Greetings from High Plains

[High Plains]

Greetings!

I just wanted to introduce myself. I am a transplanted urbanite living for the past two years in a small town in southeastern Colorado (hence "High Plains"). I've been looking at the board for a while now, but Lou's "mentoring" invitation kind of pushed me forward. I'm a complete novice when it comes to solid scale aircraft.

My primary aircraft interests are early flight, pre-war and post-war civil propliners and Soviet / eastern bloc civil aircraft. I'm interested in working in 1/144 scale.

I've model railroaded off and on through the years, but I've become disillusioned with the state of the hobby which emphasizes collecting over modeling and the cost has gotten to the point where it's unaffordable to most mortals. I've been looking at "traditional" scratch building techniques, which is what brought me to this forum. I've done a little paper modeling, and while I think paper modeling has a lot of things going for it, I also don't think it's the right medium for aircraft.

I started scratchbuilding a 1/144 model of a Farman F.250, which I based on a paper model I found at http://www.maquettes-papier.net/forumenpapier/topic9617.html#p106830. (The model is 1:160, but I enlarged it to 1:144). I've carved a decent body (not 100% happy with it, but it's decent), but I think I'm going to run into trouble with the wings, which are a little bit unusual. I'd be happy to hear any tips or guidance on carving 1/144 scale aircraft -- I know it's probably more challenging than 1:72. 

Look forward to getting to know you.

-- Jeremy

[Peter]

Hey Jeremy,

Welcome to the forum. I am to new to offer any advice but I'm sure Lou, Barry and everybody else will offer you lots of useful suggestions. I hear what you saying about model railroading. I switched to model building from war gaming for the same reason. I have built quite a few paper models mostly architectural with few ships and planes as well. What I don't like about paper models is they are just to fragile. Anyway welcome and I'm looking forward to seeing photos of your work.

Peter

[lastvautour]

Welcome Jeremy. I have done the model railroad, flying models all types, plastics(still dabble) and my favorite solid wood from scratch. I have a small collection of 1/144 scale at http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/SMF/index.php?topic=751.0

I have found that carving 1/144 scale requires no more than a sharp blade, some extra fine sandpaper and a bit of patience. I will look into the Farman F-250 as I am not familiar with it. I will be pleased to pass on any help I may be able to offer.


Lou

I am seriously looking at making a DHC-2 Beaver in 1/144 scale in the near future.

[1.JaVA_LGorrit]

Hi Jeremy,

Welcome aboard.
I am a complete novice too to solid modeling.
Lou is helping me out on my first model and I am truly amazed on how nice it is coming along.

Good luck and it would be nice to see some pictures of what you have done so far.

Jorrit

[High Plains]

Welcome Jeremy. I have done the model railroad, flying models all types, plastics(still dabble) and my favorite solid wood from scratch. I have a small collection of 1/144 scale at http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/SMF/index.php?topic=751.0

I have long admired your collection here on SSM and on Flicker. Your models are beautiful.

I have found that carving 1/144 scale requires no more than a sharp blade, some extra fine sandpaper and a bit of patience.I will look into the Farman F-250 as I am not familiar with it. I will be pleased to pass on any help I may be able to offer.

The Farman F.250 was a French four passenger plane built in the early 1930's. Due to stability issues, only one of them was built. So it's a rare, obscure bird. I chose it because the paper model was an easy source for templates and I figured that the square shape of the prototype would be relatively easy to carve. And then I realized that the wings were unusual.

This is my second go at it. I originally tried pine, but found it difficult to deal with the grain. I've now carved a body out of basswood, which was a lot easier. I'll post a picture of the body sometime soon.

I am seriously looking at making a DHC-2 Beaver in 1/144 scale in the near future.

That's a great looking plane -- I might have to build one too.

Lou, would you be willing to do one of those Novice WWII ID threads with me? I was thinking of a 1/144 scale DC-3.

[High Plains]

Hi Jeremy,

Welcome aboard.
I am a complete novice too to solid modeling.
Lou is helping me out on my first model and I am truly amazed on how nice it is coming along.

Good luck and it would be nice to see some pictures of what you have done so far.

Jorrit

Thanks for the welcome! I've been watching your thread, Jorrit. Looks really good.

[Balsabasher]

High Plains the wings are not too bad,I will add this to my list of builds for the future and you can see how I will tackle things,the aircraft has real character to it and yes that is such a interesting period in aviation,there must be plans somewhere for this if not I will do my own from photographs,was it the corrugations that were putting you off ?
Barry.

[High Plains]

High Plains the wings are not too bad,I will add this to my list of builds for the future and you can see how I will tackle things,the aircraft has real character to it and yes that is such a interesting period in aviation,there must be plans somewhere for this if not I will do my own from photographs,was it the corrugations that were putting you off ?
Barry.

That would be great and I would really appreciate it.

It's the dihedral of the wings that's throwing me -- I can't quite visualize how these wings are shaped. The direct link to the paper model that I'm using is http://www.maquettes-papier.net/forumenpapier/download/file.php?id=20612. I blew up the copy from 1:160 to 1:144 and cut out the sides and glued them to basswood. This method, however, isn't helping me figure out the wings.



I didn't notice that the plane was corrugated. At some point, I'd like to do a Ford Tri-Motor and a Junker 52, but I'm trying not to think about the corrugated sides. 

[Balsabasher]

If you put Farman F250 into Google it comes up with some interesting pictures of mostly models of this aircraft,a search for a plan has so far  come up with nothing,but they must have used one to do that card model,it would be easy enough to do a drawing and cut some wood.

Regarding corrugations these are best done with twine wrapped cordwise around the wings then doped,it looks most effective,for fuselages use Slaters corrugated sheet stuck down over the wood,I once built a Junkers W.34 this way and it looked very effective,perhaps a tutorial for the future ?

Barry.

[lastvautour]

Are these the plans for the Farman.



Lou

[Balsabasher]

Yes they are Lou,any chance of showing these full size ?
Barry.

[lastvautour]

I don't think they come any bigger on the net. Perhaps if you download them. I just did not want to go through the trouble of doing so. Lazy in my old age!!

http://s317.photobucket.com/user/mauther/media/planelin.jpg.html

Lou

[High Plains]

Are these the plans for the Farman.



Lou

It's an earlier version of the same model. The designer went back and made improvements, but it's the same basic model that I linked to earlier. http://www.maquettes-papier.net/forumenpapier/download/file.php?id=20612

J

[Balsabasher]

If we could fuzz it up then a model could be built from these,any chance of drawing around your originals High Plains ? then placing them here.
Barry.

[lastvautour]

Try this one.