Last Crusade Biplane WIP
I haven't made a large scale biplane before, and I felt that I really needed to try another approach to planning my next model. Previous efforts have begun with styrene, and I always run into problems that slow the process down. I decided that this time, I would do a mock-up version in cardboard to work out the kinks and be less wasteful with expensive styrene material. The main issue with this approach is that cardboard behaves very differently than styrene, but I really believe that making this first pass at the plane is going to save me some headaches down the road.
I started as I always do...figuring out how I'm going to make the basic shape. Since the biplane is curved, I needed to figure out how I was going to make the frame. This was the first step:
The oval shapes are what will create the front-on profile of the plane, and the longer piece of cardboard is the basic side-on profile. The side profile as is will have to be reworked in styrene...one solid piece will not conform to the rounded shape of the plane.
Assembled:
Curved surfaces need to be achieved by thin strips attached to a frame:
Completed fuselage:
The wings in this cardboard mock-up will be far less complex than in styrene. For one thing, I'll need to figure out a way to have the tear-drop shape of the wing's side profile (or I may not bother).
Two wings with cardboard support struts:
Here's the completed cardboard mock-up:
This first pass is overscaled, and is not very pretty, but I found it to be a pretty fun and informative exercise. The best part is that it only took two hours...doing this in styrene will take weeks. But, this cardboard version helped me overcome some engineering problems and was great as a practice run.
I haven't made a large scale biplane before, and I felt that I really needed to try another approach to planning my next model. Previous efforts have begun with styrene, and I always run into problems that slow the process down. I decided that this time, I would do a mock-up version in cardboard to work out the kinks and be less wasteful with expensive styrene material. The main issue with this approach is that cardboard behaves very differently than styrene, but I really believe that making this first pass at the plane is going to save me some headaches down the road.
I started as I always do...figuring out how I'm going to make the basic shape. Since the biplane is curved, I needed to figure out how I was going to make the frame. This was the first step:
The oval shapes are what will create the front-on profile of the plane, and the longer piece of cardboard is the basic side-on profile. The side profile as is will have to be reworked in styrene...one solid piece will not conform to the rounded shape of the plane.
Assembled:
Curved surfaces need to be achieved by thin strips attached to a frame:
Completed fuselage:
The wings in this cardboard mock-up will be far less complex than in styrene. For one thing, I'll need to figure out a way to have the tear-drop shape of the wing's side profile (or I may not bother).
Two wings with cardboard support struts:
Here's the completed cardboard mock-up:
This first pass is overscaled, and is not very pretty, but I found it to be a pretty fun and informative exercise. The best part is that it only took two hours...doing this in styrene will take weeks. But, this cardboard version helped me overcome some engineering problems and was great as a practice run.
or refer to scratch model builders. Plane models shouldn't be too hard to reaearch.
