Po-2 Czech National Aeroclub

Spanjaard
excellent!!!

David Andrs
Three exclamation marks! I am flattered. Thanks! 🙂

Alec K
How the heck did I miss this!? Excellent work indeed, love the pantyhose trick.

David Andrs
Works great for 1:72 as well. The downside is it really needs a lot of patience and an optivisor 🙂

Alec K
Got one of those😉. Cururious if you had a chance to compare the nylon thread with something like the EZ-line?

I used the pantyhose thread on some of my early builds. When I tried it with a new pantyhose, I could not get a nice piece of thread out of it, so gave up on the whole idea. I like how flexible it is, and it lasted (I still have the model).

David Andrs
Yeah, I used both. EZ-line is a lot easier to handle, that's for sure. It does not "shrink" when there is no tension. And takes CA better. The nylon thread is PITA to handle, so to make that easier, I glue one end of the thread to a toothpick, then start fraying. When I have something around 25 cm stretched (10 inches if you use freedom units), I glue another toothpick to the other end. This helps to prevent loosing the thread. Then, I stretch the thread (holding the toothpicks) and apply CA at the ends so it gets stiff. This helps with leading the thread through eyelets. Then I work as usual.

Alec K
Cool, thanks for the advice. You rigging looks great, that's for sure.

David Andrs
Thanks! Oh and one more thing while we are on the subject of rigging: gel CA seems to work much, much better than liquid (it saves a lot of nerves :-D)

Alec K
Thanks. Just curious where did you learn the pantyhose thread technique? I read about it in the old Czech Modela publication, but have not seen it mentioned elsewhere.

Rigging is my bane, especially after my B.21 fiasco, and I have a biplane on my bench at the moment. I was watching Tom Grigat's YouTube videos, and am intrigued by his technique (brass tube attached to the Uschi rigging line). I like the fact that there are substantial anchor points for the thread, and one needs not thread through wings and fix resultant exit holes. I may give that a shot.

I just bought the ICM's Po-2 in 72nd scale, so look forward to getting to that at some point.

David Andrs
Back in 90's I was part of a local model club and one of the senior guys brought it. I do not know where he got it from though. Could have been the same publication you mentioned.

Tom Grigat definitely inspired me and I tried that technique on my WnW builds. But I think, it works good only in 1:32 and larger. For my 1:48 Po-2 I scaled the eyelets as much as I could, so they would be "invisible". The hook used for forming the eyelets was already bending while I was making them - used something smaller than 0.1mm steel wire. The holes were drilled with a 0.3mm bit (the smallest I had). The trick is to make sure the eyelets are glued properly, otherwise the tension will pull them out (which happened to me a few times). Then, what I did was I glued the thread to the eyelet without forming the loop and let it dry. Then I stretched the thread and glued it to the other eyelet. Then, I applied glue to the ends that were to be trimmed - those will form the buckle, so you need a stiff length that will not shrink. Then, trimmed the ends, bent them into a loop and glued them to the stretched line. The gel CA is a key to success.

I am not sure I would go for the brass tube in 1:72 - it would require a really tiny one. But, eyelets are the way to go. I did not use them on my B-534 and it was a pain to rig the plane. With them it is much easier to do.

Alec K
Great - thanks for the detailed info, much appreciated 👍

Jens
I love the Po 2, and so as a model simply presents only beautiful 👍 👍 👍