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Breguet U1 'affine', Scratchbuilt In 1/72, Underway


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I have been working on this early oddity for a long while, but have not till now been satisfied with any of the results. I have made and discarded two fuselages: the complex shape of its forward portion seems to be beyond my usual method of carving and filing curved sections from thick sheet. A couple of weeks ago, after discarding the second fuselage attempt, I hit on an idea that has saved the project. I was reading someone's mention of using the late Master, Mr. Woodman's, technique of achieving camber by bending a length of sheet in a frame and immersing it in boiling water, and it occured to me that if this put a slight permanent curve in thick sheet, perhaps it would put a large permanent curve in thin sheet. Wondering how this might be made to occur, I recalled our Mr. Sky King's intention of making the structure of his SPAD A2 recently and covering it with thin plastic. It struck me that an interior armature might be made to measure and section, in two halves, and the thin plastic bent over this in portions, glued down to the armature and together at the seams of the skinning portions, given the boiling water treatment, and then the armature destroyed to leave the shells in their shape. With nothing to lose, I set about seeing if the thing would work. My first armature was a crude affair of 2mm sheet sections and spacers, assembled together first and then fixed to a backing of 1/2 mm sheet to provide a fix for the edges of the skinning. Though I did allow for the thickness of the skin, I did not realize the circle template I was using to make my section shapes has holes larger than their stated dimensions to allow for the width of the pencil, so that a circle that fitted perfectly into one of its holes was actually a bit larger than its stated dimension. Consequently the pieces produced were consistently almost a millimeter over-sized, but they did suffice to demonstrate the thing would indeed work. Greatly cheered, I made new, more refined armatures, making the 1/2mm back first from a copy of my drawing, using only 1/2mm sheet for the front and rear section forms, and only 1mm sheet for the section forms where two portions of the skin would meet, and adding 1mm sheet spacers after the section forms were affixed. To ensure identical placement, I attached all middle sections with the templates held clamped together. The pictures illustrate the process, though I neglected to get one showing the spacers in place between the sections forms, before the skinning was bent over them. This is only the forward portion of the fuselage; the rear is a cone shape, that I gave also made in this manner. I used 1/2mm sheet for the skinning: thin enough to roll readily into a curve, and thick enough to have some structural integrity and allow for necessary smoothing.

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Edited by Old Man
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Here are the pieces contructed to the method above with the sidewall detailing attached. The interior detail here is somewhat conjectural: I have neither photographs or any drawing that shows the interior of this particular type, though there are some excellent photographs of early Breguet machines available, and this is essentially a "rounded out" variation on the basic theme.

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The state of play has passed beyond this a good deal. I have got the rear cone made, the front portion of the fuselage closed, and attached to the cone, as well as added a good deal more interior detail through the generous cockpit openings.

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:worship: Hello Old Man,

A fantastic effort there. I can't wait to see more of this project. Please keep us posted with progress reports and pics. I'm just not quite sure how you did that although you do explain how, it isn't quite clear in my mind from the pics and your notes as to exactly how you used the frames. Could you be a little more specific how you used the frames to heat mould the fuse halves and tail cone?

:blink:,

Ross.

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Could you be a little more specific how you used the frames to heat mould the fuse halves and tail cone?

I will try, Sir. I regret I neglected to get a full step-by step picture record, and may later do up a set and skin it just for the documentation. It is pretty simple to do, and not too time consuming.

I see that I neglected, also, to give one element of shaping the armature, which was to put across the back of the backing template a stiffener of 3.2mm x 2.5mm heavy strip. This is important for the heat treatment.

Once the frames are assembled, you cut strips of plastic to the width of the space between the section formers, in this case mostly about 13mm. The strips should be a bit longer than the outer circumference of the formers would require, so there is some over-lap to press down against the edge of the backing template. As I said, I use 1/2mm sheet for the skinning.

Before applying the skinning piece, you bend it by rolling it over the handle of an Exacto knife or tail of a needle file, and between your fore-finger and thumb. Then check the fit against the gap between the formers you intend to cover. A little trimming or shaping of the edge might be required.

You then slather the edges of the section forms and backing template with glue (but not the spacers between the sections), and press the skinning piece down in place. I used thickish liquid CA glue, but I suppose solvent glues would work as well. When the piece is in place, I fix it with accellerator, and trim off the excess hanging over the backing template, and trim the edge on the section which the next piece must fit against, so there is a good enough width of it bare to seat the next piece on.

