Buecker 131 Jungmann - eastern front recon

[Fanes]

4 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

Great stuff. Unlike mine most of the time you can actually see your black base effects.

And I live in constant fear of overexaggerating it

[Out2gtcha]

6 hours ago, Fanes said:

And I live in constant fear of overexaggerating it

 

That is the great fear..................you either cover it too much so all your work is for not, or not enough, and it looks overexaggerated. I think you have the balance just right; enough to see it, but you have to look closely to see it, as its not in your face.

Well done

[Fanes]

Oh my, it's been a month and quite a busy one.

Making progress on my Spitfire and working overtime were good excuses to stall the Buecker.

Mostly because the upcoming chapter is one of my least favourites:
Decals

After the desastrous result on my Starfighter build (crazy amount of silvering even on a really glossy clear coat with loads of decal softener) I was quite hesitant to make a start with the Revell ones. It says printed in Italy on the sheet but no sign of Cartograf and a flat carrier film.

You heard about self-fulfilling prophecies, right?

Even though there were less than ten decals, every single one was a struggle.

They are quite thick and you can easily see the edges (along with some other small issues):

 

Even though I applied a glossy clear coat of Tamiya X-22 with levelling thinner, one of the layers beneath was quite grainy.

This of course lead to silvering on every stencil that needed to be applied.  My solution was to poke holes into the decal and flood it with decal softener.

A tedious work but I need this build to proceed!

Here we are now:

 

The pin wash on the underside is drying as I write these lines. So, the flat coat to seal averything up will be applied tomorrow and then the last hurdel awaits:
Rigging, I've never done that before!

[MikeMaben]

Looks fine to me  

[Fanes]

Rigging

Well, actually the step before the adding the stretchy bits.

The Buecker features streamlined flying wire, so something flat is a must for rigging.

I decided to give the elastic knitting thread from Prym a go.

The turnbuckles are mostly hidden in leather boots, so there's no real need to make them accurate. For training purposes I intended to go for the eyelet + metal tube version.

Long story short: only one of the Prym threads fits a decent looking tube (0.5 or 0.6 mm outer diameter) but for sure not two of them (after doing the loop thing through the eyelet.

So I will go for a simple solution: pull the thread though the eyelets, a drop of glue and good enough.

 

I'v spent around two afternoons making eyelets from 0.2 mm copper wire and glueing them into the pre drilled holes or just pinging them off my tweezers

But here we are  - all anchor pints are ready for rigging:

[Borsos]

Great looking late biplane! If you‘d use non stretching fishing line for rigging instead of elastic thread (No steamline, I know),  you‘ll feel much better using your brass tubes.

Just my two cents from  a former purely WWI biplane builder 

good luck,

Andreas

[Fanes]

On 2/9/2022 at 4:37 PM, Borsos said:

Great looking late biplane! If you‘d use non stretching fishing line for rigging instead of elastic thread (No steamline, I know),  you‘ll feel much better using your brass tubes.

Just my two cents from  a former purely WWI biplane builder 

good luck,

Andreas

What kind of fishing line would you recommend, Andreas?
There are some other biplanes to be rigged in the future

 

For now I'll stick with the elastic stuff, which kinda works.

For example the lines conencting the upper wing to the fuselage. On the original airframe the turnbuckles seem to be under the cowling. Good for me - the elastic thread was directly glued into the holes:

 

After that the upper wing recieved all its wires - still need to cut them though

 

And finally the tailplane was used as a test for  my first rigging effort:

 

Doesn't look to bad to my eye

[MikeMaben]

Mine either Joachim  

[Borsos]

Joachim, I use 0.14mm monofilament fishing line. It’s cheap and lasts forever. I have no certain brand in mind. You’ll find it everywhere on the internet, e. g. the market place with the big A in its name or the one with the big E.
You can leave a little sag if there are delicately thin struts that you should be afraid to bend by rigging too tightly. Just get close to the fishing line with a heated screwdriver after attaching a cautiously sagging line and the sag disappears—the fishing line stretches, but without bending the strut. 
Kind regards,
Andreas

[Fanes]

The puppet master pulls his strings

Well, I really stalled this step for obvious reasons.
I knew it would be fiddly and I had to be in the right mindset.

Three failed attempts of only installing the upper wing and the struts later (too much stressed out from work), I finally got it installed yesterday.

Started pulling the first lines through the eyelets and pushed the Buecker from the jig.

No photos from the disaster but I was very close to completely trash it.

In the end I got myself together, carefully reasembled the flimsy wing assembly and a short time later the port wing was rigged to 90% (ailerons still missing but they will be the last bit)
Much words for two pictures:

 

I'll cut the lines tomorrow and and maybe I get the metal tubes to look like turnbuckles as well-we'll see

 

You may notice some frosting of the flat coat in some places. Weird since it never happend to me before with lacquer falt clears. I hope it'll disappear with some polishing.

[Fanes]

Finish line in sight

 

So all lines are attached, cut down close to tey eyelets and the "turnbuckles" are glued in place.

 

 

Now they just need to be painted.
But which colour to use?
Most contemporary Bueckers seem to have unpainted stainless steel wires.

In this picture (grabbed from Max' build thread from four years ago)  the wires seem to be rather dark if not black

 

Any Experten around that might have a good advice?

 

Cheers

Joachim

[Fanes]

Finally done!

I guess it's still February somewhere on earth

The little Buecker recieved its small bits and bobs and now it's ready for inspection:

 

If I'm able to leave work early today, I'll make the glamour shooting for the gallery with daylight instead of my small bench lights.

 

Cheers

Joachim

[MikeC]

That's well done.

[Borsos]

Great little biplane. And I never had expected that it was flown in serious action. 
Andreas

[Fanes]

Thanks Mike and Andreas!

 

I finally got to have a look at the photos from the little Buecker, edit them and upload them.

So here's the final photo gallery:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To wrap the build up:

I can definitely recommend the ICM Bü-131 kits. They may need some attention and the soft plastic isn't easy to handle during filling and sanding, but overall I enjoyed the build.!

If you want some aftermarket, the Quinta set for the cockpit is nice even though I don't like their RLM02.

Rigging was a first and even though not everything went according to my plan, it was fun ein the end and the next biplane will profit from my experience.

I will give the fishing line a try to be able to pull the lines through the turnbuckles/tubes (thanks for the tip @Borsos).

 

Until the next build

Joachim