RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

Man, them is some crazy looking struts on the original Pfalz! :D Until I started following your build I hadn't realized how really different the Pfalz was from the Fokker. I had just sort of assumed that the Pfalz was a "cheap knock-off" of the Fokker but it has its own unique consturction and look. Given the 1001 Fokker EIII models that exist in the world, I envy you your Pfalz.

BTW, I'm not sure if the steamlined aluminum tube alone will be strong enough. Two recommendations from other people here on RCU are 1) fill the tubing with epoxy and/or 2) slip in a piece of standard music wire. I can hardly wait to see the finished gear!!!

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

I cut the aluminum struts, which of course I made way more complicated than probably needed to be. I had previously made dummy struts out of basswood, which were cut to a calculated length, although the exact angle of the cut at the fuselage end was done ad-hoc fashion. I eventually theorized that I could lay out a planform of the strut on a piece of plywood, drawn in it's normal plane, and then could cut the end of the struts by angling the cutting tool appropriately. I made an angle alignment tool from scrap wood, based on the angle of the strut to the fuse seen on the front view of the undercarriage.

I want to test the idea that the Aluminum is strong enough without reinforcement. Maybe it will work IF it only is stressed in compression (or tension). I hope to make the entire affair rigid enough, that any forces will be absorebed entirely in the elastic band that will be bound around the ends of the axle.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

THe next part has to do with the attachment of the strut to the fuse. The b&w picture from Datafile 59 seems to show that strut fitting over some type of attachment bracket with a bolt through it. I want to create a brass fitting that each Al leg will fit over, such that the Al leg will bolt over it. It should be a snug fit....I think it's very important that this whole assembly does not have a lot of slop in the fit.

I found that size of brass tube that I could smash down which would fit snuggly into the streamlined AL stock. Now it's not easy to smash down brass tube. I put the tube between two piece of hardwood, flanked by spruce strips the thickness of which should limit the extent of the smashing , I then tried to squeeze with the clamps, and the bench vise, and even tried driving the truck on top of it. Eventually, I resorted to good-ol-fashion pounding with a hammer-thingy.

I cut the end of the brass aligned with the fuselage using the same jig as for the AL struts.

I turned the fuse upside down and used a bunch of blocks to align everything, basically trying to ensure the alignment of the axle perpendicular to the fuse. THen I took a spare piece of brass rod and soldered it across the front of the tin v- brackets.

In the end, I have effectively made a second set of "inner-struts" of brass,. which are fit into scraps of streamline AL which are then fit into the tin v- bracket .

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

It has turned out to be quite an ordeal. But now the whole thing is kind of held together with a brass rod across it to hold the alignment. So the whole thing is move to a scap board, with the dimensions of the bottom of the fuse drawn on it. It is soldered to a pair of brass strips which are sized to fit across the bottom of the fuse. Each pair of legs has another v-strut in the center. In the rear, the v-strut holds a bell-crank for the wing warping. In the front, the strut holds the center of the axle and spreader bars. These struts I will fabricate and solder to these brass strips which the fake brass struts are now soldered to. Once that is done, the innermost portion of the brass strips will be removed. All but approx 3/8 inch of the fake brass struts will be removed, leaiving the portion to which the AL legs will be bolted.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

Now I am stuck trying to figure out how to make this part...It will not be easy to make this front-center strut, and to get the fore and aft spreader bars to align with it..

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

Here I making the metal piece that sits between the front v-struts...did not know how I could possibly get the spreader bars and axle lines up, then I rememberd I had this electronic prototyping board which just happened to give me the right spacing. I use the perf-board also to drill out some plywood pieces...which I used to make a jig. With everything held in place lined up, I can solder the spreader bars in place.


The spreader bars are 3/32 brass. The ends are a short section of 1/8 brass, cut sort of angled to fit against the inside of the tin bracket. The reason for using separete ends is because I know the real truth... that NOTHING can be measured perfectly, there is no way to cut exactly the right length of tube .

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

Next job is the front v-strut. Like the main strut, it is angled in two dimensions. To cut the angles at each end, I draw a "normalized" view of it looking from the side, onto a piece of plywood that becomes the holding fixture. The height of the side view is the hypoteneuse of the triangle that the strut makes from the fuse bottom, looking at the front view. The rotary tool is then angled appropriately using a plywood triangle-template, produced from the dimension of the front view. Actually, I did not have good dimensional info for these struts, so took measurements the best I could, of the space the pylon would occupy, and also used some small sticks that I cut to get an estimate of the final length of the struts.