You repeat this process till the entire form is skinned. There will probably be small gaps here and there where the sections meet, and the outer curves will be a little "ridge-y" in places. The gaps should be filled, and the outer surface filed down smooth at this point.

You then bring a little water to boil in a pan: I have had some sharp lessons in what over-heating can do to plastic, and so bring it just to a boil and turn off the heat. You then hold the piece in the water with a tongs, clear of the sides of the pan, and do a slow count to ten, "One one thousand, two one thousand" style. On the ten count, take the piece out and dunk it in a bowl of ice water. The hot water softens the skin into its new shape, and the ice-water "freezes" it to its current form. The armature itself is heavy enough, with its rear stiffener and internal spacers and all, that the brief heat does not alter its shape.

At this point, you set about destroying the armature. The rear stiffener can be popped off pretty easily if you left a couple of gaps in the CA attachment, and slip a knife blade into the gap. I use a heavy grit emory stick to sand away the entire backing template, including the portion of the skin directly attached to its edge. I then remove the spacers between the section forms by scoring at their joints to the section formers with a knife. I use a rotary tool grinding bit to remove the bulk of the section formers, and did removal of the last remnants with a No. 10 Exacto blade. As you can see, I left section formers that corresponded to bulkhead locations in place.

What you get at the end is pretty similar to a vacu-form fuselage, I think: a pretty thin shell in the proper section shape. A bit of care is required in handling it: the joints between the sections I expect could be fragile. The process, done for the first time, was not quite as precise as I hoped. The edges did mate very well, but between a bit of over-enthusiasm in removing the backing template and in finishing the outer surface, the cross section of the mated pieces was too narrow, and I added shim plastic to build up and extend the mating edges and get that right. I expect with practice I could get the thing up to almost machine standard, and also that a person with better measuring tools and skills than I can muster could do better on the first shot.

Since the cone sections would never have exposed interior, I did not bother with heating them, or removing the entire armature, but simply sanded the backing templates down very thin and left it at that.

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Interesting concept OldMan. You picked another esoteric and unique subject to do it with too. I'll follow this one closely and see if I can learn something new. Great progress so far.

Cheers

Mike

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Progress has been fairly good over the last few days, Gentlemen.

Here is a picture of the assembled fuselage, with some of the surface detail added, and cowling and engine construction commenced.

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In assembling the fore-part of the fuselage, I found it adviseable to glue the seam in portions, starting with that between the cockpits, then the rear and then the front. The pieces mated well, but being quite thin were somewhat flexible, and needed the extra attention, since there was no plastic to spare for filing down a noticeable mis-alignment. I inadvertantly proved the thing is durable, with a two foot drop to a hardwood floor: none of the section seams in the fuselage pieces were at all damaged, though some of the interior detail was sprung loose, including the oberver's floor-board, which was maddeningly difficult to get back in.

The cone went on pretty well, with the flat plate at its front meeting the flat plate at the rear of the pilot's cockpit, and enough CA gel to provide a sort of "float" while aligning it. Because I left much of the backing template on the cone pieces, I did have to do a good bit of filing on the sides, which are pretty thin in places. I could have saved myself some trouble had I made the fuselage in two whole halves, rather than in quarters, but there is an inertia to the mind, and I had begun with just the forepart, since I knew my old techniques were adequate to the cone, and then went on as I had begun.

The cowling area through which the cylinders protrude is a seperate piece, a ring of 1/2mm strip matched to the front of the mated fuselage pieces, and filed inside and out to its slight taper: it is now no more than a quarter millimeter thick, and certainly thinner in places. The holes were cut in with a knife-blade, and I have put in a crude crankcase as a hub to give their ends something to attach to. They will be filed down considerably, as the heads only just protrude into the clear.

The panel detail is five thousandths sheet, filed a bit thinner once attached, with a strip of 1/4mm rod under the cockpit rims, also filed down a bit. There will also be some louvres and panel lines in various places. I cut the cockpit openings before final assembly of the forward fuselage halves, temporarily gluing them together and triming in the holes with a knife.

The next two pictures show the cockpit interiors, which are not yet finished, and one of the cut-outs behind the upper cylinders, through which portions of the exhaust sytem can be readily seen. I have put the circular manifold behind the cylinders, though it will only be glimpsed here, and in perhaps one other point, once the nose is complete.

