Flea Work In Progress
Comments
23 18 January, 16:16
bughunterThere are this Eduard Weekend kits - where I never understood how this can be done on a weekend.
So I use this brand new kit with only seven parts to try a speed build 🙂 Not sure a weekend will be enough. I put the Junkers aside for a moment because I want to have a finished model for the next club meeting and I think I will not be able to finish the Junkers F.13 until then.
18 January, 16:32
Alex KAhhhh... what a treat when the 1:48 WWI-aircraft master turns his attention to such subjects as the Piper Cub, the Stearman and now the Pou-du-Ciel!
1 18 January, 16:37
bughunterThank you Alex! You forgot to mention my car projects 😉 But that doesn't mean that I'm completely moving away from those biplanes.
18 January, 19:30
René "Lord Bilbo" BartholemyLooking forward to see the result. I'm always amazed when I see the real thing hanging in the big airplane hangar of the army museum here in Brussels. In the 80s, there was a French series about the history of aviation (Les Faucheurs de Marguerites) and in the last season (IIRC), someone was building the Pou-du-Cil in his garage, just to fly it once.
Very interesting subject.
18 January, 21:24
Robert PodkońskiOh yes! Watching! (Perhaps you would be interested in that, Frank:
De Havilland Biplane No.1 (1..Miniature Ltd HW48003, 1:48) - I've just purchased one 😉 )
19 January, 09:55
bughunterWelcome mates!
@Lord, I will build the one one from the kit. It provides only one identification, the one from the RAF Museum Cosford. It is from 1936 and seems to be very original. No wonder that only one is possible because each one is different with specific engines and so on.
@Jürgen Immer dieser Druck, dieser unglaubliche Druck! 🙂
@Robert You and your build are responsible that I'm doing this kit now! Thanks 👍
1 19 January, 16:14
Alex KIf I may... Frank (and René) raise(s) an interesting and legitimate question: the quasi-uniqueness of each Pou, mainly due to the different engines used. For instance, that's precisely the reason I never dared to start the 1:72 Aeroclub Pou I purchased decades ago, because, for the Greek Pou-du-ciel I'm interested in, I will have to scratch a Rotax 377 - and I'm afraid I'm not up to it. But, on the other hand, I think that more experienced modellers (let alone master modellers like bughunter) could easily overcome this, if they decide to go for a specific Pou of special interest to them, perhaps registered in their country or kept in a local museum (as Wikipedia shows, the number of Mignet aircraft preserved in museums around the world is non negligeable!)
But, in any case, thank you Robert and Frank for bringing this classic design to our newsfeed!
[@ Robert: I just noticed that your recent Pou photoalbum has turned, probably inadvertently -a known scm bug- into "private"... you might want to check this with Tim...]
2 19 January, 17:29
bughunterGood points ... I just started some scratch work to have an excuse for missing the "Weekend" deadline 🙂
I can see Roberts album if I go via his project so it is not private. It's "only" disappeared from Newsfeed.
19 January, 17:38
Alex KI can see it too - but if you check, no comments & likes are visible, and you cannot comment any more etc. This is a known bug, I think, that has happened to a number of us in the past, the album turns inadvertently in "private mode". Tim can reverse this, if asked by Robert.
2 19 January, 17:43
bughunterYes CaptGPF, from an interesting kit.
The kit is not bad, the 3D steps are very thin and can be sanded and primed/sanded. But my specimen had a thick line through the fuselage, wheels etc as if the printer had had a hiccup - very annoying!
19 January, 19:25
bughunterThanks and welcome mates!
The weekend is over and I failed to finish this little flea. But I must admit we had a nice weather today with sun so I spend some time outside instead of sitting on the work bench. I made a good progress on the fuselage anyway but wings needs to be mounted followed by rigging. And I want to scratch a new correct tail mount of the rudder, with tail wheels.
1 19 January, 21:42
Ludvík KružíkFrank, it's an interesting coincidence. When I was recently thinking about a model that could be built quickly and still look good, I came to the same conclusion as you. I dismissed the Eduard kits from the Weekend line. In my opinion, they are for modelers who build their models straight out of the box and have no need to make any improvements to the model. This is not my case, I would definitely buy the available accessories for the Weekend kits, or I would reach for the same kit, but from the Profi series, which already contains various accessories ... and the magic of quick model building would disappear. In the end, like you, the 3D printed kit (Czechoslovak HC-2 helicopter) with a small number of parts won 🙂.
I will definitely follow and wish you a smooth progress and successful model building.
3 19 January, 23:13
gorbyI take my eyes off the builds for a couple of days and you've nearly completed a kit! 😮
Very nice work so far Frank.
1 20 January, 09:06
bughunterThank you very much mates for your nice comments!
@Ludvík I checked this heli out - very nice kit indeed! We live in golden times of modelling with lot of small companies doing small series like this. I have build a Eduard Weekend kit as I wanted to build a specific livre and need the decals. But yes, I added PE and scratch work, so I need much longer. I always wonder if it is possible to build a kit on a weekend, due to drying times of paints and decals. Now with using modern acrylic lacquer paints this seems to be possible!
@Marcel Funny names here: in English flea, in French "Pou du Ciel" translated to louse and in German too "Himmelslaus", which translated to sky louse.
@gorby It's nice to know that you're looking over my shoulder here too 🙂
2 20 January, 11:58
bughunterNow things are getting a little crazy: new tail wheels have been turned and work has begun on the tail column for the wheels, rudder and suspension.
1 20 January, 21:00
bughunterExcept the steering cables, the tail is now finished. 🙂
It is a very clever designed multi-functional part! I must admit, that I have not understand at the beginnings how it works and how to replicate it on the model. But I simply started and developed it step by step. Sketches in this book Book: Henri Mignet and His Flying Fleas (by Ken Ellis, Geoff Jones) and high res pics of the original in the museum were big help.
1 21 January, 21:31
bughunterAgain my "Improvement by accident" method! I had to made a new windshield after the first one was killed during rigging process and the new one is closer to the original subject 🙂
A big step forward as the wings are mounted and the rigging is completed. There's no way I could build this with the 3D-printed struts - the model would only survive the meter from the workbench to the display case, but not transport to club or exhibition. Why don't manufacturers just include a piece of wire instead of designing and printing the struts?
Some small tasks are still to be done, but that will be done tomorrow. So finish within a week (in opposite to the weekend I thought about at the beginning) should be possible.
2 22 January, 22:57
bughunterThis project is finished! 🙂
This brand new kit is not bad, but I'm not completely happy with my build. But yes, it comes somehow close to the real one in the museum in Cosford.
@Alex K As the wings and the fuselage are nice I think it would be an option to remove the engine, scratch a new specific engine and display another specific original. With replacing the strut work with metal the beast would be more stable and robust, compared against my wobbly thing. A real rigging with fishing line would make it more stable too, but I feared to put the resin wings under load to avoid bending down in long term as here are no steel wires inside (a thing with LukGraph does).
Once the weather permits I will do the final shots for a new album.
4 23 January, 16:01
Robert PodkońskiFantastic job, Frank! (If only manufacturers of 3D printed models had more experience with building models, they would perhaps know, how to divide the kit reasonably into modeller-friendly pieces...)
23 January, 17:27
Album info
The first one build in 1:48 🙂
