Breguet AG.4, early September, 1914

[ALBATROS1234]

i cant wait to see more, i know your work and i enjoy viewing the progress.

[coyotemagic]

I love watching your work on these obscure types, OM.  Your skills are matched only by your taste.  Wonderful stuff.
Cheers,
Bud

[Des]

Looking really good Old Man, the wings turned out beautiful and the fuselage is taking shape very nicely, looking forward to seeing more.

Des.

[GAJouette]

  Old Man,
Absolutely beautiful work my old friend. Looking forwardto the next update.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[Old Man]

Thank you very much for your interest, my friends. There is considerable progress to report now on this, as I have gotten a couple of other, more modern projects squared away.

After finishing my Curtiss P-1A in Chilean markings

http://www.swannysmodels.com/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1341870425

And getting pretty solidly stuck in to a B-17D of the 50tyh Recce Squadron at Hickam Field in 1941

http://www.swannysmodels.com/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1341870619

I have gotten back onto this project.

The first thing I did was to deal with the motor. I decided to use the twin-row Gnome from an ICM Pfalz E-IV kit. This fits the cowling in the kit very well, but this is awfully thick, so I extended the length of the cylinders by adding caps of 1mm sheet, and trimmed off the lifter riods moulded to the front of each cylinder. The crankcase front of the kit piece is flat, so I gave it a bit of a dome from 2.5mm tube. To the cylinder heads, I added lifters from .5mm x .25mm strip, and put in lifter rods from .25mm round rod. Here is the result after a coat of primer.



Next I assembled the fuselage pieces. I gave the rear element a 'cap' in front from 1mm sheet, to provide a rear to the cockpit area and give something to grip at that point when working the assembly later, and to ease some oddities of the juncture between the armored front and the tail portion.



Once these were were glued together, I rounded the cap to a proper shape, and laid in the turtle-back, from a piece of 3mm sheet (a thin wedge of scrap left from making the wings of a Hawker Demon late last year), and bit of 1.5mm sheet. The 3mm piece was sanded to a slat first, then the 1.5mm piece was put on, and sanded down to final slant. Then the proper contour was put in.







Now, the forward decking for the cockpit, and the basic cowling, are on, and the basic interior is done.





The interior elements are conjectural, but based on knowledge of earlier Breguet aeroplanes. The pattern of the steel tubing is that of earlier machines, with the exception that tube has been substituted for wire in one angle (on this much larger and heavier machine). The upright tubes and cross-pieces are about the most important elements of the whole, from a modeling point of view, as these are where the cabane struts will attach. Though neither of these photographs show it, there is a large copper fuel tank just in front of the cockpit opening.





Here is a good look at the basic cowling. It was put onto the model in four pieces: a strip bent to the upper curve, a front piece of 2mm sheet cut to the curves and worked on its inside to proper section, and two cheek-pieces, one on either side. It took a bit of sanding, and heavy applications of primer, to get it all smooth.



I had to re-do my cylinder-head detailing on the motor, since even though I made the cowling pieces thin as I could, the motor did not quite fit in. I sanded about a quarter millimeter off each cylinder, and re-did what had to be replaced, taking the opportunity to add a ring around the projection of the crank-case, to give  better appearance to the inside joint of the rocker arms.

Here is the motor now in the cowling, approximately where it will be attached...



Further work to be done on the cowling includes bringing the lip of the lower 'scoop' forward a bit, and, after the motor is attached, putting a bottom strip to the forward portion of the cowling, and supports across the front of the cowling to the propeller attachment....

Seats and controls and instruments for the interior will be next, and I intend to put on the tail surfaces, and portions of the landing gear, onto the fuselage before beginning the process of mating with the wings.

[Des]

Beautiful work on the fuselage and engine Old Man, looking forward to seeing the cockpit internals fitted.

Des.

[Old Man]

I have been plugging away on this, along with some other projects, and here are some pictures of recent progress on it....

First, the cockpit complete, with cabanes attached....







The detail is, of course, conjectural, but earlier Breguet used wooden seats with large holes, employed a 'dep-wheel' stick with three spokes, and had sparse instrumentation. Given that this was a prototype that remained private property, I cannot see much in the way of service equipment being installed in the observer's cockpit, but I have put in a map-board and map for his use; these were pretty common, and easily installed.

