wonwinglo

I know what you mean,anything is available at a price,wheels for this period can be easily made from laminated ply discs with a good bearing to spread the load,one way is to solder brass strips at 90 degrees to the brass tube,this keeps the bearing from revolving after a few landings,the wheel covers are doped over balsa riblets spread around the wheel centre together with a valve access point,the best thing for the tyres I have found are rubber pipe from caravan shops if large scale,or have a look at electrical shop cable for smaller scales,split the plastic and remove the wire inners,to split the plastic evenly make a jig,a slot in a block of wood for example,then a heavy duty razor blade set at 30 degrees,the cable is drawn through evenly.
If you are lucky enough to have a rubber emporium ( look in yellow pages ) in your area then have a look at their stock.
I totally endorse your comments about making things from scratch,if you are capable of making the bits as you obviously are then do it.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bluewavestudios

Grahame,

I am sure you have considered this already but, never overlook the fact that the headrest may have been added at the request of one or 2 pilots...not unusual by any means in the day and certainly no more so now for personal comfort and operations of most machines...although back then I would suspect most pilots requested their own modifications as they generally always flew the same plane...ie..their own personal plane....the Red Baron Certainly Did !!!
This practice still goes on today in many industries where employees are expected to use the same machines...eg cars etc day in day out. it builds up a consistent service record which is more valuable in the long run....ok they still add their personal touches for comfort, which goes right back to what we were saying at the start.

Regards......Mark

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I'm Only Here Coz I'm Not All There !!!

Greyhead

Mark

I had considered it being a “personal modification” but the opposite way round; I wondered if some pilots had the headrest removed to increase visibility to the rear, something that I’m certain would have increased their longevity if not their comfort!!

But as I said earlier it appears that the early SE5as didn’t have a headrest, this of course doesn’t preclude the possibility that later models were also modified at the pilot’s request.

Grahame

wonwinglo

Perhaps I can clear this one up historically,the factory built aircraft had no headrests,if you study lots of S.E.5A pictures you will see a wide variety of differing headrests,the reason was that at the request of the pilots sometimes headrests were fabricated in the field to differing sizes,so you could see a picture of aircraft so fitted,and others without them,the choice must have been a personal one,think about moving your head sharply either way in combat ? whilst a luxury for the head,it could have obscured the vision of the pilot ? there are other World War 1 machines either with or without the addition of headrests.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Greyhead

Thanks for clearing that up for us Barry, so failing any photographic evidence of C1096 having a headrest doesn’t mean that it didn’t have one at some time; I think I’ll just build her with a headrest, I’m not a competition man so documentation isn’t my God.

Now this proved to be an “interesting” exercise, which after several failures eventually proved to be surprisingly quick and simple. The cockpit has aluminium edging so litho plate is the obvious choice of material but fabricating the channel section stretched my imagination somewhat! I’ll not go into the failures just the final easy and successful method.

The litho plate is clamped against a steel rule using a piece of 1x1 as a backing.



The edge is bent over and the corner filed through using a fine file.



Carefully rolling the dressmakers copy tool along the litho plate produces a nice line of “rivets”.



The long side is trimmed to form an "L" section then using the cockpit as a template the edging is eased into shape; a lot easier than I thought it would be!



With a bead of 5-minute epoxy applied to the edge of the cockpit the aluminium edge is glued in place and the side "tucked under";I think it really finishes the cockpit off.



A point about my previously “finished” instrument panel; whilst investigating the differing layouts, as pointed out by Barry, I noticed on one photo that under the compass there is a level flight indicator. Although I have several detailed photos of the original panel taken from different viewpoints, on all of them the control column is blocking the view of the level flight indicator, which is in the shadow cast by the compass. Now I know that it’s there I can see it, although not very clearly; it has now been added to the model and as per full sized it doesn’t show up all that well, even without the control column.

wonwinglo

Now that combing does look good,I think you have simplified a very difficult task there,once mastered this litho plate really is good stuff,I hope that you have a healthy stock of it Grahame ?
The internal bracing also looks very practical as well.
That is the problem especially with old orthochromatic film,being quite grainy it tends to hide cockpit detail,also remember that colours appear reversed,ie blue outer on roundals look like red and vice versa,something to look out for in your research.
Panchromatic film came in much later.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Greyhead

Barry

I’m glad you like the edging; the secret of making it look right (and the reason I had a few failures) is to get a small and even lip on the litho plate, once I’d sorted the method for that the rest was plain sailing.

I thought the correct word for that part of the cockpit was the combing but it wasn’t in my dictionary, at least not with that meaning!

wonwinglo

Grahame,is it spelled 'Coaming' ? one of those words that can be used both ways.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bunkerbarge

As far as ships are concerned a vertical edge around a peice of machinery or structure etc is also called "Coaming", as in "Hatch Coamings"

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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"

Greyhead

Well that explains why I couldn’t find it in the dictionary; coaming it is!!