Jump to content

Austro-Hungarian Lohner B II


Recommended Posts

I have always had a facination for weird looking airplanes, and the Lohner B II certainly fills the bill. I got this kit from Eric about 2 months ago, and after much opening the box, looking at resin and closing it, and repeating this over and over I decided it was time to begin.

The aircraft is a 2 seat light observation aircraft, that later on in the war was relegated to training roles. There were problems with the wings failing in flight, resulting in the design being grounded for some time until the bugs could be worked out. I won't go into a huge history at this point, I will save that for later when it's completed. In the meantime follow along during the build. I hope to have this done in a reasonably short order, as around the middle of April, with any luck, I will be shutting down my modeling until Maggie and I get moved into the house and get my work area set up. If it's not finished by then it will have to sit and wait.

I began by removing all the resin pieces from the carriers and cleaning them up. Eric casts some of the best resin in the business, but a quick inspection found my Horizontal Stabilizer was a bit thicker on one end than the other, so with a quick email and a quick response back, Eric sent me a new one. Great Service.

I noticed that the color of resin Eric uses is a very good simulation of Natural Linen, which is what this bird had pretty much overall, and I wanted to get a good effect of the translucency of the fabric. On my Martin Handasyde I did this by painting the ribs and structure a dark color then overspraying with NDL. It was OK, but still not what I wanted. I decided to try something different on this one. I sanded off all the interior detail that was cast into the fuselage side pieces and bottom pieces and thinned the parts to about 1 mm thick. The fuselage is cast in 6 pieces and is built up by glueing the sides onto the bottom, then a seperate nose plug, turtle deck and cockpit cover. I glued the sides and bottom in place, then glued the lower half of the nose plug into place. Using .030 square Evergreen strips I made the interior framing, and glued those into place. After that I used Aeroclub rigging elastic for the interior bracing wires, and ran those in place. All my frame work was predrilled with a #80 bit so that the rigging could be passed through in one length, rather than individual pieces, this way I only had to glue the starting point and ending point. I painted the framing with Tamiya Dark Brown acrylic, and the inside of the nose plug the gray that will be painted on all the metal cowlings and covers. I plan on using the kit Cowl and Cockpit cover as a master to vacuform new pices, as these are rather thick and they really don't fit well. I can modify the master for a better fit, and the thin plastic will look more to scale than the thick resin pieces. Here's some shots of the fuselage under construction. The only drawback will be when the Turtledeck and cockpit goes on, most of this will dissapear. :banana: I did not get carried away and build the entire fuselage framework for that reason. I also plan on making my own engine, using Eric's crankcase as a starting point and making my own cylinders. The 80HP Hiero engine is not very well documented, but I do have a nice picture of one from a museum in Brussels Belgium that will serve the purpose.

Link to post
Share on other sites

This next shot is without the flash, using the regular overhead light over my bench. You can see the shadows of the framework and the bracing wires showing through to the outside, and on the inside, the interior has the amber glow of NDL. I am very pleased with the results so far. I spent a lot of time to make sure the bottom edges of the fuselage sides and bottom mated perfectly so there was no need for any filler, as I will not be painting any NDL areas, except with clear for the decals.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Roughly same view with the turtledeck removed. I added bracing and rigging as far back as will be seen. I amy be crazy, but I am not insane :crying:

in the very first shot back in the first post I have begun construction of the control column from .030 Evergreen Rod. To this I will add the PE Control Wheel from the kit, as well as simulate the bicycle chain aleron controls and pullys with plastic disks punced from .010 sheet.

Until next time.

Cheers

:banana:

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

Wow, awesome job so far, Mike! Very cool take on getting the translucency. I sure hope it pans out like you hope.

As you said, yes you are crazy. But the fact you didn't go to the extremes in the interior that Lance did with his Felixstowe doesn't quite put you into the insane farm...yet. :thumbsup:

I'm starting to become envious at all the list members finishing WW1-types. Guess I need to finish up a few as well <sigh>.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Beautiful work, Mr. King!

It is always a great and instructive pleasure to look in on your projects.

