AEG G.IV - Creature of the Night - WNW 1/32

[HubertB]

35 minutes ago, Martinnfb said:

To combine the words "rigging" and "straightforward" in one sentence, is in my eyes an absolute blasphemy, most impressive work Rob.

Cheers

Martin

 

The last thing you want is to have your rigging snaking around. Straight it must be !

Just my 

Hubert

[BlrwestSiR]

Looking at that last pic, I'm getting the same nightmares. Can't imagine trying to keep everything aligned. For me, that's one giant spiderweb of stuff to get caught in. 

How will the outer wing sections attach to the centre section?

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, HubertB said:

The last thing you want is to have your rigging snaking around. Straight it must be !

Patience Hubert, it´s not finished yet 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

32 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

How will the outer wing sections attach to the centre section?

There are huge tabs, connecting the inner to the outer wings, like you can see on this pic, where they are masked, Carl. This will secure a good fit and hopefully no sag.



Cheers Rob

 

[Jeff]

This is still so cool. Miles ahead if my skill set and the results are fabulous. This is museum quality work , Rob. A very enjoyable thread for me, I really like how this is working out.

Jeff

[DocRob]

Thank you Jeff, a mostly enjoyable build for me too, but the areas in need for touch up add, as well as parts getting knocked off during mounting and rigging. It wasn´t supposed to be the easiest of builds, but still enjoyable. Somehow these WNW builds are always demanding and a pleasure to build at the same time.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

Always amazing progress to watch and enjoy

[DocRob]

Got the center section rigging done. @HubertB, all the rigging threads are taut, sweet dreams . It was not easy to fiddle everything in place with different tweezers, using magnifiers, backlight and a lot of care not to break anything. Now I have to stretch my back and help myself to a nice stiff cocktail.



After testing the stability of the center section, I decided, I could take a peek with the outer wings inserted. She´s a big bat. Somehow the wings disturb the view onto the more interesting middle section, but I will build her with complete wings anyway. Cut away outer wings is scheduled for my Felixstowe maintenance build.

Cheers Rob

[HubertB]

I feel for you, Rob. Let me have also a stiff drink as a token of solidarity and sharing  !

Hubert

[DocRob]

24 minutes ago, HubertB said:

I feel for you, Rob. Let me have also a stiff drink as a token of solidarity and sharing  !

Thank you for your sympathy, Hubert, mine will be a Sazerac or a Remember the Maine, just love the combination of rye whiskey and absinth.

Cheers (literally) Rob

[HubertB]

43 minutes ago, DocRob said:

Thank you for your sympathy, Hubert, mine will be a Sazerac or a Remember the Maine, just love the combination of rye whiskey and absinth.

Cheers (literally) Rob

Mine is was an Irish whiskey. With the current heat, it evaporated in a blink 😏 !
 

Hubert

[Peterpools]

Rob

Brilliant progress and OMG, looking so good. I'm in with Hubert for sure: 🍷

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, HubertB said:

Mine is was an Irish whiskey. With the current heat, it evaporated in a blink 😏 !

Isn´t that called the Angel Share? Make it a double to counter evaporation.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Ok, there was a lot of talk about tubes, loops, eyelets, ... through the last steps of the build, so I thought, it might be helpful to explain my rigging process.

I cut my ´turnbuckles´ from aluminum tube with the inner diameter of 0,3 mm, the outer 0,5 mm with a length of about 3mm. I roll a fresh blade over the tube until it splits.



You don´t want to run into trouble with burr, later when you try to loop the fishing line through in the middle of a fragile spider web, so I use a 0,5 mm drill bit to remove the burr, holding the tube with a reverse action tweezer.



I glued the eyelets into pre drilled holes into the wing, like here around one strut and for the ailerons with CA. I use Gaspatch eyelets for the structural rigging and Bob´s buckles eyelets, which are finer for steering lines. I orientate the eyelets for the easiest possible rigging.

Maxima Chameleon fishing line is the weapon of choice, the brownish color looks ok to me and it´s monofilament.



Now it gets serious, using one piece of tube onto the line and pass it through the eyelet.

With tweezers, I pick up the end of the thread and bend it back to the tube and fiddle it through the tube for a second pass.



Finally, I apply a drop of CA to near to the eyelet and push the tube onto it, holding the fishing line into it´s designated direction and cut the protruding rest with a scissor.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Today, I pre rigged one wing in about four hours, not too bad. First, I fitted all the lines to the eyelets, like shown above for the entire lower wing. Then I added the struts, where the inner ones had eyelets in their connecting stubs, which were also pre fitted with fishing line. With a pulling test, I made sure, all connections were ok. This is a step, where you want to make proper preparations, as mounting on the second side, the upper wing is more difficult, due to space limitations.
I also made sure, that all the struts fit completely into the wing holes.



