Airco DH2

This is a old picture. Years ago I have build the Eduard D.H.2 Stripdown, and there I used wood on the soldered tail boom. The slot was done by hand with a saw, to much effort.
The idea is good, but I need an easier way to create the slots in the wood.

So I created a tool, as this action needs a robust mounting for precise guidance provided by the little vice. It is a bit tricky to set the deepness of the cut, but once done a good amount of wood can be slotted at once.

Next I cut two stripes to the needed length of the strut, put a brass wire (works with 0.4 or 0.5mm) into the slot, add wood glue and put it into a vice for drying.
That is a disadvantage of this method, that one strut after the other needs to be glued (instead of glueing two layers of veneers together and cut the stripes after that).

Then sand the struts into shape. Here 8 prepared struts in a raw shape. It is no problem to sand them very thin, see the upright one on the Cent.

After white primer and a light shading of the ribs with thinned MRP NATO Black I applied masks cut by my plotter. Then I added rib tapes with Alclad white primer.

That is the result.

Same on lower surface of the wings, but I added a coat of buff to the tapes.

And also here the result.

MRP-251 PC8 applied.

I like the shade! The rib tapes a little bit higher so I can add a wash later.

The linen color on the lower surface.

Here also on the lower surface.

The strut holes are already 0.7mm. I deepened them lightly and glued in metal pipes for easier strut mounting later.

Same also on the upper side of lower wing. Shows the PC8 in daylight.

The DH2 uses a Gnome Monosoupape 9B-2 rotary engine with 100hp which I found in my stash made by Small Stuff. Since I've built about 20 engines from Small Stuff so I don't have pictures of the build (please see my other projects if interested), but I do have of the finished engine.

This DH2 needs a 4-blade airscrew, which I made from wood veneer.
This is the front view, engine side together with the Eduard template.

And the back side. Also the drawing in the Windsock Datafile 48 was helpful!

Dry fitting on the rotary.

And in side view. The blades are very thin.

I soldered new booms using the true length drawing (without the perspective error) in the Datafile. No, this are not steel tubes 😉 as I used 0.8mm thick wall brass tube and 1.0mm thin wall bushes.

Two booms are needed.

Then I glued recently slotted wood strips to the 0.4mm brass wires and shaped them into struts.

A tricky part was to drill 8 0.26mm holes into each boom for rigging. Here I put in one Gaspatch anchor point in (without glue) to show the location of the holes.

The bearing to allow rotation for engine and airscrew.

The kit allows many instrument panel layouts. I selected the one for this machine according to the WNW manual. Decals are provided by the kit.

The WNW manual shows a pump, so I scratched one. Brass, nickel silver, copper wire and a wooden handle.

Mounted into the left half. The internal rigging is also shown.

Another little device was visible and then I found it on a sketch in the Datafile. It shows enough to scratch it.

For the other side I scratched a little instrument (the "glass" is not yet dry) and two oil pulsators.

For the pedals I added structured aluminium foil (lid of a stracciatella curd). I tried also a finer structure of a cigarette package (I do not smoke!), but with the naked eye the structure was no more visible form outside of the fuselage).

All mounted in the other half.

For better mounting (had trouble during my Stripdown build) I added wood to fuel and oil tank.

Painted tank with the prepared fuselage halves.

According to WNW manual I added a trigger and cabling to the control stick.

To get some nice color into the game I painted
- some struts gray
- other struts white, Insignia white, masked and finally red (Gunze H327)
The wheels are also painted in that shade. After a day drying time I masked and painted the tires in a dark gray.

The base plate is prepared too, with foot boards and a compass turned from brass. The seat is the 3D printed one by Eduard, which I painted during the Camel project.

I need to see how it will look like!

Since the fuselage is glued on/into the lower wing I could continue with the little struts. Here in a raw shape, the last one only glued.

The little struts can hold the upper wing without glue easily.

There was a PE set by Eduard for the SE.5a called "stretchers" (48915), which I used on more planes e.g. the Quadruplane. A very nice provision is a drilling template, which I used to prepare the wings for rigging.
Some thinking is required regarding the positions of the double flying wire and single landing wire.

I wanted to paint the fuselage, but before I added another detail. In the cockpit is a hole to add later the MG mount. The Datafile has a sketch which shows some metal there. On a HGW set of cockpit bezels (metal, brass and black) I found a little frame matching the hole. I used the black one.

Above the tank there are caps on fuel and oil fillers, but it looks like a screw on the kit?
The mechanics would need an oversized screwdriver! So I drilled out the caps and replaced them with turned and milled brass caps with handles.

After a lot of priming, sanding, masking, shading, painting .... I got this result. The idea was to break the uniform gray with different base colors.

On lower surface I had no idea about the color, as WNW provides a decal for it. But it looks white in the manual. I used a white from MrPaint MRP-099. It is called white, but is an off white FS17875. Luckily I have not forgotten to paint the compass housing in the same paint.
The Eduard Profipack provides a mask here (which I like more then a decal).

The gray Gunze H53 is applied (I should have stopped a little bit earlier).