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Wonderful stuff there Oldman. It's shaping up nicely.. One thing I think you will like about adding the panels and parts as separate pieces is that they aren't perfectly flat and smooth. Except for the milled finishes of modern jets, real aircraft have all kinds of little dings and dents and bumps and warts, not perfectly fitting and smooth panels like injection kits usually portray. Your model is going to have a lot more realism and character after it's painted. Looking good and some nice work there.

Cheers

Mike

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  • 1 month later...

I have finally, Gentlemen, gotten to a point of sufficient further progress on this beast to put up some pictures. To put it mildly, this is proving a challenging project. I have the outer panels of the wings done, save for a final blending wash, and most of the fuselage detailing done. With any luck, on the next pass I will be attaching the the wings, something I expect to be truely rum fun....

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The wings are from 2mm sheet, scored for a bend and filed and carved to heavily cambered airfoil. The upper surface has a mix of taped full ribs and un-taped 'upper only' ribs: I used .5mm x .25mm strip applique for the taped stations, filing it down till it was translucent enough to show the pencil mark it was a applied to through the plastic, and used a curved blade and rolled sandpaper to scrape the suggestions of the 'upper only' ribs between. On the undersurface, the ribs and spar lines are simply drawn with No.2 pencil and painted over. The trailing edge is wire, and the scallops are filed in and trimmed with a blade. The flash seems to have trouble with the color on the wings: the color of the linen on the fuselage shots is much closer to the true color.

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The metal areas of the fuselage are foiled, and weathering is not complete. Most of the cylinder head detail is complete, but there are a number of prominent springs I have left for later, as I am sure handling would dislodge some, and much handling still remains. The copper piping behind the upper cylinders is part of the cooling system; exhaust pipes are not yet applied, and will project from the louvre panel, and at the bottom on the center-line. The 'facetings' of the tail cone are filed in, over an initial thick coat of paint. The cockpit coamings are .5mm copper wire, painted dark brown.

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I am glad you like it, Sir.

How big is this beauty? Perhaps place it next to a scalpel or a ruler...purely out of interest.

Each upper wing panel is 90mm long, each lower wing panel 84mm. There will be a center section, consisting of about 15mm of bare spare for the lower wing, and an 11mm panel, plus two 2mm gaps, for the upper wing. I do not recall the length off-hand, though I have it somewhere: I think sans tail it is about 100mm long. The fuselage is set between the wings, and the bare portion of the lower spar is deeply involved in the undercarriage. The full oddity of the machine will become ever more evident as further progress is made --- it is one of the oddest looking things ever to take to the air after purchase by a government.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have finished detailing the cockpits now, and passed on to and through the real make or break portion of the project, namely installing the upper cabane struts. The 'Dep' wheel stick is scratchbuilt, and went in last. The windscreens are cut from five thousandths clear sheet, and have not yet been gloss treated.

The cabane struts are cut from pins wife has in her crafting supplies. I do not trust plastic rod of the right dimensions to take the stress these are likely to be subjected to. As you can see, they go through holes in the decking, and engage structural members inside the front cockpit. I have been quite worried about this step, as just about the entire project depends on it, but I am pretty pleased with their alignment and uniformity of height. Once they were in place, I was able to make the center section of the upper wing, and match it to their actual positions, as the struts must engage the outer rib of the center section. I had made in advance a couple of inches worth of cambered airfoil of the right chord, and I cut a piece off of it, over-sized, marked the spar position from the upper wing panels, put dots of paint on the top of the struts, placed the over-sized section in position, made locator holes where the dots of paint showed, and then filed each end down till it just began to disturb the hole. With the center section in hand now to define actual dimensions, I will be able to assemble the wings, stretches of bare spar, dihedral, and all. Attaching them to the fuselage will be a challenge: at this point, I am planning to attach the upper wing first, hang the lower wing from the interplane struts, and then trim plastic rod to the proper length for the lower cabane, match these in lengths of the same pin material, and install them as the last step.

The blank center section is simply tacked into place for the pictures with white glue, to give some sense of its location, and of the unique single strut construction employed by Breguet in these early designs. It needs rib detail added, and there wil be fairings, and instruments, added to the tube fo the cabanes. The wires protruding from the front cockpit run up to the cabane/spar juncture, from the longeron: their lower end would have been inaccessible after the seat was placed and the wing attached.

