1:72 Lioré & Olivier LeO 451
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- Thread starter
- #122
And here are the finished wheel wells:
Open, without the landing gear:
And with landing gear (not glued, just for the photo) - not much to see down below without a macro-lens and a flash:
Next step: completing the WINGS.
Cheers and have a nice weekend everybody!
Open, without the landing gear:
And with landing gear (not glued, just for the photo) - not much to see down below without a macro-lens and a flash:
Next step: completing the WINGS.
Cheers and have a nice weekend everybody!
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Looking fantastic so far!
Looking forward to the next step
Looking forward to the next step
Looks good so far!
- Thread starter
- #126
PART VIII: WINGS
The wings were almost done after finishing the wheel wells. The only 2 bigger parts missing were the ailerons + flaps (each pair molded as one piece) so I glued them to the rest of the wing. Here are the two wings, top and a bottom shown together:
The original a/c has 2 navigation lights - one on each wing (green and red).
On the model wings those lights are molded in plastic. I cut them out (slightly bigger than the original) and glued a piece of transparent plastic (you know the trick) from my preferred material - a CD-sleeve.
And the usual drill (sanding, filling, sanding, polishing) gave me this:
I'm not sure was the plastic cover coloured (they look dark on the photos) or transparent with coloured bulbs only.
Another 2 small details are the oil radiator intake and the landing light on each wing:
One can clearly see the round light behind the plastic cover and some kind of a grill in the intake.
P.S. Here is a better look of that "grill":
Well, I tried some tricks. The transparent plastic part is a solid piece and must be attached to the back side of the cutout in the wing, which was bigger (of course) than expected. So I added some plastic card and putty to "fine tune" it:
For the reflector I cut a circle of alu-foil and glued it to the back before the transparent plastic cover. After sanding and polishing this is the result:
For the intake grill I've used some spare PE part - I believe it's for a ship in 1/350. It's not 100% match but the paint will cover some gaps and it's so small (5mm diameter), that I have to glue it, without seeing what I'm doing. I think I did well....
Cheers!
The wings were almost done after finishing the wheel wells. The only 2 bigger parts missing were the ailerons + flaps (each pair molded as one piece) so I glued them to the rest of the wing. Here are the two wings, top and a bottom shown together:
The original a/c has 2 navigation lights - one on each wing (green and red).
On the model wings those lights are molded in plastic. I cut them out (slightly bigger than the original) and glued a piece of transparent plastic (you know the trick) from my preferred material - a CD-sleeve.
And the usual drill (sanding, filling, sanding, polishing) gave me this:
I'm not sure was the plastic cover coloured (they look dark on the photos) or transparent with coloured bulbs only.
Another 2 small details are the oil radiator intake and the landing light on each wing:
One can clearly see the round light behind the plastic cover and some kind of a grill in the intake.
P.S. Here is a better look of that "grill":
Well, I tried some tricks. The transparent plastic part is a solid piece and must be attached to the back side of the cutout in the wing, which was bigger (of course) than expected. So I added some plastic card and putty to "fine tune" it:
For the reflector I cut a circle of alu-foil and glued it to the back before the transparent plastic cover. After sanding and polishing this is the result:
For the intake grill I've used some spare PE part - I believe it's for a ship in 1/350. It's not 100% match but the paint will cover some gaps and it's so small (5mm diameter), that I have to glue it, without seeing what I'm doing. I think I did well....
Cheers!
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fubar57
General
Really going to town on this Yves 
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Those mods came out great!
Nice work so far!
- Thread starter
- #131
Thank you guys!
I don't have the "mojo" the last two days so the work goes very slow. Already getting those panic attacks, the model won't be finished until the end of the month....
In the meantime let me show 2 of my tools used constantly for sanding/polishing of small parts, e.g. the transparencies I described in the previous post. They are rather good for polishing, but also for sanding in hard to reach places or inside of small openings.
Both are nail polishers, both are from a Dollar-store (or similar cheapo-place): the left one is for $4, the right for $7. The left one is the real polisher with 4 big cylindrical polishing ends, the right one is more of a fine grinder with 4-5 very fine grinding stones. Because on batteries and with a low speed they can't cause damage to the plastic. I've tried to do it with a Dremel - it's not the same. Even on the lowest speed (10 000 RPM) the Dremel is too powerful and starts melting the plastic. These two guys are slow but steady and if I press them too much against the plastic they'll just stop.
I'm sure there are much better tools out there but for a certain price - for $ 11 I'm quite happy and not concerned at all about ruining the model.
BTW on amazon, ebay and other "market"-places one can find nail drill sets made of ceramic or carbide. They are not really for nails but for sanding down and removing plastic (acrylic) nails.
Did anybody try them for modeling?
Cheers!
I don't have the "mojo" the last two days so the work goes very slow. Already getting those panic attacks, the model won't be finished until the end of the month....
In the meantime let me show 2 of my tools used constantly for sanding/polishing of small parts, e.g. the transparencies I described in the previous post. They are rather good for polishing, but also for sanding in hard to reach places or inside of small openings.
