Bleriot XI - heavily modified!

[Darwin]

Bob, this is where the pain part comes in with bamboo skewers...you need to split the beggars lengthwise to release the square stringer that is hidden within. Back in the day, I used to make curved wing tips and rudder/stabilizer outlines using split bamboo. Bending the bamboo was accomplished by stealing one's sister's curling iron, wetting the bamboo, then steaming the wood against the curling iron while gently applying pressure to bend the bamboo into the correct shape. The pain occurred when sis discovered where the curling iron was....

[altbob]

Thanks for the tip Darwin, I may try that with one of my bamboo skewers. I'm sure the wife can sacrifice one to my hobby obsession.

Ruben, your SE5a is looking great - a big inspiration! As mentioned in my comment to you there, I am currently sidelined with a very badly broken ankle, so if I can figure out how to build and keep my leg elevated at the same time, let's endeavor to keep each other from sinking too far into the doldrums old chap!

Onward with my little Bleriot, following generally the steps outlined in those Russian instructions, I am going to try to tackle the front end and engine next. The results are attached.

I am not sure about the front structure. I made this following the FG plans, using all wood strip, but looking at the actual plane and blue prints the vertical bits on the far ends over the wheels are actually supposed to be rods with bungee chord shock absorbers on them. I may do this over.

As for the engine, it is made of a couple wooden dowels of various diameters, cut and glued together, with thin steel wire wrapped around the cylinder heads to give them some detail. I used a little epoxy putty on top of the 3 cylinder dowels to form reasonable looking cylinder heads.

The center of the "engine" was drilled out for a square brass tube (I didn't have a round one small enough!). I will insert a bit of brass rod into this later to serve as a prop shaft. That's basically what I did for the working prop on the Gossamer Albatross build, and it worked out really well.

More work needs to be done on the engine, adding spark plug wires and exhaust pipes, but that will have to wait for another night.

[altbob]

More work on the engine.

1) Prop shaft added and polystyrene strips cut and fitted to either end. Shaft spins nicely!

2) Wires bent for spark plug leads and exhaust pipes and held in place by green epoxy putty cylinders behind the main cylinders.

3) Also a small carburetor modeled from brown epoxy putty.

Still a bit more to do on this to make it look right. I've included some photos of the real Anzani "W" form engine for comparison.

Mine might be just a little bit big, but I think it's acceptable given that the Fiddler's kit isn't really perfectly to scale anyway...I'll make it fit

It will do for my paper plane collection if I pay enough attention to the details. It's not going to be anything close to what can be done with a brass etched kit like this one I found on a German modeling site. Holy cow!

[altbob]

Work continues, now moving to the front end of the fuselage (normally the Fiddler's Green kit's Bleriot fuselage is one long piece, but I broke it in two so the back end can be done in sticks and rigging as seen in the upper left of the second photo in this post).

I discovered that the Fiddler's Green model has a weird central wing section that is supposed to go inside and hold the wings in place. It wouldn't ordinarily be visible since the cockpit is just a printed sheet of paper on top (the real Bleriot was completely open on top with no canvass coverings).

The first photo below shows what the actual current (2014) Fiddler's Green Bleriot fuselage is supposed to look like in front of the tail boom. I'm going to cut my fuselage open on top like the real plane, which would leave this central section visible...can't have that! But since I don't know how else to attach the wings I kept just so much of the center section as was needed along the fuselage walls. But the rest was cut away. Wooden sticks were glued in place, cut from coffee stirers, to match the position of the artwork on the Fiddler's kit. I also cut color bits from a second print-out of the kit so that I could glue them into the inside panels. Otherwise the inside would just look like white paper.

I mounted the seat on what was left of the center wing cantilever section. I can't even imagine, based on the plans and blueprints I've downloaded from the internet, how it could look right mounted on the top of the fuselage as per the Fiddler's instructions. Even so, it still looks too high up for me. I will have to lower it...stay tuned!

The last image shows the front of the fuselage as modified. The bit of paper in front with the oval end and the blueish tint pattern is what the fuselage would have looked like on top without modifications. Rather disappointing. Right now I'm really glad I put the work into changing it into something that at least resembles the actual Bleriot XI!

