges were chamfered then the filler pieces glued down and trimmed to size.
(https://i.imgur.com/9DekFQ8.jpg)
All pretty straightforward. The only real difficulty came with the flexibility of the styrene, but a healthy squirt of CA underneath makes it more rigid, and less prone to flexing when you sand.
With the gun platform in place, the whole thing got primered (again). Which is where it's at now. Things are looking decent; it definitely needs a wet sanding, but the surface is relatively level. There are a few spots that need refining though - pinholes, scratches, cracks and glue/putty lines. Nothing really major (I mean, compared to body-puttying the whole thing!), BUT! The surface is so large, it's hard to remember where all the surface imperfections are - and easy to miss a few - so I've gone over the entire balloon and used a pencil to circle all the areas that need further attention. Makes it look a tad spotty at the moment, but it should pay off in the end.
(https://i.imgur.com/euMnKE7.jpg)
Nose area, showing the areas to be fixed, as well as a view of the gun platform. You can also get a feel for the 'pillowing' effect on the skin.
(https://i.imgur.com/PjINFKj.jpg)
Closer view of the nose, with a better view of the faults and platform. It's not super-critical to get a flawless fit around the front of the platform, as this will actually be getting a small wind shield made from sheet stock, which will cover the area. Still, there are a few issues to be addressed.
(https://i.imgur.com/L7MQqed.jpg)
...and a view of the tail, showing more glitches, and probably a better view of the pillowing (though it seems more prominent here than IRL). This also gives a view of the skeleton: some 5/8 acrylic square tube used to keep all those rib sections aligned properly and rigidly. Once my nose and tail caps get printed, they'll slot right on to this spine piece. Theoretically. I hope...
(https://i.imgur.com/tiDPyio.jpg)
-
Tailplanes test fitted. Need to tweak the fit to blend them in, but it's a start. It's *finally* starting to look like an airship, rather than a big cigar.
(https://i.imgur.com/ENVTwK2.jpg)
Note the see-through effect on the tailplanes. Hopefully I can maintain this through paint. Hopefully...
(https://i.imgur.com/8yCKSzS.jpg)
-
Finished the CAD work on the Spandaus for my Zepp project (http://"http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=277194"). Well, I say finished; I expect these will be too fine to actually print, but I'd rather start with too much detail rather than too little. The really clunky looking ring sight, for instance, is only .1mm thick (.004")
(https://i.imgur.com/tXkWG1x.jpg)
But wait... what's that in the barrel, the sharp-eyed readers among you will say.
(https://i.imgur.com/UtU3Z68.jpg)
This is a good illustration of the problem with CAD. You can zoom in... almost infinitely. Which makes your detail look thick and clunky. It's really easy to lose sight of how big a part will actually be, and how all that detail you've lovingly created will be unprintable, or invisible to the naked eye. Each of those eyes is a mere .008mm (.0003"!) in diameter. But hey, they're smiley-faced Spandaus, how could I *not*? :)/>
The really, really NICE thing about CAD is that, after you've spent hours making one model, it takes mere seconds and a few clicks of a mouse to make more. Enough for the Zeppelin, plus a few extras for good measure:
(https://i.imgur.com/wlKojkQ.jpg)
I believe that, when you're referring to this many of the gun, the correct term is 'a ballet'.
(https://i.imgur.com/WZn2wPZ.jpg)
...and now to add it to the stack of bits to be printed. Next up: engines!
-
Still progressing. Just about ready for the printer:
(https://i.imgur.com/XG1TbSg.jpg)
A string of Maybachs:
(https://i.imgur.com/JOIc53t.jpg)
Front gondola:
(https://i.imgur.com/obgSDAP.jpg)
...minus the roof:
(https://i.imgur.com/E7jlSpA.jpg)
Rear gondola:
(https://i.imgur.com/DvmrBEC.jpg)
...missing its roof:
(https://i.imgur.com/ldxADX9.jpg)
Transmission and gear drives are integral with the gondola drawings - I figure they'll probably be painted a fairly simple overall colour; Maybach's were split out because they'll need more detail painting (plus, they're a lot more detailed than the transmissions, so it was easier to build them separately) Also visible in the overall pic are the rudders (top, far left), Spandaus, radiators (right above the engines), nose and tail caps, and some doors. Just need to add steering wheels, engine pods and props and it'll be good to go. Wheeeee!
-
I's dotted. T's crossed. Couple of fiddly bits taken care of:
(https://i.imgur.com/zkYqLPH.jpg)
Decided to print the gun platform as well. Saves a bit of fiddly work (hopefully), and it lets me do the scaffolding structure far more easily. Some simple sketchwork vs fiddly, tedious trimming and soldering. Of course, cleanup will be tedious and annoying, so it's a little bit of swings and roundabouts.
(https://i.imgur.com/w0bGotA.jpg)
Outrigger gear pods. These mount outside, on the balloon's surface, and actually drive the props. The engines themselves go inside the gondolas (they'll mount on the rectangular platforms you can see on the gondola floors), but two engines in the rear gondola connect to gearboxes which power driveshafts that hook up to these outrigger gear pods to power the props. Nice thing about CAD/3D printing is that it's much easier to get incredibly precise angles. In this case, I've "drilled" the mounting holes for the outrigger pods, which should make assembly much easier. Had I turned them on a lathe in a more traditional manner, it would mean a bunch of tricky measuring and drilling (and repairs when I inevitably got it wrong).
(https://i.imgur.com/x5WnGUK.jpg)
Illustrating the 'ship' part of airship, here are the Zepp's wheels. Multiplied by a few, just in case I damage some in clean-up. :)/>
(https://i.imgur.com/qJcpxRy.jpg)
...and finally, the props. I'll only need four, but again, just in case of breakage it's better to have too many than too few.
-
Woo hoo, I was finally able to make some progress again.
Still waiting on the printer for my parts (hopefully they'll ship Friday), which had me at pretty much at a standstill. Luckily, I got a delivery from HLJ today with some brass rod I needed for various supports - .2mm, .4mm and .5mm diameter. This gave me the chance to give my new Hakko 888D soldering station a good workout, and I have to say, I'm *really* pleased with the results.
I had already drafted out bending soldering templates in CAD. I printed out the templates and used them both to cut the various pieces to fit and for assembly - a sliver of masking tape to hold the pre-cut brass rods in place over the template, a dab of flux, a tiny sliver of solder and then touch it with the iron. Simple masking tape works well enough to hold things in place, as long as you don't take too long with the iron. Ditto the paper templates; if you really try, you can scorch things a bit, but unless you're actively trying to start a fire, it'll be fine.* It all went surprisingly well, though it felt like I was spending ten minutes trimming and taping two pieces, in order to solder them in a second.
Since I always seem to start with the least sensible assemblies, I began with the hand-holds, which will be located on the lower portion of the gondolas. These were used by the ground crew to man-handle the Zeppelins, tie off ropes, etc. I wanted them to be fairly delicate, so I used .2mm rod (.008"). Delicate work, which required just the tiniest amount of solder, but fairly simple construction.
(https://i.imgur.com/zX7WCIl.jpg)
Next up, the engine pod support trusses. These were more complicated, having a triangle-inside-a-triangle shape... which gets connected via braces to another copy of same. Similar construction process, though: tape brass rod over the pattern, trim to size, add flux and solder. I made 4x 'triangle' bits, then taped two completed assemblies on their sides, fitted the cross bracing and soldered the units together.
