Jeannin Stahltaube - a scratchbuild in 1/144 scale

[MR Bentley]

Incredible and smart work! I ought to give resin casting a go the next time I scratchbuild an engine

[William Adair]

It's definitely worth looking into. A 500ml bottle of silicone and resin will go a long way at our scale. I'd like to be able to build up a library of common parts eventually. So that I can get a head start on future projects.

[William Adair]

Thanks again to everyone for taking a look. It means a lot! 

The next task is getting the basics of the wings together. The important thing is that they keep their shape and do not warp (ironic, that), and stay at a constant 3.75 degrees dihedral without sagging, flexing, or otherwise jeopardising the future rigging.

I scraped & shaped the wing stock from 1.5mm acrylic, then carved a rebate out of the trailing edges to insert a small piece of 0.1mm styrene sheet for the warping portion of the ailerons.
The outer wing ribs have an odd camber where they transition into the flexible ailerons and it took a lot of delicate filling and sanding to blend this area in.  A lot of time was spent ensuring the wing shapes were correct in plan view too.  Once this was done, the excess portions of the wing root were cut away and the mating surfaces were trimmed to ensure a good fit.

Shaping the wings from acrylic:



Midway through the putty & prime with lots of careful sanding:



Trimming and shaping the wings. Pinning them securely to the fuselage will be a challenge:

[William Adair]

Starting on the tail feathers now.
I drilled a 0.3mm hole for the rudder's kingpost and cut slots so that I could inlay the two control pylons using 0.2mm nickel silver rod. These were backfilled with CA glue and flushed in. Then the six little rigging points were made from slices of 0.25mm sprue and partially inset into the sides. They will be a nice detail once the rib tapes are added.

[RAGIII]

This would be Impressive work in Any Scale Doing it in 1/144th is Mind Blowing!
RAGIII

[NigelR]

This is all absolute madness! Amazing work, and fascinating to see how you do it.

[Dirigible-Al]

You must have eyes the size of saucepans and fingers the size of pins to do this.
Alan

[KiwiZac]

I'd love to build a Taube in 1/32 but the thought of rigging puts me off...this is incredible.

[MR Bentley]

That's some fine (in both senses of the word) work!

[PrzemoL]

It continues to be a spectacular show...

[William Adair]

Thanks gents! It feels like I am getting somewhere now 

You must have eyes the size of saucepans and fingers the size of pins to do this.

That's a disturbing mental image... 

[lone modeller]

Just incredible. The wings on Taubes are difficult enough to shape in larger scales, your efforts are just outstanding. I hope that you can get a strong wing to fuselage joint.

Stephen.

[William Adair]

I hope that you can get a strong wing to fuselage joint.

Thanks Stephen! I had to walk away from it a couple of times, but I finally managed to get it sorted. 

I had been worrying about how to attach the wings and needed a solution that wouldn't flex. I thickened up the bulkhead between the cockpits and drilled some holes through the sides of the fuselage to accept some hidden wing spars. The spars are flattened sterling silver wire with a scribe line down each side so they resemble I-beams. A jeweller's saw was used to cut some corresponding slots in the wings, with a couple of larger holes to act as reservoirs when I backfilled the spars with water-thin CA glue.

Setting up each wing so that they plugged in at the correct dihedral and camber every time was delicate work, but it will simplify things a great deal later on. Some brass tube was flushed in at each wingtip too, to provide location points for the rigging pylons when the time comes.

Glad that's out of the way! Next job is another prime and sand, then to have a look at doing the wing ribs.











And with a coat of Mr Surfacer to see how it looks... 0_0

[WD]

Again, this is just amazing work! A question: why sterling silver? Is it because of it being more malleable?

Warren

[William Adair]

Hi Warren 
I mostly use silver because it’s what I have lying around. Brass would work just as well though and I usually use that for rods and tubes that need to be straight 👍