[altbob]

Quick update - I lowered the seat to approximately where I think it's actually supposed to be based on the original Bleriot schematics that I am working from. That meant cutting away the last bit of the center support, so in order to attach the wings I used modelling putty to fix the inside edges of the wing root section against the inside side walls of the fuselage. Rather unorthodox, I know! I put interior wooden stringers and longerons in place to hold the shape and give support (just like the real plane had) and covered over the putty with another paper section of fuselage, cut into panels and reversed and glued in place.

I printed out another pilot seat, reversed it and glued that onto the seat back so that the seat pattern would be on both sides - don't want any blank white paper showing! I took a photo from the rear so you can see the pedestal that the seat is mounted on.

Also started the control yoke and gas tank, both of which will be quite visible in the open fuselage. Mea culpa, I used a bit of aluminum tubing of the right diameter and epoxy putty to make the gas tank rather than rolling paper. The tank should have curved, domed ends and I just don't think it's possible to get that shape in paper. I also used a bit of brass wire for the control stick rather than rolled paper or a 2-dimensional flat approach. I hope that isn't considered beyond the bounds by this group...

471 views of this thread and no comments from anyone in quite some time. It this typical?

[elliott]

Well, I'll comment by saying that mixed-media builds are by no means out-of-bounds here. It's not unusual to see one model with a little bit of brass tubing, another with some commercial plastic pieces, ships with brass photo-etch, etc. There are even models made entirely of aluminum cans!

So use whatever feels right to you!

[altbob]

Thanks for the vote of support elliott! Maybe the problem is that this build log wasn't started in the General Aviation area. Obviously the Fiddler's Green "Improved Stock" contest is long since over (indeed, it was over before I ever became a member here), but this just seemed the right place to put a Fiddler's model. Not that it's really going to be more than 10% FG by the time I get through with it

Working on the boom end of the fuselage now. As you can see I have most of the wooden vertical supports glued in place and peeled the FG paper backing off, and have begun to add the fuselage bracing wires using black thread.

The last two photos show the boom from the inside and outside. Now to do the other one...

[RickTNRebel]

I really like your build. I've been thinking about building a stick & tissue version of this from some plans I have. The rigging on this bird is art display alone!

[altbob]

Thanks Rick. This is practically going to be a stick and tissue plane by the time I get done with it, except that I really like the Fiddler's Green wings and have no intention of making my own spars and ribs to scratch build the Bleriot wings. Like you I am really looking forward to doing all the rigging.

I am finding however, with respect to the rest of the plane, that using the Fiddler's Green pages as "plans" for stick construction is leaving a lot to be desired. Case in point, the fuel tank, which I originally made to the size printed on the Fiddler's model turned out to be too long. This was annoying as I had already painted it and given it a nice brown wash for weathering. I cut it down and primed the new front end with black primer, as shown below. The tank cap turns out to also be rather fanciful when compared to historical photos, but I think I will keep that detail as I like the way it looks, at least for now (I may yet discover that it gets in the way of the tank hanger/stringers).

Also did some more work on the control yoke - added a bell shaped "cloche", which the real Bleriot has as an attachment point for the control wires for wing warping and elevator control. I sculpted the cloche out of epoxy putty, although if this hadn't worked out my back up plan was to drill a hole in a split pea.

Also carved a rudder pedal from a small bit of balsa and mounted that on the floor in front of the yoke. Everything was painted with acrylics. Apologies for the somewhat blurry photo!

[altbob]

So I attached the tail booms and guess what? It made it even more clear to me just how far off the FG paper kit is from the actual plans and schematics that one can find on the internet. Among the most obvious being that the entire top side of the fuselage should have no canvas on it whatsoever. So I began cutting off the paper from the top of the model. This is a fairly tedious process and will require a bit of careful scraping with the side of an x-acto knife to clean up, but I think it it will be worth it...

I'm pretty involved in trying not to destroy any of the work that I've done so far that I actually like, so I haven't stopped to take many photos, except for the one below, which at least shows the potential of this model with the fuselage booms attached and the rigging at least finished on the sides.

I suppose a less stubborn person would just start over from scratch...