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  • 1 month later...

This is finally looking something like an aeroplane, Gentlemen, I am pleased to relate. The unique character of this machine should now be apparent, at least, though I assure you there are odd features still to come as assembly progresses.

I decided to assemble the wing cellule first, and then attach it as a piece to the fuselage. This enabled me to get the cellule as structurally sound as it is going to be first. The thing remains awfully fragile, and I pause before handling it every time I must. The original was described by the manufacturer as having "flexible wings", and that aspect of the original I am satisfied I have captured. In keeping with the 'lather, rinse, repeat" character of this build, this final assembly of the wings to the fuselage is my second pass at it. The first time, I put too great a camber in the wing panels, and miscalculated the gap, making it 2mm too large. There was a silver lining in this, as it enabled me to get precise proper lengths for the lower cabane struts, so I could have them attached to the fuselage at the start, rather than working them into place with the wings hanging from the attchment to the upper cabanes, as I had done on the first pass.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The first stage of rigging this wee beastie is now complete: save for the lower cabane bracings, all the interplane wires are in place, as well as the 'duck's foot' portion of the warping control wires. Still to come are the drift wires, that will run from the nose and (yet to be constructed) undercarriage to the spars, and counter-drift wires, that will run from the spars to points near the tail, as well as the warp-actuating wires running from the cockpit to the 'duck's foot', and other control wires. I will be leaving these for much later, as they will make the thing very difficult to handle, and much more remains to be done.

Before rigging some other detailing was completed, most noteably the jacks for setting the camber of the wing panels, and the portion of the control stick that projects below the fuselage.

Rigging required the addition of turn-buckling and other anchor points, as a photograph of this machine, BR 49, indicates not only that none of the various wires attached at the joint of the struts and spars, but that the fittings at their ends were very prominent on flight, landing, and drift/counter-drift wires. I used lengths of .25mm rod for the flight and landing wire fittings, and triangles of .5mm x .25 mm strip for the drift/counter-drift anchor fittings. The pulleys for the warp control wires are disks of 1.1 mm rod.

The next step will be constructing the four-wheeled undercarriage, and oddly positioned tail-skid assembly.

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B) Beautiful work as usual Old Man. Please keep us up to date with regular progress reports. This is indeed as you have said an 'oddity'. What was the original's purpose. I'd be guessing at reconnaisence and artillery spotting. I am watching your progress with great interest.

:wub:,

Ross.

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Thank you, Mr. Blackford! I am glad you like the thing.

What was the original's purpose. I'd be guessing at reconnaisence and artillery spotting.

The basic Breguet tractor design dates to 1910, at which point just getting into the air was most of what anyone intended, and before much military use was envisioned. M. Breguet seems to have been particularly interested in carrying weight aloft: coming from a family of industrialists, perhaps he envisoned commercial applications early. A version was entered in a French army contest late in 1911, and placed second, which won as part of the prize a production contract. The machines built to this contract entered service in 1913, equipping the new escadrille BR 17. They differed somewhat from the prize-winner, using the 80hp Canton-Unne (Salmson) instead of a twin-row Gnome rotary, and fitted to seat two men, not three. The 'affine' version (which my French-speaking wife tells me translates to 'refined'), was a 1914 version that essentially was a somewhat streamlined version of these original production machines, with a cowled motor and the fuselage rounded out. The wings seem to have been extended in span and reduced in chord as well, and the shape of the tail surfaces altered. BR 17 had a mix of the early and stream-lined models at the start of the war. I forget off-hand which Army it was assigned to, but it was one of the ones that attacked into Alsace-Lorraine, quickly advancing and quickly retreating. They certainly did reconnaisance work, but I do not know if they were involved at that early date in artillery-spotting. The man who flew the machine this model will be finished as received a croix de guerre in September, 1914, but I do not know for what. Pilots flying these machines on active service complained bitterly of them, and they were retired in October, with BR 17 becoming a Voisin unit, part of the first French dedicated bombing formation.

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:) Hello Old Man,

Thank you for the information. You are ever a font of knowledge on these early birds. I guess that's why I like following your builds so much. You give info on the machines themselves and not just on how you go about building the model. This is excellent for one who is interested in aviation history as I am.