The lower surface looks nice.

Instead of fiddling with masking tapes I made a negative mask with a scan of the Datafile to create rib tapes with primer, applied after a shading.

I have also done masks for the cockades and painted them with RAF Blue and Red by Drooling Bulldog.

The primed rib tapes are still there

The numbers with a hight of 4mm touched the limit of the cutting plotter. With naked eye it looks okay.
To have a identical blue I sprayed white again on red before the blue.

On some pictures I notices dark fittings on the boom struts, so I added those from black alu foil of a wine bottle.

I started to improve the undercarriage with a new axle and support tubes. I need to add a fairing, but have not found good references yet. I think I will use some metal sheet and not wood.

A squeezed brass tube soldered to a 0.6mm nickel silver tube. Then I soldered bushes for the tail booms to it. To hold them in the right angle I made two cuts into a piece of wood and press drills into the slots. The drill shafts hold the bushes.
Don't remove the drills with force! Wash the piece with alcohol to remove the flux.

Finished, together with other scratched parts.

The wooden tail skid, with steering control, a "shoe" and suspension mount. Later I replaced the coil spring with a thinner one, also wound on a drill shaft.

A scratched rudder control horn.

Then I cut the plastic part from the rudder (here a picture from the last update).
So before ...

I drilled a 0.4mm hole and added the new part with a 0.4mm pin.
... and after the modification.

Steering is not possible as I glued the axle of the skid holder into the tube. I have not found such small circlips 😉

A dry fitting of the booms allows a little teaser how it will look like later.

A piece of sprue manipulated on the lathe and a plate added.

Painted aluminium and red brown as isolator for ignition wires.
Glued together with the engine to the axle and thin copper wires added.

So with fuel, oil and a temporarily added air screw a test run was successful 😉

The intake of the kit looks very small and is closed. So I converted a brass electronic part from the left to a new intake.

Here is the intake mounted on top of the added cover. The leather belts are kit PE. All grey struts got the manufacturer logo decal applied and the inner struts are mounted.

To finalize the axle I drilled hole in pieces of PE remains, soldered them as block on a rod and turned them to washers on the lathe.

De-soldered and mounted to it's positions to the axle.

This will help later with adding the suspension to fix the axle.

I have mentioned the kit part, but have not shown a picture. It is symmetric.

I tried to create the fairing of the connection rods.
At first from aluminium sheet, which fails.
The I made one from thin brass sheet with help of PE bending tool and my little vice, but I had to glow it before.

That is the final shape.

So I have now a closed fairing of lower surface, as in the Datafile drawing.

The gear parts are glued together, but only primed until now. After painting I can add the axle with the "rubber" suspension. Here for dry fit plugged to fuselage.

The upper wing was glued to the middle struts, they hold the wing easily.

Then I added the other struts from inside to outside. The wings are flexible enough to do it this way.

I did not put the decals on the outer struts (as Eduard says) as I assumed that these were painted over in the field by the squadrons.

I masked the airscrew to paint the tips grey. Nice, that this is different to my other DH-2 with brass tips.

In the same airbrush session the undercarriage was painted too.

And now the wing rigging was done.
At fist the inner crosses in the struts. 12 thinner lines with 24 terminals.

I really like the look of the Gaspatch RAF wire terminals!

Then the main rigging with double flying and single landing wires. 24 EZ-lines with 48 terminals.

And a detail view. This is small!

As next step I rigged the tail booms as far as possible. Normal Gaspatch turnbuckles One End are used.

I hope that this was not too early: I could not resist and mounted the booms at first to the tail and then with brass pins wo the wings.

Now it looks like a DH-2!

On this picture you can vaguely discern the 48 black metal fittings, which I added to the struts.

The geometry looks ok.

Together with the beautiful airscrew, which will be mounted as last step.

Gear and compass fairing are also in place.

For the axle I needed a piece of foam, because the suspension is missing.

I added prop bosses from PART to the airscrew and "bolted" them with wire.

The airscrew is now complete and will be added as last step.

I mounted the axle with the suspension. I tried at first dark grey sprue, but that do not look right. I removed it and tried black stretched sprue, which looks more dark grey now.
Please note metal stripes to avoid that the rubber leaves the position.

For a petrol drain pipe I wound colored copper wire around a 0.3mm steel wire ...

... drilled a hole into the fuselage and mounted it to the right leg.

On the lower fuselage frame I added a rigging, as inside from wire and 0.3mm brass.
The undercarriage got 4 cross wires. As the kit struts were very flexible I used fishing line here. But as always, I could never get this tight.

Here you can see my gear in comparison to the original. The RAF wire terminals and the mentioned securing stripe of the rubber suspension can be seen.

A Lewis MG needs a storage for drums and the DH-2 used a lot of different internal and external storages.
For the external storages there are three different variants includes as PE. This is nice, so I can used remaining parts for my later build of the FE8 😉

The missing parts of the previous picture are soldered here to side storages. As I hate to glue only something in place I drilled to the etched rivet for easier and safe mounting.

