SSW R.VIII scratchbuild

[Lucien Harpress]

A recent subject on one forum or another got me looking at old photos of my 1/72 Ilya Muromets bomber. I was impressed all over again at how awesome it looked, and got the hankering to try another large WWI bomber. I wanted it to be relatively easy, though, so no resin or vac kits. Also it needed to be relatively cheap. This narrowed my options down considerably. After a quick Ebay search, I ended up with this:

It's probably the most user-friendly biplane I've ever seen. Heck, the rigging holes are drilled for you! I'm going to try some functional rigging with this one (opposed to the purely cosmetic rigging on the ilya). It may screw up painting a bit, but I'll figure something out.

You will notice, however, that I said projectS. As in plural. Well, it's true. I'm starting a second large biplane project, this one a first- a scratchbuild. I've gotten the fuselage cut out in balsa, and will probably start skinning it in plastic tonight or the one after.

What IS it, you ask? Well, it's a bit of a mystery. You do get one clue, however.

Riesenflugzeug

Edited May 15, 2009 by Lucien Harpress

[Skyking]

Stakken or one of the other "R" planes... but hard to tell from the shape of the master alone. I'll have to look through my copy of "The German Giants" to get a better idea.

Interesting builds. I have drawings for an HP 0/400 in 32nd scale for a "someday" project.

Cheers

Mike

[jester292]

Can't wait to see what you have in store for both projects! Keep us posted!

Hello from the west side

Aaron

[Lucien Harpress]

Alright, I got a build thread up in the "In-Progress" forums, but I figured you guys could use a treat over here as well. I've begun work on the "mystery" project- it's a SSW R.VIII, the largest biplane of WWI, and the largest biplane ever built.

Here's a series of photos so far:

If you want the entire story up until this point, including a bit of history, check out the link here:

Check out this sucker HERE!

I'll be posting further updates here as well as over there from now on. As always, thanks for looking.

[jester292]

Looks good, keep up the momentum!

Aaron

[Loachnut]

Can't say that I have ever heard of this aircraft....but apparently it had a conning tower and a mid-ship theater room!!

Actually, I can't wait to see the finished product.

[Lucien Harpress]

If anyone's interested, here's probably the largest collection of photographs I've seen from this airplane ANYWHERE- it's really quite obscure.

Click here for photos galore!

I had to re-do the covering for the rear gunners position. Hopefully on Monday I can take the fuselage in to school to drill out the porthole windows. Then I'll bring it back home and start on the cockpit.

[Lucien Harpress]

After three days and four attempts, I finally got the covering on the rear gunner position.

A thick section of clear plastic extends the length of the original opening to give a bit of rigidity to the whole top piece. Don't ask me how I know why to do this. The seams around this piece are a bit rough, but all that will be taken care of before initial painting.

I've also started drilling out the portholes. I was planning on just adding small clear disks to each end of the "tunnel", but the balsa inside frayed a bit more than I anticipated. I might find correctly sized acrylic rod and shove it in each hole- they'll still look clear, and it should push all the nasty frayed bits out of the way.

Next up, a real focal point of the build- the cockpit. Construction method is the same as the rear position, only bigger. The front third will be the open cockpit, and thus will be the most detailed. The second third is the covered navigation compartment, which will be detailed with a chair, table, and some other stuff. The rear third exists only as empty space under another set of upper deck windows. I'm not sure if I'm painting it black or wood (like the rest of the cockpit). In reality it would open up onto the engine room a level lower than what I've cut, but I can only cut away so much of the balsa core.

Finally, people may be wondering something- "Sure, it's big- but it's not really THAT big." You may be correct. The SSW R.VIII did have a rather stumpy fuselage. Where the size of this sucker really shines is the wingspan. No, I don't have the wings done yet. But to give an impression of size, here's how big they are GOING to be.

Until next time.

[BOC262]

Lucien,

That's going to be awesome AND unique! Good luck to you.

Karl

[Lucien Harpress]

Work has begun on the area directly behind the cockpit- the navagator's compartment.

The side closest is accurate. The side farthest- not so much. The schematic I was working off of had the one side with the chair, but no opposite side, so I just basically threw a bunch of filler stuff over there. Hopefully it won't be too visible.

Same goes for the black section- on the real thing this dropped down to the engine room a level lower. I wasn't really able to build the entire engine room, so a bit more visual trickery was in order.

Two more areas I took care of are thus:

The small air scoops (the other is on the other side) came from Monogram's 1/48 P-38 (Donated by the very generous DarylH ). Despite being different scales and different eras, they fit the schematics like a glove. Also, I blanked off the windows with aluminum tube to clear up the "frayed balsa" issue. A bit o' black paint, and we're in business.

I have the upper decking to the navagator's station all cut out- I just need to add the clear backing and get it in place. Then- off to the cockpit proper.

Again, thanks for looking.

