Roden 1:72 Zeppelin Staaken R.VI

[RAGIII]

Squiffy, You really are an amazing builder! Looking great!
RAGIII

[Des]

Great work on the engines Squiffy, and they look excellent sitting on the engine bearers. What a horrible place for the engineer to be seated, hot, oily and noisy plus having to contend with the slip stream.

Des.

[Thumbs up]

What? Not finished yet??? 

Ian

I was going to use that line,after all Squiffy is the Flash Gordan of modelling

[Ernie]

Great progress on a brute of a model, Squiffy...even in 1/72 scale!
The engines look great on their engine bearers.  I look forward to
the next update, flash.

Cheers,
Ernie

[coyotemagic]

You're off to a brilliant start, Squiffy!  I'm amazed at how far along you've come.  This is going to be a really impressive model when finished.  A friend of mine brought one of these to a local model show a couple years ago and aside from some 1/32 scale jets and bombers, it was the largest aircraft model on display.
Cheers,
Bud

[vincentm]

Very good job on that monster.

[NinetythirdLiberator]

Super, Squiffy.  I love that plane.  Be still my heart.

Looks incredible so far.

Dan

[Royston]

Hey squiffy,
nice start.
I didn't even know that this was available as a kit.
what material are you going to use as rigging

Roy

[radio]

Very great work to this build.
Martin

[Squiffy]

what material are you going to use as rigging

Roy

Hi, Roy.

For scouts, two-seaters etc. I normally use nylon 'invisible thread', which, even though it's called invisible is actually black (no, I don't get it either  ). It's 0.13mm thick, which, I suppose, is a over-scale but it looks alright.

However, I suspect something as big as this may have used thicker stuff than you're average scout, so the question is do I use something thicker to illustrate the difference, or do I just use the same and have it to scale (or underscale, whichever 0.13mm may be)?

At the moment I'm leaning toward using the same because I'm used to working with it, it's strong and it's cheap.

[vincentm]

I also use 0.15mm wire for my WWI biplanes. Times 72, it would make 9mm wires at actual scale. Sure it's overscaled, but not ridiculous. If I saw a 1/1 scale replica of a Zeppelin-Staaken with 9mm wires, considering the size of the beast, it wouldn't look out of proportions.

[WarrenD]

Squiffy, once you get down to our scale, you're really splitting hairs (pun intended) when it comes to measuring your rigging wire material. As long as it looks close, I'd call it "good enuf". I'd stick with what you're used to working with, but that's just my opinion.

Warren

[IanB]

I just took a look at the post Bo made on another thread re rigging wires. The sizes given on the tables for BE2 and SE5 equate to .06mm to .09mm in 1:72. I also use .13mm at the moment and it looks fine. I may well switch to the smaller mono in future, but as you say, I think I'd use the .13 on something this size, it certainly won't look wrong.

Ian

[Squiffy]

I did say it wouldn't be a quick build...

I counted the number of parts in each engine and there are more in one engine than in some complete kits that I've built. Nevertheless, I have been plodding on with the beast today and have almost finished one engine nacelle. I can't believe that it's taken the best part of 4 hours to assemble this and give it a coat of paint.

The radiators still reqire painting and coolant pipes adding. Then, of course, the props are next to be fitted. And then do it all over again for the other nacelle.

[radio]

Exellent!!
Martin