After weeks of researching and building, she’s finally complete - Revell’s 1/39 1903 Wright Flyer. This is my first time with extensive rigging, and despite what the box says, there’s no way a 10 yr. old is going to build this. The rigging instructions are vague, at best. The rest of the kit, is pretty nice, though, if not out of scale. But I think it would have been a production nightmare to produce parts that thin, in scale, with the technology they had at the time of production.
I did do some scratchbuilding in the “cockpit”. I cut out the chain carriers and replaced them with actual brass tubing. I cut off the oddly shaped, poorly fitting cooling hoses and replaced them with different sized wires. I added a fuel line, and I replicated the elevator control chain with a piece of flattened solder.
Anyway, on to the pictures.
Any questions or constructive comments are always welcome.
Hey, great work there Fred!!! Looks pretty darn close the replica at the museum in Kill Devil Hills NC. It’s amazing that you can walk the distance of the first four flights in less than than five minutes or so.
Way to go, Fred!! That’s a sweet build for sure. A very ambitious project for your first try at complex rigging, and you pulled it off nicely! What did you use for rigging material, because it looks amazing - nice and tight like it should. Very nice job! [Y]
Mike, the kit includes a spool of silver-grey thread, which is nice because it means you don’t have to go looking for it. Far as I can calculate, the kit has 7 1/2’ - 8’ feet of rigging, and I still have quite a bit of thread, left-over. I found the trick to tight rigging for the wings, is a dab of CA and accelerator, at key points. You don’t need it at every point, but the first, last and maybe 2 points in between. For the rest of the build, I used glue only at the first and last points, to secure it in place. If I could do it all again, I might consider using 2lb test line, only so I wouldn’t have to deal with the thread fuzzies.
Bish, the box is marked 2011, but the molds are from the 60’s. There was a re-release in 2003 for the 100th anniversary.
The one omission in the kit that bugs me, is a way to keep the props on the shaft. If you don’t glue them on, they just fall right off. I ended up fashioning a stopper, out of brass tube. It looks good, but it’s not something everyone is going to have in their supply. In all my extras, I couldn’t find a single poly-cap that fit, correctly .
All in all, it was a fun build, and as a fan of aviation, I felt it was something that I had to have in the collection. I’d recommend it for anyone with the patience for rigging (and repainting all the wood pieces, to look like wood).
The wood is pretty easy - it’s a technique I came up with, a few years ago.
First I airbrush the base, Radome Tan. After that’s had time to dry, I brush on Leather (or another dark, woody color), using a short bristled brush (I took one of those cheap plastic handled brushes and cut the bristles down to 1/4"). Get some of the dark color on the brush and start puling it in the direction of your wood grain, wiping off the excess as you go. This will create streaks, revealing the tan underneath. It’s like a heavy dry brush technique.
After that’s all dry, give it a coat of Future, which will warm the hue, making it look like wood. You can then flat coat it, if you’re going for the old wood, look.