One of the cool things about soldering is that by staggering your temperatures, you can safely build on previously built assemblies without fear of melting the join. Just start with a high-temperature solder and work your way down through lower-temperature solders. In this case, I started out with regular 60/40 solder with the iron at about 250`C to build various subassemblies, then switched to Tix solder (melts around 145`C) and turned the iron down to 180`C - just below the melting point of the lead solder.
(https://i.imgur.com/MApNjB0.jpg)
Same process for the engine pod's front brace. I soldered the "vertical" bars with 60/40 along the length first, then rotated this assembly 90', using a set square, then used Tix to solder on the V-shaped bit. They do need a bit of clean up, but I'm pleased with the way they look.
(https://i.imgur.com/XOLqgcE.jpg)
And just to give a sense of what exactly these bits are, here's a view of the paper model I'm basing all this on. You can see the hand-holds along the bottom of the gondola, and the two engine pod support structures attached to the balloon. I still need to build the transmission shaft and its support braces, but I may wait until I'm attaching the gondolas to do that, since I'll probably need a bit of wiggle room in their location.
(https://i.imgur.com/jwVtxVa.jpg)
*I take no legal responsibility for any fires anyone may start.
-
I believe the phrase is "photodump". :)/>/>/>
Got my prints back from RapidFab. They use the same kind of printers as Shapeways' Frosted Ultra Detail, but it's a much smaller operation, running higher resolution, and it's cheaper to boot. I think the prints look MUCH better. Full gallery is here, for anyone who is interested. http://s21.photobucket.com/user/IronChefMoFo/library/parts/3d/prints2 I'll try to pick out a few highlights.
A couple of notes up front. You *CAN* see visible print layering, and striations from the print head. It's not the worst I've ever seen, but it will need cleanup (filler primer + sanding). Also, because the acrylic resin is translucent, it's a pain to photograph. It also means you're seeing surface issues on BOTH sides of the part. Remember that when you're looking at the surfaces. It's also interesting to note, that because of the rough surface finish, the parts stick to a microfiber cloth like velcro. Again, nothing that a light sanding won't improve, but they're *not* ready to go straight from the box.
(https://i.imgur.com/uwW4CYE.jpg)
Engines. Not much to say. They seem to be mercifully smooth, requiring little clean-up, but it's a little tough to say for certain until they're primed. You'll notice that they have a slight discolouration at their cores; that's from the support wax (more later).
(https://i.imgur.com/pB2fLw0.jpg)
Ships wheels. Again, they seem pretty clean, which is lucky since they'll be almost impossible to clean. If I recall correctly, the connecting points on the spokes are around .3mm. Also, it's a good illustration of one thing 3D printing could be really, really good at: replacing PE. Instead of having flat, two-dimensional brass parts, print 3D shapes. They don't use much material, they're thin, so they'd have fast print times, and they're more realistic. Interesting thought for the future.
(https://i.imgur.com/uxHHWkK.jpg)
Gun platform. There's pretty much zero chance I could have scratchbuilt this without resorting to PE. Now I just need to inset it into the fuselage top. It almost feels like cheating. :)/>/>/>
(https://i.imgur.com/DrJXEcL.jpg)
...and the guns. I'll need to primer these before I can tell how they turned out. I *can* make out the gas vents, but anything other than that is just too small. I mean, they're certainly good enough, I'm just not sure how good at the moment. (this is one of the downsides to the translucency)
(https://i.imgur.com/Htpl428.jpg)
Front gondola pieces. The front control gondola was actually split in half, with the command section separated from the engine section, apparently to avoid the vibrations transferring through. I decided to mimic this, and split the engine bay off.
(https://i.imgur.com/88G6QYj.jpg)
Interior details. Note the square stools - I think they're about 1mm square. The framing will all have to get glazed over... somehow. I could make up a vacform master, or just cut panels from acetate. Leaning towards the latter.
(https://i.imgur.com/MCKWYCi.jpg)
Command section roof, showing the knife edge to the fairing, and some of the print lines, basically just to get a feel for the print texture.
(https://i.imgur.com/YqD2PzA.jpg)
And the engine section's roof, again to show the texture of the print. You can see print layering on the left side, and a slightly rough surface on top. The raised lines along the side are meant to be there. Oh, and note the scoop towards the bottom/front; it's been printed open. :)/>/>/>
(https://i.imgur.com/CAhg6hq.jpg)
The various parts all just press-fit together. A couple of dots of CA are all that will be needed.
-
(https://i.imgur.com/6ybQvR7.jpg)
Rear gondola and roof. This one had three engines, so would have been loud! Again, notice the yellowish tint at the nose...
(https://i.imgur.com/oct8qIW.jpg)
I forgot to include an escape hole in the model, so the yellow substance is the support wax. The 3D print head prints out the resin, but it also prints wax to support the model. That's why you can print layers that would otherwise be floating free in space; in the physical print, they're not, they're printed on top of wax, which gets melted away in post processing leaving your free-floating part. At least, it does as long as there's a way for the wax to flow out. I'll probably drill a few small holes and heat the model up to empty the wax out, just in case it causes problems in the future.
(https://i.imgur.com/tRtz5pn.jpg)
Speaking of free-floating, notice the door. I gave it a .1mm gap around the edges, leaving small tabs attaching it at the top and bottom. A couple of quick swipes of a pico saw and it's free.
(https://i.imgur.com/FBecvTw.jpg)
Rudders. These warped slightly, but they're *very* thin at the edges. I used a few blocks and spacers to hold the parts together through shipping. Also, note the faint line through the fins, running roughly across their middles...
(https://i.imgur.com/e9wQW1y.jpg)
Those are printed-in holes for the rudder hinge rods. They just needed to be lightly reamed out with a .5mm drill bit, then slid onto some brass rod. That should add some strength to a relatively delicate structure. The rudder cores themselves will get skinned in thin sheet styrene, then the brass rod fill slot into holes in the body and tailplanes; I opted to print them largely because it was easier to obtain the proper airfoil cross section that way, rather than through careful, tedious sanding.
(https://i.imgur.com/LLVnKuU.jpg)
And finally, the nose and tail caps. These are way more precise than I could have managed, carefully filing and sanding styrene sheet. And they're sized to simply slide over my acrylic rod spine. It's the first time I've had a fully, complete envelope. I'll be using putty to fair them in and refine my facets. The down side is, I won't be able to 'rotisserie' my balloon for painting any more. Unless I make them removable...
(https://i.imgur.com/uACzGtT.jpg)
Finally, another shot showing texture on the nose cap. You can clearly see the (nice, crisp) facets running sort of like longitude around the dome. If you look closely along the 'latitude', you can also see facets introduced when the model was converted from CAD to a 3D printable file format. This converts shapes into polygons (triangles), so, for instance, a nice, smooth sphere becomes a lumpy geodesic dome. In this case, the smooth arc of the dome became a just-barely visible series of flat facets. Kinda neat.
Now I just need to give everything a thorough cleaning to remove all traces of wax and mineral oil, then shoot a coat of primer to see what I've *really* got.
-
Extraordinary build going on here - will follow with great interest!!
-
Truly phenomenal work, MoFo! So glad you decided to come over here and show us what's up.
Cheers,
Bud
-
Oh my lord, that is one heck of a project!!!!! Way, way beyond my skill level, but I'm following with great interest.
Warren
-
Oh my lord, that is one heck of a project!!!!! Way, way beyond my skill level, but I'm following with great interest.
Warren
Just what I was thinking. Wow!
Cheers,
Ernie :)
-
Thanks for accepting the invite, MoFo, and welcome aboard!
This has to be one of the most inspiring and technologically advanced builds I've seen, great to see it here.