Both are nail polishers, both are from a Dollar-store (or similar cheapo-place): the left one is for $4, the right for $7. The left one is the real polisher with 4 big cylindrical polishing ends, the right one is more of a fine grinder with 4-5 very fine grinding stones. Because on batteries and with a low speed they can't cause damage to the plastic. I've tried to do it with a Dremel - it's not the same. Even on the lowest speed (10 000 RPM) the Dremel is too powerful and starts melting the plastic. These two guys are slow but steady and if I press them too much against the plastic they'll just stop.
I'm sure there are much better tools out there but for a certain price - for $ 11 I'm quite happy and not concerned at all about ruining the model.
BTW on amazon, ebay and other "market"-places one can find nail drill sets made of ceramic or carbide. They are not really for nails but for sanding down and removing plastic (acrylic) nails.
Did anybody try them for modeling?
Cheers!
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Crimea_River
Marshal
Not me but I have an old electric toothbrush that I'm thinking of turning into a sander/polisher.
- Thread starter
- #133
I use one since years. This was my first electrical brush and is moving only up and down (linearly) without rotation. Works like charm for sanding of smaller areas, edges etc. I simply glue a new piece of sanding paper when needed. Unfortunately I don't have a second brush (the movable part only) and can't use 2 different grits simultaneously.
Tried one with circular movement too, but it didn't work so fine. Maybe the brush was bad. The above one is a good old German Rowenta and needs a single AA battery only.
Cheers!
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- Thread starter
- #134
Back again.
PART IX; ENGINES, COWLINGS AND PROPELLERS
One of the assemblies for this model, consisting of 4 parts is the engine cowling with propeller + spinner, and this x2. First thing one will see is that the propellers out of the box are too small. They were from the type Ratier 1634/1635 with a diameter of 3.20 meters. I started checking other models for an appropriate donor and found the Matchbox B-25H. The propellers are slightly bigger (not a big problem to be sanded down) and the propeller blades are slightly thinner for a B-25, but good enough for my LeO:
Left is the new propeller (in black), right is the OOB small propeller.
One of the (many) reasons to love this avion is the fact that you don't see any engines! No pushrods, no cylinders, no nothing!
Just a gap between the cowling ring and the hub!
That's good but there is another question to answer before proceeding with "my" cowlings. Going through the photos of LeO 451, I found 2 different types of cowling:
1. A smooth one:
2. A second one with small fairings over the cylinder blocks:
I couldn't find any descriptions or explanation of the latter. LeO 451 was equipped with 2 types of engines: Gnome-Rhone 14N 48/49 and 14N 38/39. I don't know if one of the engine types was the reason for the small bumps or not. I also didn't find a proof that this is an early resp. late type of cowling. In the YouTube movie mentioned several times before, showing moments of LeO 451-production in late 1939 - early 1940 the cowlings are smooth:
The model cowlings have some microscopic "warts":
The a/c I try to represent was manufactured in 1939, so I decided to sand down the small fairings and have a smooth Mercier-cowling. Here is the finished/painted detail:
The silver ring in the middle will be completely covered by the propeller hub, but imitates the original metal ring as seen on the real a/c:
And the engines with the propellers look like this:
I started scratching and weathering the yellow paint and the result was very realistic, but I didn't like it. On the other hand the yellow painted cowlings and empennage were used for approx. a month between June and July 1941 only during the Syrian campaign. With a great probability this high-viz markings were newer and better looking than the rest of the camouflage trough all the time.
That's all for the last few days.
Cheers!
PART IX; ENGINES, COWLINGS AND PROPELLERS
One of the assemblies for this model, consisting of 4 parts is the engine cowling with propeller + spinner, and this x2. First thing one will see is that the propellers out of the box are too small. They were from the type Ratier 1634/1635 with a diameter of 3.20 meters. I started checking other models for an appropriate donor and found the Matchbox B-25H. The propellers are slightly bigger (not a big problem to be sanded down) and the propeller blades are slightly thinner for a B-25, but good enough for my LeO:
Left is the new propeller (in black), right is the OOB small propeller.
One of the (many) reasons to love this avion is the fact that you don't see any engines! No pushrods, no cylinders, no nothing!
Just a gap between the cowling ring and the hub!
That's good but there is another question to answer before proceeding with "my" cowlings. Going through the photos of LeO 451, I found 2 different types of cowling:
1. A smooth one:
2. A second one with small fairings over the cylinder blocks:
I couldn't find any descriptions or explanation of the latter. LeO 451 was equipped with 2 types of engines: Gnome-Rhone 14N 48/49 and 14N 38/39. I don't know if one of the engine types was the reason for the small bumps or not. I also didn't find a proof that this is an early resp. late type of cowling. In the YouTube movie mentioned several times before, showing moments of LeO 451-production in late 1939 - early 1940 the cowlings are smooth:
The model cowlings have some microscopic "warts":
The a/c I try to represent was manufactured in 1939, so I decided to sand down the small fairings and have a smooth Mercier-cowling. Here is the finished/painted detail:
The silver ring in the middle will be completely covered by the propeller hub, but imitates the original metal ring as seen on the real a/c:
And the engines with the propellers look like this:
I started scratching and weathering the yellow paint and the result was very realistic, but I didn't like it. On the other hand the yellow painted cowlings and empennage were used for approx. a month between June and July 1941 only during the Syrian campaign. With a great probability this high-viz markings were newer and better looking than the rest of the camouflage trough all the time.