My plan was to try a Gaspatch Lewis MG, which has some drums included. But it was very hard to get them in. The I remembered my SE.5a build, there was the resin set 648299 "SE.5a guns" included with the Royal edition. There are thin and thick drums included and I have some left overs.

An original drum.
Picture of Wikipedia:
[img1]

That are my options.
Top the kit plastic parts, with a kit provided PE stripe outside not bad. Leather handles are also provided as PE.
Left the Gaspatch drums. Not bad, I guess 3D printed.
Right from the Eudard resin set, which I will use. Every rivet is there, even around outside in the recesses!

The drums fits. I shortened the storages an bit, to come closer to the drawing.

The shell cases are turned from brass on my lathe.
.
.
.
No that, was joke. Painted.

The storages are mounted. The seat belts made by HGW are also done, I forgot a picture of them alone.

Eduard provides seat belts from the STEEL series with the 3D wicker seat, but I wanted the long belt outside as visible on some DH-2 pictures.

The Lewis Mk II was mounted on the kit plastic mount with PE added and painted.
I had to modify the brass catcher to avoid a conflict with the instrument panel later. The windshield is hold by two PE frames, which needed also some modification to fit on the Gaspatch Lewis.

View from left. I used Alclad 120 Gunmetal, but only a thin layer on top of Alclad Dark Aluminium.

The drums are mounted, the Lewis is only for dry fit plugged in.

On the pictures is the washing of the Lewis missing.

I like the look of all the details together.

The brass shells of the drums are visible on the finished cockpit!

I forgot the drill the booms for a strut between them. So I made again a wood-brass-wood sandwich, sanded it to a strut and mounted it into afterwards drilled holes (with was tricky on the painted booms).

The header tank is made from kit parts, but I tuned it with brass, copper and stretched clear sprue.

Fits to the intended position, but not yet in place for easier rigging.

The header tank needs to be connected to the fuel system. The kit provides some plastic "lines" but I used glued copper wire. Please note the coupler, which allows wing un-mounting. It is in the Datafile drawing!

The pitot is kit PE, but I cut the PE wire and added two lines of lead wire, again with couplers, as done on my Camel and shown on a DH-2 picture.

A lot of rigging was added to the tail.

That is one circular wire through holes with 8 terminals.

I started with the control wires, here the ailerons are connected, and a long wire is going from fuselage into the (now painted) pulley cover.

For the elevation control I prepared the lever with forelock.

Will go here.

And finally I started the additional rigging from fuselage to wings.

Let's start with rudder control.
The Wingnut Wing kit has a PE for the rudder control splitter. In my kit there is nothing for that, so I drilled five 0.2mm holes into two brass sheets and soldered five 0.2mm nickel silver rods into the holes, see the left one.
Then I filed the back flat, see the right one.

I threaded turnbuckles onto the wires, secured with CA and cut the wires.

The kit has PE pulleys but I need to change the holder, as the rudder control lines needs to run outside the struts.

The parts together.
Two control wires comes from the cockpit, runs over the pulley on the strut and comes to the turnbuckles on the splitter. Right the two upper lines controls the rudder. On the other side the same. So the rudder is completely controlled by double wires.
The single lower line runs to the tail skid.

So the tail skid can be steered on ground.

Now the elevation control.
I managed to break one of the elevation control levers, so I made two new ones from squeezed brass tube. This way I don't need to drill 0.2mm holes. Just soldered them into the slot.

After painting I reused the axle tubes and added one on each side of the cockpit.

The four control wires runs via the PE kit pulleys to the tail.

On the control horns are double pivots.

And the last control story are the aileron control.
The control wires comes out of a pulley below the fuselage, running in front of the wing to an outer pulley and to a control horn on the lower aileron.
On the right edge you can notice a connection between both ailerons.

On the upper aileron there were different types:
- a return spring
- bungee rubber cords
- another set of pulleys and a control wire to the other side to create a loop.
This machine used bungee rubber return cords.

After all the control wires are in place I added four rigging crosses from the outer wings (here I created some mounts) ...

... to the tail.

This is another impression of all the wires 🙂
It is really easy to go through with a new wire at the wrong place, but I was able to correct my mistakes.

I worked also on the wheels and applied the decals.

Opmerkingen

95 16 March 2022, 18:16

bughunter
The result of my new method is great. No need of thin drills and the sandwich of wood and metal is even more robust than wood alone.
This will be enhanced to a full build report soon! May be you guess the type already from the Eduard strut on the last picture.

16 March 2022, 18:22

Urban Gardini
Pup?

16 March 2022, 18:41

Christoph Kunz
Ein Blick in des Hexenmeisters Küche 👀

16 March 2022, 20:10

David Taylor
Could it be a DH 2.

16 March 2022, 21:15

bughunter
@Urban No, no Pup. The only Pup was the old Eduard one with brittle grey plastic, here iit is the newer beige. The Pup is already in my cabinet.
@Christoph 👍 It is only a useful arrangement of tools in my workshop. 😉
David - full hit!
I'm still waiting for decals of the Nieuport Triplane project, so I started something different. But not a Stripdown this time, a normal Profipack to put a finished plane beside the Stripdown.