Ian
-
First thanks for bringing this build here! I am afraid cad drawings, 3d printing and all of that is way past an old fart like me but Man Do I appreciate seeing the process! You are producing an absolutely unique and beautiful Zeppelin! Thanks again for bringing the build here!!
RAGIII
-
very interesting to see the process, i appreciate seeing it very much and i imagine this will come out very nice in the end.
-
Most interesting,
Really impressive, please keep posting the progress of this zeppelin
Cheers
-
hey! great idea! and incredible scale!
you a re doing a wonderful job, sir!
watching with interest!
ciao
edo
-
You think our hobby couldn't get any better and then you see this - Superb!
Looking forward to seeing more.
Cheers,
Bob
-
Exceptional!
-
Goodness me, this is exceptional. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Best wishes
Nigel
-
Minor update. The scratched styrene tailplanes were getting battered a bit from handling (it's hard to be really delicate with the tail when you're busily sanding four feet away...), so I decided to re-do them in brass.
Re-printed the tailplane skeleton templates, bent and trimmed some brass square rod to shape, then soldered all the bits together:
(https://i.imgur.com/E7W8DeR.jpg)
I'd post in-progress photos, but there's not really all that much to show. Tons of tedious measuring, cutting and filing, but nothing terribly interesting. Just imagine the before photos being of a straight rod, and the after photos showing slightly bent rods lined up with the templates, plus a whole bunch of short rods. :)/> The various bits and pieces were taped down to the templates to set the alignment, then a drop of flux and a couple of seconds under the soldering iron to secure everything.
(https://i.imgur.com/90UHMKk.jpg)
Next step will be to (re?) skin these in styrene sheet, cut the plastic tails off the Zepp and attach the brass replacements. Note the extended lengths of rod towards the bottom/rear corner of the fins - these will get anchored into the spine, which should add a nice bit of rigidity to the whole assembly. Assuming I can drill the locating holes correctly... sort of feels like I'll be doing keyhole surgery!
Interesting statistic, though: the four tailplane skeletons took just under eight feet of 1/16" brass square rod.
-
Fantastic and stunning work.
Martin
-
Really cool! I'm certainly glad that you are sharing with us.
Chris
-
Truely amazing workmanship which is resulting in a spectacular model, well done so far.
Des.
-
This is a most amazing build!! What you've accomplished with styrene, brass, CAD, and 3d printing show that the future of modeling is here. The resolution of the 3d parts far exceeds that of Shapeways from what I can see. I would really like to try this 3d printer to experiment a bit. Could I possibly get more info, web address, etc. on the 3d printing service you used?
.
Thank you so much for sharing your detailed build log. I've learned a lot! :)
George
-
I would really like to try this 3d printer to experiment a bit. Could I possibly get more info, web address, etc. on the 3d printing service you used?
I'd rather not. Not because I want to keep it to myself, but because subsequent dealings with them have been absolutely miserable and I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND them. I'm *still* waiting on an order placed in early January. They filled part of it, but the print quality on the rest was appalling (allegedly, a malfunctioning print head) and the parts were unusable. So I'm still waiting on them to re-print those parts and ship them out. I can't get any response to e-mails, and their voicemail box is full so I can't even leave a message (they don't answer the phone). But the absolute worst part has been the endless string of broken promises - "they're the very next thing we'll print", day after day; being told stuff 'shipped yesterday', but when pressed for a tracking number, finding out a week later "they'll be shipped tomorrow, I promise". :(
But, just so everyone else avoids the same potential misery, the company is http://www.rapid-fab.com/
All that being said, however, there are a couple of good print bureau directories out there. http://www.makexyz.com/ and https://www.3dhubs.com/ These prints were done on a ProJet 3510, so you should be able to get similar quality by finding someone else running a similar printer through an advanced search. You may want to double check printer specs from ProJet, as they have a lot of similarly-named printers with widely ranging specs, but the 3510 HD and 3500HDmax go down to 16um. (you may also want to look up some of the Envisiontec and Viper printers - they have really good quality, though they're SLA printers, not multijets)
-
Thank you very much for all the info on 3d printers. That's too bad about the Rapid-Fab service. I hope they do the right thing and resolve your issues, but I'll avoid them.
George
-
You and me both! (on both counts, actually...)
-
This month I have mostly been: sanding! Like, a sickening amount of sanding. Think it sucks having to putty, sand and feather in some ill-fitting, 1/2"2 Landing gear door? How 'bout filling and sanding 671 square inches of long, straight, facets.
I think I'm nearly done smoothing out the balloon. I actually came *this* close to binning the scratchbuilt part and just printing out the entire envelope, as I wasn't satisfied with the somewhat wavy seam lines. I wanted something crisp and geometrically perfect, and computers are much better at that than people. But, after many, many applications of putty and careful sanding to try to straighten the creases as much as possible, I'm finally at a point where I'm pretty much satisfied. Still not 100%, but it's pretty close. I'll shoot some pics of the putty-speckled mess ASAP - it's really not pretty at the moment. Hopefully I can get a coat of primer on this weekend, then it'll be ready to have the rib tapes tediously applied (some .7mm pinstriping tape), another coat of primer and then finally, *finally* ready for paint! Oh, and plus scribing the surface detail, and adding the tailplanes, and scratching some sort of brass tail tip so the resin part doesn't keep %$#@ing chipping, and, and, and... :(
Also: jeebus help me, I've just received a copy of the R-Classe Datafile and I'm already starting to goof around in CAD. Maybe my project for 2016? Eep! :o
And just so this post isn't *completely* devoid of pics, here's a quick comparison of the various Zeppelin Classes. Other than the Q Classe (which is the one I'm building), they're just rough sketches, but they're all properly scaled, if the shapes aren't 100%.
(https://i.imgur.com/hfsvTsX.jpg)
From top:
M Classe, the relatively puny early war Zepp, more reconnaissance oriented than a bomber.
Q Classe (subject of this build)
R Classe (the first of the Super Zeppelins; bigger balloon for a higher service ceiling in an attempt to skim over British air defences)
W Classe (the Afrika Shiff, designed to fly from Germany to Tanzania, to resupply troops)
Hindenburg, just to show how truly massive the airships got. The Q Classe is huge in 1/144. I can't even imagine a Hindenburg!
-
Hi!
That's just excellent!
We're all waiting for any updates!
Ciao
Iwik
-
I come here everyday looking for an update to this project...please keep on going. I'm all in...
-
Finally had a sunny day (the zepp is a little big to squeeze into a photo booth), so as promised, more pics. I think I'm just about ready to lay down a final (I hope...) coat of primer, so the next major hurdle will be figuring out how to precisely locate the individual rib stations. I *had* planned to print out a template which I could simply lay along each skin panel, but after all the filling and sanding, the shape is a tiiiny bit out of whack. Unfortunately, a degree here and a mm there, over a four foot span, adds up to about a 3mm error overall. :( So now I've got to figure out a plan B.
First up, an overall view:
(https://i.imgur.com/fcw6D7c.jpg)
Zooming in, you can do some archaeology sorting out the various layers. Almost has a psychadelic vibe:
(https://i.imgur.com/iA0uSSY.jpg)
Tailplanes are done, but just test fitted. It'll take a bit of putty and sanding to blend these in, but hopefully nothing too serious...
