1:32nd scale Hansa-Brandenburg W.20

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
As I'm nearing the completion of the Fokker D.II model build, I've started preparing the next model.
This will be another resin kit from 'Omega Models', which will represent the Hansa-Brandenburg W.20, Serial No:1552, photographed on the 14th of March 1918, at the seaplane experimental centre (SVK) at Warnemunde before being accepted for naval use (by the SAK).  

The Hansa-Brandenburg W.20 was designed during late 1917 and early 1918  by Ernst Heinkel whilst working at Hansa-Brandenburg.
The intention for this small, unarmed spotter float plane was for it to be partially dismantled and stored in a water tight container on board the projected ‘Cruiser’ class of submarine, such as U139 and U155.
It was to be removed from its container, assembled quickly and launched whilst the submarine was on the surface.
After the flight, the submarine would surface again, the aircraft loaded, dismantled and stowed in its container, after which the submarine could submerge.
The aircraft was intended to be prepared for flight or stowing in less than 2 minutes and was to be stored inside the container which measured 20 feet long and 6 feet in diameter.
However, the intended submarines to be used were never built before the armistice and only three W.20 aircraft were built.
The first version, Ser No:1551, had only fuselage to upper wing support struts.
The second version, Ser No:1552 had interplane struts added between the wings and these struts were wire crossed braced.
In addition the span of the lower wings was increased.
The third and final version, Ser No:1553 had the interplane struts replaced by single interplane struts.

Although this design of Ernst Heinkel never saw operational service, he did design a similar aircraft in 1921, which was known as the Caspar-Heinkel U1.
Two examples were purchased by the U.S. Navy for evaluation.
This aircraft was intended to fit into a smaller space of 18 feet long and 4 feet 6 inches diameter.
The design was a cantilever wing biplane, powered by a 50 hp engine and capable of a speed of 87 mph with a climb rate of 1000 m in 6 minutes.
Four men could dismantle and stow the aircraft in only 22 seconds and reassemble it in only 31 seconds.
One of the aircraft was wrecked when being transported on a truck when the aircraft struck low hanging trees.
Interestingly Heinkel built and sold two examples to the Japanese, who subsequently followed on with this technology in WW2.

Mike

[Jeff]

Cool, I'm the first one in the room for this one !

[harv]

Second. This is great !....harv

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
This kit does present the modeler with challenges, to put it mildly.

The supplied kit itself comprises of parts which are solely resin and unlike many more up market companies, ‘Omega Models’ do not reinforce parts, such as wing struts, with metal rods. This makes the supplied resin struts very weak when flexed.
All of the resin parts have mold ‘flash’ that will need to be removed and larger items, such as the wings, do have some warping, which is not uncommon in resin kits.
The kit does not supply many parts required to make this an accurate model, for example an instrument panel, all of the necessary wing float struts, all of the centre engine bearer struts etc.
The lower wing one piece molding is not the correct shape according to the drawings supplied.
The kit parts have no locating pegs or holes, which can cause alignment problems during assembly.
The instructions supplied for assembling the model are virtually non-existent, being only several sheets of photo-copied data with only one section view of the fuselage internal parts.
The remaining sheets are the kit contents and basic three-view drawings and some small colour profiles.The kit instructions do not give assembly instructions, apart from the two side drawings and they only list parts with no exploded assembly views.
Also, some of the information refers to different versions of this aircraft, not the kit supplied Series 2 (1552) model.
The decals supplied are of reasonable quality but are not the normal, ‘cookie’ cut slide transfer. Instead the decals are printed on sheets of carrier which covers the entire sheets.
Therefore if used, each decal will need to be carefully cut out from its sheet before application to the model. Also the surface of these decals is easily damage, such as from being scratched, so if used, care is needed handling these decals.
The kit does supply any ground equipment, such as a basic ‘beaching’ trolley or trestles.

Anyway, The basic hull has been prepared as well as a modified 'Wings Cockpit' figure (LSK 07A).

Mike

[HubertB]

The good news is that, with the pilot at its office, you won’t be missing much of the cockpit details, Mike

Hubert

[sandbagger]

Hi Hubert,

To be frank there's not much cockpit detail anyway, just a control column, pump , rudder bar and compass - that's it.

I need to scratch an instrument panel and the rudder bar wont be used,

 

Mike

[Jeff]

The pilot looks so cool with his period mustache.... I love that

[Peterpools]

Mike

will be following with great interest, as the kit offers so many challenges. Completely agree, the pilot will hide much of the interior.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
Just a quick updated.
The front decking has been fitted and I've added the 'splash' rail around the edge of the hull.
Also the nose 'bump' padding to the nose, neither of which are represented in the kit,

Mike

[Peterpools]

Nice progress and those details add so much in the end.

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
A few updates.
This kit does not have any locating pins or holes for any of the flight surfaces.
These include the ailerons, fin, tail plane, elevators and the rudder.
These are all intended to be 'butt' glued only, which is never a good idea, especially with resin parts.
Although CA adhesive provides a strong bond, it is prone to 'break away' if subjected to shock loading, such as being knocked.
Therefore I reinforced the mating surfaces by adding either 0.3 or 0.5 mm diameter rods and associated holes.
The exception was the elevators, as the trailing edge of the tail plane is way too thin to drill.
For that I cut photo-etch strips to represent the hinges and to support the elevators to the tail plane.
I've also replaced the resin rear decking strips with sanded down plastic card.

