Hi All,
After a short break I've found myself drawn back to WWI, and the sheer quality of WNW kits. This is the second of the kits RSColonel_131st gave to me, a very generous gift. I'm hoping to put what I learnt building the Pfalz to good use and build a better model the second time round. I'm at the stage of another build where I'm looking for things to do while paint or filler is drying, so this WIP might come in fits and starts initially. No idea which markings I'm going to paint yet, but there are some lovely schemes, but as total Japanophile I'm tempted to do the (beautifully simple) box decals machine flown by Lt. Kawaida in 1921.

The lovely WNW box art.



A little model in it's own right is the Le Rhone rotary engine. This is painted with Alclad colurs, and Humbrol copper for the fuel pipes. I only added wiring to the sparking plugs.



Although it's a complex piece of engineering it's stunningly primitive compared to today's internal combustion engines. There's no filter over the air intake, and no collection from the exhaust valves. As far as I can tell, the whole engine rotated around a fixed crank shaft, carrying the propellor with it. The gyroscopic forces must have been enormous, and I believe modified rudder / elevator control to be totally counter intuitive at high power settings. Scary stuff..


This is the cockpit floor and control column, with EZLine control cables installed.


And the port side of the cockpit area framework, with rigging internal using Bob's Buckles.


I think I'll pose the model in a simple scene, with the lower part of the engine cowling off, with this figure, and perhaps another, working out why it's 'not quite firing right'. (A good excuse to learn some figure painting skills.)

The offset crankshaft gave a totally smooth circular movement to the cylinder heads, with no abrupt acceleration/deceleration cycle, on a different centre to the centre of the crankcases.

This lead to a much higher power to weight ratio for rotary engines compared to inline or radial engines of a similar technology level.

The effect of the rotating crankcase eliminates the requirement for a flyweight to smooth the engine speed, and the overall impact of the rotating mass is no more than that of the bare propeller, so it is approximately double that of a radial of the same power. This is significant, but not nearly to the extent that is sometimes suggested.

Control issues come as much from the control and aerodynamic configurations as from the minor impact of gyroscopic pitch/yaw coupling. Torque is often very high and even when engineering solutions eliminate all gyro effects (as with the Siemens Halske rotary, where the propeller rotated opposite to the crankcase at half the nominal 1800 rpm each), the control in turns or the climb is affected by the large torque of the slow rotating large diameter propellers.

That's really interesting Lieste, thanks. Does my memory play tricks on me, or did early engines of this configuration have only a full throttle / tick over 'buzz' switch? If so, were they properly throttleable by this time?

They were pretty much “on” or “off”. You could get some minor control on some of them with the fuel/air mixture, but it wasn’t like true throttle control. Also of note was the oil loss.

Total oil loss. A very nice fine spray of castor oil was unavoidable for the pilot. Mmmmm, tasty!

On air filters for aircraft, I've come to the notion that they're placed on carburetors for the main purpose of keeping bugs and critters out while parked in a hangar.

Some had intermediate position(s). Iirc this was achieved by disconnecting the mags from the cylinder spark plugs..

Have fun with the 35 rigging wires.

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/Jamo_kiwi/media/bWVkaWFJZDoxNjI3NDAwMw==/?ref=

real Japanese markings,

https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.S6VbjH09WhZiTtEJefOJsgHaKi&pid=Api

That dude has the biggest camel toe i've ever seen, no wonder he is confused and damn rotaries, the bane of my existence back in the day at the drags. Nothing worse than getting beaten by a little blat!blat!blat! engined car when you're running 5.7 litres. Mongrels. Looking forward to another lovely WWI kit Goon.

There were many different ways of managing the engine as engineers attempted to get the best performance and convenience from their installations by experimentation and incremental change.

The simplest was the magneto switch, but related was the coupe/blip switch which would cut a proportion (or all) of the ignitions, with reduced power in proportion, but also increased fire risk in extended use as fuel and oil were still supplied, and would pool inside the cowling. (There was always a lot of oil here and under the fuselage as the total loss oil system continually released castor oil in operation, but the amount of fuel and oil lost outboard increases by at least 7-8 times when the engine is turning without ignition, if the fuel cutoff isn't also used).