(https://i.imgur.com/f2qMbUk.jpg)
Gun platform has been fitted. It's actually *too* good a fit - it press fits snugly into place, so by the time I add a few layers of filler primer, primer and paint it'll probably be too big for the hole. Guess I'll need to do some careful filing (and masking)
(https://i.imgur.com/p5iZwxm.jpg)
...and as a teaser, while it's been raining the past few days, I finally caved in to the siren song of the R Classe schematics. :D
(https://i.imgur.com/zSLec76.jpg)
-
Im not sure why I missed this but holy!!!!!!
Steve
-
This is really taking shape beautifully, the gun platform is excellent, and so small.
Des.
-
This is insanely brilliant!!!
My hats off to you, sir, and to your scratchbuilding skills.
Cheers
Ondra
-
That will be an fantastic build.
Martin
-
Your work is brilliant both in 3D modelling and scratchbuilding. Quite unusual and very interesting project. Some kind of leap in the future of modelling?
-
More impressive and stunning with each update! A spectacular project!!
RAGIII
-
While I take a break to ponder how to mark out the rib locations, I've been hitting Solidworks for the R Class. Really pleased with the results so far. :D
(https://i.imgur.com/q5lLC3B.jpg)
...and a close-up of the aft gun platform (though I really should add panel lines for the wood here... BRB!)
(https://i.imgur.com/BHxF8aY.jpg)
I can post a step-by-step in the future, if anyone's interested.
-
Great!! ;D
Martin
-
Wow, terrific stuff!
Chris
-
Well, clearly, I've been sleeping under a rock to have missed this so far. Congratulations, MoFo (that seems a tad oxymoron-ish, frankly)
As George said early on, the combination of traditional model building skills and computer tech and 3-D printing, as he and Bo and now you are showing us....well, it does seem the future of model building is here.
Cheers from NYC,
Michael
-
More procrastination. :)
(https://i.imgur.com/nW1aj9X.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ZrO0qOv.jpg)
Front and middle gondolas are roughed out. Just have to finish up the rear. Then start detailing. And, y'know, get back to the Q-class. :) For some reason, I'm more inclined to do digital modelling lately; everything fits perfectly, and you never ruin any projects - if you get something wrong, just delete it and start again. And painting is only the click of a mouse, with zero cleanup or objectionable odours involved!
Oh, and have I mentioned, these beasts were BIG? Spot the person:
(https://i.imgur.com/JyxxEfp.jpg)
(there is a red, 6' tall person in this render)
-
For some reason, I'm more inclined to do digital modelling lately; everything fits perfectly, and you never ruin any projects - if you get something wrong, just delete it and start again. And painting is only the click of a mouse, with zero cleanup or objectionable odours involved!
Oh, and have I mentioned, these beasts were BIG? Spot the person:
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b251/IronChefMoFo/kits/RClass/1_zps5fdkkbqf.jpg) (http://s21.photobucket.com/user/IronChefMoFo/media/kits/RClass/1_zps5fdkkbqf.jpg.html)
I can completely relate! Digital modeling can be quite satisfying. Sometimes I forget that I'm building the digital model so I can create an actual physical model. But I also build models that are completed in the digital realm and are never intended to live in the "real" world.
George
-
But it's oh so satisfying when it all comes together in real life....
-
Very fine update.
Martin
-
For some reason, I'm more inclined to do digital modelling lately; everything fits perfectly, and you never ruin any projects - if you get something wrong, just delete it and start again.
OH!!! Now this sounds like the type of modeling I need to get into!
-
Well, I think I've solved my rib tape dilemma.
The problem was, I needed a way to securely mount the Zeppelin so that it was plumb, straight and true, with a template underneath so I could mark off the rib stations, yet it had to be free to rotate around its axis. A four foot lathe would be one possible solution, but kind of tough to find, so I sort of bodged my own:
(https://i.imgur.com/MpnS4x8.jpg)
The notes should explain things (excuse the blurry, hasty photo), but basically, I can now rotate the model around a rod inserted in the 'spine', while it's held firmly in place with a couple of jigs. So by holding a square to the markings on my template, I can transfer those dimensions to the model, which will mark the positions of the rib tapes.
It's basically a fiddly, annoying way to mark off a whole slew of really precise (I hope) points, so that I can connect all the dots.
A few more hours of carefully setting the whole thing up, and I should be able to get marking. The really frustrating thing about all this is, if it all goes according to plan, it will probably only take me about 10 minutes to mark everything off. Weeks of planning, hours of preparations, for a few minutes actual work. Sigh...
-
Truly magnificent work! I am sure your planning and diligence will pay off!
RAGIII
-
Assorted updates with mixed news.
Good: the lathe idea worked (although it was painfully tedious! line a square up to the template, slide it against the Zepp, tick a line, rotate, repeat - plus sharpening your pencil every few dozen lines...)
Bad: in my haste to get started and squeeeeeze the nose section into place, I cracked the nose cap. I *should* have disassembled the jig and re-assembled it around the blimp, but no, I had to force it... :(
Good: The nose cap had lost some definition anyway through sanding and filling, and I have a spare, so it's not the end of the world. Bit of measuring and sawing and it was gone.
It also gave me the chance to model the ultra-rare, MiG-21-style Zeppelin: ;D
(https://i.imgur.com/xOF2Wrq.jpg)
Striping went pretty easily with some .7mm Aizu tape (basically, thin width Tamiya tape). About 12m worth - don't think I've ever burned through so much tape so quickly. :D
I also attached the revised tailplanes. They'll need a bit of filler around the seams, and I'll have to re-apply some of the rib tapes which will get obliterated in the process, but it's back to looking like a blimp again. Shaved down some excess plastic and test fit the spare tail cone too, and the fit is almost perfect. Good thing - I don't want to get into a major sanding operation now that the tapes are on!
(https://i.imgur.com/yzJT0pK.jpg)
I also cut off the cracked nose, as mentioned above. I trimmed a little too much plastic, so added a .010" shim to build up the gap. Pretty pleased with the test fit:
(https://i.imgur.com/JiV6Zlk.jpg)
...and then finally, I decided to test fit the control surfaces. I'll need to tweak the location points slightly, and I need to figure out how to skin them, but it's the first time I've had a basically complete balloon. Quite pleased with things. :)
(https://i.imgur.com/hIY7ylQ.jpg)
So a touch of Mr. Surfacer on the tail fins, then it's ready for a final (hopefully, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease) primer coat. Starting to feel like the end is in sight.
-
Fantastic work! Everything is coming together now and it looks great!
RAGIII
-
Awesome stuff!
-
Exellent work!
Martin
-
Blowing my mind, MoFo!
vB :)
-
Amazing process!!
Steve
-
Hey MoFo, amazing work. Your scratch building and 3D skills are awesome. Are you building thus over on ARC as well? Anyway, keep up the good work ;)
Mik
-
Yep. I was originally posting it as part of the ARC Great War group build, but someone suggested/requested I post updates over here as well, so...
FWIW, still on target to shoot some primer this weekend. Hopefully. :)
-
Guilty as charged on the request, and she's looking great, MoFo.... extraordinary work!
Ian
-
You are doing an amazing job with this build, and incredible achievement.
Des.
-
Quick primer coat on. There's a bit of touch up sanding to do, but nothing too serious.
What IS more serious: I've got some Sharpie bleeding through where I marked a few areas to be sanded/filled. :( That's not the end of the world - I can sand it down and hopefully remove all traces of the ink. What IS bad is, I'm almost positive there are other sharpie-ed markings that haven't bled through and which could be a ticking time bomb. Granted, the stuff that's bleeding through was 'full strength', while the stuff that's not showing was mostly sanded away, so hopefully it'll be okay but... I'm worried some unseen bit of ink might work its way out over time. :(
Any suggestions for creating a barrier for the ink? I know paint won't work. Future? I'm tempted to coat the entire thing in decal film... The alternative is to strip the rib tapes, sand the last coat of primer off, strip all traces of Sharpie, re-mark the rib locations, re-tape and re-prime.
