Like lone modeler, I do favor the pushers.
I've wanted a Fee for some time and looked for several years to find a kit for one. I finally came across a vac kit made by Formaplane and picked it up for probably too much. What I found inside was some strip stock for struts, a sheet of plastic with bumps in it which were supposed to be the parts and two sheets of drawings.
After looking at the sheet of styrene bumps, it occured to me, that I might be able to actually make all of the parts. I have some scratch building experience from my railroad modeling days, and I have made a few parts to replaced broken or missing parts for kits, I should be able to scratch an entire plane. So, at this point, the most valuable thing in that vac kit to me, was the three view drawing. I know there are a few publications out there that I could have gotten instead to do the same thing and I would have had more information too, but I was looking for a kit and this was a choice made on the fly. I grabbed some sheet stock and jumped in.
After checking the above drawing for scale, and deciding it was accurate enough for my purposes, I began with attempting to make the fuselage nacelle.
I started with the floor. Seemed logical, most kits tend to have you start with the cockpit floor and add all the goodies, so following this, I decided I needed to make the nacelle, but I had nothing for forming sheet styrene and decided to attempt a different approach. Laminating and carving. I laminated rectangles of 0.040" sheet stock just large enough to be bit bigger than the section I was attempting to make and once I had a solid block of styrene, I began carving out the inner curve of the front half of the observers cockpit. After finally getting this half circle shape cut into my block, I turned to the outside to begin shaping the nose. Using sanding sticks, it took me a couple hours to shape my first piece.
3 more sections over the next 3 days found themselves carved and shaped in the same manner and on the 5th day, I assembled these parts to make what my wife dubbed 'The Shoe'.
Satisfied that 'The Shoe' was good enough for now, I attempted the next hurdle. Wings.
The cross section of the wing is what seemed to purplex me and I didn't want to have them end up being flat pieces of plastic.
So, I turned to the laminating idea again to try my hand at wing making. Starting with a narrow strip of 0.040" sheet stock, I cut another strip twice as wide from 0.020" sheet stock and laminated it on top of the 0.040' strip slightly offset by about 0.020" or so. Then, adding another strip of 0.010' sheet stock laminated on top of the 0.020" strip offset about 0.040' making the assembly slightly wider than the overall wing on the drawing from front to rear. This is to allow for sanding and shaping of the wing from this laminated stock material.
Starting with the wing root sections of the lower wings and the lower starboard wing, I ended up proving to myself that I can make wings with the desired cross section.
The rudder was simple enough, so I thought. I made 2 attempts at it. My first one was too thin. I ended up making another one with 0.020" sheet stock and scribing along the inside to allow for the brass wire I wanted to use for mounting it to the tail. Then, I added the old 0.010" rudder I had made to cover the scribed side capturing the section of wire between the two pieces. I then shaped the rudder edges to make the thickness less noticable. The number in the picture actually represents the date of completion of the model, so at this point, I have a deadline to meet. April 2012.
The boom section was a concern for me. My model is intended to be used as a game piece and will be subject to a lot of handling during game play. So, it has to be durable. Making my boom from styrene and in scale is obviously not an option. My most available option is brass wire. So, off to the soldering iron I went and with my trusty wire cutters, some tape, a sheet of glass over my drawing, a couple asprin, a bandaid, some not repeatable expleatives, and vola! A brass boom any mother would be proud of having his son make.
OK, so... back to 'The Shoe'. I had a few details I needed to add in order to get this nick name changed by the wife. I dug around in the spares box since I didn't want to spend the time fabricating the seat or all of the engine parts. I found some select pieces which would work for me and I made a sad attempt at carving the exhaust but with all that is going on with the overall plane, I hoped no one would even notice... the real eye candy is the rigging... right? ::crossing fingers::
Once I added a few of the detail parts and my sad little engine, I painted it to at least attempt to make it all look like part of a plane and not a shoe with stuff on it.
You will also note in the above pictures that the wing roots were ribbed and added. I was most concerned with the placement of these two parts because if they were even slightly out of place, the whole plane wouldn't look right. This was my most critical step in the assembly.
So, now moving along. I found a prop in the spares box (nevermind it's the wrong pitch and is from a tractor type plane, no one will notice that except the very first person I showed the finished model to and who promised he wouldn't tell anyone) and added it to the metal shaft I had mounted into my engine. The shaft coming from a paper clip that wandered into my modeling area by mistake I'm sure. (Thanks who ever left it there) Since we are moving into adding parts to each other in un-like materials, I should mention that I am a avid user of JB Weld epoxy. I've never had a joint fail, so far. Adding the prop with JB Weld and then wiping away the excess before curing allowed me to set it in place by then adding ACC and accelerator. Once that JB Weld sets, it's not coming off. Then, the next critical step in the assembly. Adding the boom assembly to the wing roots.
Now, I should mention that while all the above painting and such was drying, the boom assembly was worked on with getting the struts cut and placed around the wire uprights and then the rigging. The struts were cut from 0.020" sheet stock and scribed on one side. Then, two pieces were then glued in place around the upright wires scribe side against the wires. After curing, the struts were sanded to shape. After all them dang struts were done, then the rigging and the tail planes were added. The rudder wires were then bent to 90 degrees and JB Weld did the final attachment to the boom. Here you see the boom ends have been dressed to match the angle of the wing roots and JB Weld has been applied and clamped into place.
So, I took a break at this point for a few days to make sure that everything was dry before removing those clamps (which were quite expensive since I paid for it when they were discovered on my model) Here is a shot of it after removing the clamps and placing it on my drawing to check the alignment.
Next, the adding of the top center wing section. I had made some of the struts I needed for this step in advance by scribing the strip stock as before and just sandwiching in the solid brass wire core. If you recall, I am after duribility and with the brass wire passing completely through the struts and even through the wings, I am able to ensure that I will never have a strut pop loose from handling. With a few of the struts in place to help with alignment, I epoxied the top wing section into place on the boom ends and used my very expensive clamps once again. After allowing to set for a couple days, the remaining struts were added and the rigging completed for this picture:
So, as far as the painting has gone, I actually wanted a darker version than as it turned out, but I'm happy with the overall look of it. I actually painted it entirely black and dry brushed the olive drab from testors over the surfaces. It didn't give me the color I wanted, but it did give an effect that I am happy with.
Next, I chose to make this as hard on myself as possible and decided to go with the Oleo style landing gear since the little wheel looked cute (says the wife. Who says our spouses don't guide our craft?)
Then, after making the little wheel and digging out the bigger ones from the spares box since I didn't want to have to make two identical wheels, I managed to make a passable attempt.
It's all down hill from here. After adding brass pins to the wing ends and making all of them struts with the brass cores, it was just a matter of assembly and rigging to get to this point:
And then, all that is left is the adding of decals, some sad excuses for guns since I didn't have any lewis guns, and the tail skid.
I was able to meet my deadline and actually completed it before the last weekend in April and take it to it's first game convention. Aside from all of the errors I made since I didn't do enough research and 'winged it' from a 3 view drawing, it didn't turn out too bad and works for what I intended it for as a game piece.
Thanks for looking!
John
