Looking real good!

Work in progress
http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7d97b5cd.jpg

At your local hobby shop you can usually find striping tape or striping decals for cheap. It's not only straighter than hand painting, but easier as well. :sunny:

Got some tape on the way, hopefully it will look a lot better and straighter.

And another week of delays, mostly me being busy/lazy/depressed. I got the top wing on and everything ready a week ago today. Thursday I took it to the game to show what I had done, knowing it should have been finished at least a week earlier. Friday I was recovering from crawling around on my hands and knees - our game isn't for wimps.

Saturday I was ready to start the rigging when I noticed I hadn't put the exhaust pipes on. No collector stack, just six individual pipes. I had to carefully drill out holes in the side of the cylinders, then cut and mount the brass wire, then paint them.

Sunday I was ready to start the rigging again when I noticed something wrong If you look at the last picture there are three cabanes rather than the usual two. I had thought from the plan views that the front one was just to hold the radiator. What I noticed wrong was that rather than lead to the top or the bottom of the front cabane, the rigging line started in between the cabane and the inboard strut. That was just wrong - rigging wires are attached to the bottom or top of a strut, not to an unbraced rib. I looked through all the photographs until I finally found a good, clear front quarter view. Much to my surprise the second cabane was actually splayed outward to that midpoint, and the wire was attached to its upper end. There was also a matching one behind that doesn't show up on any of the plan-view drawings. I gave up for the night.

Monday I very carefully ripped out the second forward cabanes and measured and cut the new outward cabanes and glued them in. Yesterday I didn't touch it.

Today I finally stared on the rigging, almost a month after I started. The funny part is that it occured to me that if the Germans had the same sense of humor as the British they might have called it the "Two-and-a-half Strutter".

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psf0ba6f90.jpg

It could have taken one, it should have taken two, but after four weeks of fits and starts the Lloyd C.II is finally done.

Front
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps05405c89.jpg

Side, showing Schwarzlose gun
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps5775777c.jpg

This end up
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psfb4b0895.jpg

Bird wings
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...pscddcc4cb.jpg
Propeller by Propulsor
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psa9386fc2.jpg

This one came out very beautifully Steve. It really captures a sense of reality. :yeah:

Is there a hat's off smiley here? (insert hat's off smiley)

And now..... What the heck were they thinking splitting the leading edge, heck, all the spars on the top wing? I suppose there were some connections but that would seem to be a very weak aspect of the design, but it would also aid it transport-ability.

http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/he...y-emoticon.gif What da Buddahaid want, da Buddahaid gits...

Finally :)

Very cool :cool:

I'm not sure what you mean, unless it's the top wing being in two pieces. If that's the case, I'm not sure either, but it's common to almost all the two-seaters of the period. I think I mentioned the trouble assembling the wings early on with kits like that. There are other planes on which the bottom wing doesn't touch the fuselage (Vickers Gunbus, Bristol F-2A). In those cases the spars still go straight through, so it's really a case of the wing being complete, just a small part isn't covered by fabric. I think it's the same here.

Well that is A turret and an anchors built
http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/...psb1ba613d.jpg


http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/...psf062625a.jpg

This is another oldie I built many years ago, and another Austro-Hungarian: The Lohner C.I. Both tail support struts were long gone, so I had to replace those, and knowing much more about the subject now than I did them I removed the Parabellum gun and replaced it with an early jacketed Schwarzlose. I touched up a couple of minor paint scratches and set about rigging it.

In the winter the engine was completely covered.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psf8dcd2ba.jpg

Not many two-seaters looked this graceful. A very nice design.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps460817eb.jpg

As with the Lloyd, pilot and observer are very close for easy communication, and again the pilot is just behind the wings rather than under them.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psc20a70ad.jpg

Lohner made their own propellers.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps09fc9922.jpg

Swept wings.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psd2515485.jpg

I always think of jets when I see a WWI or II swept wing aircraft :)

Next up: The LVG C.II. It was yet another of the many German two-seaters at the Western Front, but in 1915 there were more of them than any other type except the Albatros C.I. Its other big distincton was to be the first heavier-than-air machine to bomb London. The intended target was the Admiralty building, but the six 10-kilogram bombs almost landed on Victoria Station.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps0206cdad.jpg

This is another resin kit, which means normal model cements won't work. Cyanoacrylate glues are required, and the particular brand I use is called Zap, in this case a thicker gap-filling variety called Zap-A-Gap. This requires an accelerator to make it dry faster once the parts are in place.

Parts people will never see:

Interior Left, including instrument panel.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps203caa15.jpg

Interior Right, including Mercedes D.III engine and main fuel tank (the pilot sits directly on top of it).
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psa29ed421.jpg

Fuselage, wings and tailplanes assembled.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psd9cb6657.jpg

Landing gear, cabanes and tail struts mounted, primer coat applied.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps2c26288b.jpg

Several hours of masking and spraying and the painting is done. This one was unusual in that the wings were still clear doped linen but the fuselage was painted. I could have done one that was all grey, or all blue, or all bare which would be cool because the front half of the fuselage was wood while the back half was fabric. I chose this one because it was different.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...pse6196c63.jpg

Next we put the upper wing on.

Upper wing mounted. Radiator and gravity tank installed, but without connections and not yet painted.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps3980471e.jpg

Looking good Steve :cool: