Evening All,
My thanks to Old Man, Rick, Steve, Borsos and Ermio for the kind remarks which I really appreciate. When modellers of your calibre write that they like what they see then I must be doing something properly!
Right I have finished this one at last. It has taken longer than I had originally thought as I have had to be away from home more frequently than usual lately, and in addition this model had some unexpected issues that I only discovered when I reached them. However all is complete now so I will run quickly through the final assemblies.
The first parts to be fitted were the horizontal tail surfaces and rudder bumper: the latter was made from a small piece of wire which came from a telephone cable. Having fitted the tail surfaces the moment of truth arrived - would it be a nose sitter with all the weight that I had added or would it fall on to its tail? Well......... the d****d thing sat on its tail!!!!! B*****R!! Plan B had to be brought into action as I will describe later.
I also added the control horns from rod and the joining unit which kept the elevators in unison - also from wire from the telephone.
The rigging took longer than expected because there was rather a lot of it. Voisins had the bracing wires for the wings set on the undersides so these had to be added because otherwise the wings would look very bare. The remainder was as per any other pusher and I rigged it using a sequence that I have developed over many models: starting with the fore-aft wires between the wing struts, then the rear of the bays, front of bays, booms, tail controls, wing controls and finally undercarriage and anti-drag wires at the front. This usually means that I do not have wires getting in the way of where I want to pick up the model and thereby getting damaged. I use rolled 40 SWG copper wire and attach the ends with superglue: touching in some of the glue points finished the job.
Last thing was the wheels. The main wheels had been scratched by winding a length of 20 thou rod around a paintbrush handle and immersing it in boiling water for about 10 seconds. I could then cut "tyres" according to length. The diameter of the paintbrush handle was slightly smaller than the diameter of the wheel so that the "tyre" is sprung on to the edge of the wheel disc: the latter was shaped from 60 thou card. I scribe a circle on the card with a pair of dividers and then cut the circle out roughly, finishing it with a file and glass-paper. The assembly is held with liquid cement. The front wheels were made from Eduard PE as the wheels were spoked and without covers and I have yet to try to make these individually as per the Old Man. The mudguards on the main wheels were cut form plastic card and the Lewis gun came from Aeroclub. After the wheels were glued into place and had dried I brought Plan B into action to make the model sit on its nose wheels. I made a simple block base from a piece of scrap hardwood that was a leftover from some book shelves, varnished it and stuck a piece of felt on to represent grass - nothing elaborate - and superglue did the rest. This one will not sit on its tail again for a long time!
Tomorrow I will post more pictures of the completed model together with some of the historical background of these machines.
In the meantime thanks for looking.
Stephen.
