Donnet-Lévêque Type A, Libramodels, 1:72

[IanB]

Thanks James, the S certainly ties in, as that is the prefix that was used for trainers. I just got hold of a fantastic book called "Seaplanes of Bocche" by Boris Ciglic, which has quite a few pics of this aircraft, but at an earlier date when the number 10 was carried on the tail and there was no Navy Coat of Arms on it. It is a book well worth getting if you have any interest in Austro-Hungarian seaplanes, and has a ton of very good photos, plus quite a few colour profiles.

 I haven't posted much lately simply because I've been working on the struts and that really wasn't very exciting. However I'm now at a point where I can post a couple of pics to show this week's progress.

 The struts were made from .020 x .040 strip which was cut into 18mm lengths. The edges were removed by scraping gently with a scalpel, then a small slot was cut into each end, into which a piece of .010" brass rod was stuck to act as the mounting pins. Once they were dry, the ends of the plastic rod were gently chamfered with a fine sanding stick to give them a more correct shape.

Here's one with only one end done.



 There are 8 wing struts, plus 2 engine mounts, that have been done in this way. The remaining "metal" bracing for the engine and outer wings will be done with brass rod.

 Once they were all done, they were given a base coat of CDL.



 The next step was the wood effect, then all the remaining "wooden" items were given their coat of clear orange.



 The last job then was to give the wing upper surfaces a quick pastel wash to break up the surface a little and give a bit of variance to it. I'm not sure if it really shows in this pic, but it is noticeable to the eye, and a lot better than plain, toneless CDL.



 Now onto drilling the rigging holes.....

Ian

[GAJouette]

 Ian,
Truly awesome skill and craftsmanship my old friend. Been catching here,but will be following now. Well Done Ian!
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[Des]

Lovely work on the wings and the struts Ian, the wood colour is excellent.

Des.

[IanB]

Thanks Gregory and Des, I must admit I'm very pleased with how the wood turned out, far better than I'd hoped!

 I gave everything a gloss coat yesterday, so the first job today was to add the decals. There aren't many: 2 number "10s" on the nose and 2 Austrian Coats of Arms on the rudder. The kit decals for the number are a little too wide but I don't have any alternatives, so they'll do. I did narrow the 0 though by cutting a slice out down the middle, and then overlapping the pieces until it looked right.



 The kit Coats of Arms are far too big, but are accurate as far as having a flat lower edge and low crown. I went with Pegasus ones as the size was better, but they do have a curved bottom edge and the crown is too large.....I still think they look better due to the more accurate size though.

Ian

[RLWP]

It still looks more like a fish than an aeroplane

 

Richard

[RAGIII]

Simply stunning! The decals really compliment the wood tones!
RAGIII

[IanB]

Thanks Richard, Rick, much appreciated!

 A little more progress today in getting the last of the fiddly bits done before tackling the wings. I have added the aileron control sytem to the front cockpit. This aircraft was an "A" Type, which meant it was a wing-warper. However, it is possible that it was repaired, or modified, with another set of wings. The Austro-Hungarians built copies of these so they would have had the later wings available, and this photo



 (the white "10" on the bow, and the Coat of Arms on the tail were added in May 1913) seems to show stagger wires between the outer struts (not present on a wing-warper), a lack of the warping controls (which were fitted to the rear of the aft cockpit), and pulleys towards each end of the upper wings, on the upper surface (for the aileron return wire). Also the trailing edge of the upper wing seems to be displaced as would be the case if ailerons were present. So, ailerons it has!

 The assembly for the controls was made from bits of spare PE, and the wires are the same monofilament fishing line that I will use for the rigging.





 Having added it, I then hid it behind the pilot's seat...



 Then it was time to prepare the struts. They were trial fitted and had the pins trimmed to the correct lengths (very short!), and finally the rigging lines were added to the lower wing.



 So it looks as though tomorrow will be jig time, and the wings will get put together. I've decided to do that before attaching the lower wing to the fuselage, as I can see it all being knocked off if I try to do it after it's been attached.

Ian

Ian

[Des]

The decal on the tail looks brilliant and the cockpit areas are coming together beautifully, looking forward to further updates.

Des.