For later installations there was also the possibility to vary fuel and air supply by two throttles. (e.g with the DR1). A typical idle would then be ~800 rpm, with 1200-1250 rpm the rated rpm, and an rpm at maximum speed of around 1300-1350 rpm, where power exceeds the rated one by some significant amount.

The Pup used a Monosoupape engine, which as far as I can tell only has a very limited ability to control power with throttles, and used the coupe switch as it's primary moderation of power. The two port Clerget and LeRhone engines (and their derivatives) were more flexible in operation.

Interesting discussion everyone, thanks.

I've been cracking on with the Pup. Here is the instrument panel, which I dressed up with Yahu instruments. I lost a bezel and replaced it with some flattened lead wire. I little thicker than it should be, but it looks OK.



And Barracuda's replacement wicker seat. Amazing to think that not much more than 40 years later this would have evolved in to a seat that's almost an aircraft in its own right.



This is the internal structure of the cockpit before installation.





And a couple of shots of it in the starboard fuselage half before closing up.



Here you can see the 'blind' end of the control cables for the rear flying surfaces. These are very delicate and giving me fits whenever I handle the model, but it's the only way I could think of to avoid the mess I made of them on the Pfalz.



I've started the wings also, here is the masking I've had to do so I can prime with white to make the rib tapes lighter under the RFC PC10 Green. I had to do this for the upper and lower surfaces of both wings and the horizontal tail. It took bloody ages and almost a whole roll of tape!



Thanks for looking in, more soon,
Gareth

Looking Good !

Beautiful!

More true artistry from Goon.

Saves me money I can't afford to spend, just like listening to Carlos Santana keeps me from buying a guitar. Museum quality stuff IMO.

Yep, it's decided. I hate you and your insane attention to detail.

Scary really. A wicker seat and a lapbelt as the only thing holding you into an airplane when you fly loopings...

In a loop, you should have positive 'g' on all the way over, so inertia holds you in... I would expect that a failure of the seat during the pull out was more of a risk than falling out at the apex.

MilSpec wicker...whoud'a thunk!

A very small update. (Pupdate?) Most of the green is on, still the top and sides of the fuselage to do, but I've had to stop painting for the day as Ted is insisting on keeping me company in the shed. He's about the size of small wookiee so I can't get to the spray booth. He usually lies outside but it's very wet today. I'm not too bothered. I've got beer, Hankook 24hrs of Barcelona stream and umpteen projects to think about and plan. A lovely way to spend the afternoon.

Hi All,
Here's an update showing the main colours going on.

After a primer coat I masked off the wing rib tapes, and sprayed them white. I also did this for the main spars. The thickness of the paint has raised it the markings slightly, but this will look fine when it's flatted back and the wing in the correct orientation. (Almost a whole roll of Tamiya tape was used!)




I also did this on the fuselage, where the ribbing is represented in the moulding. The tape lifted some of this off but it was easily touched in after this was taken.




After adding some low lights to the upper leading edges it was out with the Xtracolour RFC Natural Doped Fabric for the undersides. This is built up slowly to just leave the impression of the white stripes.




After that I masked off the entire underside again, excepting a narrow strip around the edge that the RFC PC10 Khaki wraps around to. This had to be done for both wings and the horizontal tail. I've put on the top cockades because I want to avoid handling too much once the wing anchor points are in.




You can just see that here.



Thanks for looking in, more soon,
Gareth

I echo Dart, amazing attention to detail.

Now when you are done that I need a small spray job done on one of my cars... got a whole bodyshell that needs a complete respray, will you manage with your airbrush?

Might need the 0.5mm nozzle...