I certainly hope your idea to take advantage of the resn's transluscency turns out. The showing through of the structure beneath the fabric is a light effect, and such are very difficult to represent well by pigment.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks everyone for the comments.

I got a little more done on the interior this evening. I installed the side rails for the seat boards, finished the Control Column and installed the Control Wheel and rigged it, and added the Floorboard and Throttle Control, made from bits of leftover PE. I used .05mm plywood for the floor and throttle mounting boards. Sanded and sealed with clear dope it looks very scale for aircraft plywood. It contrasts nicely with the dark brown of the ash stringers.

Next will be the rudder bar and rudder cables, followed by the seats and belts, the primer pump and a mapcase in the rear Observers seat, plus whatever other assorted sundries I can pack in there. My forward Cowl and Cockpit cover are badly warped. With one end flat to the fuselage, the other end bows up to clear the other by a good 1/8th of an inch. I am going to cut them apart, and vacuform new pieces. That will make them more scale in appearance also, as the cast resin parts are way too thick.

I a, very pleased with the look of the resin as NDL. Most of the fuselage is painted red and white stripes from about midway under the observers post, all the way to the tail, so what little NDL is left will be translucent, and the painted stripes on the outside should be visible from inside as well. At least I hope so anyways.

Many thanks to Tom Plesha of the WW1 Modelers list. I am using his in the Gallery as a reference. There's not much out there as far as references go, so I figure if I follow Tom's lead, then there are two of us doing it the same way, so therefore it must be accurate. :worship: right?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Another view showing the throttle to better advantage. One thing I enjoy about early aircraft is the different materials used in construction. The different types of wood, the brass, aluminum, copper and steel all give different textures and colors, and sometimes the line between airplane and a piece of art or fine furniture gets a little blurred. Aircraft of this era have character and almost a "personality" that is sometimes lost in the more modern airplanes. Although an F14 or and F15 in full burner is impressive, the mechanical symphony and staccato roar of a whirling rotary, or the angry roar of a Mercedes inline or Hispano V-8 is a sound that speaks to you if you take the time to listen.

'Till Next time,

Cheers :worship:

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

The Seats are installed and the Instrument board is in place. I used the same 0.5mm plywood for the instrument board and seat supports as I did the floor. I clear varnished them just as the real articles would have been. I used a mix of CSM German Gages and Fotocut Bezels for the altimeter and airspeed indicator on the instrument board. A bit from an extra PE fret for something long forgotten provided the ingition switch. That was it for instrumentation on this bird, it was flown more by feel than by instruments. The seats are the kit PE buckets, bent and glued to shape, with masking tape folded over onto itself several times and painted black for the leather seat cusion. I have to add the seat straps( no shoulder straps) and add the primer pump, then the interior is finished. I had to move the throttle farther forward, as it was interfering with the seat for the pilot. I had it on the wrong side of the fuselage brace. Fortunately it popped off without damage.

Till Next time

:thumbsup: Cheers

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...

I progressed a little on the cockpit cover and the cowl master. If I scaled up the thickness of the cockpit cover and the cowl they would have been about 4 inches thick, so I decided to use the kit's pieces as masters. I was initially going to vacuform both pieces, but the more I looked at the cockpit cover, it became clear it's a fairly simple shape with no compund curves like the cowl has. I cut up an old aluminum can and fasioned a new cover from it. It's about .003 thick, which scales up to about 3/16"s, still a tad thick but it looks much more scale in appearance then the resin pieces. I'll add the cockpit coaming from wire insulation after it is painted. My metal working skills are not good enough to allow me to do a compund curve for the cowl, so I will vacuform that out of .010" plastic. Both will be painted a medium grey anyways, but I can leave the inside of the cockpit cover unpainted for a natural aluminum look. I had to extend the length of the cowl to give me a little extra length, as the kit pieces are designed to rearend against each other. I will put the cowl on first, then lay the cockpit cover over that. It will overlap the turtle deck and the cowl, just as the real one did.