I propped up one strut with a bunch of blocks, soldered the bottom first, turned it over, did the top joint. Ditto for the second strut.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

THe rear strut supports the wing-warping wires bell-crank assembly. I have the two struts attached to a short length of brass tube, which is embedded into the plywood fixture and the struts are soldered to it as seen in the picture. This strut was so easy, less then 30 minutes to do, very easy because all the dimensions are true in one plane.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

One last bit that had to be soldered into place... is the part where the bungee wraps around under the axle on each side. Based on looking at photos in the Datafile with a magnifying glass.... I believe that it is actually the rear spreader bar, which is supposed to bend around underneath the struts on each side. However, isntead of trying to bend the rear spreader bar and struggle with aligning it, I chose to isntall the bungee wrap posts as separte pieces of brass tube.
FInally, everything is cut apart! which might seem counter-productive.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

It looks like I cut the spreader bars out... but in reality, those were not the actual spreader bars, they were merely drill guides. Those tubes were 1 size over. The actual spreader bars will fit through these short lengths of tube that I have left remaining on each bracket, and which I have now drilled through. I did not want to permanently solder the spreader bars in place, if I can avoid it. If I could tap them out, and screw them into the final assembly, then I could more easily reuse the brackets if the need should arise.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

You've done an amazing job at replicating this very funky undercarriage! It's a rare modeler who goes beyond simply strapping some music wire to the bottom on his WWI model.

I think part of the apprehension about doing this type of work is having to work with unfamiliar materials (at least from most modelers). Most of us feel a lot more comfortable with balsa and CA than we do with metal and solder.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

After reassembling everything one last time, check to see that everything lines up with the fuse. last chance to adjust the struts in the brackets before drilling the holes for the fasteners. WIth the position of the struts in the brackets marked with a marker. This was very awkward because it is necessary to have everything assembled together, in order to drill these holes through the struts. Finally after some more hacking and grinding the strut brackets are in their final form.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

With a little paint, the tin brackets look pretty good. Everything is bolted together now and seems pretty solid. I hope the Al struts will work out okay, but if not I would at the very least like to have a very scale-looking wreck!

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

Thankyou for the encouraging comment Abufletcher... I gotta say, I was ready to throw in the towel a several times, this u.c. took two weeks to plan and execute, but I am pretty happy with the result now. Very anxious to get this "prototype" completed and tested!

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

The undercarriage looks really nice. I really like the brackets that the struts plug into at the "V" . Very scale looking. You've probably already thought of this but on the kit I'm building the instructions had me fill the strut tubes partially with JB weld. This was partially to help hold things together but it also strengthened the strut tubes considerably. The fastening bolts can be tightened up pretty snug without crushing the aluminum. There is a cotton plug it the strut to keep the JB where you want it.

Once again, wonderful job. The assembly fixtures alone would have scared me off!!

Randy

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

Hello Randy,
I have been avidly following your Hanriot build - but I did not think of using the JBweld to keep the bolts from crushing the AL, thanks for pointing it out - it's something I may have to consider. I suspect that the bolt-thru method to attach the struts into the v-bracket is not appropriate - and the bolts that I have used are way out of proportion!- I think there would be the same consideration (tendency to crush the strut when tightening bolts through the strut) when designing the full-size . I used this [link=http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Fre/Nie11/Bourget//LaKr/lk_n11_2.jpg]N11 v-bracket[/link] as a reference, feeling that it was very simliar in construction except that my axle slot must be out front. Looking at this photo, I really can't tell if the bracket is forged as one piece, or if it is two pieces, one inside and one outside, which are welded or mechanicly fastened together. Indeed, I ddon't think there are bolts through from one side to the other as I have done - maybe the v-bracket is supposed to work more by the bolts that clamp it together around the edges which is what I might try when I build the next one!

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

JB Weld. Hmm..one more product not available in Japan! [:@]

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

I stand...er.......sit in awe of your project. I finished spraying the paint on my Fokker DVII, you can tell that I hurried ( I really perfer flying to building) had I the patience that you do, it would have been a masterpiece. Please, continue with this build, it is inspiring.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

On the Hanriot it looks as though the V brackets were a combination of socket and clamp, kinda like a long pair of boots with a strap around the top!. There is a through bolt though. Once again I believe that these old airplanes just used sockets on the gear and interplane struts and relied on the tension of the rigging to hold it all together. I expect like everything else they were fishing around for a system that would work, and the one they used was not necessarily the best! If you used absolute scale bolts and fittings they would be so small as to be nearly invisible, and probably useless too! I used 0-80 brass model railroad bolts on mine and they still look too large..