-
Hi Mofo.
Covering with decals is an interesting idea. Aviatics linen effect CDL decals could look really great if the colours
are close to what you plan. I wonder how many sheets it would take?
I am enjoying following the progress of your model and am sure whatever fix you decide upon will result in a really great model. :)
-
Any suggestions for creating a barrier for the ink? I know paint won't work. Future? I'm tempted to coat the entire thing in decal film... The alternative is to strip the rib tapes, sand the last coat of primer off, strip all traces of Sharpie, re-mark the rib locations, re-tape and re-prime.
The sharpie ink can be removed with isopropyl alcohol. Just put a bit on a Q-tip, or cotton ear bud and carefully wipe it off. The alcohol will also remove acrylic paint so your primer may be affected if it's acrylic.
George
-
I had the same issue on my JAAS Pup.....sharpied markings bled through three laters of acrylic paint.
As opposed to getting down to the original layer of sharpie, I am actually considering using shellac as a barrier for the next application of color. When properly yhimmrd, it can be airbrush applied in a super thin coat and then sands beautifully. As 90% of my build is finished I need this really targeted approach. Zinnser also makes an aersol spray can of shellac which might work really well for a larger area such as yours. The caveat is that it is alcohol based and may affect the areas underneath.....but, in an aerosol form it may not be as active.....again, if you will be sanding this should not be a problem. Experimentation is a must, as we all know.
Following attentively from NYC,
Michael
-
Love this build Mofo,
Really innovative model building.
Ref your Sharpie problem, maybe you could try sealing it all in with a varnish , then repaint, then Aviattic linen.
I have several Aviattic clear doped linen sheets for various projects and it is great stuff. Maybe if you drop Richard a line he could run off some Zeppelin covering decals for you?
Anyway,mfollowing your build with interest,
Good luck with the rest of the build,
Best wishes,
Dave :)
-
Covering with decals is an interesting idea. Aviatics linen effect CDL decals could look really great if the colours
are close to what you plan. I wonder how many sheets it would take?
I think I calculated it'd take at least a dozen of the Aviattic sheets. That's... a lot of money. :( I was actually thinking about using just some large, clear decal sheets, sort of like the DIY laser printer decals. Just to add an impermeable layer between the ink and subsequent primer/paint coats.
Shellac... doing some googling last night, I found a few pages for house painters for covering sharpie-ed walls. The consensus seemed to be that oil-based stain blockers were more effective and that shellac (like Killz) was largely useless. I guess because of the alcohol base, activating the inks. There were a few discussions noting that you could spray half a dozen coats of shellac primer and still get the stains popping through, but one or two coats of oil-based blocker seemed to be effective. I'm just not sure if I want to shoot something that noxious over styrene, given where this all started. :-\
Might try some isopropyl to see what happens. As I said, I'm less concerned with what I can see than what I *can't* see.
-
Well, shoot. Is my face red. I learned about using alcohol as a stain blocker when I was studying antique conservation at the Met. But, yes, now that you mention it, I guess the alcohol in the shellac would probably just marry with the alcohol in the sharpie and the progeny would just pop forth. A big Oops freely admitted on my part.
I'm hesitant to offer more advice but what about taking it outside and spraying something oil based on it? If the filler is lacquer based, won't the oil based coat be impervious to that? (I think so but am now not sure of anything.) If it is, what about a coat of oil based white spray primer like Krylon? It would seal the lacquer, I think, and could be sanded very smoothly.
Whatever you decide, good luck with it.
Michael
-
No worries. All input is more than welcome.
The primer was a lacquer based filler primer (spray can). My real concern is that the inks might do something like this: http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/pre_shading1/ basically, it's not so much that the solvent in the paint activates the ink (though that doesn't help), but that the tiny ink particles migrate through the larger paint particles. So even if it's dry, it could still be a problem.
Part of me *knows* the right thing to do is to strip the tape, sand it back, treat it and start again. The other part of me knows how much of a pain in the ass that all is, and wants to gamble that it'll all work out. :D If I do get some bleed through, it should be a relatively small number of relatively isolated cases, so I should be able to touch it up in the future, but I'd rather not have to...
Would have been a whole lot easier if I'd just wiped the model down with isopropyl about 24 hours ago... :(
-
Whoah... it's been a while since the last update. :)
I have been chipping away at the beast, though.
So... UPDATE! :D
I ended up sanding back the primer coat to eliminate all traces of Sharpie. Then another few primer coats. A few bouts of curing in the sun, followed by a few more bouts of fixing depressions and sink marks that appeared when it got too hot from sitting in the sun. :( More primer. More sanding. A brief diversion into a couple of touch up guns, including a Paasche model whose blue powder coat melted on contact with lacquer thinner.
It's been busy, but not particularly photogenic.
In the end, I went with a spray bomb ivory base coat. This worked well, but again, kind of tough to photograph. Once this was cured, I masked off individual sections and shot a streaky coat of various linen-ey tones to give a bit more visual interest and depth, much like David Straub's build: http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Events/y2006/ipms_nats/05-zeppelin/index.html Which is where it lies now:
(https://i.imgur.com/5bZYkEL.jpg)
It's quite stark at the moment, but it's not done yet. ;)
(https://i.imgur.com/FPkhi02.jpg)
Tailplanes have been skinned, and drilled out for rigging. The rigging took a bit of head scratching to figure out, but I think I'm on top of it now. That will be done with monofilament, after painting is completed. The nose and tail cone are still just press fit, hence the gaps.
(https://i.imgur.com/OFfP4HO.jpg)
You can also see the tail bumper in this view. It was grafted over the lower fin, made from some curved brass square-rod and styrene sheet. Other items of note include the rib tape detail on the fins, which helps camouflage the fact that I muffed up the rib spacing inside, as well as the somewhat wonky, wandering lines along the length of the balloon - unfortunately it's not razor sharp and arrow straight, but it's as good as my patience would allow.
I have also got the base roughed out (necessary before I can start adding gondolas):
(https://i.imgur.com/ISRZ7J6.jpg)
56" x 12", it's built from MDF sheet and framing, cut and glued together. Aligning holes for the support rods was a little tricky, and I'm glad I don't live in an earthquake zone, but I'd rather sacrifice something that was rock solid in favour of something that looks unobtrusive and 'light'.
Next step: I'll be giving the entire airframe a coat of clear flat mixed with the base coat to blend all the tones together and ease back the contrast. Then the upper, central portion will get masked off and a coat of smoke, to simulate the looser weave used to vent excess gas. A few decals, some rigging and it's on to final assembly.
-
super cool
-
Absolutely superb, the final product is going to be a real show piece.
Des.
-
This is soooo impressive. Thank you very much for showing all this.
Stefan
-
Stunning work.
Cheers
Martin
-
This is continuing to be an absolutely Brilliant build! Looks FANTASTIC!
RAGIII
-
Goodness me, this is impressive!
Best wishes
Nigel
-
This is impressive, t ay the least. Certainly for the scale of the project but mainly for the dedication to accuracy and sticking with it to get it right. I love the idea of now over-spraying to subtle-ize and bring together the different tones of yellow. I hope some of the guys who are doing monochromatic finishes with highlighted rib tapes will take note.
Cheers from NYC,
Michael
-
Massively Impressive project my friend.I'm dying to see any of your additional project. Judging from from your Q-Class Zeppelin they just have to be awesome. A tip of the hat to you and your amazing skill and craftsmanship my most talented friend. Well Done!