The next job is to created rudder and aileron control cable horns and the associated control cable outlets, none of which are supplied or represented in the kit,

Mike

[Kaireckstadt]

32 minutes ago, sandbagger said:

Hi all,
A few updates.
This kit does not have any locating pins or holes for any of the flight surfaces.
These include the ailerons, fin, tail plane, elevators and the rudder.
These are all intended to be 'butt' glued only, which is never a good idea, especially with resin parts.
Although CA adhesive provides a strong bond, it is prone to 'break away' if subjected to shock loading, such as being knocked.
Therefore I reinforced the mating surfaces by adding either 0.3 or 0.5 mm diameter rods and associated holes.
The exception was the elevators, as the trailing edge of the tail plane is way too thin to drill.
For that I cut photo-etch strips to represent the hinges and to support the elevators to the tail plane.
I've also replaced the resin rear decking strips with sanded down plastic card.

The next job is to created rudder and aileron control cable horns and the associated control cable outlets, none of which are supplied or represented in the kit,

Mike

Awesome job and documentation Mike!

Looks like a lot of work necessary

But it’s no WNW kit...

[Jeff]

Incredible engineering skills.....

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
I've added control horns and control cable ports for the ailerons and rudder.
Next up is to represent the aileron control inspection panels, fuselage rear grab handles, wing stacking pads and rib tapes for the tail plane, elevators and ailerons.

None of the above are represented or supplied in the kit.

Mike

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
The rudder, elevators and tail plane were linen covered structures with rib tapes covering the linen joins.
It is unclear if the fin was covered with wood paneling or linen.
The photographs available suggest that it was linen, as the fin structure can be see under the covering.
So I've gone for a linen covered fin.
Although rib tapes are represented on the wings and ailerons of the kit, they are not represented elsewhere.
Created using 0.2 mm thick plastic card which was then sanded ,

Mike

[Peterpools]

Mike

Perfect way to install the control surfaces - lots of extra work but insurance that they won’t be prone to breaking off in the future.

nice work on the linen tapes

Keep ‘em comin

Peter

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
The kit supplied lower wing needed some major changes.
I used the few photographs available for this aircraft and the drawings in the ‘Windsock’ World War Centenary (Spring 2015, Vol.31, No.1).

Basically the kit wing needed to be modified for the following reasons:
The wing leading edge had more of a swept angle than that moulded on the kit wing.
The centre section of the leading edge had a recess, to allow the forward wing struts and engine support frame to be fitted to the fuselage.
The lower wing and the upper wing had 'stacking' pads fitted into the wing leading edges (2 upper and four lower wing).
The centre cut-out in the trailing edge of the lower wing did not have square corners, but was fitted with quadrant fillet panels.
The upper surface of the lower wing had walk boards fitted at the wing roots.
The rear of the centre section of the lower wing had two slots through the wing to allow fitting of the wing rear struts into the fuselage.  
 
Mike

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
The lower wing was not fitted directly to the top of the fuselage but was located on four mountings and just clear of the fuselage.
The front a rear wing spars of the lower wing passed across the fuselage through these mountings.
The kit instructions show the mountings, but they are not supplied in the kit.
Therefore representations of the mountings need to be created. 
The mountings were made from brackets in the ‘Jadar’ WW1 1:48th scale control horns (S48087) photo-etch set and 0.5 mm diameter Brass rod.
I also used 0.5 mm rod to make the grab handles for the rear of the fuselage, which again are not supplied in the kit,

Mike

 

 

 

 

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
The inner and outer interplane struts supplied in the kit are resin and without any internal metal reinforcing rods.
This makes the brittle resin of the struts weak and liable to breaking during handling when assembling the model.
Therefore I decided to recreate these struts using 1.0 mm diameter brass rod and 2.0 mm diameter brass tube.
These were formed using my 'Albion Alloy's 'Strutter' tool and then soft soldered.
Below are the outer interplane struts temporarily fitted so I can accurately measure and make the inner interplane struts.

Mike
 

[DocRob]

Very convincing brass work in the last steps Mike, this will ensure a rigid construction and will pa off later in the build.

Cheers Rob

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
I've now created the inner interplane struts.
The rear struts are fitted to the fuselage through the cut-outs in the rear of the lower wing centre section.

Now onto the tailplane and wing floats support struts,

Mike

[Peterpools]

Mike

Brilliant work. 
Keep ‘em comin

Peter

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
The tailplane support struts are done.
These were created 0.8 mm diameter brass rod and 1.6.0 mm diameter brass tube.
These were formed using my 'Albion Alloy's 'Strutter' tool and then soft soldered.
Below are the tailplane struts temporarily fitted.

Now to do the last sets of struts for the wing floats,

Mike

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
The last of the strut work is done.
These are the support struts for the two wing floats.
There will also be bracing wires fitted, but later in the build.
These were created 0.8 mm diameter brass rod and 1.6.0 mm diameter brass tube.
These were formed using my 'Albion Alloy's 'Strutter' tool,

Mike

[sandbagger]

Hi all,
I've been working on creating the engine support frame, which was located between the centre sections of the upper and lower wings.
Nothing is supplied in the kit for this frame, apart from two bits of wire and a rather rough side drawing of the side of the aircraft.
Quite how 'Omega Models' expect any modeler to fabricate this frame from the kit is a bit of a joke.
Anyway I've made the bottom half of the frame soft soldered from 0.8 mm diameter brass tube using heavily modified 'Connec+o' joiners from 'Albion Alloy's'.
The front under plate at the top of the frame is made from 0.2 mm plastic card and the two rear side filler plates from scrap photo-etch.
The completed frame will also require cross bracing wires to be fitted as well as the engine assembly of course.

Now it's onto the top half of the frame,

Mike