Super Detailing S.E.5 Guillow's model

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This the second piece. It was then glued into place. I also cut out small openings for the throttle controls. Note that I had the mid-level basswood "tongue" stick into the opening of the former used as an instrument panel. Very nice and clean at this point. It pays to practice first on scrap pieces.

 

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This piece will serve as a template for the instrument panel and also for the laminated interior support structures. It will eventually be cut away.

 

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This balsa piece is now temporarily in place to determine the correct size for lamination of 1/32 lite ply. Notice how I made the "template" smaller than the back former. This is to take into consideration of the laminated woods. I chose wood for the thin structural support because in the previous b+w photo of the "parlor" picture, one can see the small vertical curved supports made of wood as well. Lite ply was chosen because its very strong for its thickness and because it's only 1/32' thick, will be very easy to bend to shape.

 

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I then made the instrument panel also out of basswood. Note the unfinished basswood for the instrument panel and the stained finish of the basswood used as mid-level support. Compare this basswood cut out for the instrument panel with the colored photo.

 

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The lower wing was also constructed and fitted to the fuselage. This was done at this stage to test-fit the wing saddle to the lower wing and if any changes needed to be made, this would be a good time. Otherwise, I may end up cutting through all of the cockpit detailing and I wanted to avoid that.

 

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The lite ply lamination process. Then the results were test-fitted over what will be the instrument panel. The balsa wood former will eventually be cut away leaving the basswood instrument panel and the lamination for support to the front cover over the cockpit.

 

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The next item on my agenda is the Vickers machine gun. Since there were no Vickers (or Lewis) machine guns available in my scale, I had to fabricate one from scratch. Therefore, I chose to fabricate the machine gun first before the instrument dials because it is a major component of the cockpit interior and I needed it to fit properly. Its easier to (slightly) enlarge or reduce the dials than to adjust the size and cut outs for the machine gun or even the machine gun itself.

To start: I used an advertisement to help me get the details I needed for the gun. It was decided not to go fully into detailing the gun as most of it will be hidden inside the cockpit and under the top decking anyway. Still, it will be nice to practice fabricating the Vickers gun as I know I'll have to fabricate a Lewis machine gun and that will be sitting on the top wing for everyone to see. I used a small piece of plastic tubing that I found around my stash box to use as the main barrel.

 

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To simulate the corrugated cooling portion of the barrel, I used Evergreen half-round strips of plastic. They were also used to simulate the rigging. At that time, I didn't know about Vape metal strips and wished I had used those instead of the plasticstrut. Oh well, lessons learned.

I then cut another thin strip from the black electrical tape and wrapped both ends of the barrel.

Laying down the plastic "barrel" next to the strips, I then cut a series of strips to fit within the length of the barrel between the two strips of tape.

 

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The strips of plastic were then laid side-by-side and cut to ensure all were the same length. Then each strip was glued onto the barrel.

 

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The front nozzle to the front of the machine gun was fabricated from a piece of Evergreen tubing that was cut to size. The end was drilled out using a pin vise and then sanded round using sand paper.

 

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As can be seen, the barrel is shaping up very nicely.

 

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Next came the breech to the machine gun and some of the charging handles. Balsa wood was used as the base or foundation. I also used Evergreen plastic sheet and "punch" out some rivets using a dull needle and small hammer on the backside. This sheet of plastic was then wrapped around the balsa wood. This is far easier than sanding, filling up the wood grain with filler, sanding some more, then adding primer to seal the filler and then sanding more...... You get the idea. Using plastic saved me a lot of work.

The charging handles and other little "goodies" were fabricated from scrap pieces of plastic found laying around.

 

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The machine gun was then given a light coat of glossy black spray paint. Then I lightly dusted the details using a paint brush dipped in silver paint and run over a piece of paper until almost all of the paint was rubbed off the brush. The brush was then lightly brushed over the details. In the modeling world, this is called "Picking out the highlights."

 

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The basswood instrument panel is now stained with the same light "peach pecan" wood stain as the mid-level support. The lamination of plywood is now glued in place over the instrument panel. The next picture shows the back balsa wood former cut away,

 

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The Vickers machine gun is only test-fitted in place to check all fittings and cutouts. It is also tested for correct side elevation. As can be seen, the second former also had to be cut away to allow the barrel to rest. The cut was gradually made such that the side elevation was correct and the necessary clearances for the cover was made.

 

[Wurger]

Great! I like the way you made the MG. Well done.

 

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Next came the faces to the instruments. Referring to the colored photograph, each instrument dial was made by cutting out circles from black paper easily purchased from the local arts and crafts store. The black electrical tape was painted white. I tried using "White Out" tape, but it turned out to be very difficult to trace into a circle without sticking onto the paper or tearing. The electrical tape was suspended over small balsa blocks during the painting to prevent any paint from spreading out over the edges. Each tape was then carefully removed and cut to various lengths. The last picture shows both the large size of the dials and my approach to making the faces. These large sizes allows me to see how each face will be finished and will eventually be reduced to scale.

 

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Each dial was custom-made to resemble the actual instrument as close as possible. The S.E.5 was unique in that most, if not all, of the instruments were specific to that particular aircraft.

 

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At the time, my scanner did not have the ability to reduce the photos of dials. No problem. I simply used my old colored film camera and took a guess at the distance to take pictures of the dials. As you can see, the first picture, I was just a bit too close. The next picture shows the dials more closely to scale that I wanted. I had the films developed into pictures and simply cut them out.

**Very special note: we had a "butcher block" patterned kitchen counter top. This will come very handy later on during the build. Ahh, nooo, I'm not going to cut up the kitchen counter top. LoL

 

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To make the lens for each dial, I used a simple "punch & die" set obtained from a local hardware store. I also used the same punch & die set to "punch" out the small brass circles for the base of each dial. The instrument bezels were from rings easily obtained from local arts and crafts stores. These rings can be in natural silver, brass, copper, and black. I chose a variety of rings to suit my needs.