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Kit: Hi-Tech (1:48)
I normally don't shoot any pics during construction, but I felt it was a good idea with this kit because of how long a project it will be. The engine now has paint on it and looks incredible, despite my original thoughts that the resin was chunky. The guys in my modeling group thought I had added a bunch of detail, but it's just as the kit comes with a coat of paint.
The booms were terrible. The strut parts weren't too bad at all, just needed some cleanup, so they were seperated from the round parts and styrene rod was cut to the proper lengths and used. I used a round file to concave the ends of the struts and a drop of Tenax to weld them together. The structures are suprisingly strong and much straighter than the S-warped kit pieces. Scratching it took only a few minutes a piece, so it was also a lot quicker than sanding off all the flash and attempting to make the booms round. They were also warped so badly that no amount of hot water even got them close to straight. There's still some finishing sanding and a touch of puttying to be done, but a point of stress for me on the kit went together easily.
The nacelle isn't done, but most of the internal structure is. I used styrene strips of various thicknesses and widths to make a good representation of the interior. .010" sheet styrene was used for the floor instead of the nightmare of puttying and sanding inside the nacelle. The engine mount rails are included in the kit, but the brass parts were too difficult to bend and keep they're shape, so styreen stock was used once again. The kit pieces are about an inch and a half long, 1/8" wide and are supposed to be bent in half lengthwise.
The wings have been de-warped(not that bad, only about 5 minutes or so per wing under the hot water), pinned and Tenax's together. I still need to sand and putty the joints, but they're suprising strong and droop resistant especially considering their size and how remarkably thin they are. The Xacto knife is there for scale. The wingspan is about twice that of a Fokker D.VII.
It's been a bit since I've updated this. I've been working a lot on the project, and not taking the time to stop and take photos. There's a contest in a couple weeks I really want to take this to, so I didn't want to spend time photographing it.
The nacelle is mostly completed with the exception of the machine gun mounts, which seem to be one receiver for each side, but only one side gets a complete mount. The engine is mounted and the styrene things sticking up will be trimmed and mounted into an exhaust collector. About 90% of the interior is scratched or ripped from the parts bin. Various switches, guages, etc, were stolen from a number of photo etched sheets, mostly from Copper State and Eduard. Most everything else was done from styrene stock, micro solder, and small diameter wire. Among the kit parts are the control wheel, the pilot's seat, both sets of seat belts, the basic, flat shape for the instrument panel, the rudder pedal faces, and the rear bulkhead. Seat cushions were made from paper towel layered, cut to shape, wetted, and then soaked with thin CA.
The tail booms were completed along with the fuel tanks on the foward most struts. Everything was then puttied, painted and rigged with 4lb fishing line. This is one of those projects that has to be rigged as you go, not only because it'd be nearly impossible to get to all the rigging points once it's assembled, but breaking the rigging down into sections does a lot to save your sanity.
The rear wheels are resin and were cleaned up, but not pictured. The kit came with both resin and injected rear wheels and front tires. I chose the resin rear wheels because they looked better to me. I used the plastic front tires because of all the trimming necessary to make the etched spoked fit right and the resin in the kit is really brittle.
Not shown, the upper wing had it's various holes, slots, etc cut into it. The rib detail on both wings that got sanded off was restored with strip styrene glued down and then sanded down to blend in with the kit's raised rib detail. The rudder and elevators were cleaned up. I drilled the elevators for their pin that would be it's mount. The struts were cleaned up, and I decided I would use the kit's struts. I figure that they'll be plenty strong , especially considering there's 7 on each side, counting the foward tail boom struts.
Alright, I'm still plugging along on this monster. A big thanks goes to Mike Kavanaugh, who sent me invaluable copies of some drawings from the Smithsonian of their Voisin 8, which is very similar to the 10. Also, a big thanks to Knut Erik for the cd full of images, including an earlier Voisin.
Alright, construction continues. The holes for all the rigging were drilled. The roundels were painted on using a large Tamiya paint bottle cap for the outer pattern and various sizes of circle Eduard masks. I now have an engineer's circle template, so I will never have to dig around for something to make a pattern from again.
The nacelle was mounted to the lower wing using .032" brass rod. The kit provided rod was a bit oversized for the places it's intended. I may use it on the undercarriage, but I'll have to see how it looks there too. The tail boom assembly was mounted to the wing as well. The elevator's hardware on the trailing edge of the center of the wing was added and the front sections were rigged. The rudder was then mounted and rigged all the way back. The pulley's were again photo etch and styrene concoctions I made from the spare's bin.
More riggin was done under the fuel tanks. The smaller brass rod was used to make the center wing support. The front 4 pieces that mount ahead of the engine were easy. It was the rear two that gave me issues. That's the nice way of puting it anyway. I really need to grow a third hand and none of this would be an issue. They go between the 2nd and 3rd rear-most cylninders on each side and mount to the nacelle. Then the horizontal bar was mounted.
The aileron control horns that came in the kit, which are actually pretty nice, were folded, mounted on each wing, for 4 total, and rigged. I don't know if the rigging or their location is completely accurate, but it's the best I figure from the reference material I have. The multitude of struts were added, with the exception of the one that connects the ailerons. These were actually glued in several times, but got snapped off so many times that I eventually figured I could fit them when the top wing gets mounted. They need to be trimmed a bit anyway.
