Wright Flyer

[Skyediamonds]

Let me know if anyone has questions building the Guillow's Wright Flyer. Built two. One of which is very detailed & featured on April 2015. Did a lot of research on the real aircraft.

[Chris A.]

I have the kit, and would like to see your pictures. I'm hoping to find scale size chain and gears for the propellor drives.

[NcGunny]

Nice build Sky!! Chris i sent you a pm on a possible source for chains and gears.

[Skyediamonds]

Chris, your best source for chains will be your local arts & crafts store. Even Wal Mart has beautifully scaled chains I their arts & crafts dept. It's amazing the detailing that can easily be obtained at reasonable prices. I used a combination of steel colored small chains for the engine & it's associated gears & brass colored chains for the pilot controls & propeller drives just to give the model some artistic "bling." Cheers, Sky

[Skyediamonds]

NcGunny, I sincerely thank you for your compliment on my Wright Flyer. Coming from fellow modelers who know how to build the traditional methods, also know what to look for on other modeler's projects. So a compliment coming from you really carries weight & means a lot. Thank you, Sky

[Coloradoken]

The Smithsonian website has access to a digitized interactive file of the original flyer. I used it extensively for my build ( Sept 2014). Might be of help.The one feature i tried was a 3 dimensional pilot. Just did not like the 2D in the kit.

[Skyediamonds]

Coloradoken: I totally agree with you on the profile pilot for the Wright Flyer. I managed to find Orville in the toy section of my local Wal Mart store pretending to be Prince Charming holding hands & standing next to Cinderella. He even managed to dress up like a prince with a good-guy white-colored military overcoat with coattails & heavily folded over cuffs with braids & gold-crusted shoulder embroidery right down to his white smart-looking trousers. He didn't fool me. Had to strip him off of all that elaborate uniform & "slightly" revise his outfit to his more "original' black tweed coat, high-collared white shirt & gray pants. He lucked out though, his plastic skin reacted to the solvents in the paints...

[Skyediamonds]

Also had the same access to the Smithsonian website to the Wright Flyer. Did not give out all the details needed for my extra-detailed model. Still, was another piece to the puzzle.

[NcGunny]

I had called my buddy yesterday,he works for Tamiya in Japan. The Wright Flyer is 1:20.scale and if it was anything other than that scale he could have hooked it up like mad. But being such a oddball scale not much is available except some rc boating stuff in that scale. I went to ac moore today and saw some stuff in their Steampunk section that could work. Japanese and Chinese are fanatics in model detailing, so their aftermarket is huge. I thought for sure I was going to have some free samples coming to send you guys. For figures i would give the RC sites a lookover, they offer paintable figures in 1/18 and 1/20.

[Skyediamonds]

NcGunny, just read your marvelous response suggesting how I can obtain an Orville figure. It's really great to know there are good people out there. I was impressed at the lengths you went through with your friend in Japan. Amazing! Just a couple of things. When building Guillow's Wright Bros' Flyer, I decided to let my "OCD" (My grown kids said it, so it must be true) run wild & go "all out." No detail was spared. Starting with fabricating the engine, I drilled out the cooling holes to the cylinders instead of simply marking them, made propeller mounts from tubular plastic styrene & affixed the ends with small diameter rings to serve as "lips" at the ends of the tubes, even included the glass bell housing mounted on the rear axle of the engine near the propeller chains. The rigging is very accurate & includes bellcranks & pulleys. I mentioned all this because one would have to be a contortionist in order to slip in the plane. I couldn't get "Prince Orville" through all that rigging & accessories without risk of breaking something off. I took dozens of step-by-step photos with my cell but don't know how to post them to this forum. Any input would be appreciated. Again, thank you so much for your response. Sky

[NcGunny]

I used Photobucket..think it was Mitch that told me. Its free, I couldnt upload from my SD card though..havent figured that out yet. So i have to click upload from photo anf take a pic then it.will send it. Click on ur photo in Photobucket and click the chain icon. Highlight ur link and.paste it.in post. Lotsa guys and gals on here have built balsa for years and years..I just restarted in it after 30ish years of styrene building. Lol..I still break balsa cause I have a heavy touch.

