1/48 Fiesler Storch

[Gearup]

As I had alluded to earlier in the Cook up VE day post, I am going to give a Fiesler Storch a try. It is such a purpose built aircraft that makes sense when you look at all the reasons it looks ike it does. So I've started with the wings. There are a lot of things going on with them that makes it interesting to build. Leading edge slots being the most notable for the model and the rib stitching on the wing and flight controls. I thought I would try a different method for emulating the rib stitching / taping.

I made a small fixture that essentially allows me to follow a straight and perpendicular line across the wing surfaces. General construction of the fixture is two 1"x 0.5"x 10" rails screwed to a board and spaced apart the width (chord) of the wing plus about .5" extra width. I double side taped a copy of the wing plan to reference the rib spacing on top of one of the rails. I placed the wing in reference to the drawing on some spacer blocks to get the top surface to just below the tops off the rails. Double sided tape is used to secure the spacers and wing together on the base. Small pieces only required. Tape of areas that do not have rib stitching ie: smooth panels.

I mixed a small quantity of water proof wood glue  (Elmers glue, PVA that was on hand). The waterproof glue seams to be a bit better at remaining as a raised line. About 2ml of glue thinned with 0.5 ml of water (few drops); enough that it drips off a toothpick. Now using a small square that spans over the wing and sits on top of the rails, line it up with a small offset from the drawing to allow for the pen width. Dip a ruling pen into the glue and touch off the excess. Now draw the pen along the edge of the square to mark the rib. A ruling pen can be adjusted to get the line width you want. I set it about 1/32" wide. Continue along making rib lines, refilling the tip as needed. Since the square is sitting above the wing surface, there is no risk of smearing the wet glue and you can go over a rib again if needed. When done, peel off the tape and continue to finish the model.....
Please see the attached pictures of a test (using a roughly finished test wing) that I did. It only took about 5 minutes to mark the ribs. Building the fixture took about an hour, but it can be used to make future models.

Tools needed:
Ruling pen
Small square
Simple fixture as described above

Materials:
Double sided tape
PVA type glue thinned with water
Regular masking tape

Regards,
Fraser

[lastvautour]

Awesome results. Thank you for the post.

Lou

[Boomerang]

Fraser,

Brilliant !

Gordon

[Gearup]

Bit of a gap in the storch project.  I had a backlog of projects over the past couple of months. So got some shaping of the fuselage under way. I made the station templates from .010" styrene cut on my Silhouette Cameo. It scores the plastic deep enough that the pieces pretty much snap out of the sheet. Popsicle sticks bonded with cyano glue makes them a bit stiffer and easier to handle.  The storch has a rapidly changing cross section so it was a challenge to carve with only a pocket knife and sanding stick used. Ive blocked out the cabin separately as it will be a project by itself.
Fraser

[lastvautour]

Thanks for the update.

Lou

[Boomerang]

Looking forward to more updates.

Gordon

[Gearup]

One thing about building this model is the amount of time I have spent trying to figure out the gear geometry. The Storch gear helped give it the look that gave its name: Stork. Here is how i tackled the problem. The gear was modelled from seven peaches of brass rod and tubing. The tub ing was squashed to give the aerodynamic oval shape of the gear leg fairing. The assorted struts and braces were made from .040 brass wire. There are eight intersections or ends to position at various angles to fit to the fuselage. I suspect I would have really made a mess of the fuselage block trying to figure it out. Therefore I made a fixture to hold the parts in space to allow them to be soldered together.

I cut out a profile of the fuselage at he gear cross section in a piece of 2x4 material. It represented the fuselage at he attachment points and the fuselage elevation above the ground to locate the gear axel points. I drilled holes at the appropriate angles in the block to anchor the gear components. All of the solid wire was cut over length to fit into the holes to be trimmed after assembly. A bit of flux was applied at the joints and the assembly was soldered together. The fixture had to be broken up to remove the part as the gear was totally rigid while in the fixture.

The left and right gear are mirrored so the process was repeated again with another fixture for the left gear. Judging from the burnt and mangled remains of the fixtures, it would not have gone well if done directly on the model. The final tried lengths of the gear braces will be determined after i finish up the gear and see what needs to adjusted on the model.

So I continue on with the Storch. Turns out the gear is actually pretty rugged despite its vaporous appearance.

Regards,
fraser

[Gearup]

Fixture

[Gearup]

Left and right gear assemblies waiting for cleanup.

[lastvautour]

Wow, that is out of my league. Awesome workmanship.

Louis

[Gearup]

Thank you. I think this particular aircraft is a combined collection of aerodynamic requirements using simple engineering in a creative way to get what was needed at the time. The gear is really a series of triangles and tetrahedrons to get the strength it needs. Plus it would have been simple to repair in the field.

Fraser

[Gearup]

Gear trimmed and ready top paint. The wing struts were made from 3/32 brass tubing squashed flat to give it the streamlined profile. Not that the Storch needed streamlined struts... Also in the picture is the tail skid assembly that was used originally. The strut was from a piece of 8 gauge copper electrical wire hammered flat. I find this large copper wire is suitable for parts that need shaping almost like plate material.

Regards,
Fraser

[lastvautour]

Terrific undercarriage Fraser.

Lou

[Boomerang]

Good work Fraser. Squashed brass tube works well for struts.

Cheers
Gordon

[Gearup]

Well I am getting to the markings for my Storch project. Here again are some photos of the masking process` to paint the markings on the fuselage.

I used a photo I took of a Storch to produce a stencil mask on my silhouette vinyl cutting machine. I enjoy working with the cutter as it does so much more than create stuff for my model.

The stencil is applied to the model and then masked off using packing tissue paper to create an aperture around the stencil. The white was sprayed on to create the outlines of the letters. The lines are about 0,040" wide. Easy enough if I only wanted white outlines on the base color.  But the yellow band required a few more steps.

To do that, I removed the inner portion of the mask and replaced the complete letter with a new stencil with the outlines still attached to the mask. I removed the inner portion of the letter mask and left the outer thin mask piece to cover the white lines. So essentially I placed a 0.040" mask over the painted 0.040" wide painted white lines. 

With the white lines now masked, I hand painted black over the yellow to fill the letter. I used a 5/0 pointer brush that was 0.070" wide.

Removing all the stencils resulted in a white outline of three letters filled with the camouflage colours and one white outlined letter filled with black over a yellow band.

So, more to do yet. I think I have to tackle the cabin glass / frames next.

Regards,
Fraser