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bcauchi
slingshot392
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    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E

    slingshot392
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    Post  slingshot392 Tue Apr 13, 2010 2:42 am

    My favorite medium for building has always been wood, as a kid, I built some U-control planes as well as some of the rubber band powered Guillows and Comet kits, in my 20s I build some radio controlled planes. I hadn't worked with balsa for probably 15 years when I picked this model up, I was pleasantly surprised as the sticks were better quality than they used to be and the other parts were laser cut which is the best way to go, unfortunately, it's also the most expensive way. The other ways that companies do it is diecut which is probably the worst way as it tends to crush the wood, the other option is print wood where the parts are just drawn on the sheets of wood for you to cut out, it's the most inexpensive way to go and it's a time-honored way as that goes back to the 30s and a number of companies today are doing that again.

    I have always liked the story of the Granville brothers and their planes, while I. really like their famous big barrel chested red and white R racers, their E has always been one of my all-time favorite airplanes. This model has a 30 inch wingspan, about the only way I will be able to display it is hanging it from the ceiling in my room. The fuselage structure is fairly close to scale, the wing doesn't have enough ribs to be scale since it was meant to be light to fly so I will add the necessary ribs.

    Here are a couple photos of the real plane

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_001

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_002

    There were four Model E's built in 1930-1931, their colors schemes were blue/yellow, red/white, green/cream, and green/yellow. I have always loved the green/yellow scheme on airplanes, so that's the one I am doing.

    Here is a link to a very good in-depth article on building a wooden model from scratch, lots of good tips and I refer back to it quite a bit. This is a great site for free flight models, going through the different pages there are some nice videos of them flying their models, some outdoors, a lot indoors, I was really surprised at how long they could keep them flying, especially since they took off on their own. The site also has a number of free plans.

    http://www.ffscale.co.uk/comper.htm

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_003

    The box frame is built from 3/32 sticks. The instructions said the wing saddle should be built by layering two 3/32 sticks, but they kept breaking so I just cut those parts out of some sheet balsa and coated both sides with glue to give it a little strength. The instructions say the rudder post should be glued on now, I left it off until the formers were glued on, otherwise it most likely would have been broken off.

    Super glue would make this a pretty quick build, but I have some pretty nasty reactions to the fumes, so I use both carpenters glue and Elmer's glue (white glue). Both give a pretty strong bond, it's just more time consuming.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_004

    The formers are glued on, next I need to add on the stringers. The stringers around the cockpit door will need to be modified as the kit isn't meant to have an opening door. That's a foot ruler in front of the model giving an idea of its size.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_005

    The stringers are partially glued in.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_006

    The Granville Brothers used engine turned aluminum instrument panels, I didn't have any luck trying to replicate it on some aluminum, so I tried doing it on the computer, this was my first attempt. The instruments are from Microsoft Flight Simulator, but they don't look very good after shrinking them down so I will either look for some real instruments or draw them myself. Lots more work to do here.

    There are no pictures of the E cockpit, but I do have a partial cockpit shot of the Y (there were two of them built, basically a larger two place E), a shot of the Z. cockpit, as well as some cockpit photos of a replica Z, I will have to use these to draw up a cockpit for this plane.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_007

    Here's the cockpit of the Y.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_008

    Here's the cockpit of the Z.

    I had really gotten burned out on airplanes after some problems on the site that I was one of the editors on and gave up working on model airplanes for quite awhile. I just recently pulled this out again and found the page I had on this model and was startled to see that it was back in 2005! I couldn't believe it had been that long.

    The fuselage had broke on me a couple times, I noticed one of the bottom stringers wasn't quite right so I am just about done fixing that. I now have all of the stringers on top behind the cockpit glued in and the stringers on the bottom of the nose in as well. Even soaking the stringers would not allow the ones on each side of the nose to bend to shape, I cut about ½ of the way through the stringer on the middle former so they could be bent to shape without completely breaking. After they were all glued in, I then put some glue where I cut them to further reinforce them.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E Gee_Bee_E_010

    One way of filling in the nose so it looks like metal which a lot of people use is to fill in the rectangle between the formers and stringers with a piece of balsa sheet, that works, but it is very time-consuming cutting and beveling each piece and gluing them in. I am going to use 1/32 sheet to cover the nose. To make it wide enough, I put two pieces of sheet side-by-side and taped them together, then I flipped that over and then bent it so it was an upside down V and ran a bead of glue between the sheets. Then I pushed them flat and wiped away the excess glue, covered it with wax paper and put a heavy weight on it until it was dry. Now I have a nice wide piece of sheet to cover the nose.
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    Post  bcauchi Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:00 am

    Looking good Brad, thanks for the heads up and info on the Gee Bee's not a plane we normally see around here, or anywhere else for that matter.
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    Post  in nannu pec Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:48 am

    Looking Good Brad...it would be a joy to see it ready...can't wait !!!!
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    Post  Alex Kontiveis Tue Apr 13, 2010 12:45 pm

    The bones of a little MONSTER!!! Amazing!!! I cant wait to see it ready mate!!!