I am getting doubtful whether I will finish this before I move in 2 months, but at least I can still plug away. I am slowly packing my modeling supplies up that I won't be needing for a while until I get my new hobby room built, so this may be my last model until Maggie and I get settled into the new place. I hope to be back in operation by mid-summer.

Cheers

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites
Beautiful work, Mr. King!

Thank you OldMan

I see you are collecting information for a G-III Caudron OldMan. Is this for a future scratchbuilt project? I am contemplating a G-IV myself. I have the WIndsock datafile for the G-IV, but I believe I also have some information on the G-III in one of my books. Let me know what you need and I will dig and see what I have.

Cheers

Mike

Edited by Skyking
Link to post
Share on other sites

The fabrication of most of the fuselage is done. I vacuformed a new cowl, made the cockpit cover and painted the fuselage red/white stripes, and the gray on the turtledeck, cockpit cover and cowling. I puposely thinned the red and white so they did not go on overly thick, and the end is resut I maintened a little bit of tranclucency through the cockpit walls. If you look closely inside the cockpit, you can see the shadow of the red strip on the inside, and you can see shadows from the cockpit on the outside when light is above. I am very pleased with the end result. I set the resin motor in place to check for clearance of the coqling and all appears to be well. I am going to make new cylinders, as I don;t care too much for the look of these, and i have the master completed, all I have to do is cast them. Hopefully by this weekend I can get them done. I set the lower wing in place so it looked more like an airplane than a beached whale, but they are not mounted yet.

Link to post
Share on other sites

And finally a side view. The wings are swept back, but the camera angle is distorting the wing. It is a constant chord wing, not broader at the tip as it appears.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The best laid plans of mice and men... or something like that.

My original intent was to keep the wings also in the natural resin as they are quite thin, but the effect isn't quite the same. There is no internal structure to cast any type of shadows, so it looks like a semi transparent blob rather than a wing. Not to mention the .030" brass wires I inserted into the wing roots for gluing purposes are quite visible through the resin. The wings will have to be painted and preshaded, but I will leave the fuselage alone for now. I think I can mix a shade of NDL that is pretty close to the tan of the resin.

I am starting to build the jig to aid in construction. Once everything is jigged into place I will begin measuring and cutting the wing struts and cabane struts. After that I will tackle the engine and get that installed and the cowling buttoned up and begin final construction. The top wing has a pretty good twist in it chordwise, so I am going to have to straighten it out before I begin any construction. Some boiling water should allow the resin to get soft enough to "iron" it out. I love the graceful swept wings. They contrast with the boxy, somewhat blunt shaped fuselage, and along with the spindly landing gear, it makes for quite an interesting looking airplane to say the least.

The rigging on this one is pretty intense, and because the resin wings are quite thin and therefore pretty flexible, I am going to use monofilament on this one to aid in strength and hold everything in alignment. There is a huge amount of rigging to do, prehaps even more than my NC4 involved, but on a smaller scope. This thing had bracing wires for bracing wires it seems, so it will be the most tedious part of this build. I am more optimistic I will get this done, as the main components are pretty much finished.

Cheers

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's a look with one of my hamfists holding the top wing in somewhat the location it will be. There's quite a bit of stagger between the top and bottom wing, and the struts are quite swept forward. It just adds all the more to the airplanes "look".

Until next time

Cheers

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

Very pleasant to see such progress in any case, Mr. King! I am sure you will produce an excellent finish on the wings.

It is a shame the original idea did not work out. Perhaps if you keep the linen paint thin, you may still get a bit of "glow" between the painted, darker indication of the structural elements.

I had not realized this was a machine done in the "Pfiel" style. Those are indeed some of the most attractive aeroplanes of the immediate pre-war period, in my book.

Happy modeling, Sir!

Link to post
Share on other sites
It is a shame the original idea did not work out. Perhaps if you keep the linen paint thin, you may still get a bit of "glow" between the painted, darker indication of the structural elements.

I have an idea to try OldMan, but I will practice on an extra wing before I commit to the final model. I think your suggestion of a thin coat of NDL is just the ticket, and I'll preshade the ribs and spar with strips of tan decals to keep it subtle. I think after this I am going to build something that was painted overall and stop messing with this NDL stuff.

