Author Topic: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A  (Read 17787 times)

Offline lone modeller

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #30 on: April 22, 2020, 06:39:18 AM »
Thanks Andreas and Rick - your comments are much appreciated.

Great work Stephen, it's taking shape nicely already. Lots of good tips here too. I imagine the wing ribs are keeping you very occupied!

Can I ask where you buy your materials from?

Thanks for your comment Richie - much appreciated too.

I buy my plastic (sheet, rod, strip etc) via mail order - Wonderland Models do an excellent service. The brass rod came from the same source I think, (it is KS metals), but the brass bar which I am using for the spars and nacelle frame came from a specialist supplier which I found on the net, (and cannot recall who they were as I bought this material a couple of years ago). The laminate wood came from Oakdale Crafts and was a sample pack of mixed assorted sheets.

Stephen.

Offline RichieW

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #31 on: April 22, 2020, 06:54:04 AM »
Great, thanks for the info Stephen. I'm feeling the need to start a few experiments. I bought an assorted pack of wood veneers a while ago and have made up a propeller blank today. Am hoping to have bit of a whittle over the weekend.

Offline Alexis

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #32 on: April 22, 2020, 09:55:53 AM »
Hey Stephen , excellent job on that seat ! Rest of the details are shaping up nicely as well . Like how you did tank , very effective  8)



Terri
Hurra ! , Ich Leben Noch
Body and life is a vessel we use to travel the planet . Femininity is the gift , The miracle comes from what we do with it .

Offline lone modeller

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #33 on: April 28, 2020, 07:17:20 AM »
Evening All,

Thanks Terri for dropping by.

Before I solder the lower wing spars to the nacelle frame I want to make as much of the nacelle interior as possible so that I can align the different parts and make sure that they all fit together when I come to the assembly stage. While the nacelle frame is small it is easily handled and unlikely to be damaged - with the spars attached it becomes a completely different matter. This week I have been making up and detailing the engine.

I am using the excellent Wingnut Wings Beardmore engine which is very good but lacks detail so I have cribbed ideas from Lance's outstanding FE 2b build at https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=6789.30

I started by adding the cylinders to the sump and then painting both, followed by the rocker arms and push rods, oil and water pumps and cam drive:





Apologies for the poor quality of the second image: I am not very good with macro shots. The oil lines from the oil pump to the bottom of the cylinders were added from copper wire and 0.3mm brass tube - all CA'd into place. The oil inlets on the kit cylinders had been removed beforehand. The magnetos were added to the front of the engine:





The water inlet pipe and ignition wire conduit were added and then I could install the ignition wires to the spark plugs:



and the ignition wires from the magnetos to the wire conduit pipes:



I do not normally add much evidence of wear to my models - I find it very difficult to achieve the correct "look" but on the engine I feel that a little oil and grime is in order, so I mixed a wash of Humbrol dark earth and a touch of black and hoped for the best when I brushed it on to the engine. It has certainly taken the shine off the copper cylinders and aluminium sump:







I have still to add oil pipes and control lines to the carburettor and petrol pipe unit, but will not do this until the engine is almost ready to be placed on the nacelle frame as these parts will be both delicate and need to attach to the frame.



Instead I have been working on the exhaust pipe and oil tank which are not included in the engine kit. I had made both units from sprue and now I have drilled a hole right through the oil tank so that I can insert and bend to shape a filler/feed pipe from 30 thou rod. I have also drilled the exhaust pipe outlet holes at its rear end and the inlet pipes for 40 thou rod into which the exhaust stubs will eventually be fitted. The oil tank was mounted on the port (left) side of the engine below the exhaust pipe but I cannot make the support arms until the engine is ready to be mounted on the frame in the nacelle.



While I was performing a dry run aligning the engine with the water outlet pipe to the radiator I realised that the radiator which I have already made was based on the FE 2b whereas the DH 1A had a smaller rectangular radiator! A new one will be made shortly.....

Thanks for looking.

Stephen.

Offline RichieW

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #34 on: April 28, 2020, 07:36:12 AM »
Superb detailing on the engine Stephen, it all looks very convincing and real. The washes have worked out very well. Looking forward to the next update already, have you finished cutting out the wing ribs yet?

Offline Europapete

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #35 on: April 28, 2020, 08:43:08 AM »
Nice work there Stephen, this is coming along very nicely. Macro photography is a double edged sword isn't it. Issues getting the whole piece in focus, the lighting right, wasted shots, finally getting a pic you like and BAM! there is a cat hair right where you don't want it! lolol.

Offline kensar

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #36 on: April 28, 2020, 09:57:31 PM »
Great detailing on the engine, Stephen.  The weathering looks appropriate, also.

Online RAGIII

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #37 on: April 28, 2020, 11:28:23 PM »
Beautifully detailed and weathered engine!
RAGIII
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Offline lone modeller

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #38 on: April 29, 2020, 03:07:35 AM »
Thanks to you all for the kind comments - much appreciated.

have you finished cutting out the wing ribs yet?

No Richie: I have 12 left to make - they are the smaller ones at the tips of the wings. I have started to make them now and have already made a mess of one of them!

Nice work there Stephen, this is coming along very nicely. Macro photography is a double edged sword isn't it. Issues getting the whole piece in focus, the lighting right, wasted shots, finally getting a pic you like and BAM! there is a cat hair right where you don't want it! lolol.