    Last edited by Alex Kontiveis on Tue Apr 13, 2010 3:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
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    Post  alexbb Tue Apr 13, 2010 1:34 pm

    THANK YOU FOR BUILDING ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVOURITES
    I HAVE A 1/32 MODEL OF THIS BEAUTY SOMEWHERE SO WOULD BE MUCH OBLIGED IF YOU POST WHATEVER INFO YOU HAVE AS YOU GO ALONG WITH THE BUILD
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    Post  slingshot392 Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:39 pm

    Thanks for the compliments guys! It's been a long time since I really worked with wood, I'm making a few mistakes as I'm remembering some of my techniques.

    I was unaware of a model of the E in 1/32? Williams Brothers made models in 1/32 of the Z and the R, I attached a picture of each of them, did you mean one of these?

    If anyone would like, I could put up a short history of their planes with a picture of each one of them.
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    Post  slingshot392 Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:50 pm

    Well, that didn't work. Let me try posting the images again. Here is a replica of the Z.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E 0521465[img]

    Here is a replica of the R2. I have an excellent set of drawings in 1/16 by Cleveland Models of the R1. The only external difference was the shape of the cowling because of different sized engines. Ed Packard who owned and ran Cleveland Model his entire life drew up the plans for this plane in 1932, each year he would drop plans and make a kit of the plane that won the Bendix and Thompson trophy. His models, even though they were a rubber band powered were known for their scale fidelity. Ed passed away about 10 years ago, fortunately his plans are still unavailable, I have a number of them.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E 0575755
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    Post  alexbb Tue Apr 13, 2010 10:03 pm

    yes you are right its the r2
    and by all means post any info you wish always interesting always eager to learn new things.
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    Post  slingshot392 Tue Apr 13, 2010 11:01 pm

    That's one of my favorites as well! I used to draw that a lot on my notebook when I was in grade school, maybe I should have been paying attention instead? I'll put something together on a page on my site and then post the link here.

    Here's the link to Cleveland Models

    http://www.clevelandairline.com/default.asp

    Click on the Product Catalog, then click on the button by Cleveland Primary Product Line, then click on the go now button. Those are all the model kits that this company produced from around 1927 on. Later in life, he went to just selling the plans, there are a lot of great Golden Aged planes which is my favorite era.most of the plans will show you how to build a static scale model as well as lightning the structure if you want to fly them. most of his models were produced in 1/16 scale except for the multi-engine aircraft. Now what they do is just take those plans, scale them down to 1/32 scale and then all the way up to 1/4 scale. If the patterns aren't on the plans themselves, and you get a separate sheet with the patterns. I have bought a number of their plans and will be getting more.
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    Post  Ray Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:45 pm

    Looking great as always Brad, and thanks again for sharing and keeping our forum brimming with fresh scale modelling knowledge!!
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    Post  slingshot392 Wed Apr 14, 2010 10:16 pm

    Thanks! Some of the techniques I used with wood are slowly coming back to me, usually after a mistake!! I've always loved the Golden Age aircraft, especially the racers from the 30s, lots of great and seldom seen aircraft.
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    Post  slingshot392 Sat Apr 24, 2010 5:22 am

    After working on this again and using the fuselage and plans in my room, I finally came to the tough decision that it's just too big, this also means some of the other aircraft I had planned at that size, I won't be able to do without reducing them.

    I am in the process of redrawing the plans to 1/16 scale which will give it a wingspan of roughly 18 inches, the P-40 in 1/32 has a wingspan of roughly 14 inches and this will be able to fit on my entertainment center. I will also be able to do the other golden age air racers in 1/16 so they will all be the same scale.

    Brian had a good suggestion on finishing just the fuselage, that reminded me of a picture I had on my computer, it took a little while but I finally found it. I am planning on finishing the fuselage of this one like in the picture as a diorama. Don't know if I will build it with the metal sheeting off of the front like in the picture, I will have to blow up the picture and examine it more.

    Dumas 1/10 Gee Bee E GEE%20BEE%20MODEL%20E%201930-1

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