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette
PS: So when can we expect a Q-Class ship in 1/32 scale? Just wondering aloud.
-
Wow!! Hope there's no short hallways in your house.....
Steve
-
PS: So when can we expect a Q-Class ship in 1/32 scale? Just wondering aloud.
Yes, when????
(There must be an echo in the room!)
-
PS: So when can we expect a Q-Class ship in 1/32 scale? Just wondering aloud.
Yes, when????
(There must be an echo in the room!)
You of all people should know better! :D
I think I mentioned up-thread, but the diameter of the P/Q class Zeppelins would be about 31" in 1/32. That's *just* the diameter. Let's ignore the fact that it would be more than 18 feet long for a minute... 31" diameter. That's about the size of your standard kid's hula hoop.
YOU COULD HULA WITH A 1/32 ZEPPELIN!
Modellers like to joke about 'that thing is so big, it could BE your coffee table' or 'you don't need an extension on your house, you could just live in that'. But a 3' x 18' tube... if you've ever stayed in a Japanese capsule hotel, you actually COULD sleep inside it. In fact, you could fit three people end-to-end inside a 1/32 Zepp.
I know how much sanding, filling and paint goes into a 1/144 Zepp. I do not want one in 1/32. ;)
-
Today was a very significant anniversary for this particular Zeppelin:
It was shot down 98 years ago today. :'(
On the morning of 21st August 1917, Zeppelin L23 was sighted by a squadron of British ships taking part in minelaying operations near Hvide Sande. HMS Yarmouth, having been fitted with a special "fly off" platform, launched one of her Beardmore built Sopwith Pups flown by Second Lieutenant B.A.Smart. As the aircraft was launched, L23 tried to dodge, but Smart raced flat out at 110mph to a height of 9000'. Smart dropped to 7000' before diving to 6000' to strafe the Zeppelin with incendiary rounds. As Smart broke off his attack, he saw the Zeppelin going down in flames, its nose pointed at the sky at an angle of 45 degrees. The flames spread quickly up the L 23, leaving only the nose intact when it hit the sea.
One crew member, probably a gunner from the front end of the airship, managed to parachute from the burning airship, only to drown as no ships were in the area to effect a rescue.
The body of the sail master Johan Schüttrup washed ashore September 3, 1917 at Vigsø Strand in Thy and was buried in Vigsoe cemetery. The clothes were labeled Schüttrup 10,423th. His gravestone reads "He died for his German fatherland".
A putrefying corpse was found on 15 September 1917 in Søndervig and was buried in New parish cemetery. It was believed to be the remains of machine sailor Johannes / Hans Buhr, identified because the name 'H. Buhr 'was found on a metal plate on the corpse's belt. There is a gravestone in his honor at the cemetery in Harboøre.
Many other unidentified corpses drifted ashore on the west coast at the time, who may have been crew from L 23.
---
With no provision for landing back on ship, Smart had to ditch his aircraft, but was picked up safely. The Pup however, could not be recovered.
This was the first time an aircraft had taken off from a moving ship to engage the enemy.
In order to celebrate(?), I started work on the Pup. (I figured I had best not tempt fate with the Zeppelin today ;))
(https://i.imgur.com/WelK0E6.jpg)
The Pup is a two-pack from Valom. Ironically, it was this thing, bought off a friend for, like, $5 that started the whoooole saga. I'd been toying with the idea for several months, bought the kit, saw that a Zepp had been shot down by a Pup and figured, 'well I've got the Pup, might as well do the Zeppelin to go with it.' I tend to jump into things somewhat hastily... :D
(https://i.imgur.com/ByaD4OE.jpg)
Anyway. The kit itself is pretty basic, with a rather hand-made feel to the masters. A bit of a throwback to older Central/Eastern European limited run kits. The plastic comes in the form of a credit card sized sprue of parts for the airframe; you get two sprues to build two Pups, but Valom could easily have fit eight in the box...
(https://i.imgur.com/16wsCD0.jpg)
...along with two postage stamp sized PE frets for struts, the tail skid and control column. They're okay - not terribly crisp, but they'll do the job.
(https://i.imgur.com/kl6jXqu.jpg)
And a single small decal sheet with markings for three British and one Japanese airframe.
(https://i.imgur.com/YgBtRTs.jpg)
As I said, it's a simple kit. Detail's pretty sparse, so if you were expecting something on par with Revell or Eduard's recent 1/144 kits, you'll be pretty disappointed. This is what passes for cockpit detail (plus a seat, but nothing on the sidewalls):
(https://i.imgur.com/m1RMALP.jpg)
Which I guess is fair enough, but the instructions are *hilariously* optimistic, given the actual plastic. Case in point, the kit seat is somewhat simpler than the instruction drawings would suggest:
(https://i.imgur.com/3lTt365.jpg)
As is the gun:
(https://i.imgur.com/bxT8sQf.jpg)
Which brings us to my planned improvements. I'll probably modify one of my 1/144 Spandaus instead of using the kit part. Yes, it's completely wrong, but compared the the kit part it's a big step up. I've also has some 1/144 wicker seats printed; no idea what they look like, but I mostly just want to stick it to WNW. :P I've also printed a replacement engine, since the kit part is a.) crappy looking and b.) not symmetrical (again: hand made masters)
(https://i.imgur.com/hf5aNeT.jpg)
The first step, however, was to fix the ribs. Valom depicted the ribs with recessed panel lines. These are waaay too heavy in 1/144, and - yet again because it's hand made - are completely uneven and out of alignment. Notice how the spacing is somewhat arbitrary, and several of the lines are crooked. So I slathered on a coat of Mr. Surfacer, let it cure then sanded away the excess. I'll likely pencil in the ribs once the paint is on - should be much subtler.
(https://i.imgur.com/DXARbhl.jpg)
Also note that the cutout in the middle isn't actually centred - it's offset to one side. I have a feeling that may become a major headache...
(https://i.imgur.com/12ZBmUg.jpg)
Next, I filled the divots for locating the struts with some CA. The divots were massive and wouldn't create a positive fit, but if I just filled them with Surfacer, it would lead to a weaker glue bond come final assembly, so I drilled out the Surfacer for a much more robust CA-on-styrene bond.
(https://i.imgur.com/L6pfu0G.jpg)
The CA was smoothed out, then I marked the locating points, scribed the control surfaces and drilled out a few holes.
-
Thanks for sharing the story of your Zeppelin. Very interesting fact that it was shot down by the first aircraft to take off from a ship to engage an enemy. I've followed your build closely and I'm excited to watch your tiny Pup come to life! :)
George
-
Hmmm, I can completely understand your disappointment about the Pup looking at the parts. I have no idea who made the master for Valom but if I was walking in the owner's shoes I would look for someone else, this is far from what I would call a job well done... I can understand there is not much need for super detailed cockpit but the wings can be made in much better quality even as a hand made master.
As to the ribs - my method is gluing stretched sprue on the wing surface and then applying a thick coat of Gunze base white. Before applying the base white the result looks like this:
(http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag72/ondrejmokry/IMG_0335_zpsmzhje3cp.jpg) (http://s1299.photobucket.com/user/ondrejmokry/media/IMG_0335_zpsmzhje3cp.jpg.html)
Perhaps you could use this, keeping the ribs aligned is relatively easy.
Cheers
Ondra
-
A putrefying corpse...wish I hadn't read this right after breakfast.