No cat's hairs any more for me because sadly I do not have cats any more. Just as well because one that I used to have had a habit of jumping on to my desk where I was working - and he was big and not too bothered about what he pushed to one side! Rascal!!

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #39 on: April 29, 2020, 05:20:59 AM »
Stephen, I would say this look like a Beardmore engine for sure! Lovely details :-*
Always a pleasure to find one of your updates.

Cheers,
Frank

Offline gbrivio

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #40 on: April 29, 2020, 06:24:04 AM »
I've been missing so far, but will follow the progress of this. Yet another wonder from scratch, thank you for sharing.
Ciao
Giuseppe

Offline Alexis

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #41 on: April 29, 2020, 10:58:09 AM »
I really like your detailing , excellent work Stephen ! :)


Terri
Hurra ! , Ich Leben Noch
Body and life is a vessel we use to travel the planet . Femininity is the gift , The miracle comes from what we do with it .

Offline Borsos

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #42 on: May 02, 2020, 04:43:30 PM »
Stephen, this build becomes another „Wow!“ moment for me the more and more I see from it. Awesome work all around.
Andreas
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Barbusse.
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Offline lcarroll

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #43 on: May 03, 2020, 12:55:53 AM »
    Coming along beautifully Stephen, it's going to be a real eye catcher. Great work on the Beardmore and your weathering with the wash worked out wonderfully, adds a lot of realism to it.
Cheers,
Lance

Offline lone modeller

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Re: No 1A de Haviland: 1/32 stripdown Airco DH 1A
« Reply #44 on: May 15, 2020, 10:09:26 PM »
Evening All,

Thank you Frank, Giuseppe, Terri, Andreas and Lance for dropping in and leaving your kind comments - they are much appreciated.
 
I have finished the ribs at last - some have taken three attempts to get right - some have holes, some holes and slots, some triangular slots and no hole, some triangular slots and hole....and the combinations were driving me mad as I would shape a rib and then cut/drill the wrong shapes in the wrong places. The tedium of repeating the same operations over and over and the different combinations of slots and holes meant that my concentration lapsed and so mistakes were made. At least the compression ribs, (the short riblets on the leading edges of the wings between the main ribs), were all the same - all 50 of them! Here are a few:



Some of these look a little rough but they have since been cleaned up enough that any small deficiencies can be concealed beneath a coat of paint!!

While I was fiddling and practising my Anglo-Saxon with the ribs, I took a little time to make some other parts. First off was a new radiator, because the first one I had made was for an FE 2: while the DH 1A had some features in common with the FE, the radiator was not one of them! I made a new one from laminated card and a small piece of Eduard etch kindly given to me by a fellow modeller. The radiator faces were painted black before the grille was CA'd into place and the sides of the radiator added from 10thou card:



The FE radiator blank is on the right above - why the DH 1A was smaller I do not know because they had to cool the same engine (120 hp Beardmore).

The DH 1A had a gravity tank under the top wing. It was triangular in shape and I made mine from scrap card. I used small pieces of strip to reinforce the corners and ensure that the sides and front faces were square with the top and bottom surfaces. A small piece of rod blocked the sharp end and allowed me to clean that up with filler:



Another part which needed correcting was the oil tank. Formerly I had made a cylindrical tank - again as per FE but close inspection of the drawings and photos showed that the oil tank on the DH 1A was a different shape. (I had seen this feature before but had thought that it was a protective plate between the tank and exhaust pipe. (How wrong!) This too was fashioned from laminated card. The fuel and new oil tanks look like this:



The oil tank on FE machines was sometimes tinned and sometimes painted black. Photos of the DH1A oil tank are rare, and it is not clear whether the tanks were grey or tinned metal on such photos as I can find. The same applies to the fuel tank. As I am modelling a strip down machine I decided to paint both aluminium:



Having finished (well almost), the ribs I thought that I would make a few more parts before I solder the lower wing spars to the nacelle frame, because when that is done i will have a large, fragile and awkward piece to put in a safe place when I am not working on it. Then I will only have to make a few parts to fit as I am assembling the model. So I carved and shaped the struts for wings, cabanes, booms, undercarriage and wing skids from wood. I used wood laminate: I glued some sheets together to get a suitable thickness. All of the parts except the control horns are slightly oversize so that I can cut them to fit exactly during the assembly process. The control horns were made from the same material:



They are top left - spreader bar for the undercarriage, bottom left undercarriage legs, (the 4th from left is much too large and will need cutting down), wing and cabane struts, (again the cabanes are too long), wing skids, (the small rough pieces will form the horizontal pieces later), and top right some of the control horns. These will all be clear varnished later before fixing into place.

I also decided to try ideas about making the tail surfaces. The fin was made from 30 x 40 thou strip and liquid cement, but had to be pinned in place during assembly to ensure the leading edge curved properly:





I decided not to make the rudder at the moment as that has to be attached directly to the rudder post. I am planning to make the post from brass rod and solder it to the ends of the booms: any plastic near the soldered joints is not going to survive. I can fit the rudder later (I hope) directly to the model. The tail plane and elevators will also be made later, as the rear ends of the booms have to pass through the tail plane and I have got to give that some serious thought too as I intend to solder the ends of the booms if I can. I may have to resort to CA for the joint - that is a question which can wait for the moment.

Now I cannot delay any longer soldering the lower wing spars to the nacelle frame and creating a large and potentially easily damaged structure.

Thanks for looking.

Stephen.