In the next step, I pushed the lower wing onto it´s connecting tab, but still without glue and carefully slid the upper wing onto it´s tab, without breaking the struts. When everything aligned correctly, I glued the wings and upper strut connections in place. Luckily the fit is very good. Then I turned the AEG onto it´s upper wing and made the same loop and tubes like before with the upper wing eyelets. This is, where I am now. The fishing line isn´t pulled taut and CA secured for now, as this will be done in one flush, to maintain taut lines in the correct positions throughout.







Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

Amazing and brilliant work. Skilled and steady hands are two modeling skills you surely possess and use to the fullest. 

I can't thank you enough for the very detailed tutorial with clear and sharp images photographs, A picture is worth a thousand words and never truer. 

[DocRob]

Thank you Pete, rigging the wings is relatively easy, like I hoped for. The mid area was far more complicated. I´m also happy, that wing and struts alignment worked so far, always critical with these type of builds. 
Unfortunately, the amount of repairs and touch ups raises. I knocked off some of the bombs and other parts, but nothing too hard to repair, but I have a little spill of Tamiya extra thin, which immediately ate through clear coat and decal. I will patch that with decal later, when rigging is finished. It´s not so easy to glue in struts with tensioned wings, without spilling. The completely decal covered surface is very fragile and I have to do something about the trailing edges, where the camo decals are a bit torn in places.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

One side done . I finished the rigging with pulling all lines taught and add a drop of CA to the anchor points to secure everything. This part of rigging was much easier, than the nacelles and inner rigging. I had to fabricate new turnbuckle tubes, which is not the most exciting work, but now, I have enough for side number two.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

Sorry to read about the Tamiya glue spill and the trailing edges, always a bit of a letdown when things go south and then a lot of time needs to be devoted to restoring the model to where she was prior to the needed repairs. No doubt, your repair work will be perfectly done, with not a hint of the work to be seen.

Congrats on finishing the rigging on the left wing - looking so good. 

 

[KevinM]

That's looking quite good Rob and the color of the line lends itself well to the build.

[DocRob]

On 4/21/2024 at 8:46 PM, Peterpools said:

Sorry to read about the Tamiya glue spill and the trailing edges, always a bit of a letdown when things go south and then a lot of time needs to be devoted to restoring the model to where she was prior to the needed repairs. No doubt, your repair work will be perfectly done, with not a hint of the work to be seen.

Congrats on finishing the rigging on the left wing - looking so good.

Thank you Peter, messing around with lots of tweezers and scissors cost it´s tributes, but I repaired a lot of the issues. The trailing edges, I will leave to the end and hope for a good idea. I may cut the loose decal fragments with a sharp blade and touch up with fitting paint. The Extra Thin dot got decaled over with fitting pattern. WNW supplied some spare decals luckily.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

On 4/21/2024 at 10:28 PM, KevinM said:

That's looking quite good Rob and the color of the line lends itself well to the build.

Thank you Kevin, the brown looks good to my eye, but is not absolutely correct. As it shows stronger on the pics, I won´t touch it up with marker, though.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

The big bat flexes it´s wings. Today, I finished rigging the wings and I´m happy to have that behind me. It was not overly difficult on the outer wings, but fiddly with lots of scissors and tweezers involved, always adjusting the light and try not to knock off or scratch parts.
I loosely attached the rudder, but not the elevators. The tail will be last, as until now, it´s easy to set the plane onto some foam, bottom up. With about 60 cm of wingspan the bat starts to handle a bit awkward and it´s relatively heave, luckily quite robust.
It´s hard to see on the pics, but the white rudder has spar markings visible. I used 1mm masking tape over the spars, when I sprayed the tinted varnished over the whole airframe. 









Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

WOW, brilliant work and incredible progress. I'm still in awe on your rigging skills, as it's looks absolutely perfect.

Are you planning on lightly toning down the white rudder as being vivid and bright colors attract the eye. 

🏆

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, Peterpools said:

WOW, brilliant work and incredible progress. I'm still in awe on your rigging skills, as it's looks absolutely perfect.

Are you planning on lightly toning down the white rudder as being vivid and bright colors attract the eye. 

Thank you Peter, like I said before, rigging the wings was relatively easy and trouble free. Good preparation and a logical sequence is the key.
The rudder seems to be a victim of light metering. The whole bat is dark as is the background and I had to tick the exposure up a bit. The rudder was sprayed white, than I applied 1mm wide Kabuki tape onto the spars and used a green tinted varnish over the whole plane, including the rudder, leaving the ´spars´ lighter than the rest.

Cheers Rob