[Skyediamonds]

Nv Gunny- Hope I can call you Gunny. Let me know. You said it's been "thirtish years" since building from styrene. That's exactly what happened to me. My first balsa model after nearly 30 years was (& still is) Guillow's PT-17 Stearman biplane. In fact, it's featured in both tne May & July issue of this year's Electric Flight magazine, a sister publication of Model Airplane News. You can also go online to see my separate article on cockpit coaming:www. modelairplanenews/coaming. They really edited a lot of detailed information out of it. Used real leather on the coaming. Also used real leather on the pilot's cradle on Guillow's Wright Flyer.
I'll try using the methods you suggested on posting the pictures online. Thank you for the input.
I also reviewed the previous "Model of the Month" on Guillow's website & must admit some of those guys do a fantastic job. My own PT-17 is also featured in November (I think).

[NcGunny]

Found this on Hobby Link Japans site. The planes are made by a company called Krick. It shows the level of detail these people go to on their models. I was stationed in Japan for a bit and got to be friends with guys in Tamiya, one even streams weekly on USTREAM under Tamiya. He is a pro builder for the company,and will go to endless lengths to recreate a exact scale replica. I think most people just need to look around them and lots of materials they can use in builds will be right there or if bought and adapted very cheaply. I have been working on some leather tassels trying to thin them down for the cockpit of my Stampes. Even using scalpel blades its a bit dubious...or shakey hands..lol The wire rigging you used was kit supplied? I have some older Spider Wire fishing line that looks close to scale for my builds, or did you go with something different? https://www.hlj.com/product/KRK24020/Air

[Skyediamonds]

Gunny, great to hear from you as always. For the Wright Flyer, I used the kit-supplied thread for the rigging. It's very strong & easy to use.I also used some store-bought white thread to use as tying twine for the upper & lower ends of the wing struts. Just that part of the detailing alone is not seen on any other scale model, at least that I'm aware of. It's just another touch of finesse to the overall super detailing in addition to using real chains. This is where I'd sure like to meet this friend from Japan. Sounds like we share common OCD...LoL As far as your Stampe & my PT-17 goes for rigging of the wings I used thin strips of silver-spray painted glossy magazine covers. I don't know what scale the Stampe is, but Guillow's Stearman biplane is 1/20th. That makes flat flying cables ( as opposed to calling them wires) pretty thin & narrow -like say no more than a 1/16th wide, if at that. As good luck would have it, Guillow's designed the Stearman such that the flying rigging need not be functional. That gave me a chance to explore more options that were "outside the box." Prior to using thin magazine strips, I found out that flat flying cables only were available to the large scale models such as 1/4th, 1/5th, & 1/6th. The largest plastic models were 1/32 & 1/24, & none were of biplanes. Which put my Stearman in a nether world between scales. Tried cutting thin strips from those disposable aluminum baking pans that can be purchased at the local grocery store. The thin strips tend to curl up & matter what extreme measures I took, they either remained curled or kinked. Also, the edges were razor sharp which made for handling them hazardous. Tried cutting with hobby knives which only dulled the blades, scissors & even the guillotine paper cutting board to no good results. I even tried those thin braiding strips we all used to braid for key chains, but they were too thick & too wide, & the list goes on. Until I decided to use glossy front magazine covers. In addition to ease of cutting, they have that ultra smooth surface which heightened the metallic effect when sprayed with metallic silver (or metal), I personally called Mr. Gerry Yarish -technical editor of Model Airplane News & with the exception of the very expensive Proctor Enterprise & very small (but expensive GasPatch for plastic models), no turnbuckles were easy to find. Used tubular brass-colored beads that featured a flat tab with a hole in one end. Sooo, that's what I used on the Stearman. If interested, let me know & we can go into greater detail. -Sky

[Skyediamonds]

Gunny, just visited that website in Japan. I've seen that model displayed before in other websites devoted to the Wright Flyer. Never knew who built it or if it came in a kit. Beautiful job! I tried other kits on the website, seems the Wright Flyer is the only one done in 1/16th scale. All other kits are in 1/87th or some odd size. Am I wrong? Getting back to the Wright Flyer, it seems he did an outstanding job on the engine. Just wished I could see the engine up close. Got email? Could send you several close ups of my construction of both the Flyer & engine. Sky