The radiators were cleaned up, painted, and dry brushed. I mounted them to the side of the nacelle and used solder to plumb them to the motor. Again, probably not 100% accurate, but as a real life car guy, it looks ok to me. The top wing had a hole drilled for the raidator fill tube. The puttied over and re-drilled 1/8" over in the correct spot.
The machine gun mounts were made and mounted in duplicate, one on each side. 2 sizes of styrene rod were used, and some how I managed to drill a hole into the end of each one in the center on the first try to make it look like a tube. On one, a machine gun mount was made from more bits of styrene rod. The machine gun is being painted, but not shown here.
The hole to recieve the elevator's pin was re-drilled and the mounted up. It still pivots because of the tiny bit of surface area actually touching the tail, but once rigged, it won't anymore. There's only about 1/16" of .5mm steel pin touching the rear of the booms.
The reasons the roundels were painted were that I wanted them to match the rudder stripes, they are easier to weather and touch up in paint, and most importantly, the kit decals don't work. I tried them out with the nacelle's nose art, a bit skeptical. They are made by FCM, being wet transfer. Ideally, you'd apply like a normal decal, wait 24 hours, and peel up the overly thick film, leaving only the ink. I don't know what I did wrong, but after 24 hours, when I went to peel back the film, it took the ink with it, leaving nothing behind. I tried waiting longer on the other side, and it didn't help. I tried setting solution, since the instructions on the decals said you could. It didn't help. So, I figured my plane doesn't need nose art and I could paint the roundels. That's pretty much all it comes with in the way of decals anyway.
The top wing had it's rigging mounted. I didn't even want to think about trying to mount the anchored sides with the top wing mounted, so it was done prior to the big day, when the top wing goes on. This kind of gives a hint of how much rigging there is. I don't know if I even have it all. I plan on adding at least a few pieces once everything's together. What's scary is that what's on the top wing doesn't even scratch the surface. There's still all the exposed control cables, undercarriage rigging, and tail boom rigging. There's also some more brass rods that need to go from the upper wing to the nacelle. They'll get cut to size and added when the top wing's fitted.
The prop was carved by me out of laminated strips of veneer and varnished with thin CA. It isn't bad for my first attempt(well, 1 1/2 attempt....the first attempt was actually better, but as soon as I made the first cut to determine the pitch, something didn't seem right and sure enough, I'd started carving the wrong way), and it looks ok enough to hold me over, but a Mary Digmayer prop is on order from Copper State Models. As soon as I get the CSM prop in, this ones going to get tossed aside. The prop hubs are CSM as well. The kit prop is white metal, but the pour stub is on the underside of one of the tips, so I couldn't remove the stubb without thinning that side too much. Even then, the outline of the stub remained.
I definately want to find some better and different colors of veneer and keep trying to carve props. It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It only took a few hours in front of the TV carving.
I should have this thing wrapped up shortly. It's getting increasingly fragile and my fat fingers seem to catch on everything. I think after this, I'm going to have to find a nice snap together model to work on.
This part is pretty short. It represents only a few days, and my full size car was giving me fits, so the Voisin's only gotten part of my attention. I wouldn't have normally updated this soon, but getting the top wing on was a momentous occasion and I wanted to share. Other than some other minor tweaking, trimming struts to make the wing fit properly, etc, all that was done was the top wing.
It's really starting to look like it's supposed to now. After the rigging for the top wing is complete, I can turn my attention to the undercarriage and it's rigging. Then it's just a few detail parts and all the touch up, then she's done.
This kit has been done for a few months. I've just been lazy about posting the pics and writing up the summary. It was a project I was suprisingly sad to see finsihed. Now I'm having a hard time getting into any other project since single engine fighters made by Eduard and the likes are so much simpler in comparison.
Mostly what was done here was a ton of touch up, a bit of weathering and the addition of all the final little bits. The specifics have faded a bit, but there are a few noteworthy points. The rusting on the exhaust collector was done with MIG pigments, a first for me. The base coat for the rust was done by mixing the pigments with acylic flat coat, which dried to a rough texture. Then, various colors of pigments, rust, white, darker brown, etc, were applied.
The undercarriage dusting was done with regular pastels.
Once the rigging was done, the model was actually pretty sturdy. I never counted the pieces of rigging and I don't think I want to. It just seemed as though everytime I thought I had it all, I needed to add a couple more pieces.
Lead was added to wherever I could find, which was pretty much limited to the pilot's seat mount and in the bomb bay. This wasn't enough and it ended up a tail dragger. Hence the base. It also gives the model a finished look and makes it much, much easier to handle. It's made up of a pre-cut wood piece that I sanded, stained, and varnished. The model is pinned to the base with .05mm stainless steel micro tubes.
A big thanks goes out to Mike Kavanaugh, who sent me some very good blue prints he received from the Smithsonian. I would have had a hard time getting the kit together without it. Also, thanks to all on the list who helped with smaller bits of information and the suggestion to just go ahead and start the kit.
These are the additional final photos of the completed Voisin.