SSW R.VIII scratchbuild

[BOC262]

Hey Lucien! Your hand drawn, hand painted random lozenge is AWESOME! Keep up the great work!

[TaiidanTomcat]

Any advice to drawing that pattern?

[Lucien Harpress]

Here's the "rules" (very loose) I tried to keep to.

-Try to keep all the lozenges relatively the same size.

-Work on keeping an average of five sides to each lozenge. No more than six, no less than four.

-Try to have every lozenge have two sides based off of two other lozenges. (Here's what I mean. Start with one lozenge, a rough pentagon. Draw another rough pentagon next to it, so they share a side. Draw the THIRD pentagon so that two of the sides are touching the previous two shapes- you should only be drawing three lines to box in the shape. Continue this, having two sides of the new shape touching existing sides from old shapes, for as long as you are able to.)

-Keep all lozenges convex. Don't have any areas where the outlines go "in"- if they do, redraw a lozenge or two.

-Use pencil. Erase and re-draw when needed.

-Keep things loose. Don't get bogged down with too regular shapes. Try drawing a few large "base" lozenges, then fill in the spaces between them with "filler" lozenges.

This is the GENERAL rules I tried to follow. Drawing the lozenges took maybe an hour, stretched out over two nights. Painting has so far taken much longer. If you have any questions (clarifications, tips on how I did the painting, etc.), feel free to ask.

-If you start to go crazy or your eyes go buggy, stop. Set it down, come back for it the next night.

[TaiidanTomcat]

Here's the "rules" (very loose) I tried to keep to.

-Try to keep all the lozenges relatively the same size.

-Work on keeping an average of five sides to each lozenge. No more than six, no less than four.

-Try to have every lozenge have two sides based off of two other lozenges. (Here's what I mean. Start with one lozenge, a rough pentagon. Draw another rough pentagon next to it, so they share a side. Draw the THIRD pentagon so that two of the sides are touching the previous two shapes- you should only be drawing three lines to box in the shape. Continue this, having two sides of the new shape touching existing sides from old shapes, for as long as you are able to.)

-Keep all lozenges convex. Don't have any areas where the outlines go "in"- if they do, redraw a lozenge or two.

-Use pencil. Erase and re-draw when needed.

-Keep things loose. Don't get bogged down with too regular shapes. Try drawing a few large "base" lozenges, then fill in the spaces between them with "filler" lozenges.

This is the GENERAL rules I tried to follow. Drawing the lozenges took maybe an hour, stretched out over two nights. Painting has so far taken much longer. If you have any questions (clarifications, tips on how I did the painting, etc.), feel free to ask.

-If you start to go crazy or your eyes go buggy, stop. Set it down, come back for it the next night.

Very well explained, thank you. Excellent tips

[janman]

Great scratch-building, Lucien! Very inspirational. I rarely visit this part of the forum, but everytime I do, it's always worth the visit!

I'm anxious too see some progress.

[Loachnut]

WOW!!

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WOW!!

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WOW!!!

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Did I mention........WOW!!!

Jody

[Lucien Harpress]

Well, I've got some good news and bad news.

The good news first. The painting on the front, sans a few touch-ups, is pretty much done!

The bad news? Remember I said the painting is "pretty much" done....

Almost there, though!

[Lucien Harpress]

Not so much an update (still working on those underside lozenges) as an insight into my thought process. The fuselage and tail (which now has all three rudders started, if not painted) are not quite finished, but I thought it time to start seriously thinking about how to make the wings. The standard method is to wrap a balsa core of the right contour with thin plastic. With a wing this big, however, I worry about keeping the airfoil consistent over the entire span, and the ever-present danger of wing sag.

I also toyed around with using curved sheet brass- the curve maintains rigidity and is rather light. Problem? Brass is a PAIN to drill. THAT'S out.

My final design (still need to mock something up) uses both brass sheet, brass I-beam, AND plastic. Let's allow MS Paint to fill you in.

The brass sheet and beam will provide most of the strength, but won't go all the way to the end, where the struts and rigging will go. Some plastic stock at the front will, with some sanding, make a nice leading edge and wingtips.

With my scuplture class allowing me easy acces to sheet brass and brass stock (for free), I should HOPEFULLY get something together soon.

[Lucien Harpress]

Ah, the ol' soldering torch. Gotta love the fact I get to play with fire at school. Something tells me I should've turned the heat down a bit, though...

There's been a few changed from my MS Paint plan. First, instead of brass sheet, I'm using tin. Serves the same function. Second, the brass I-beam has been replaced with brass square stock, but again, serves the same function.

As I said, I got a bit careless with the soldering, but I'm not sweating it as this won't be visible. My instructor had a thing or two to say about craftsmanship, though...