[Lucien Harpress]

Still chippin' out those details....

As you can see, the upper decking for the navagator's compartment is on. Interestingly enough, it didn't take me as long as the rear decking did, despite being much more complicated. I guess I'm learning, or something.

I've also started work on the cockpit and nose position (you can really call it a "nose gun" because no armament was, in fact, installed). The black post will recieve some control levers, and the brass bar will connect with the two control wheels to be installed later. The nose position also needs cleaning up.

The whole build in all its glory. And finally, this:

I've begun work on the auxiliary tail surfaces. While the SSW R.VIII had two sets of elevators and three rudders, it did NOT have a true "biplane" tail unit. What these are could be better called floating elevators, as they were directly controlled by the main elevators and had no additional surfaces to pivot off of. The two extra rudders (connected at each tip of this unit) are similar in this respect.

These were easier to build then I had anticipated. I basically took a brass rod the correct length of the span, glued a thin plastic sheet cut to shape to the bottom of it, then curved two more sheets over the top. Except for filling in the ends, it was that easy. I'll probably to the same for the rudders.

Except for some massively huge conical radiators, there isn't much detail left to the fuselage- I just gotta finish the cockpit, cut some windows, and glue in some porthole glass, and that's it!

As always, thanks for looking!

[BOC262]

WOW, your project is shaping up very nicely! Good luck with it.

Karl

[HOLMES]

Great project AND loking forward to seeing more ...

[Lucien Harpress]

MILESTONE POST!

No, not a milestone having to do with post count or whatever, but a milestone on the build. The fuselage is OFFICIALLY completely skinned.

There's a multitude of windows in and around the nose that had to be (carefully) cut out. The large windows in the nose won't have any glass in them, but no detailing inside either. I simply painted the interior space black, and even looking quite closely at it it's hard to tell it's nothing but painted wood.

Also note that, as the curves got more complex I needed to use smaller panels to preserve the curve detail. Despite being a nasty compound curve the nose came out really nice, and quite accurate when compared to the real thing.

The clear piece up front actually lines up with all the other pieces of plastic despite being nearly three times thicker. Don't ask me how... it just sorta happened. The scallops went in real nice as well, with everything lining up nice and neat with a minimum of fuss. Something's got to go wrong here soon....

Steering columns are bits of black zip ties, and the wheels are from my TB-3 kit. Because I used PE parts on the Tupolev, these were left over for the SSW.

The dorsal tunnel got skinned as well. When I drilled out the ladder it broke through the sides of the wooden blank. Ah, well. Skinning it wasn't too bad, and only took three pieces. Besides, now it saves me from sealing and sanding.

And, finally, the obligitory "all/everything" shot.

Next up? An all-over putty session followed by a quick (crossed fingers) sanding session to get rid of all the seams. THEN we can think about painting (which will be a chore in itself)- but we'll leave that for a point in the future.

[ross blackford]

Veeery noice Lucien,

very noice indeed. You have great skill and perseverence mate. Well done and please keep us informed of progress.

,

Ross.

[HOLMES]

Lucien,

It is coming along so nicely....

looking forward to when you put some color on it... :D

HOLMES.

[Lucien Harpress]

Oh, and what color it will be! Wings, tail, rear fuselage AND STRUTS will be five-color night lozenge fabric, with the front fuselage being a custom, non-repeating five-color lozenge (but not the same colors as the rest of the plane). The night lozenge will be taken care of with decal sheets.

What's going to be PITA is the front fuselage. No decals exist that have the correct colors, and besides- the pattern is (like I said) random. Therefore, I've made the possibly reckless decision to, when the time comes, hand-paint the front lozenge.

Yup, you heard right- hand-paint it.

Should be fun, right?

Edited December 20, 2008 by Lucien Harpress

[HOLMES]

Lucien,

Sounds good to ME....I am sure it will not be a reckless decision....I am sure that you

will do a splendid job of painting it free hand....

HOLMES.

Edited December 20, 2008 by HOLMES

[PetarB]

Lucien you are a nutcase sir, but I salute you! I am looking forwards to progress on this bizzare monstrosity.

[Lucien Harpress]

I got me a little present in the mail today, courtesy of my Canadian friends to the north. I've never used it before, and I'm kind of excited.

This right here is German Night Bomber lozenge camoflage. While this sheet is meant for Gotha night bombers, the same type of fabric was used on a LOT of the SSW R.VIII, as it too was intended for night bombing.

The sheet I have here is 8 x 10 and was $16. The parts I have to use it on are the rear fuselage, the horizontal tail surfaces, and the as-yet-unfinished (and MASSIVE) wings. Clearly, this ain't going to cut it.

Being the cheapskate I am, I found it more economical to simply scan the image and make my own. Well, sorta. Right now I got the scanning part down. I still need to try my hand at actually PRINTING some of my own.... whatever.