[RAGIII]

Outstanding interior work! All is looking terrific!
RAGIII

[gbrivio]

Not only a great build log, but a great tutorial to vacuformed models at their top. I'm looking forward to see the finished model.
Cheers
Giuseppe

[IanB]

Many thanks Des, Rick, and Giuseppe, I'm flattered that you see it as a tutorial, it's only my second vacformed kit build!

 Today I did indeed get the jig out and spent the morning measuring everything up and adjusting the jig. I managed to scrape paint off the first 2 struts I fitted so those will need to be touched up, and the engine bearers proved to be just a tiny bit too long, which meant that because of the hole I'd drilled in them for the rigging, they snapped when I bent them! Another job for tomorrow then....

Here's how she sits now, with the wings together and the stagger wires threaded, but not yet secured.



 A couple of them pulled out so I'm going to leave it until tomorrow before attempting to tension them, to be sure they are secure!

Ian

[lcarroll]

    Nice to see the good old reliable AeroClub Jig in action, Ian. An absolute gem and such a sin it's not generally available. It has certainly rescued my efforts more then just a few times over the years! Great work so far, keep at it!
Cheers,
Lance

[IanB]

Many thanks Lance!

 Here is another small update for today. The engine bearers were remade, painted and finally, installed, along with the outer wing braces (.016" brass rod) and these should give the wing assembly a little more lateral strength to enable me to remove it from the jig and rig the flying and landing wires.





 Finishing the rigging will be the next step, with the exception of the front landing/flying wires, which share their holes with the drag wires from the bow, so they will have to wait until the wings have been mounted.

Ian

[IanB]

Hi all,
 A quick update on progress over the weekend.
 The rigging has been completed and trimmed back, the only wires remaining are those which are either attached to the fuselage, or share a hole with one that is.

 The next task was to make a start on the engine. This is what I had to start with.



 The SmallStuff engine is truly a model in itself, and it's tiny - or at least some of the parts (spark plugs) are! I painted all the parts and then added the plugs to the cylinders before removing the latter from the casting block. I did it that way for 2 reasons: 1) It would help me to get the cylinders positioned correctly (all the plugs in the same place), and 2) I couldn't cut the cylinders off with the sparkplugs still on the block!

 So with those done this is what it looked like after a quick Flory wash to highlight the cooling vanes.



 It looks a lot dirtier in the pic than it does to the naked eye. I'm not going to add the rocker arms and pushrods until I'm ready to fit the engine, to reduce the chances of them being broken/knocked off.

 I then too a look at the prop. Unfortunately the one provided with the kit was a tractor prop, not a pusher one, so I had to resort to a bit of kit raiding. I found a 2 bladed pusher prop of the correct type which I won't be needing (it also has a 4 bladed one) in the Eduard DH2 kit, so I nabbed that. It did need a little modification though as the blades were too long, and also a little odd in that instead of being a straight edge from one trailing edge to the opposite leading edge, the blades were at a slight angle to the hub. Easily fixed with a couple of fillets of plastic card and some filler.



After a bit more fettling I had this.



 I had to plug the hole in the centre and redrill it, but after that was done it fitted quite nicely.



 I'll add a PE hub plate after it's all been painted.

 Now I just had to make the mounting plate for it all to fit to, along with the crankshaft, "carb", oil pump and magneto, on the front. Oh, and drill the crankshaft for the tensioning wires.....
 The pate was just plastic card, a 5mm piece of .025" (0.64mm plastic rod was used for the crankshaft, with a similar size piece of Albion Alloys tube glued on the front for the carb inlets. The "shaft" was drilled with a .15mm drill nit and threaded (eventually!) with the required lines. which were secured with CA so they didn't slide out - there is no way they could be refitted once the piece is in place between the wings!



 That was then painted and fitted between the engine mounts already in place between the wings.



 The last item I've been working on is the fuel tank. I had to move the oil line as I had it too far forward and it fouled the rigging lines, so that was done and it has been repainted. Once that is dry the tank can be fitted, then I can start to add the metal braces to the front of the engine mounts.

 Thanks for looking in!

Ian

[lcarroll]

   Some really fine "good old modelling" going on here Ian, that prop work is excellent! Progressing really nicely!
Cheers,
Lance