The cabane struts attach directly to the tube frame-work, in the case of the forward pair through holes let into the forward decking. On the real item, the struts were wooden fairing around steel tube; I have let short lengths of round rod into the ends of strips of sheet. Drawings show the cabanes as vertical and in struct line for and aft, but photographs show then raked forward a little, and if the struts of each side are to attach to the upper wings spars at the same width from the center, given the widening of the fuselage towards the nose, the rear cabanes simply must slant outwards a little.

Beginning to work on the nose, I decided the cowling was a bit long (just a feel by eye, there really is nothing I can trust for fine dimension in the available drawings), and so I sanded it down short, and replaced the front upper plate. I then put in a center hole to set the rear extension of the motor into (to preserve the space in front of the motor), installed the engine, and assembled the cowling front elements (which I still suspect contain a gear-box somewhere...)....





I changed plan a bit, and went to work on the wings, starting with the fit of the upper wing to the cabane struts (pretty much the most important element of the whole build). So here is a brief appearance of the rare 'Breguet Parasol'....





State of play is a bit in advance now of the pictures again. I have decided to assemble the wing cellule, and attach it as a unit to the fuselage, by hanging it from the cabanes. The wings are painted (with ribs and spars drawn in in pencil prior to painting on the undersurfaces), and joined with their interplane struts. I will do all rigging that does not involve the cabanes to complete the assembly before joining it to the fuselage (which will by then have its tail surfaces and some undercarriage elements attached)....

[uncletony]

Great stuff, OM. Glad to see an update on this fascinating project.

[GAJouette]

  Old Man,
As always outstanding work my old friend. Her interior works are absolutely beautiful and so well done. Looking forward to more of this beauty.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[coyotemagic]

Beautiful work, as always.  She's really coming along, now.
Cheers,
Bud

[ALBATROS1234]

lookin really nice as always with your builds old man.

[Whiteknuckles]

Great progress work OM, it's been a pleasure so far watching this beauty come to life and very much appreciated.

Andrew

[Old Man]

Thank you very much for your kind comments, Gentlemen.


Here is some further progress, now in living color. It feels like the down-hill slope on this is at least beginning.


The wings have been rigged and painted, the fuselage given some surface detail and painted, and had a couple of undercarriage elements put on, and the tail surfaces have been made, and painted in tricolor stripes.







I will fix the dark sections on the lower wing; I did not thin paint used for a bit of touch-up sufficiently. the contrast is starker in the pictures, but is apparent to the eye. I expect a bot of white cut into the color will do the trick.

And though there is still a ways to go before I do attach the wings to the fuselage (among other things, the tail surfaces need to go on...), here is a glimpse of the shape of things to come, with the wings settled on the cabane struts, aligned in their locating holes....

[Chris Johnson]

For me, that's a very interesting approach to rigging. My concern would be that when I mounted the wings on the fuselage (or vice versa) the tension of the rigging would be disturbed if the wings were to somehow flex during the procedure. On the other hand, do you rely on the applied tension from the rigging to prevent that from happening?

Bear in mind that the way I build, I'm apt to use a shoehorn when fitting the two assemblies together! 

Cheers,

Chris

[Old Man]

For me, that's a very interesting approach to rigging. My concern would be that when I mounted the wings on the fuselage (or vice versa) the tension of the rigging would be disturbed if the wings were to somehow flex during the procedure. On the other hand, do you rely on the applied tension from the rigging to prevent that from happening?

Bear in mind that the way I build, I'm apt to use a shoehorn when fitting the two assemblies together! 

Cheers,

Chris

Thank you, Sir.

In this case, I took this route because the lower wing, with just those two little bits connecting the panels, was so weak and wobbly that there was no chance of a usual 'put fuselage on lower wing, add struts, top with upper wing and rig' procedure working. With the wings joined, and the outer portion of the rigging done, the wings are a fairly solid sub-assembly, though I will have to take care not to shift things side-wise when attaching the lower cabane struts between the fuselage and lower wing center section. The tension of the elastic rigging does act to stiffen the assembly noticeably.

I have assembled the wings before, when scratch-building a Farman MF 11, which has the nacelle percehd mid-gap between a pair of interplane struts. But I suspect I will try this on my next pass at a Roden Bristol Fighter; it might save some tricky bits....