Sopwith Dolphin - Further Progress on Wings

Put 'em together and what have you got?

Right, I've nearly got the wings finished, and the tail as well for good measure. And I'm quite pleased about it. I have to admit, I wasn't sure what sort of results I would be able to achieve with my ad-hoc techniques. But I think it's all turned out OK so far.

The components of the tail were slightly easier than the wings, because there were less of them and no camber was required. I cut out the pieces in the usual way, by taping the plan to some plastic card and cutting straight through it. I was going to use the Windsock plans without modification, but my first attempt at the horizontal stabiliser and elevators wasn't very successful. So I fired up TurboCAD and traced over the Windsock drawings, adding some extended cutting lines for accuracy. I did one side and then mirrored it to ensure symmetry. Then I had a few more goes at cutting out, until I had pieces that I was happy with.

Cutting guide for tailplane

After this, I had a bit more shaping to do. I had assumed that all the tail components were essentially flat, consisting of canvas stretched over a tubular structure. But when I had a closer look at the photos, I realised that I needed an aerofoil section, on the horizontal surfaces at least. The rudder and vertical stabilizer also seem to require a taper, starting from the rudder post. And this has to be achieved in a piece of card 0.8mm thick. A tall order, you might think. But I immediately invented a technique that would do the job without having to build jigs or anything. What you do is this. First, put a piece of 240 wet and dry on the cutting mat, hold the tiny piece of plastic at a very slight angle and start off the sanding, alternating from one side to the other to keep the shape symmetrical. This will establish a slope at the thin edge. The next stage is to carry on with the sanding, but with the tiny piece of plastic placed flat on the wet and dry. Then you will end up with a nice flat gradient from one side to the other. That's the theory:

Stage 1

Stage 2

 And it worked surprisingly well. Here is the result for the vertical stabiliser (with slightly more convincing fingers):

And while I'm doing shots with big fingers, here's how the camber looks on the wings:

So it's all looking pretty good I think. Next, I have to sand the wing roots so that when the wings are at the correct dihedral, they make a nice neat join with the fuselage. I think what I'm going to have to do, rather late in the day, is cobble together a kind of sanding fixture to achieve this.

Then I've got to work out how to represent the ribbing. Obviously, I can't use the reverse-side scribing technique I used for the rear decking. My current idea is to mask off everything except the ribs and then do a couple of coats of paint. If I use a dark shade, this can also be my first experiment in preshading.

I'll try it on some scrap first, obviously.