16 March 2022, 21:51

Mona
necessity is the mother of invention ..be creative , you are so skillful 👍

16 March 2022, 22:29

Urban Gardini
No worries mate, it's even better with a DH.2

17 March 2022, 00:10

bughunter
Thank you mates!
Now the paint decision. Eduard provides paint schemes in linen and PC10. But I have already a lot of models with that paints in my cabinet!
I know the nice paint shades of PC10 and PC12 (on my Sopwith Triplane) provided by Mr.Paint and lately I discovered they offer a PC8 too! After I noticed the PC8 paint scheme of the DH2 with serial 6000 it was clear to me to do that bird 👍

17 March 2022, 08:48

Hans-Jürgen Haag
Proxxon sei Dank! Gute Idee! Bin schon gespannt wie es weiter geht.

17 March 2022, 14:54

Elias Korompilis
Wonderfull job!
The precision vise you are using to make the groove on the veneer strut is it the proxxon precision vise?

17 March 2022, 14:59

Giannis Kaltapanidis
WOW! With some of you guys I'd like to be behind your back and watch the way you are working!

17 March 2022, 16:22

Alec K
Another great project. I like your strut fabrication process ( I tried something similar, but with styrene, in my current biplane build). I think there is an opportunity for a manufacturer to offer blank struts (metal wire inside extruded resin or plastic) in various profiles. I believe something similar was available in times past.

17 March 2022, 17:34

Villiers de Vos
Lots of hard work.

17 March 2022, 17:36

bughunter
Thank you mates!
@Elias, it is called "Precision steel vice PM 40" and is originally accessory for the Proxxon mill MF70. I have two of them, one mounted on the mill, the second one for squeezing brass tubes as struts, or just hold parts during scratch work or simply as weight during glue drying 😉
Here you can found it on the english Proxxon mill page:
proxxon.com/en/micromot/27110.php
@Giannis I think that is the reason why we are doing those build reports here? So we let you virtually view over the shoulder 😉 Have fun, there are a lot of free seats in the first row!

17 March 2022, 17:49

bughunter
Ooops, I nearly missed your answers Alec and Villiers due to my typing in parallel. Welcome to the show!
Alec, I only heard about the streamlined brass wires called "Strutz": STRUTZ Streamlines Brass Wire (Skybirds '86 , 1:72)
But plastic and resin needs to be painted, which I want to avoid. My way would work also in 1:72, with 0.2 or 0.3mm wires and fine grain veneer like boxwood.
BTW, we have a huge problem with boxwood in Germany. Some years ago the Box tree moth was accidentally imported from Asia, so we should have a lot of wood now, but nothing in some years. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydalima_perspectalis

17 March 2022, 18:07

Elias Korompilis
Thank you Frank, I have the same set with your photo, the MB200 stand and the micromot 60/E and I wanted to make sure the PM 40 vise fits and works with this stand.

17 March 2022, 18:08

bughunter
Oh, no it do not fit the normal way. I hate this stand, because it do not slide exactly so I can't drill with it (for drilling I have now the TBM220). But that stand allows to rotate the head, that's why I use it here. I fitted the PM40 in a creative way, because I was not able to press the wood by hand against a edge and move it. That is what I tried at first.
But the vice is not really needed. Another solution could be a piece of wood in the same with as the stripes with wood or metal added to both sides.

17 March 2022, 18:17

David R. Meizoso
Watching with awe.

17 March 2022, 18:25

Elias Korompilis
OK thanks, anyway I will have to buy the PM 40 some day, I have the MS 4 but it is uselles for precision work.

17 March 2022, 18:42

bughunter
Let's continue with rotary and airscrew. This was only my third 4-blade airscrew, but it turned out well. I need to add ignition wires to the engine and prop boss and grey tips to the airscrew.

18 March 2022, 07:25

Dietmar Bogatzki
Engine and airscrew looking fantastic, bughunter 👍

18 March 2022, 09:13

Robert Podkoński
This propeller you've carved is a masterpiece in itself!

18 March 2022, 09:35

David R. Meizoso
Awe 2.0 😮

18 March 2022, 14:00

Villiers de Vos
A master at work.

18 March 2022, 14:21

Marcel Klemmer
I am in

18 March 2022, 20:01

bughunter
Thank you mates 👍 and a warm welcome to the new guests!
I'm working full steam on this project so I hope I can show as next step the tail booms soon.

18 March 2022, 21:14

Neil
Hi bughunter. I believe Villiers summed it up! As an OOB modeller I don't feel worthy to comment! However it's always a pleasure to see your work in this feed. Truly masterfully executed lovely work everytime.

18 March 2022, 21:32

bughunter
Neil, thank you very much for your kind words! Every comment is highly appreciated 👍 OOB or scratch building or something in between - most important is to have fun and do what you like!
My working area "old struts and biplanes" is something special for me, because here it works to use real material like wood and metal (honestly I am lazy, so I do not need to paint the parts 😉 ) but this would not work on e.g. jet models or helicopters. In addition, the technology was quite simple, so you can understand these solutions and follow their development on the models. Together with the colorful paint jobs, that's what makes it so appealing to me.

