Lohner B.II
by Tom Plesha

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I decided to deviate from the construction as the kit would normally be made as strictly my choice, no reflection on the kit whatsoever.

There is very very little info available for the details for this aircraft. A lot of the interior comes from reviewing whatever info is available on it, info on other aircraft of that period etc.

The interior framing, flooring, bulkheads are all made from styrene. The rigging in the frame is functional and I used "invisible thread", which I will not use again for this type of rigging. There are 162 holes drilled in the frame for the rigging to pass thru.

The seats are made from .003 thou. aluminum with the cushions made from styrene which has been sanded to show wear, covered with masking tape to simulate leather. The seat belts are Eduard.

The control column is styrene with the kit PE wheel covered with thick paint to simulate the wood rim.
Rudder bar is styrene with wire stirrups.

The control column pulleys and all other pulleys are all made from .003 thou aluminum using a Waldron micro punch set. All of the pulley brackets are made from .003 thou aluminum. The control cables are all .004 thou monofiliment that will run from the controls to the rudder, ailerons, elevators, etc.

The turnbuckles are made from HO guage lift rings, styrene and CA gel.

The throttle is made from styrene, wire and thick paint for the wood. The "wobble pump" is made from brass tubing, brass wire and styrene with aluminum brackets for mounting.

The "skin" is the kit parts thinned considerably on the inside removing all detail and re-cut to follow the "lace lines", simply for the ease of painting and building the plane in sections.

Engine and Framework: The engine is scratchbuilt. I used a portion of the kit block, the rest is scratched from styrene, brass, wire, copper, etc. The cylinders are turned down rod and tubing, the rocker arms, crankcase, motor mounts, magneto, etc. are all styrene. The pushrods are SS wire, the coolant tubes are brass rod, the spark plugs and wiring are wire, the nuts, bolts, etc. are hex rod and wire. The exhaust are brass tubing thinned out with variance in rust-wear-etc. Each rocker arm is at a different angle to simulate cam action. Prop is a Digmeyer with CSM prop bosses with scratched nuts/bolts. Intake is copper wire, etc. The engine is weathered with water colors, oil paint, acrylics and baby powder for rust simulation on the exhaust.
The framework is all styrene with SS wire rigging. At final assembly I'll do the final plumbing, wiring, etc. to the guages, fuel tank, switches, etc.
Spoke Wheels: A variation of Harry Woodmans technique. I used 10 templates and jigs to construct the wheels, hubs and spokes. Each wheel half has its own rim, which is mostly covered up by the mud/dirt/etc. I'm doing a "tired" aircraft that just landed.
Wheel construction overview: Nylon rings were cut down to desired O.D., the inside was bored out to desired I.D., all four wheels were ground down to the appropiate thickness producing 4 wheel halfs, each was countersunk to accept the .020 styrene rings to simulate the rim edges, After CA'ing the rings into each half, they were placed into a template to locate the spokes, of which the locations were sawed out, .007 thou monofiliment was stretched between each half in a jig and CA'd. The hubs are made from .060 thou styrene rod drilled for the axles, the ring portions are made from shaped .020 thou styrene sanded to angles for the spoke angles and glued to the axles. Each wheel half, using jigs, has the spokes CA'd to the outside of the hubs and then they were joined together.
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