Hi guys,
My name is Rick and I’m new to FSM. I’ve been a long time modeler and I’ve dabbled in just about everything, EXCEPT bi-planes. I have several in my stash but I’m puzzled about the building process. Like painting and decaling and rigging. For the most part, I’ve always built THEN painted. But that extra wing intimidates me! Any Pointers or suggestions on an article describing the process would be a big help. Also any suggestions on a good starter kit for bipes.
TIA
Rick
Welcome to the Forums Rick! Glad to have you aboard!
I’ve been building for 67 of my 73 years and I build whatever strikes my fancy at the time. I have built a few bi-planes and here’s how I rig the wings. I rig with invisable thread that my wife uses for sewing. It comes in a few different thicknesses at Joanne Fabrics or any craft store that sells sewing thread. I drill holes, with micro-drill bits, in the lower wing where the rigging will go and mount it to the fuselage. I drill holes 1/2 way into the upper wing and mount lengths of thread in the holes with crazy glue all before mounting the upper wing. After mounting the upper wing, I take the lines one at a time and put them through the holes in the lower wing putting a small clip or clothespin on the end to keep tension. Then I place a small drop of crazy glue on a thread and the hole it comes out of. When finished with all the lines, let it sit overnight to get a good set with the glue. Next day, cut the extra threads and sand off the small dot of glue left behind. Don’t worry, the crazy glue goes up into the hole. If the rigging sags a little, don’t worry about it. Just take a small soldering iron and pass it near, but not too near the lines.They will tighten up from the heat. That’s it. Your done. Oopps, almost forgot. Use a marking pen of the needed color to “paint” the rigging. On 1/72 planes I usually use some bright brass Model Masters paint to simulate the turnbuckles on the ends of the lines.
Hope that this helps you. The name of the game is practice, practice, practice. Try it out on some scrap plastic sprue. Make a little box out of it and drill some holes in the top & bottom pieces. Practice glueing the thread in and tightening it up with heat. It took me a little while to get the hang of it.
Jim [cptn]
I generally put the top wing on last, and paint and decal just before mounting the upper wing. I often make a jig for that mounting. Most of the time I use that jig to mount the interplane and cabane struts before painting, though in rare instances I paint the struts separately and join the struts and upper wing as a single step.
Bipes and tripes are a whole different animal. Sometimes you have to paint first then add parts like the wing (s), cabanes, etc. Sometimes a lot of masking material is needed, just depends on the model. Realistic rigging is important with these models. They look better with turnbuckles and proper anchor points than just a plain piece of string or wire attached. I make my own turnbuckles from plastic hollow QTips. When heated over a candle and stretched, they retain the hollow quality. Just cut them to size and thin vinyl thread can be inserted and Ca’d making a very convincing turnbuckle.
This thread is very much appreciated, as I want to build the new Revell Stearman and even though I haven’t even purchased it yet I’ve already started “building” it in my head, and i’ve already come across these vexing stumbling blocks in regards to rigging and paint sequence. So far this has been a tremendous help, so please keep those tips coming, all you bipe-building vets…I’m taking copious amounts of notes! and thanks
Have a look at my build of a Sopwith Pup link below
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/2/t/153188.aspx
Also look at the group build we did you will find a lot of help in there I’m sure
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/29/t/152456.aspx
Phil
Most important is to test fit everything. There’s a lot of fitting to do. That Stearman sounds like a good model. I rig most recently with EZ line, but I’ve tried about everything including thin hard wire, paint brush bristles and stretched sprue.
Hi Rick,
I build mostly biplanes and I there are few pieces of advice I can give you 
You asked for a sterter kit, well I recommend Wingnut WIngs - don;t be afraid of th 1:32 scale or the insane builds everywhere on the net! Those kits builds like a dream, nearly no sanding, putting required, all parts are cleverly engineered and are as foolproof as possible. Aligning and gluing the top wing is EASY! Believe me this is the hardest thing for a bi/tri plane build - aligning the wings. You can pick something with limited rigging or nearly no rigging- Fokker DVII (nearly no rigging) or Albatros DV/DVa. or Pflaz DIIIa (not much rigging for those).
Yes - you will have to paint nearly everything before gluing, this is not hard, but you will have to use CA glue
Tutorial on rigging - you may google bob’s buckles and also check this link, there are many tips and answers to your questions, including paitning, turnbucles, build logs etc and very important - don’t forget to check forum
I hope this helps
Regards,
Sasho
I have pics and description of one method here of a biplane I’ve built, I use the ‘pull thru’ method of rigging in this one. http://www.waihobbies.wkhc.net/models/Gladiator/gladiator.html I’ve recently discovered ez-line, which I used in this build. http://www.waihobbies.wkhc.net/models/cr42_Falco/cr42lw.html It saves work compared to the pull thru method, and the stuff really holds with a very small amount of CA glue, no touch up paint needed, and can take knocking into. The only thing is that you have to make sure you stretch them to the same width.