18 March 2022, 22:33

bughunter
The thin plastic tail booms are too flexible for my taste. The good thing with this project is, that I don't need to invent new solutions but just replicate the way I found for my DH2 Stripdown. So I made two new tail booms from brass.

19 March 2022, 18:32

Ben M
Very fun stuff, I appreciate you sharing your techniques.

19 March 2022, 18:39

David R. Meizoso
Amazing. I guess you drilled the booms before soldering all the parts? I would also like to ask which kind of drill bit you used? The ones I have would certainly break when trying to bite into brass.

19 March 2022, 20:59

bughunter
I use cobalt micro drills (shaft 1mm), which I found years ago on ebay.
The trick was here to drill the 1mm bushes first, slide them on the long tubes, find exact position and use the hole in the bush to guide the drill, so I drilled trough the long tube.

19 March 2022, 21:42

David R. Meizoso
Thanks for the explanation! I'm afraid my question wasn't accurate at all, since I was referring to the holes for the turnbuckles. Those holes seem easier if done before everything else (such a tight space around, and they're not perpendicular to the main shaft!), unless you're some kind of wizard, which you are for me btw...

19 March 2022, 22:16

Alec K
Amazing metal and wood work all around 👍 👍 👍

20 March 2022, 02:53

Jv
Very impressive
Thanks for sharing all your build pics

20 March 2022, 03:57

Villiers de Vos
Impressive and very informative.

20 March 2022, 04:41

bughunter
Thank you mates!
After the great trip to the Euro Model Expo I spent some time on the bench and can show the next parts which I prepared for the cockpit to be able to close the fuselage.

5 April 2022, 12:39

David Taylor
Interior is great.

5 April 2022, 14:57

Spanjaard
out of comments already... each build is better than the previous one

7 April 2022, 20:04

Tom ...
👍 👀

8 April 2022, 00:20

Dietmar Bogatzki
Agree with Spanjaard 👍

8 April 2022, 05:18

bughunter
Thank you very much mates! Your comments are highly appreciated.
Spanjaard, my motto is: Live long and learn! The next model will be better and at the same time reduce the stash.
You don't have to make the mistakes yourself to learn from them 😉

8 April 2022, 16:01

Ricardo Reis
Very nice, following another of your great builds!!!

8 April 2022, 16:05

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Watching 👀
Looks great already 👍

8 April 2022, 16:20

Spanjaard
👍 working on that too!

8 April 2022, 16:25

bughunter
Does anyone know a font for the blue 6000 (very square numbers) in this image?
[img1]

9 April 2022, 13:40

gorby
Fantastic!
Looks like I'm going to enjoy this - my favourite WWI aircraft gets the Bughunter magic. 🙂

9 April 2022, 14:28

bughunter
A warm welcome to you gorby!
I have not tried to cut the numbers, but I found a Aircraft font page for download:
volareproducts.com/blog/?page_id=2343
It's a WWII one, but if I compress the numbers a bit, it looks the same.

9 April 2022, 14:54

David Taylor
Fuselage looking good as usual.

9 April 2022, 15:44

Alec K
Regarding the font: if you have a scan of the decal sheet, you could upload to website below (there are others) for ID: myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Based on the Eduard decal sheet, I would say that USSR REGULAR is pretty close: myfonts.com/fonts/in..studio/ussr/regular/

10 April 2022, 01:03

bughunter
Thank you Alec for this nice hint 👍
I think the RAF font from my link above is very close, but I had to position the numbers individually in Inkscape. Then I wondered during the cut process - what the hell the cutter is doing here? The I saw the result: Each of the arches from which the letters were composed was cut individually! Of course, this is not visible when printed out: black on black, but it is counterproductive when cutting. In Inkscape it was easy to fix with "Union".
Goodland would alse be an option accoding to your WhatThe Fontg page, is more close then your USSR suggestion.
The nice thing in Inkscape is font manipulation too, so I could change the angled edge of the number "6" 😉
Stay tuned ...

10 April 2022, 10:01

Alec K
Good to hear. I use CorelDraw (assuming it's similar to Inkspace). I find it easier sometimes to just draw the codes instead of trying to figure out what the font is, but this is only practical when there are few different characters.

Your project is inspirational as always 👍

10 April 2022, 11:57

Nathan Dempsey
I'm late to the show. Following 👀

10 April 2022, 15:16

bughunter
Alec, I love Inkscape! That is a very powerful tool, and I'm still learning. As I'm using Linux, I run the cutting plotter with a plugin directly from Inkscape.
At the end I started with the mentioned font but manipulated it further. The numbers are only 4mm high and there is a limit in very fine structures to be cut. But I'm happy with the outcome! 😉 Pictures soon ...
Nathan, a warm welcome!