Randy.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

I really wonder how one would go about fabricating truely scale parts -- I mean down to the last detail. So far I've just been trying to create the rough effect on my models. But how would one make, for example, brackets that look exactly like the original? The only thing I can imagine is that after a basic structure it made this would need to be "surfaced" for scale appearance.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

I think it would be tough to make something that is exactly scale and at the same time functional and flyable. One of the companies that make hobby type lathes had an add that showed a fellow who made a T-6 or something from metal and all the parts were exact scale, it was beautiful but not flyable, but it was pretty small if I remember right. This may be why 1/3rd scale and larger is getting so popular....exact scale parts can be made and used as on the original....

I was thinking about the lack of JB weld in Japan. You might try mixing micro balloons with epoxy. I'm sure that would work. May work better as epoxy is a little more fluid than JB weld....

Randy

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

The mechanical bits are what I find most interesting about the aircraft - and the smell. Have you ever stuck your head inside an old aircraft? Well, the closest I ever got was this SPAD replica - it may not actually be that old but there is a nice blend of presumably fuel oil and varnish smell. For a good time, go around inhaling things! I guess the smells and the wood reminds me of my other boating hobby (my RCU moniker is a reference to my ski-boat)

IT certainly is challenging to replicate all the scale bits, and many times not practical... manipulating the small bits like the 00-80 size fasteners, causes much crying and swearing, probably could not deal with hardware much small than that! However, it's an obsession of mine to find out all the arcane and obscure bits of knowledge about the aircraft, even if I can't build it exactly that way, so I go around on all these e-forums and aska lot of silly questions because you just can't easily find out this stuff. I think it would be very cool to research original source data and draw up plans for aircraft the way Fokker Team-Schorndorff is doing.

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

We're definitely on the same wavelength! Just like you, it's the funky little mechanical bits that really grab me. In fact if there is any one single impression that I took away from the hours and hours I spend hanging out at the RAF Hendon museum is was that the real aircraft have so much more depth of details than our poor models. The surfaces were all so complex -- and in some curiously way irregular and even chaotic. And in fact this has actually inspired me to be a little sloppier with my models. I think we strive so hard to have perfect craftsmanship that we end up with an overly slick product. I no longer worry about things like perfectly straight seams on my coverings or minor asymmetry in parts. And I'll definitely be hand-painting all my models from now on.

So what's next on your Pfalz? ;)

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

The next move on the Pfalz should probably be the wing. Already, the motor mount, tail group, and alighting gear are done. I am very glad to have these incredibly obstacles out of the way@! Once the wing is done, I can start to determine how to arrange the electronics to balance the model.

I don't know exactly the detail of the wing construction, maybe it is similar to the Fok.E wing. Even if not 100% scale, I would like to [link=http://www.karmy.com/minimax/pictures/wing/wing.htm]build-up the ribs[/link] because I hate cutting ribs and the technique looks interesting, but it will take quite some time. I could make a couple of jigs and maybe the family would help me! ;) I don't know the exact airfoil either but maybe someone on the Aerodrome can suggest something ;)

Problem I have now, is I have already a framed up wing in the appropriate chort and span, but it is not a scale wing, it is a 2412 airfoil with ailerons. The temptation is great to work up some quick cabane struts and bolt on this wing parasol fashion - it would be a very stable configuration and would allow me to complete the fuselage, fly it, and prove out the unproven parts i.e. the tail group and undercarriage. Then the question will be, once that the thing is flying, will I finish it out or move on to something else (something bigger!)

I am quite anxious to fly a new scratchbuilt model (even if the initial configuartion not %100 scale). Since the tragic loss of the Parasol ( in my avatar) the hangar is conspicuously lacking a %100 scratchbuilt. The Goldberg Tiger rebuild in the pics is closes scratchbuild I have (fuse 100% scratch original design by me, wing 100% ARF). THe Tiger rebuilt fuse is nearly 100% hardwood , first time I have tried that and it weighs absolutely no more than the original slab-side balsa construction ARF fuse.

-G-

RE: morane-eindecker thingy
 

Hmm, the smell. That's very interesting. I read somewere were the sense of smell can be recalled more easily than any other. There may be more to that than you think! I remember the first time I got up close to one of these old birds and the impressions I got. There was sooo much more on the full scale level that you just are not aware of from pics and drawings. You stick your head inside the cockpit and want to drink in all the details. The stains on the wooden handles, the scratches on the painted metal fittings, the weave on the fabric and the imperfections of the hand painted markings and OH thats how the seat is attached and look how they adjust the guns!
I used to have an antique MGA which I decieded to model in 1/18 scale from one of those cast metal prebuilt numbers. I almost wore a path out to the garage looking at details and I had taken many pics! And to think I had actually restored this vehicle myself! It was amazing how differently we look at things when we want to reproduce them in scale.