Scratch-Building the Boeing Model 1 in 1/72 Scale

Never tried plastic before- I always used thin aluminum or copper, like roof flashing.  Even a small roll of it is a lifetime supply.  You might try that.  Unhardened aluminum or copper is far more ductile than sheet styrene.

I ground a small screwdriver into a die, and backed it up with something hard with a beveled hole that the metal could move down into when I tapped the screwdriver.  MDF is hard enough, and cheap.

That sounds fascinating, Don. I looked online and see a lot of options, and I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at. Can you advise me on brands, or exactly what I need?

Any brand of aluminum, any brand of small screwdriver.  I went to Home Depot and got a roll of aluminum about 8 or 10 inches wide and many many feet long.  Used for roof flashing under shingles at bottom edge of roof.

I grabbed a small screwdriver from my screwdriver collection, about 1/8 inch tip.  I ground a bevel on edge, so one side was sharper, and sides were slanted and slightly rounded.  Brand immaterial.  I laid out the louvers on the sheet aluminum, and ran an X-acto blade over the side which is to be open.  I took a piece of particle board and drew one louver on it, and made a little recess with an X-acto knife.  Now, the aluminum has to be held over the louver recess in the particle board exactly.  Hold the screwdriver over the laid out louver and tap gently with a small modeler's hammer.

One way to register the aluminum exactly over the recess is to use two pins.  Drill tiny holes on each end of the slit in the aluminum.  Actually, I drill these holes first, and it helps to slit the aluminum.  I also drill matching holes in the particle board at the ends of the recess.I drive pins into the holes, and cut off the top part, leaving about an eighth of an inch sticking up.

I then lay the aluminum over the pin holes so it nestles down onto the particle board.  I then hold the ground screwdriver, which is now a punch, with the sharp edge along the slit, and tap away.

Awesome! I'll give that a try. Thanks.

Well, I tried the aluminum as Don suggested, and I made a complete hash of it. I tried plastic again, as I have some super-thin stock, almost like paper. I just can't seem to get it right. I'll keep trying, but I think I might lay it aside for a bit and start on the wings. I'm fast running out of time.

At long last, love! Well, not love, exactly, but I think I can live with these. In a close-up picture like this one they're still far from perfect, but I have to remind myself that each row is only 2mm tall and 14mm wide. Once the model is done I think they'll look okay.

Side panels cut, shaped and mounted

Got the radiator built and installed, plus the upper decks and a quick primer coat. It still needs quite a bit of touching up.

Spent the last two days cutting out the cockpit openings, getting it wrong, adding new plastic sheet and re-cutting. Today I did a test shot of the green nose, to see what changes I need to make in the color, and started work on the lower wing.

Wow, great project, with some old-school scratching!

The first step for the lower wing was to scribe the rib lines and the little riblets along the leading edge - two riblets between each rib. This of course made the thin plastic skin curl up.

Started the floats yesterday. I had some styrofoam packaging material, but soon found that I lack the skills to shape it properly. I ended up laminating several layers of thick plastic together.

Looks good, Steve!  Sorry I missed the beginning, else I might have offered a bit on the louvers... essentially, you make two properly spaced 'die' cavities so once you make the first one, you then key it over into the next die, placing the sheet for the next one to be punched.  The 'die' also has a slot past the paired cavities so as the louver row advances, you can keep piece flat without 'squishing' the already made louvers.

Do the louver rows in strips then assemble 'em into the three row array allows for fine adjustments.

There is also a method for making them by vacuforming over a buck made up of embedded parallel wires (think a row of staples on a board... only you drill two rows of aligned holes and thread the wire between...) then cutting the 'slits' open, but this method is probably best at scales larger than 1/72.  The punch & die method is perhaps best for this situation.

Regards, Robert

That's brilliant! I'll keep it in mind if there's a next time. What I ended up with isn't perfect, but I think it'll do considering the scale. Thanks for the advice.

Four days shaping the floats. Sand a little. Put on a primer coat. Let it dry two hours. Sand a little more. Primer coat. Wait two hours...

Yesterday the floats were done and I sprayed the base coat on. While I was giving it twenty-four hours to dry I spent today building the upper wing. Same technique as the lower. No time to finish the floats, so here it sits waiting for tomorrow.

Sweet floats!

R/ Robert

Floats are finished and ready to mount. Fuselage and lower wing got their final paint job - except for the inevitable touch-up of course.

The floats are mounted. Some accelerator leaked and got under my fingers, so it looks worse than it did yesterday. That's okay, as there's a lot of detailing and clean-up still to go anyway. Tomorrow should see the top wing on. I'm not sure I'll get the rigging done in time, but there's still two days to go.

Best Laid Plans etc...

I had hoped to have the top wing mounted yesterday and the rigging started today. When I drilled the holes for the cabanes it ripped up the super-thin top decking around the forward cockpit. I put the cabanes in, rebuilt the decking and got ready to put the wing on. The cabanes were too short. I ripped them out, which destroyed the new decking and put in new, longer cabanes. I realized that cutting them would make them uneven, and trimming brass wire is a real pain. I also realized that if I drilled all the way through the wing I could slip it over the cabanes and glue in the struts, which came from a kit. After that I could cut the tops of the cabanes flush with the wing and seal it over. Brass wire is almost impossible to trim flush like that, so I went with plastic. I also set it aside and called it a night.

Today I rebuilt the decking again and did all the work as described above. The control horns still aren't mounted, and the rigging isn't started, and today is the 100th anniversary of the plane's first flight. It's now officially late. It'll still be done, just not when I wanted.

More delays, more excuses.

I spent most of Thursday and Friday helping an elderly neighbor run errands. Saturday and Sunday were taken up by more real-life stuff as well as research for the WW1 thread I contribute to. Yesterday I spent recovering from pushing it a little too much. Today I got the outboard wing braces and tail braces mounted - easy enough since they are .020 brass rod, which is easy to cut and shape. The kingposts, however, are .008 guitar string, hard steel wire which is not that hard to cut, but is either too long or with the tiniest bit of trimming suddenly too short. Several hours and several tries, and they're finally in. Tomorrow I'll be using the same wire to make the oddly-shaped control horns.

Just checking in. How's the build coming along? I've been lurking and following this thread, and I'm really impressed.

Regards,