Cracked on with the rigging this afternoon. There are fourteen anchors and cables here. There's fourteen anchor points and cables. The four outer pairs (if not all) should be the RFC style aerodynamic profile wires. You can buy stuff of the correct profile but I can't see how you tension them easily and in the correct orientation. Reading around it seems that even at 1/32 scale you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference, and it's hard to keep any tension in them over time. I'm going to go down the simpler, more reliable route of fishing line and Bob's Buckles I used on the Pfalz. When I did the Pfalz (my first go at this) the upper wing with fewer points took the best part of the day. These took 3 hours or so, so I'm getting better.

A quick phone shot, hopefully showing the effect of the shading under the clear linen colour.

Gareth

The modeling skills that some of you have is really humbling to me.

Fantastic !

Looking good! You have seen that Wingnuts are releasing a 1/32 Lancaster soon? I imagine that would be quite the build...Goon;)

Yes, I saw the announcement. I'm sure the kit will be amazing, but I bet it's North of £300, at the very least. Not my area of interest but I could be tempted! (Like I need any more projects!)

A 1/32 Lancaster Bomber ? Holy &%$#, Where would ya put it ?

Personally I'd devise a system for storing it in the apex of the shed roof. If one of the recurring 1/48 Vulcan rumours ever comes true it's the only solution (that won't involve Sarah divorcing me!)

Goon your pup is beautiful.

Don't want to derail your thread but this guy here is working on a 1/32 Lanc. It's quite an undertaking.

1/32 Lancaster.

Wow! (Please don't post any more links to 1/32 Lancasters - sheer curiosity about building something so big and detailed as the WNW kit is almost overwhelming! Please see previous comments re. marital status for reasons why this is a bad idea...)

Had to look at the link....

First post: Mar 13, 2013

Builders last Post: Jun 28, 2018

Still not finished I guess and it's been some months since the builder has posted. Seems he has had some big gaps before.

It's not a plastic kit, Wood and Metal!

That's not a project, it's a career!

If anyone is really interested in building a nice large scale aircraft for not a lot of money, and they don't mind putting in some time and labor, go over the the RC Group webpage and look at the "Scale Kit/Scratch Built" forum. Of course these are RC aircraft but many are as detailed as a lot of pure display aircraft, and of course any can be as detailed as you care to make them.


Oh, if you don't think scratch built aircraft made from foam can look good just peruse ANYTHING made by forum member "J Morgan" over there: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=3728

The scale RC guys are incredible.

Heck, I was having some problems finding a user-friendly weight and balance calculator for my big biplane and found a couple with the RC community.

When I finally tracked down an "official" one, turns out the RC guys were right on the money with theirs, too.

Hi All,
A quick phone photo update. I've started the main rigging, here's the undercarriage bracing wires in place. This is done using "Bob's Buckles" anchor points and turnbuckles. They are not exact scale representations, but it's an acceptable trade off for easy, reliable rigging.



More soon,
Gareth

Hello everyone,
The Pup is progressing nicely. Some shots of the finished (nearly) tail area, and the cockpit area. I forgot to close the aperture down, and no time to take more photos before bedtime, so a bit too much bokeh!. I'll get some better ones later on.

Here's the tail area, with all the rigging and control wires in place. On seeing these I can see the skid is a bit 'steep' so I'll need to check references and correct if necessary. There's a touch up to the 'wood' needed too. I've had a bit of a mishap with the rudder decals which I'm hoping will disappear under flat varnish. It's still gloss here.





And the cockpit area. The gun is in place, but missing its leather 'butt pad' and cartridge belt at the moment, The leather padding round the cockpit area is also mostly complete, but needs a bit more shading, and the studs picking out. Simulating leather is something I'm really trying to master. I also hope you can see the stretch of the linen over the frame work on the 'pit sides. It's perhaps a bit too subtle, but I'd rather that than 'over the top' as seen on so many models. (Also, I haven't got the skills to match the some of the amazing work I've seen. )





Thanks for looking in, more soon,
Gareth

Here's the cartidge belt. This is pretty small, each shell about 3.5mm long.



