Phonix DI

[NigelR]

It's really starting to the look the part now, nice work.

[DMPopa]

The way this model is engineered the horizontal stabilizer is attached as a flat edge to a flat surface without the help of any tenons or tabs.   Pins made of K&S .032 music wire are embedded in the horizontal stabilizer cardboard structure to add support at the joint.  Slots are cut in the cardboard and the wire glued in place.



The wire cuts are smoothed over with Ready Patch, sanded smooth and primed and the wire cut to length.  The resulting pins do not have to be too long and in fact cannot be as the fuselage at this point if pretty narrow.



The horizontal stabilizer test fit showed the need to trim the horizontal stabilizers.   The horizontal stabilizer fuselage sides are modelled as straight and as built the fuselage has a curve, material had to be removed to follow the fuselage curve to eliminate a gap.  Also the right horizontal stabilizer trailing edge had to be trimmed to so that the trailing edges, right to left, lined up.   


 
Holes are drilled using a pin vise to accept the pins.  At this time the rudder control cables (not pictured) are added. 



The horizontal stabilizer skins are added along with the elevators.   Construction is done similar to the rudder described.  The horizontal stabilizers are flat and the elevators are feathered at the rear to an edge.   Pictured are the elevators clamped for gluing.   After the glue has hardened but not completely set, the elevators are bent downwards  and additional glue added to the joint.



The horizontal stabilizer struts are added, top and bottom made from .040 dia Plastruct rod, painted and glued in place.






 

[NinetythirdLiberator]

Looks nice with the tails.  Very fish-like!

Dan

[DMPopa]

Working on the lower wings.    This work comes in phases:  The internal structure, adding the skin, and attaching to the fuselage.

The kit provides a design for the ribs, really narrow things what include a slot to cut out and, on the ribs, closest to the fuselage, holes for support wires.  The picture below is for the upper wing, but the lower wings are basically the same.



I have never successfully cut this rib design out, never mind pushing the spar through the ribs.   I took another approach to assembling the wing structure.   I cut out the ribs not with a slot but with a notch on the bottom of the rib.  The ribs are glued at the slot to the spar.    My approach is trim the forward and read of the ribs and in its place attach pieces of .032 K&S music wire.  The attachment is made secure with folded strips of velum paper glued to the rubs.



The effect that i want to achieve is a straight wing, fore and aft and the leading edge have a good looking radius. 

I add cardboard support in the area where the vertical wing supports will go, and the structure and the skin is pre-painted a matching color to the ink.



The paper is folded over, the leading edge wire is trimmed and the aft pin is trimmed completely off, as the aft part of the wing does not directly attach to the fuslage.  A second pin is added, sliding it in just aft of the spar.   





The leading edge is straight and the fold is consistent along the length.



Two holes are drilled using the pin vise; these have to be carefully positioned to place the wing in the proper position.  In this picture, one of the covers is in a bad location and had to be removed, to be replaced later with a new cover positioned higher up the fuselage.

[DMPopa]

The wings are attached are lined up to reference lines to get the positioning correct.





This is the overall look:

[NinetythirdLiberator]

Lower wing looks great!  Keep on plugging away...Dan

[NigelR]

Wow, that wing looks like hard work! Excellent progress here.

[DMPopa]

Upper wing construction:  As mentioned in an earlier post, for this repaint I elected to build the upper wing as a single piece, not a three piece with a center section and a left and right wing.   I was not comfortable that I could properly construct the wing as a three piece, that the joints would not turn out right.

The upper wing frame is constructed similar to the lower wing construction.   The ribs are attached to the spar by notching the rib bottom and gluing the rib in place.



The ailerons are construction in a similar fashion to the wings.



These are the subassemblies.  The frame is constructed with extra pieces of cardboard in the places where the inter-wing struts will go.    The frame and the wing skin is painted in areas where seams will exist.



This is the final wing with ailerons attached:





The challenge with the upper wing build is the wing is long, skinny and flat and is prone to warping.  Sime post build bending was required to get the desired flatness but things turned out all right.

[RAGIII]

I am always very impressed by how great these kits can look when done well! Yours is of course, looking great!
RAGIII

[DMPopa]

The exhaust pipes have not been added until this point to avoid damage while assembling the wings, rudder and horizontal stabilizer and before adding the wings and struts.