Of course, duplicating decals like this can be interpreted as copyright infringement on SOME level, but I don't plan to sell these (and hopefully the images posted is too small to really use, so others can't get it for free). In fact, a better photo actually exists on the main site... but I digress. I just ask to be spared the moral rhetoric. Thank you.

For the front fuselage section I'm planning on something.... radical. You see, the metal forward section wasn't fabric- it was painted to sort of match the other parts. Unfortunately the colors aren't the same, and the pattern is random. So, what am I going to do? HAND-PAINT it, of course!

Yeah, I'm crazy. But you knew that, right?

As always, thanks for looking.

(If anyone's interested, these and other decals can be bought from www.orionminiatures.com. I have on good authority that they have some of the best and most accurate lozenge decals. Take a look, if you're so inclined.)

(Sorry for some redundant info. To tell the truth, this is copied and pasted to three different message boards. This is my way to cover all the bases)

[TaiidanTomcat]

Have you seen this by any chance?

http://decals.kitreview.com/decals/montexk...0reviewrb_1.htm

I just got one from Santa after a big lozenge decal hunt, haven't tried them myself yet. But I thought I would suggest it, would take time but since you are crazy enough to do this project...

Looking great Lucien

[HOLMES]

Lucien

It has come on along nicely....Any more pics of your progress Please..Thanx.

HOLMES

[Lucien Harpress]

Have you seen this by any chance?

http://decals.kitreview.com/decals/montexk...0reviewrb_1.htm

I just got one from Santa after a big lozenge decal hunt, haven't tried them myself yet. But I thought I would suggest it, would take time but since you are crazy enough to do this project...

Looking great Lucien <_<

I'm extremely tempted, but for some reason I'm being anally accurate with this model. For some reason I want everything to be as close to the original as possible. Those masks are meant for the repeating pattern of the fabric used on WWI German aircraft. Easy to use, yes. Unfortunately....

Take a look at this photo here. It illustrates my point nicely.

The rear (left) half is fabric, laid out in strips vertically. If you take my lozenge scan and flip every other column, that's how the rear is arranged. There's a pattern. The front half, though, is completely random- there's no pattern, because instead of printed fabric, it's painted metal.

I DID toss around the idea of paiting the whole front one color, cutting a bunch of lozenge-shaped masks, sticking them down, airbrushing the next color, cutting more masks, sticking them down, airbrushing the NEXT color, etc.. I envisioned running into problems at the end of the process, though, getting everything to line up straitght. In the end, belive it or not, handpainting will hopefully turn out to be the most hassle-free option. Time consuming? Yeah. But I have more control that way.

I plan to airbrush the whole front the lightest color, then come up with my own random lozenge outline with pencil. I'll then pull a multi-week paint-by-numbers session, then erase any pancil lines that are still visible.

[Lucien Harpress]

Alright, back to updating. Less color discussion this time- more actual color WORK.

First up, my results from my first use of lozenge decals EVER. It's the relatively simple tail structure, but thankfully, on a craft as boxy as the SSW R.VIII, this is as about as complex as it gets.

Yeah, I know it's dark, but let me assure you there IS a method to the application of this lozenge. Let me walk you through the process.

-For now, forget the elevators. Just look at the forward structure. Starting on the left, I began placing the strips of lozenge up-and-down ways (how that for technical terms, eh?).

-Each strip was then rotated 180 degress from the last. (You can make out a "thrust" to the lozenge pattern. The first goes up, the second down, the third up, etc.)

-These strips wrapped around the leading edge to be repeated on the other side.

-Moving on to the moveable surfaces now, the strips were rotated 90 degress. The "thrust" is perpendicular from the main structure- which is accurate to the time period.

-Finally, the two elevators aren't continuous- each strip is opposite the other.

Got it? Well, if you don't, that's okay. I plan on doing the same for the wings, only on a (much) larger scale.

This, of course, STILL lacks the rib tapes- small strips of fabric sewn on top of each rib for (I'm assuming) added strength. There's probably going to be about 30 to 40 on the tail alone, and several thousand on the wings.

The fuselage is a bit different, but we'll burn that bridge when we get there. Wait, what ABOUT the fuselage? Well, there's progress there, too. You know that crazy scheme to hand-paint the lozenge? It is no longer just a scheme.

I began by spraying everything with the lightest color- in this case, a close apporximation of dull blonde. Next, I spent an evening drawing on a random lozenge pattern in pencil. Then, over the next few nights I proceeded to fill in my custom paint-by-numbers set. Here you see the start of two other colors.

Same process continued on the other side, but with more colors. I still need to add one more, a dark purple. The way I'm doing it, I'm keeping each color as evenly spaced as I can, and I'll fill in colors when and where I need to. My intent is to have the overall effect shift to dark blue (right now it's very yellow), but we'll see how it works out.

[TaiidanTomcat]

very inspirational!