I buckled down today and got quite a bit done. The jig is pretty much complete and has the upper wing anchored in place and I was able to get the outter Wing Struts cut to length and sanded to shape. I am using 1/32nd basswood to make the struts so that I can stain them, then I will wrap rice paper around them as needed for the wrappings. I had some fairly heavy warpage in the upper wing, but was able to get it back nice and straight using boiling water and some weights to hold it flat on the bench. I hope by this weekend to have the struts all cut, including the weird cabanes, get the engine done and installed and begin painting and decaling. I may just get this thing done yet!

Cheers

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am sure you will make it work, Mr. King! Decal strip sounds like an excellent approach, that I will mark to give a try in future. I have been painting in my ribs free-hand with a fine liner brush. I sympathize with your wanting to just paint something opaque next time: I have a Nakijima Type 97 on hand for when I finally cannot rig another strut dor a while myself....

I am studying your jig very intently, with an eye towards copying it. My local hobby shop stocks both basswood and balsa strips in many sizes. Are those toothpicks showing by the starboard wingtip, and are they fastened in any way, or just wedgd in as checks on the gap and stagger?

Last time I was at my local shop I poked about in their model railroad section, and discovered HO lumber, or put plainly, packs of basswood strip in very small sizes, down as far as .5mm by 1mm. It looks like a potentially very useful material for aeroplanes from this era.

Happy modeling, Sir!

Edited by Old Man
Link to post
Share on other sites
Are those toothpicks showing by the starboard wingtip, and are they fastened in any way, or just wedgd in as checks on the gap and stagger?

Hi OldMan,

No actually those are the outter wing struts :lol: .I made those from 1/32nd basswood. You are correct though, they do look like toothpicks, which after thinking about it, would have been easier to fasion them from toothpicks instead of flat stock. There is quite a bit of stagger and space between the wings though, almost 1 3/4 inches, so I don't know if I would have found toothpicks of suitable length. Either way I don't mind the sanding.

Those particular sticks I bought in a bundle about 10 years ago. They are 3/16's thick by 5/8's wide and 36 inches long. There were 200 in the bundle and I paid something like 5.00 dollars for the whole lot. It's cheap and when I am done with them I can simply break them off. I do like the new jig that Aeroclub is offering, but at thispoint these suit me just fine. I use T Pins as clamps, and they help keep things from moving around on me as I measure and cut.

Cheers

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

A few more days of progress brings me to the engine and propellor. The kit came with an engine cast in resin and a white metal prop. Although both are usable, I decided to go the masochistic route and make my own. The prop I carved from a peice of basswood and stained it with a light mahogony stain. I used the kit prop as a pattern and lots of emory sticks stolen from Maggie's beauty shop supplies :whistle:

The engine was another matter. The kits crankase was well molded and correct according to the one photograph of a Hiero engine that I could find. I cut off the kits cylinders and turned a new master from a piece of sprue. These I cast and made duplicates in resin, and added the the details. Valve springs are guitar string with the winding still on, and the rocker arms are .020 plastic square strip from Evergreen. The rocker arm shaft is a peice of .15" music wire, as are the pushrods. The intake manifold and runners are .030" solder and a piece of .060 Evergreen square strip. It was all painted and assembled. The engine is now mounted, using the cowl to center it and I used 5 minute epoxy so I had some fiddle room to move it around a bit. Next I will add the exhaust once I get the cowl and cockpit cover mounted permently. the brass wire you see in the right foreground are the cabane struts all cut to size and ready to paint and install. I have nearly all the fabrication done with the exception of the landing gear, and I can now begin painting, decaling and final assembly.

Here is a shot of the left side of the engine

Edited by Skyking
Link to post
Share on other sites

and lastly but not leastly, here's a shot of the prop with PE prop boss installed. I have to add the brass sheeting along the props lead edge yet. I'll use Bare Metal foil for that.

I've begun painting the red/white stripes on the wings, stabilizer and rudder. then I can begin decaling, what little there is. With any luck I should have this little beastie done in another week or two.

'till next time

Cheers :whistle:

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...