Well, I am not one to use the word cool, but this is one occasion where it is warranted; this is indeed very cool. Those of us who appreciate the history behind our model building are fortunate to have this additional prism through which to view it all. This is indeed a significant anniversary.
Good luck with the mini-Pup....
Cheers from NYC,
Michael
PS You do know I was only kidding about the 1/32 build, right ;)
-
As to the ribs - my method is gluing stretched sprue on the wing surface and then applying a thick coat of Gunze base white.
I had considered that, or using some .4mm tape, but in 1/144 its probably overscale and I decided I could save some time + a potential screwup by just smoothing the wings out instead. Current plan is to paint the wings with a white primer coat, mark out the ribs with pencil lines, then lightly spray over with colour coats. The pencil will hopefully show through (subtly) to give an impression of wing rib detail without looking like a cattle grid.
keeping the ribs aligned is relatively easy.
You would think so, and yet Valom's scribing disagrees. ;)
wish I hadn't read this right after breakfast.
Yeah. We as modellers tend to romanticize our subjects and focus on knights of the air and the chivalry of the duel, entirely ignoring the fact that war is a nasty, ugly endeavor. That quote is from the Danish Wikipedia page, and I thought its harshness was really effective at putting things in perspective and bringing the whole project back down to reality.
PS You do know I was only kidding about the 1/32 build, right
You were? Darn, and here I thought I'd found the *perfect* basis for your scratchbuild:
(http://fiestatoystore.com/images/nine-foot-enormous-play-tunnel.jpg)
/jk... this would only work for a 1/48 Zepp; it isn't anywhere NEAR large enough for 1/32! :o
-
Yes, it is, after all, war that we are talking about. Putrefying is one of those words that works especially well to give one the feeling in the gut.
This is an exciting build to follow, that's for sure.
-
Hmmm... kind of surprised nobody's commented on my drilling...
Anyway, onwards and upwards.
Turns out the Pup in question (N6430) was actually an Admiralty type 9901, which means conversion. I took the opportunity to make a few jigs and templates as well. Up top are a couple of wing alignment jigs, which will also let me set the fuselage as well. In the middle is a wing diagram, to mark off rib locations, ailerons, fold lines and gun slot. Bottom left is a jig to align the landing gear; bottom middle are some guides for the struts and bottom right shows the gun slot on its own:
(https://i.imgur.com/3BWfqKh.jpg)
That done, the first order of business was to carve out the slot for the gun - some RNAS Pups had a modified gun mounting with a slot in the upper wing so that tripod-mounted gun could be fired vertically. After marking the edges off, it was a fairly simple matter to carve out the hole using a Gunze chisel. Less easy... notice that the wing doesn't really fit my drawing, which was pulled directly from the scale drawings in the Pup Datafile. The kit wing is wrong, but fixing it could open a whole can of worms, so I'll probably just live with it. This also highlights the wonky rib lines and if you look carefully, you'll see that not even the cutout is the right size...
(https://i.imgur.com/mNGMRvw.jpg)
Next order of business: fixing the instrument panel. The kit part looks terrible. It'd be better with a smooth piece of plastic + decal instruments, but Valom weren't that generous. So, I measured up the kit part (2.5 x 3mm), sketched it out in illustrator and printed a bunch of copies - with delicate work like this, it's good to have some backups. Next I flooded the paper with thin CA, which gives it a hard, sort of plasticky texture, sort of like thin styrene sheet (a technique learned from the great Rato Marczak).
(https://i.imgur.com/S724UYW.jpg)
The various bezels were carefully drilled out, then the panel trimmed from the sheet. And then it vanished, so I had to do it again. :( THIS time I glued the panel to some .010" styrene sheet, leaving a sizable tab to increase visibility, then tucked it safely in the zip loc baggie with the decals. Hopefully the revised panel is a bit of an improvement over the kit part:
(https://i.imgur.com/vc5shMf.jpg)
Next up, I cut away the raised bulge over the lower wing mount. It's a standard item in many WWI kits, but I felt it would push the floor up too high - the fuselage is only a few mm high to begin with, so I need all the room I can get. Then I CAed some .2mm monofilament to the sidewalls, to represent the framing. It's not perfect, but it should add a nice, subtle detail. Unfortunately, it's a bugger to photograph (funny thing about 'invisible line'...) I'd just like to remind you that a.) this picture is WAY bigger than the actual part, b.) it looks much better in person and c.) it'll be fixed by the time it gets primered. Ahem.
(https://i.imgur.com/zVGa0Sm.jpg)
Finally, I cut a replacement floor out of .005" sheet stock. Again, the kit floor is too thick. It's also WAY too wide - see that panel line on the right side? I've already trimmed that much off the left side, just to see if it'd be enough. It wasn't. Not even close. Kind of ridiculous having a 5mm wide part be 2mm too wide.
(https://i.imgur.com/NDNLvU1.jpg)
Next order of business: load up the airbrush and get some paint on the cockpit.
-
You are certifiably crazy, MoFo! You know that, right? :o Your Pup is going to be more detailed than a lot of 1/72 models!
George
-
More updates.
(gondolas are just test fit, obvs. Also, note the Pup for scale)
(https://i.imgur.com/aJXORFH.jpg)
Shading has been done on the balloon. The top section was masked off and sprayed with a thinned-out mixture of the ivory base to lighten it up, simulating the looser weave up top to allow gas to escape. Simple and straightforward. I briefly considered using some fine mesh or pantyhose as a mask, to give a 'woven' texture, but decided it probably wasn't worth the hassle, and would likely look overscale. So, just paint.
The sides were then masked off to simulate the darker, reinforced fabric. This was less straightforward. I originally started by adding 2mm wide strips of paper over the panels to simulate the fabric strips visible here, then oversprayed the area with an ink and future mix. This... failed. The Future soaked into the paper, it ran, it was blotchy and the edges were too hard. Luckily it stripped off easily with Windex/Windowlene. Attempt #2, I ditched the paper and used a mix of paints to get a darker look... which I didn't like; so I tried another mix, which I also didn't like once applied; then some Tamiya smoke, which looked too dark, followed by more paint, which looked meh, followed - finally - by a streaky coat of Humbrol 71.
The net result actually looks good. All the thin, tint-ey layers add a bit of translucency to it, and the blotchy Humbrol gives it a weathered, natrual look which I quite like. A bit touch and go for a minute, though. :(
(https://i.imgur.com/qLJDJWh.jpg)
I also rigged the rudders. Simple job with some .1mm monofilament, pre-coloured with a Sharpie. Fun fact: each control surface uses a single length of monofilament; it's just wound 'round and around. :)
Also, also, I finalized the base. I think I mentioned above, but originally I had hoped to have it supported by just a couple pairs of 1.5mm hypo tubes, running through the gondola. With all the weight of the putty and paint, and with raising it up off the base (I had originally planned to have it 'grounded'), there was no way that was going to work. Plan B was to use a length of carbon fiber tubing as the main brace in the middle - it's nice and rigid, but will flex rather than bend under strain, plus being black, it's unobtrusive. Plus, the thought of mounting such an archaic form of aircraft on a high tech material makes me giggle. The balloon isn't perfectly balanced, however, so I'll still need supports in the nose and tail just to keep it from pitching. All this had to be done before I could start adding the gondolas and scaffolding.
Final update on the balloon - I had a good modelling friend drop by with some much-needed accoutrements last week:
(https://i.imgur.com/Q6Qpf9b.jpg)
Bit of sanding and a bit of gloss, and it'll be ready for the markings. :D I'll probably run the rigging on the fins first, though.
The first order of business, though, is figuring out how to paint the gondolas.