10 April 2022, 19:00

bughunter
The tail looks ok now, in comparison to the wonderful Ronny Bar profile:
[img1]

10 April 2022, 20:04

bughunter
After a short Easter trip I'm back at the bench.
I thought about the tail skid a while and decided to replace it. That work needs a while, but now it is very robust and looks nice.
If you're always cheered on like that here, it doesn't remain without consequences. 😎

22 April 2022, 20:05

Ricardo Reis
Speachless! 😲

22 April 2022, 21:40

Spanjaard
very small difference between before and after the changes in the tail skid..... very small... my god. what a beauty.

22 April 2022, 23:07

Sy Bar
Such skilled work from a master

23 April 2022, 06:19

David Taylor
What can one say.

23 April 2022, 10:00

Neil
Still following this with great interest and yes... I'm with Lochsa, I struggle to see at my preferred 🔍 of 1/48, constantly swapping glasses. I'm always astonished at your detailed, skilled and impressive builds. 👏👏

23 April 2022, 11:31

Alec K
One annoying thing about macro photography is how it mercilessly reveals lack of detail on a scale model. Most of us just shrug our shoulders at this "annoyance" and move on. Not Bughunter: he just goes back and re-builds the offending detail so it matches its 1:1 inspiration. Sigh…

23 April 2022, 15:03

bughunter
Thank you very much mates for your wonderful, creative and motivating comments!
@Lochsa River
I'm short sighted, so for the work I remove my glasses. But I must admit as I'm getting older the eye sight changes. The trick is to use long handles, e.g. sand the end of a longer piece of wood into the needed skid and cut only after finish. See pic 55: long wood and long axle on the right.
@Alec
Not always, as my DH-2 stripdown has the kit stick. But there was a PE to mount the booms. And here it started, that I wanted a safe mount of the tail booms, so finally I replaced a lot.

24 April 2022, 17:31

Alec K
🙂 👍

24 April 2022, 17:52

bughunter
I'm happy, that some problems are solved and like the look of this biplane!

25 April 2022, 19:40

Thomas Bischoff
I have to admit that your perfection always makes me speechless. Incredibly details .. and the tips and how to's you give are also priceless 👍

25 April 2022, 21:27

Robert Podkoński
I totally agree with Thomas here!

26 April 2022, 08:17

Kyle DeHart
This is just stunning.

26 April 2022, 08:30

Boris B
Ooops, I was away and I missed another masterwork inthe making ! Joining now to catch up, especially since I have one of these in the WWI stash !

26 April 2022, 08:44

Capt Bellinger
Bravo!

26 April 2022, 10:28

David Taylor
SE 5a next,maybe hopefully.LOL

26 April 2022, 14:07

bughunter
Thank you mates for the motivating feedback 👍
@Thomas and Robert
I don't have patented my tricks, but "priceless"? Some friends say in german the funny word "gebierenpflichtig", which means chargeable in the form of a beer, so feel free to offer a beer, if we meet once on an exhibition 😉
@David
Next will be the completion of the Nieuport Triplane, as the decal problem is solved now.
I got the Royal kit of the SE.5a as birthday present long ago, but only the night fighter was built until now: SE.5a Nightfighter | Project by bughunter (1:48)
The plan is to build the second one with different options: Hispano engine, 4blade, different undercarriage. And this time a better rigging. The RAF wire terminals from Gaspatch were not yet existing during the build.

This terminals are used on my Sopwith Triplane, Dolphin and the Camel recently. And now on the DH-2 here. Nearly half of the wing rigging is done 😉

26 April 2022, 17:31

Robert Podkoński
When I will be next time in Munich, I will contact you and offer a beer or two for sure, Bughunter 😄 (and I am really going to visit Munich soon 😉 )

26 April 2022, 18:08

Hans-Jürgen Haag
Absolutes Spitzenhandwerk! Ne astreine 10 von 10!

27 April 2022, 09:20

bughunter
Robert, you are welcome!
Hans, Thanks! I hope the judges see it the same way, if I put it to the contest on next years EME! 🙂
In mean time the wing rigging is finished, much much more to come.

27 April 2022, 14:18

bughunter
And continue under full steam!
I really love the moment when all prepared subassemblies comes together 😎
The colors are so beautiful, what a model ...

27 April 2022, 19:30

Christoph Kunz
Pic 88 "looks ok" he wrote...
lol
Another perfect one

27 April 2022, 20:25

Villiers de Vos
Exceptional.

28 April 2022, 04:00

bughunter
Thanks mates 👍
@Christoph I have not mentioned that I had to shorten the metal booms a bit, and that "ok" was related to the geometry after that. It is somehow hard to match the drawings because all is in different angles in all directions.

The best thing is, that the DH-2 is total robust now, even without a functional rigging (e.g. with fishing line). The metal in the struts and the metal booms forms a sturdy bird.
Still a lot to do: rigging, control wires and details like weapon.

28 April 2022, 18:52

Boris B
The look of the rigging is simply amazing !
And I like how you simply have it done from one day to the next... How many hours are in your day, btw ? Or do you have 48x24 hours in each ? 🙂
Or have you also reproduced a factory's worth of scale figures that have -- of course -- come to life in the meantime ? Everything is believable in Bughunter 1:48 world !