That's all for the last few days.
Cheers!
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Snautzer01
Honourably banned
- 39,802
- Mar 26, 2007
You do do your research!! Love this build.Back again.
PART IX; ENGINES, COWLINGS AND PROPELLERS
One of the assemblies for this model, consisting of 4 parts is the engine cowling with propeller + spinner, and this x2. First thing one will see is that the propellers out of the box are too small. They were from the type Ratier 1634/1635 with a diameter of 3.20 meters. I started checking other models for an appropriate donor and found the Matchbox B-25H. The propellers are slightly bigger (not a big problem to be sanded down) and the paddles are slightly thinner for a B-25, but good enough for my LeO:
View attachment 657188
Left is the new propeller (in black), right is the OOB small propeller.
One of the (many) reasons to love this avion is the fact that you don't see any engines! No pushrods, no cylinders, no nothing!
View attachment 657189
Just a gap between the cowling ring and the hub!
That's good but there is another question to answer before proceeding with "my" cowlings. Going through the photos of LeO 451, I found 2 different types of cowling:
1. A smooth one:
View attachment 657190
2. A second one with small fairings over the cylinder blocks:
View attachment 657191
I couldn't find any descriptions or explanation of the latter. LeO 451 was equipped with 2 types of engines: Gnome-Rhone 14N 48/49 and 14N 38/39. I don't know if this was the reason for the small bumps or not. I didn't find a proof that this is an early resp. late type of cowling. In the Youtube movie mentioned several times before, showing moments of the LeO production in the late 1939 - early 1940 the cowlings are smooth:
View attachment 657192
The model cowlings have some microscopic "warts":
View attachment 657193
The a/c I try to represent was manufactured in 1939, so I decided to sand down the small fairings and have a smooth Mercier-cowling. Here is the finished/painted detail:
View attachment 657194View attachment 657195
The silver ring in the middle will be completely covered by the propeller hub, but imitates the original metal ring as seen on the real a/c:
View attachment 657196
And the engines with the propellers look like this:
View attachment 657197View attachment 657198
I started scratching and weathering the yellow paint and the result was very realistic, but I didn't like it. On the other hand the yellow painted cowlings and empennage were used for approx. a month between June and July 1941 only during the Syrian campaign. With a great probability this high-viz markings were newer and better looking than the rest of the camouflage trough all the time.
That's all for the last few days.
Cheers!
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The cowling extended for ground cooling and retracted when in flight, sort of like the function of cowl flaps on the Ju87, P-40, etc.
I don't have my stuff handy, so I grabbed this bit from wiki:
"Mercier also used his patented type of fairing for the LeO 45's radial engines. Unlike typical NACA cowlings, flow adjustment was not provided by flaps, but by a frontal ring that moved back and forth to respectively reduce or increase flow, without change in drag."
So your cowls are correct.
I don't have my stuff handy, so I grabbed this bit from wiki:
"Mercier also used his patented type of fairing for the LeO 45's radial engines. Unlike typical NACA cowlings, flow adjustment was not provided by flaps, but by a frontal ring that moved back and forth to respectively reduce or increase flow, without change in drag."
So your cowls are correct.
- Thread starter
- #138
Thanks for your input!
Yep, the cowl rings are correctly done by the model maker (Heller) and they are in extended position (as for being on the ground).
As another example later LeO 45 models (455 with Gnome-Rhone 14R) and 453 with Pratt&Whitney R-1830) had different cowls without the ring but with cowl flaps:
I was talking about the 2 different types of the same Mercier-cowling with and without those small bumps over the cylinder blocks (see my previous post). Only a small number of photos show them and I believe these are late a/c, manufactured after the Armistice. The production of LeO 45 re-started in April 1941 in the unoccupied territory of France. I'm not sure if this is the correct answer.
Cheers!
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- Thread starter
- #139
Thank you!
In fact model building for me is sort of visualizing of what I've learned about an a/c. The elements I've studied better/longer are shown in better detail as well. I'm trying to make a "diary" of this build, including all steps from start to finished model, with a lot of history included, rather than just glue and paint plastic parts. The end product is not the only goal - the way to reach it is much more interesting.
Cheers!
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Ahh yes, I see the different types now.Thanks for your input!
Yep, the cowl rings are correctly done by the model maker (Heller) and they are in extended position (as for being on the ground).
As another example later LeO 45 models (455, 453) had different engines and cowls without the ring but with cowl flaps:
View attachment 657199View attachment 657200
I was talking about the 2 different types of the same Mercier-cowling with and without those small bumps over the cylinder blocks (see my previous post). Only a small number of photos show them and I believe these are late a/c, manufactured after the Armistice. The production of LeO 45 re-started in April 1941 in the unoccupied territory of France. I'm not sure if this is the correct answer.
Cheers!
Sorry about the mix up.
I wish I had my LeO files handy, I might be able to help nail down why the cowl bulges existed on some types.