And here's where we are up to in general. The rigging is done. This was much more complex than the Pfalz, and more challenging, so I'm really pleased with the result. I'm toying with the idea of using a marker to colour it silver. (I trialled it on the tail plane braces so I'll probabky need to make it all the same colour.) I need to apply another flat coat to even some areas that have had some wear from handling, and do a little weathering.



Thanks for looking in,
Gareth

Yep, I hate you.

Amazing detailed work. Compared to that my modeling skills would look like masonry.

Quite amazing work there, it looks very good indeed, and the charging handle on the machine gun it looks like you whittled down a piece of wood for that!



A friend who is a gunsmith was just starting out to renovate an old mid 19th century house he had just bought, we were wondering why he wasn't progressing in the work, he had been there from 17:00 to 22:45 every night and for weeks laying the floor in the lounge. So a couple of us decided to take a visit one evening and there he was with a template maker cutting his new floorboards to the millimetre to fit along the stone wall, after we pointed out that there needed to be a bit of tolerance to allow for expansion and contraction of the wood he got along much faster, precision depends on the application

Wow that is simply amazing work!

Your next project goon?



https://modelexpo-online.com/model-airways-nieuport-28-rickenbacker-1-16-scale

With your fantastic modelling skills would make a great model (half covered - other half open)

So...do it yourself???

Sorry, been away for week. That Nieuport looks amazing, and a half covered one would be superb. I have a balsa glider to construct at some point, so if the bug bites, who knows?

Hi All,
The Pup is finished. Here is a quick shot of it. I have a few completions coming along together so I will get some better shots of the detail when I get my camera gear out. Thanks for following along, and again to RS_Colonel for the gift of the kit. I learnt so much building this and the Pfalz, and will be browsing WNW catalogue when I fancy a break from my usual themes. (I'm addicted to the rigging process, so absorbing.)

Another well done excellent mod el.

Outstanding model, as usual. Looking forward to some more pics, and it's my pleasure to see the kit having done to such capable hands

Superb build Goon, that prop really finishes off! The rigging looks great with that marker application as well. Look forward to you getting the camera out and posing her.

Hi All,
I got some shots of the Pup taken this afternoon. Here are some to show the completed model. As ever, thanks to RSColonel for the gift of this kit and the chance to learn some new skills I've always been a bit 'afraid' of, and to you all for following along and your very generous comments.







Here you can see the split axle method of adding to some 'suspension' to the undercarriage. There would normally be some bungee cord over the top of the axle and under the faired strut below, pulling the wheel down. I stupidly forgot to add these parts and it proved impossible to rectify.













Happy New Year everyone!

Beautiful workmanship! Museum quality.

That rigging detail and the weathering all around...amazing.

Looks really nice.


Wheels

Thanks for the positive comments.

Hi, agree with everyone else what a lovely model this is.
Just one thing that jumped out at me is the very squared off cowling which I have never seen on a Pup before. All references show the usual rounded off front end where yours is very squared off. Any ideas?

Amazing!

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the comments.

I just followed the instructions for the Pup cowling. There are two supplied in the kit, an either or is fitted depending on which example you choose. I can't shed any light on the reasons for the difference I'm afraid. (WNW kits and 'assembly and reference guide' are impeccably researched, so I have no reason to doubt them.)

Gareth

The squared off cowl seems to be specific to those built by Standard motor co. This seems to also be related to the 100hp Gnome Monosoupape in place of the Sopwith, Beardmore and Whitworth built examples which used the 80hp le Rhone engine and the rounded cowl.

Standard built roughly half of the total production, and I haven't to my recollection seen any example of one with a le Rhone (except for the recent rebuild for RNAS Yeovilton, where a le Rhone engine and cowl was used in preference to modifying the airframe to take a radial).

WOW !

http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/productdetail?productid=30&cat=1
Photos from Wingnut of the Pup.

There is an equivalent page for the RFC pup as well (different kit). http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/productdetail?productid=28&cat=1

The Standard model appears in both, alongside the leRhone Sopwith/Beardmore 9901a/Whitworth types.