WW1 aeroplanes

[Jim]

My favorites are the First World War aeroplanes. Some of these are painted, and some in natural wood finish.

First, The Dolphin...

[Jim]

Next, an SE-5 I made for my father. It's always been his favorite aeroplane...Lots of different kinds of wood in this one.

[Jim]

Finally, a Bristol Monoplane. Not very good pictures, I'm afraid. The color scheme was that of an instructor's aircraft, which I found someplace...

[cliff strachan]

A really nice Dolphin. I'm especially impressed by the detail. But what scale is it? And how did you do the ribbing and the wiring?
Cliff

[Jim]

Hmmmm, scale...

As I say, I don't really pay much attention to scales because to me it's more important that the models be large enough to show details, yet small enough to fit on a shelf or atop a bookcase. Usually I just take the plans as I find them and re-size them on the computer, larger if they're too small, or smaller if they're too big. When I had access to a printer that could print on 11 x 17 paper, I used that a lot; I don't anymore, but fortunately I took the time to re-size a lot of plans when I did. Mostly, I try to keep aeroplanes to a wingspan of 12 inches or less, the better to fit the available display space at home.

The Dolphin has a wingspan of 11 inches and is about 8 inches from prop boss to rudder. The Lewis gun, for comparison purposes, is about 2 inches long.

The ribbing was done with little strips of masking tape -- the 1/16" kind used for pinstriping on model cars. The rigging was done with silver-floss thread. I just drilled little holes through the struts or into the fuselage and anchored it with glued-in pieces of wooden toothpick. Shorter lengths are pieces of old banjo strings.

[lastvautour]

Excellent work Jim.

Lou

[cliff strachan]

Thanks Jim for the info. I believe that there are quite a number of different ways to achieve the results as far as rigging and ribbing is concerned - and therefore my many requests concerning members' methods of attacking the problem. Great detailing.
(I even went so far as to attempt to place the rigging for a biplane in such a way that all that was supposed to happen was that only one thread was planned to be pulled and all the rigging would follow into position - only partly successful.)
Cliff.

[Jim]

Cliff:

Yup, rigging can be a nightmare sometimes. For the SE-5, I used monofilament fishing line, which holds much better when glued than the embroidery floss. I drew it all up nice and tight, and it looked great, but when it contracted, after having been stretched, it actually reduced the dihedral on the wings! You can see it in the photos. I was upset at first, but eventually I recalled reading that at least one RFC squadron had experimented with rigging their SE-5s with reduced dihedral to make them less inherently stable and improve maneuverability!

I think that might go under the heading, "Modelers' rationalization..."

[cliff strachan]

Thanks again Jim. Another tool, one that I employ a lot but only now know the name for it, you have generously provided. It is called "Modelers' rationalization".
Cliff.