As of now I only have the lower wings started. I may do the uppers this weekend, depending on the kind of time I have. Difference with those being that they will be one piece, with a three-piece spar across the whole mess.

The wings are a bit hefty, but remarkably rigid. I can "hang" the lower wings off the upper to help with stresses, and I may be able to pass another brass spar through the fuselage into each lower spar. All this, connected together with functional rigging, had BETTER solve the problem of wing droopage (I have high hopes).

[Huey Gunner]

That's a project of love. Can't wait till you finish.

[Lucien Harpress]

I got the structure for all the wings pretty much finished. I didn't need to extend the spar on the top wing all the way to the ends- the single spar does the job, and extending it will just add unneeded weight. I still need to put something in to dictate the thickness of the wing- I'll probably use balsa.

DANG she's impressive!

[BOC262]

Your project is shaping up nicely. It's going to be AWESOME when finished!

[HOLMES]

Looking AWESOME...It has come along nicely... :)

[Lucien Harpress]

In search of a way to kill a bit of time, I happened to look at my SSW R.VIII and realized I hadn't done a whole lot of work on it lately. The fuselage painting was done, and all that was left was to cover the (square) backside in the fabric decal I still had plenty of. What happened next? Suffice to say, I don't have much fabric decal left!

She's definitely beginning to look like something now. Most of the airplane will be this darker fabric- all of the wings will be covered, for example. All that's left is to add the few touches of white and black (the markings and the white rudders), and the color scheme will be complete.

There's still the rib tapes to be added to both the fuselage and tail. The fuselage used a unique series of tapes in a sort of "herringbone" pattern, which I'm hoping will liven up the fuselage that much more. I'll get those later, after I give the whole fuselage a coat of future- I don't want those decals going anywhere.

In other news, I gave the painted fuselage a light coat of Future and a bit of black. Maybe it toned down the painting a bit. Maybe it didn't. It made me feel better in any case.

As always, take it as you will. As for me, I have a Zveno that needs to hit the paint shop soon....

[Old Man]

Shaping up very nicely, Sir! a most impressive project.

[HOLMES]

Lucien,

I think you have the patience of a Saint.......

Looking at this today, you have doen a brilliant job so far { but MY eyes are spotting !!!}

Keep at it Lucien.....

HOLMES :D

[GreyGhost]

That there is some excellent modeling ...

Very impressive work Lucien ...

Gregg

[Lucien Harpress]

Bit o' time, bit o' work. I've got tons of photos, so hopefully there's a bit of something for everyone.

First off- I've done a bit of assembly work on the tail. I was going to put rib tapes on, but after an interesting situation with the fuselage, I decided not to. More on that later.

I'd like to kill whoever designed this tail. All the large, heavy structures have no real positive attachment points. I've done the best with what I had- most of the stress will be taken up by the main rudder. Still, though- it was a pain getting everything on and keeping it strong. Hopefully rigging here will help.

These auxillary tail surfaces won't be load-bearing. Hopefully.

I've also begun printing my own markings. Nothing really difficult- just a black stripe on white decal paper. Not too difficult, and the results are surprisingly nice. I also added a number of herringbone pattern rib tapes on this side of the fuselage. You can see them- barely. If I decided to add them to the tail and wings (like I should), though, the fact you can barely see them combined with the several thousand I would need to cover the wings, and adding any more just isn't worth it. Purist may scoff- let them. I don't feel like spending the time and money applying markings that can't be seen. But moving on!

[Lucien Harpress]

This is how the tail will look in the final build. Some supports and rigging will be added as well, but it's close.

It's been real difficult to capture the actual colors of the lozenge camo in the photos I've taken. The real shades are somewhere in between this photo and the others I've taken.

Moving on, I've begun making the wings. Using a cheap source of sheet styrene (FOR SALE signs), I cut the shape of the bottom layer of the wings. Ribs were then added in a novel, and easy, way. I traced the location of each rib on the backside of the panel, then traced them (hard) with a pen while the wing was resting on a stack of newspaper. The result is this:

Fine, in-scale ribs.

The same was done for the upper wings. The bottom wing is "ribbed" and glued down, while the upper half still needs ribs. In the meantime, I've begun to takle the question of a leading edge.

Nothing fancy- just some half-round stock glued to a reinforced backing. Once both halves of the wings are on, I'll sand it down to refine the shape.

Well folks, that's it. I hope you enjoyed it, and I look forward to the next update.

[HOLMES]

NICE so far !

[PetarB]

I've said it before and I will say it again. You're a madman Lucien, and I mean that it the nicest possible way. She's an ugly beast of an aircraft but your model will certainly be an amazing achievement. Good luck with the next stage. Your patience is commendable!