:rofl:,

Ross.

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I learn as I go, Mr. Blackford. Most of what I know about this type I owe to Messers. Gilles, RBailey, and Ocsi over at The Aerodrome, who were kind enough to provide me with references and leads to more information last year.

I have made a good deal more progress since last week.

The under-carriage is now on and functional, though fittings for drift wires, and a brace for them, still need to be added, as well as a foot-step on the port skid vee, and there is some painting left to do. The only major assemblies left are the cruciform, all-flying tail, and the twin radiator stacks, positioned a bit before the observer's cockpit.

In the course of putting on the undercarriage, I managed to knock the port wings clean off: if I knew just how I did it, I would have been paying enough attention to my movements not to have done it in the first place. It was a pretty bad late-night moment, but I was able to repair it.

The roundels are from the Free French markings of a Pavla Lysander kit, the wheels are spares, the larger from a cannibalzed Toko Sopwith Strutter, and the smaller from an Airfix Bulldog, some-what altered.

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:( Hello again Old Man,

You certainly have put some time in in the last week and your efforts are show great fruit. Sorry about your late night accident but you have managed to mend it ok I see. We await further progress reports as it is getting close to completion now. Again, great effort Old Man.

:woo:,

Ross.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This is close to wrapping up now, Gentlemen. All that remains besides the propeller and a bit of touch-up is the madness of making and placing twenty-eight lifter springs, four per cylinder-head: they are awfully prominent in photographs of the Canton-Unne motor, and so I am resolved to give it a try.

A couple of passes were required for the tail and the radiators, as has been the norm in this build. The low clearance of the tail is, unfortunately, quite accurate: ground clearance seems to have ranged between six and three inches, and one can only assume the normal landing attictude was tail-up till the engine was shut down.

The decals are home-made, using Roman face from a Woodland Scenics dry-transfer set on clear decal film for the 'BR', '49' and '275'. The 'charge maxima' and company inscription (on the fuselage side) are tromp d'oile, done with a toothpick and black paint on decal film. The company inscription would read 'Breguet Type U1 No. something or other', but as all these letterings were less than a millimeter high in scale, legibility is not really necessary....

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Hello OldMan.

Well you certainly pulled it off. My hat is off to you. You are right, that is one odd looking duck. I'd say it gives some of the Austro-Hungarian machines a run for their money for sheer weirdness.

For your valve springs you might be able to use light bulb fillaments, if you can convince the missus that 8 or 9 light bulbs in the house mysteriously blew all at the same time. (darn power surges)

Cheers

Mike

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:cheers: Hello again Old Man,

Just on the subject of valve springs, could you perhaps use the elements from several automotive peanut bulbs as used for instrument lighting in many cars? That is a beautiful model and I look forward to seeing the finished product.

:banana:,

Ross.

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Thank you, Gentlemen! I am glad you like the thing. It has been something of a labor of love, and with occassional breaks I have been working on it over a year. Ever since I saw a picture of an early Breguet in the Harleyford Reconnaisance and Bomber book as a lad I have had a soft spot for these odd things: nothing else like them has ever been spotted aloft....

To Mr. King and Mr. Blackford: Thanks for the light-bulb tips, I will remember that, and break one on spec to examine the innards. There is a large auto-supply store near my house. I suspect they will not be suitable, though. The springs in question are not coils but vee shapes, with a couple of circles where the legs meet, and of pretty heavy gauge, not much thinner than the push-rods. I was thinking to use thin copper wire, wrapping a circle around a length of the thin steel wire I use for push-rods, and cutting the legs to size with a wire-cutter, braced against the steel wire mandril, which will give a constant length of a bit under a millimeter. The circle resulting should just about accommodate the tip of a tweezer. I will have to paint them blackened steel, of course, after attachment. I expect a fair amount of dropping out of sight, at least three dislodged by the paint-brush, and moderate storms of cursing, but think I have a fair chance of completion by the weekend. I have absolutely run out of convenient hand-holds on this thing, and sweat bullets each time I have to pick it up and set it down: laying it upside down is out of the question, as the tail attachment is very delicate, even more so than the wings. I may affix it to its stand before I attempt the spring placement, to let me tilt it up to get at the lower cylinder heads. Otherwise, I will park it at the edge of my working surface, and get down underneath it. Rum fun all around, I expect!

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