29 April 2022, 08:30

Robert Podkoński
We have already established that Bugunter has a flock of trained spiders, Boris 😄

29 April 2022, 10:21

bughunter
Robert, you mean this picture?
Siemens-Schuckert D.III Work in Progress | Album by bughunter (1:48)
Boris, glad that you like the rigging! It is so great to have such nice accessories - we live in Golden Modeling times 👍
One explanation is, that the pictures and updates are not in sync with the progress. I'm writing the same build report in another forum and release the update in batches.
When things are going really well and every move is right, then you also achieve something. Here the holes were prepared already (see pic 40), and to put the line into the hole and secure it with CA is really quick. On other days I have hardly made any progress in many hours.
But yes, I put a lot of time into modeling.
@all Have a nice weekend! Frank

29 April 2022, 10:38

Robert Podkoński
Of course, Bughunter, this very photo tells the whole truth 😄

29 April 2022, 11:14

Dietmar Bogatzki
Fantastic rigging, Bughunter 👍

29 April 2022, 16:48

Robin (WhiteGlint)
I can only second what the other mates said already. Stunning work! 👀 👍
Give my regards to Spiderbro as well. 😉

29 April 2022, 18:03

bughunter
Thank you mates!
The airscrew is now finalized and will be added as last step. The suspension was added and the undercarriage is rigged.

30 April 2022, 18:37

Kyle DeHart
The propeller is soo good. Awesome work on this. A joy to watch.

30 April 2022, 21:55

Jose Freire
Fantastic word, amazing detail. A masterpiece.

4 May 2022, 18:59

Tom ...
Crazy good!

4 May 2022, 19:12

bughunter
Thank you very much mates 👍
Jose, a nice model, yes. But I assume not my masterpiece.
The number of remaining parts becomes smaller. There is a light at the end of the tunnel ... May be this is finished after 2 month.

5 May 2022, 15:53

Dave Flitton
Wow!!!

5 May 2022, 16:27

Nathan Dempsey
Awesome work. I immediately tried to imagine both flying and trying to reload a machine gun at the same time.

5 May 2022, 17:36

bughunter
Thank you Dave and Nathan!

Here on a DH-2 a reload of the Lewis was a safe action! The problem with the airscrew and gun was the reason to develop pushers like this DH-2.
A lot of aircraft types had the Lewis mounted on top of the wing, typical on a "Foster" mount (see my SE.5a project), to fire over the airscrew arc.
To reload the Lewis on this mount, the pilot can move down the MG on a rail to change the drum. But the pilot needed both hands to do this, had to let go of the stick and hold it with his knees, which was a dangerous situation in a fight!

Indicative of the risk is an experience of the British pilot Louis Strange. When he wanted to change the magazine of his Lewis MG, which was mounted on the wing of a Martinsyde S.1, he lost control of the stick. The aircraft then changed attitude and Strange was ejected from the cockpit, but managed to hold on to the magazine. He eventually managed to climb back into the cockpit.
This is mentioned in a German wikipedia article about the Lewis, but not in the english version.
Ah, found it here too. And yes, at that time 1914 there were no belts! Also the Sopwith Schneider (winner of the Monaco air race 1914) had no belts and dropped the pilot into cold water at the first test.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinsyde_S.1

But yes, to fly in open cockpit of the DH-2 in winter with -20°C or colder, with a big four blade fan in the back, was a hard job!

5 May 2022, 18:55

Kyle DeHart
Excellent history lesson and this continues to look fantastic. I'm speechless.

5 May 2022, 20:13

bughunter
Thank you for your nice words Kyle!
That history part of the hobby is a big fun for me, and with engineering background I learn a lot with every new build. Also on the models you can see the developments within and between the manufacturers.
There are now a huge amount of great accessories which makes the build of the actual model fun and great, but sometimes I want then to remake or rework my older models (older means 5 years ago) if I see what I have done. Also because you learn with every model 😉

5 May 2022, 20:41

bughunter
Now control wires and some rigging, but the detail work should be finished.

6 May 2022, 15:01

Kyle DeHart
Agreed bughunter. I, too, love the history behind each and every model I build. Very cool part of it for me. No doubt about learning with every model both between the history and different techniques.

6 May 2022, 18:27

bughunter
After a lot of work all control wires and rigging lines are in place 😎
With a bit of luck you will get a new pics today.

12 May 2022, 13:51

bughunter
New pictures added 😎 Used a gray background to show all the rigging.
That was a lot of work, but the project is very close to the finish line now.

12 May 2022, 16:29

Robert Podkoński
I am just speechless... it feels like rigging a tall ship. Watching this I am absolutely sure that if I ever try to build a I WW plane, this only can be a Fokker D.VII (as it featured minimal rigging 😉 )

12 May 2022, 16:44

gorby
Just caught up with your build and that's pretty damn fabulous work Frank!
I found that by the the last photo my jaw was hanging open in amazed wonder. Looking forward to final pics. 🙂

12 May 2022, 16:45

David R. Meizoso
Amazing!