The card model I'm basing this on has the gondolas in overall doped linen colour. The Hippo kit from a few years back had NMF gondolas. While the Datafile on the R-Classe Zepps suggests they were overall grey. Hmmm... Now, the actual gondolas were made up from a metal lower half, with fabric uppers and roof. Basically, everything from the corrugations on the sides down was metal; everything above the corrugations was fabric. Photos suggest a uniform colour, but it's inconclusive as to just what that colour was.
*Personally*... I have a hard time imagining the Germans painting the metal parts CDL. There are plenty of German aircraft with CDL fabric and either painted grey or are metal... metal... but I can't think of a single example where they painted the metal to look like CDL. The only thing that comes close are the night bombers that had metal areas painted to match the lozenge pattern. The Hippo kit has tons of problems so I wouldn't stake my life on it, and the gondolas in pictures don't seem very shiny. So I'm leaning towards overall grey. If nothing else, it'll be a nice contrast compared to the balloon.
----
I've also made some progress on the Pup.
(https://i.imgur.com/RvknL1w.jpg)
First up, the cockpit got a coat of paint, then a couple of extra details for the instrument panel made from some brass rod. The instruments were also picked out with black and white paint.
(https://i.imgur.com/TLKCFCF.jpg)
Next up, because this particular Pup had a tripod-mounted, jacket-less Lewis gun, I had to scratch a gun (you'll recall, the kit part looks terrible, and was just a jacketed barrel anyway). I lopped the barrel off of one of my printed Spandaus, glued a length of .2mm and .3mm brass rod together inside a length of 1mm tube, then grafted this onto the Spandau body. Not exactly accurate, but good enough for the purpose. The brass 'arrow' beneath the modified gun will actually become the tripod mount.
The fuselage was glued up, lower wing and tailplanes attached and it was on to the jig:
(https://i.imgur.com/wkdHpGQ.jpg)
Normally I'm pretty cavalier about adding upper wings, but normally I'm dealing with kits that have SOME sort of positive fit. The Valom kit has tiny, crude, PE struts that (maybe?) fit into vague dimples. It was really obvious that it would be a hassle, so I decided to make a jig to hold both wings securely in place while I added the struts. The templates were as mentioned above. They were spray-mounted on some styrene sheet, then cut out and hot-glued to a piece of MDF, using LEGOs to set the spacing and alignment. Incidentally, I went with hot glue because it'd set quickly (no need to clamp it for hours) and be slightly flexible, allowing me to squeeze the plane in and out.
And it worked great. Actually installing the struts, however, not so much. Turns out, two of the interplane struts were slightly too long, while everything else was too short by at least 1/2mm. My first attempt (yeah...) was with epoxy, as I wanted something more robust than CA to take the knocks of construction. I eventually managed to get everything in place, but when the glue cured and I started trying to trim away the excess, the struts just popped right out. Not exactly a great bond.
Frustrated, I knocked the rest of the struts out, scraped off the rest of the epoxy, and resigned myself to plan B. I wanted a secure, robust locating pin, and that meant I had to make it myself. So out with the soldering iron and .2mm brass rod. :(
(https://i.imgur.com/dVnobxq.jpg)
It's not a perfect job. I know it's not a perfect job. But these things are tiny, and they're going to get brush painted, and they'll be buried between the wings of a tiny aircraft that will be overshadowed by a much larger build, so, screw it, it's good enough.
(https://i.imgur.com/uBVQBpS.jpg)
Seriously, did I mention these are tiny? It'll do!
And with some alignment pins added, construction was a whole lot faster, easier and more solid.
(https://i.imgur.com/mJ3RIKZ.jpg)
I do have some excess wire to lop off, but it's an acceptable trade-off. Besides, I'll have to touch up the wings after rigging anyway.
-
Exellent work, MoFo.
Cheers
Martin
-
You have done an exceptional job with this incredible project, the work you are doing on the Pup is absolutely amazing.
Des.
-
Your work continues to be amazing! This is such a large project in such a small scale! The Pup is also a terrific piece of detailing in a tiny scale!
RAGIII
-
Wow! Your work on both models is incredible! I enjoy reading the detailed account of your build with all the trials and errors and finally the success! Very helpful and informative.
George
-
What can I say....the paintwork on the Zepp looks fantastic, and the detail on the Pup is extraordinary! I think I'd have just made new wings with styrene sheet but kudos for correcting the kit parts!
Ian
-
Hmmm... going nuts trying to decide on a gondola colour. About the only conclusion I *have* reached is that I don't think they were CDL. (sorry Thorsten)
This looks NMF to me:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/L_9.jpg)
(O Class, first flight 8 March 1915)
While this looks more like grey - it doesn't seem to have a metallic sheen to it:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/L_24_mit_Robert_Koch.JPG)
(Q Class; L24, first flight 20 May 1916)
My Zepp is L23, first flight 8 April 1916, so it's the Navy ship immediately preceding the aircraft in the second picture (there were two Army Zepps built in between), so it's likely to be more like the latter rather than the former, but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Guess it's time to flip a coin. :D
-
FWIW (probably not much) the gondola at Le Bourget is grey IIRC... (took some photos of it when I was there but I'm not sure any of them came out very well)
-
MoFo,
It's been a while since I checked on this Thread, Wow!! Great work here and a lot of really inspired improvisation. This will be a tremendously impressive display when finished. Where on earth are you going to "stable" this Beauty?!? ???
Cheers,
Lance
-
Since all the surviving exaples are grey, I would go for it, even if it does'nt match the rest of the colour scheme.
-
Where on earth are you going to "stable" this Beauty?!? ???
Errr... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Actually, that's one of the reasons I've designed it to be removeable from the base - I can either wall mount it, like a marlin, or hang it from a ceiling. (apart from the weight, I think it would look somewhat odd, hanging from the ceiling, still attached to the base :D) But exactly where? I haven't really figured that out, yet. Glue first, ask questions later!
Since all the surviving exaples are grey, I would go for it, even if it does'nt match the rest of the colour scheme.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I've decided. It seems to make the most sense to me, in terms of surviving examples and general practices, plus it should give a bit more visual interest.
On a more tedious note, I did the math last night. I'm going to need at LEAST 150 feet of monofilament to rig the tail. :o It looks kind of complicated, but it's actually a pretty simple pattern (http://"https://travelforaircraft.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/blog-lz-20_mg_6039.jpg") - there are six anchor points on the balloon that run to six anchor points on each tail fin. So the first anchor on the balloon runs to each of the stations on the fins, then the second anchor runs to each station, etc. etc. x6 anchors. x2 sides. x4 fins. 288 individual lines. 0 chance I'm going to sharpie all that filament! :(
-
I'm really looking forward to seeing you tackle all that rigging :)
Des.
-
150 actual feet of rigging?!! :o Can't wait to see this!
George
-
MoFo,
Wow are you in for on incredible rigging task my friend.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette
-
Amazing stuff. Still cracks me up when you're actually addressed as MoFo."So MoFo hows the weather there?" "MoFo eat your greens" " MoFo which wallet is yours?"
Steve
-
Truly awe-inspiring work, Mofo! :o :o
Bring on the rigging!
Von B
-
^ Since Photobucket has crapped the bed, I've replaced all the images with Imgur links.
I really need to get back on this. Kind of depressing to look at how old the last update is. :(
-
^ Since Photobucket has crapped the bed, I've replaced all the images with Imgur links.
I really need to get back on this. Kind of depressing to look at how old the last update is. :(
I for one would love to see you back at this one 8)
RAGIII