1/72 Deperdussin Monocoque

[NigelR]

All that work for such a tiny thing! Very impressive, it's looking good.

[macsporran]

Your initial assessment that this one would need a lot of love was a bit of an understatement! Classic case of a silk purse out a sow's ear though - real model making. You're dragging a great model kicking and screaming out of a sorry bunch of random plastic bits. Congrats!
Sandy

[Dutch522]

Beautiful work, Tim, looking forward to how you handle that diagonally-laid monococque. I've always loved Béchereau's Deps, and have hardly ever seen them as models.

Even though Deperdussin himself was a Bernie Madoff type and died in disgrace, the aeroplanes he brought into being were lovely.

Dutch

[IanB]

Looking really good Tim. Especially when taking your startingnpoint into consideration!

Ian

[Tim Mixon]

Part 4. 

Before beginning painting the wooden fuselage, I drilled out all the control cable openings, tailskid, and posts for the wing warping cables.

I painted the nose a dark brown but will probably have to repaint it later.

Originally I wanted to use the kit part for the wing warping posts. I mangled them up trying to carve out the intended shape so decided to make them from brass stock.

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I needed to Dremmel out a channel for the rigging structure on both sides of the upper fuselage.

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Here’s the brass stock. I still need to add more pieces to make a split diamond shape but will add them later.

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First step of the wood planking (Monocoque) fuselage is to paint a Tamiya Dark Yellow base coat.  This was followed with a few coats of Clear to attempt to reduce any paint lifting when removing the masking.

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While this is drying, I’ll start cutting masking strips to cover the entire fuselage.

Thanks for looking in!

Tim.

[KiwiZac]

I'm really enjoying this one Tim, each update is quite interesting and I'm learning some things along the way.

[Tim Mixon]

Part 5.

Well…. Sometimes things just don’t work out. My attempt at replicating the monocoque wood effects was a disaster.

Second step was to start adding the wood strip masks. I got greedy and tried to use long strips to spiral around the fuselage. Initially this worked until I realized that I got the ange wrong on the second spiral. This progressed to an uneven spacing.

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Entire fuselage is covered:

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Started removing random strips

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Next I painted a slightly darker color

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Then remove more strips and lightly spray the same darker color. This will darken the first strips leaving three colors.

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After all the masking was removed I applied a heavily thinned artist oil burnt umber wash

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Here’s what I ended up with:

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The left side and bottom are really bad!

Plus the tail flying surfaces had paint lift with the mask removal.

I’ll try again next week sometime.

Thanks for looking in!

Tim

[Dutch522]

Looks pretty good to me, Tim (especially that rear 3/4 shot), but you're the bus driver :-)

It's going to be a gem when you're done!

Dutch

[IanB]

I had similar issues when I did the Donnet-Leveque, but repainting is definitely the way to go, and well worth the effort in the end.

Ian

[NigelR]

Good effort, this is very challenging.

[KiwiZac]

Now that is clever. I have a 1/48 project needing similar treatment and now I think I'll be able to do it justice...if I can muster the patience!

[NigelR]

I've just been looking at some images of the real thing and I think you are right to redo it. The contrast is too strong IMO, in 1/72 you need to keep it subtle. Best of luck, it looks like a tough effect to pull off.......

[kensar]

You're putting a lot of work into this and it will show in the end.
Meanwhile, you have quite a challenge with the fuselage.
Best of luck with it!

[lone modeller]

Catching up on this: you have achieved much since I last looked in, most of it of a very high standard. Shame about the fuselage but I agree with you and others, a repaint will pay dividends because you are making such a good model that it would be a shame to spoil it with a poor finish.

A new type to me but very interesting.

Stephen.

[Tim Mixon]

Part 6.

I decided to remove the monocoque fuselage join strip and replace it with a thinner Evergreen strip before repainting.
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Next I repainted the fuselage after masking the wing surfaces
I started remasking the wood strips stopping at the fuselage join. This is working much better!

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Here is the complete masking:


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I’ll repaint it next weekend when I get home.
Thanks for looking in!

Tim