12 May 2022, 16:50

Capt Bellinger
I think that is the best DH.2 build I have ever seen, and ranks very high in builds of *any* aircraft.

13 May 2022, 09:38

wilky
Robert, the Dr.I has no external rigging

13 May 2022, 09:40

Capt Bellinger
Wilky, the Dr.I has *almost* no external rigging; don't forget the cross-bracing of both the cabane struts and the undercarriage.😉

13 May 2022, 10:06

Mike Daniels
Looks great! The only kit i have ever destroyed. Man, that tail boom is hard to fit. Great job.

13 May 2022, 10:12

Robert Podkoński
@wilky and Capt Bellinger - I am aware that D.VII also features cross-bracing of the cabane struts and undercarriage, but has lesser number of wings than Dr. I... what reminds me of D.VIII 😄

13 May 2022, 10:27

bughunter
Wow mates, thank you very much for your comments, highly appreciated!
@Capt Your words about the best DH-2 - Wow, thanks! Now I need to ask Tim for a red face smiley.
@Mike that was the reason to create metal tail booms, I would not be able to do it with the kit ones.

I noticed a mistake, see pic 112. The drum handle is in wrong direction, as there is a lock on the left. I was able to fix this.
All remaining sub assemblies are mounted now, some weathering added, last details added (oh, sometime I really hate CA!).
Hope for good weather beginning of next week for the final outdoor pictures.

13 May 2022, 12:13

Hanno Kleinecke
And there it happened again : The inevitable jaw-drop when looking at Bughunters wip - pics…… totally extraterrestrial rigging 👍

13 May 2022, 13:49

Boris B
Amazing rigging job, indeed, Frank... Sorry for the repetition, but it has to be said. All sense of scale is lost, I mean, it's a model, but who could guess its scale ?
One question about your documents, though : on picture 98, the wheel on the photographed aircraft has a shape that is a lot more conical that the (eduard?) kit wheels. Is that because the aircraft in the document has unusual wheels ?

13 May 2022, 16:52

Villiers de Vos
Fantastic representation.

14 May 2022, 04:53

John Ballman
Wow.
JB

14 May 2022, 08:42

Marius
That's all insane! Fantastic results! How do you even get the rigging so tight? (sorry in case it was already answered)

14 May 2022, 09:15

Harvey H.W.
Can I just click "like" one more time? Superb details !

14 May 2022, 12:01

bughunter
Thank you mates for your wonderful comments!
@Boris The Eduard wheels matches the drawings of the Datafile perfectly. The most used wheels was 700x75, but some DH2 used 700x100. And more funny: the 24 Squadron turned the wheels (the flat side outside) - a simple change to increase the gauge. I think in the picture you mentioned this looks more wide due to perspective error.
@Marius The rigging is done with rubber lines, EZ Line for "RAF wire" main rigging, this one for the other lines and control wires:
Elastic Rigging Thread (Uschi van der Rosten 4005, No)
Since the rubber does not give the model stability, it must be stable in itself. So metal booms, metal/wood struts, ....

14 May 2022, 13:54

bughunter
After two month of hard work this project is finished. After some last small details, weathering and detail painting the final pictures are done now and can be found in a new album. Don't miss it!
Downscaled original Airco DH-2 6000 | Album by bughunter (1:48)
I think the topic DH-2 is now done for me after two models, but not planes in pusher configuration. The FE8 and the FE.2b to follow. The FE.2b seems to be most complicated with 8 struts on each side, let's see ...

Thanks to all for watching and commenting through this build 👍 See you in next project.

16 May 2022, 09:20

Urban Gardini
It's been an marvellous journey to follow this build!

16 May 2022, 12:56

Spanjaard
Simply stunning

16 May 2022, 15:01

bughunter
Thank you mates!
@Lochsa No, I use EZ line only for the simulation of the main flat RAF Wire rigging, and those going through straight through the resin terminals (which is very hard by the way), so no loop back. See Gaspatch manual of the terminals.
For the rigging using turnbuckles with looping back see posting two above yours.

16 May 2022, 16:05

Alec K
Another amazing and inspiring build! Rigging alone is worth a medal. Looking forward to your next modeling journey 👍

18 May 2022, 17:45

bughunter
Thank you very much Alec! Don't miss the final album with outdoor pictures:
Downscaled original Airco DH-2 6000 | Album by bughunter (1:48)
My next modeling journey is the finish of the Nieuport 17 Triplane, which just received a new batch of pictures.

18 May 2022, 19:21

Album info

In the previous projects I made often wooden struts, following this principle:
- glue two layers of veneer together
- made stripes of that plate with circular saw
- cut to needed length
- drill holes to add brass pins
- sand into shape
This way was working, but the drilling is problematic. The wood breaks sometimes, sometimes the whole was not straight.

For a future project I needed very thin struts, which will not work that way.

Airco DH-2

159 afbeeldingen

1:48

Voltooid

1:48 Gnome Monosoupape 9B-2 (100 hp) Engine (Small Stuff 48103)

1:48 Resin Turnbuckles RAF (GasPatch Models 20-48235)

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