I could not locate on the kit parts that represent the exhaust pipes, even though the assembly instructions identify them with a part number.   So I will have to improvise.

The exhaust pipes are made from a strip of paper velum rolled around an Evergreen 222 polystyrene rod using a procedure described in an earlier post.   The width of the paper velum strip is just wide enough to create one paper layer, that is the seams meets on edge.   The procedure is to white glue up the paper, roll around the polystyrene rod, push the rolled paper and rod through a piece of plastic with a hold drilled to a desired diameter and after the white glue has hardened but not set, the rod is removed.  I have a desired diameter of .070".    The resulting paper rod was spray painted with red primer from a rattle can.



To achieve the desired bend in the exhaust ports and to provide a piece that will penetrate into the cylinder heads to fix the exhaust pipe, short pieces of the same Evergreen 222 polystyrene are bent and cut and pieces of the paper velum tube are cut to appropriate angles and lengths to produce the exhaust pipes.



I could have made the exhaust pipes just from the Evergreen Polystyrene rod, but I wanted to capture the effect of an open pipe. 



I added some black carbon powder to the inside of the tube.

This is the finished product.   Also shown is the windshield made from Squadron Shop sheet plastic.  The edges of the windshield were colored with metallic pen.

[NigelR]

Great work on the wings. I think you were very sensible to make the upper wing from one part. And making those exhaust pipes from paper is quite an achievement!

[DMPopa]

I added the two bumps to the upper wing middle section called out for in the kit.   The bump has an under layer made from cardstock per the kit design, and a strip of velum paper that has the upper wing color pattern printed on it layed on top.  The bump is a pretty small part and the cardstock piece looked messy, the velum strip cleaned it up.

I prebuilt the radiator.  The contraption on top of the radiator is a base made of cardstock with a piece of .032 music wire with a bead of white glue to represent a feature I see in reference photos.  The contraption is then painted gray.

[DMPopa]

The upper wing, wing struts and rigging has been added.

The struts are constructed with an inner layer of velum paper wrapped around thin wire with an outer layer of paper shaped to represent the strut.  The kit shows the struts are wood however reference drawings show them to be painted and in turn I painted the struts green primer from a rattle can.   A block of Evergreen  Polystyrene 164, .080" by .080" is placed on each end.  The plan is to drill holes, one for the center wire running through the strut and another to pass the rigging line. For rigging wire I am using EZ Line, heavy black.   The plan is to glue one end of the gigging to a part of the plan and feed the rigging wire through the hole and pull the EZ Line taught.  This is a little inaccurate as the rigging line at the strut should attach to the wing just in front of the strut, but the tradeoff here is simplification of construction.





Attachment points to the fuselage and the wings is made from velum paper rolled around .032" music wire and finished as described in earlier posts by passing the rolled paper and wire through a glass bead of appropriate inner diameter.  The resulting tube is painted dark gray from a rattle can.  The tube attachment points are a deviation from drilling a hole and passing the EZ line through the hole; I believe this is better as getting EZ line to pass through a small hole can be a challange.   This also simulates turnbuckles.   The factors involve in selecting the size of the paper velum tube require that the EZ line can pass through the tube and is as small in diameter as possible.   I have read about modelling rigging wire that is small in diameter and stiffer and is used with aftermarket photo etched turnbuckles but I have not gone in this direction yet.    On one end of a rigging piece I put the EZ line inside the tube and glue to the fuselage or wing.





The free end of the EZ Line is fed through the wing struts as a pre-assembly to assembling the upper wing and struts.   A tube is placed in the EZ line which is later pushed out to the strut to simulate a turnbuckle as at the fuselage and wings.



The rigging between the struts, in an X patter do not have turnbuckles and is EZ line crazy glued to the sides of the struts.

This is the result:



Note that I had to remove a part at the top of the engine to allow the top wing to fit.

[NigelR]

Very nice work. It looks like a lot of effort, but well worth it.

[DMPopa]

When the upper wing goes on, this is the point in the model build where a bunch of parts and sub-assemblies transforms into a biplane.   

Finishing up the upper wing and struts; the middle struts are added, made from Plastruct .040 styrene rod.  The lower parts of the struts are pressed flat in a pair of plyers and painted green primer, to represent reference photo features.  White glue is used to attach.   Also added, at the right side looking down wind is a return pipe, Modelled in Beadalon Elasticity .032 black stretch cord.