1/72 SSW R.VIII scratchbuild

[Lucien Harpress]

Okay, so my first "official" scratchbuild (Bezobrazov Triplane) isn't done yet, my Goose is languishing, my Zveno needs a trapeze, and my Short Stirling needs masking. Why start another build?

Simple. I'm taking a sculpture class this year at school, and have access to tools I would otherwise not have, namely a bandsaw and belt sander. Taken together, they offer me an excellent scratchbuilding opportunity I DON'T want to pass up.

So what I'm a building, you ask? A biplane. A BIG one. The biggest ever built, actually. The Siemens Schuckert SSW R.VIII.

One of Germany's WWI R-planes, it was intended as a night bomber with the specification that the engines needed to be serviceable in flight. As such, they put all six of them inside the fuselage and ran driveshafts out to the four propellers. It was completed after the War and never flew- during a fully-staffed high-speed taxi test a prop flew apart severely damaging the plane. It wasn't repaired.

I plan to use many methods to build this thing. The fuselage is a carved balsa core which will be covered by thin plastic.

Here I've begun skinning it.

Under this front piece I've carved it out and painted it black. Three windows will eventualy be cut out. I didn't get too detailed because the interior of this thing is basically all open. If I cut too much out, however, I lose the integrety of the balsa core. Thus, compromises must be made.

Here's the rear gunner platform. The floor will be replaced with woodgrain painted plastic and detailed a bit, as this area is quite prominent.

The same will be done to the cockpit- I'll cut it straight down starting half-way up the incline to the same level as the back all the way back to the front of the markings on the top of the balsa. I'll skin it, detail it, cover it with plastic, and cut windows as necissary.

Round windows in "solid" areas will be drilled all the way through to give the illusion of empty space.

You may be wondering about the thing on top.

It's a tunnel leading up to the top wing. It's the main support of the upper wing, and it's carved from a block of wood. I think I'm going to cast this just so I can get all the defects out without worrying about sealing and sanding the wood multiple times.

In addition to all this I've started the horizontal tailplanes. They're drying at school right now. I was originally going to skin them in plastic, but forgot to make them undersized. Now they looks so good I'm going to try to simply seal them and use them as is. They are too thin to really cast, so I'll see what I can do with them.

Stay tuned for updates on this build, although I AM viewing it as a long-term project. Who knows when I'll be done.

(Holy crud that was a lot of typing...)

Thanks for looking!

Edited June 14, 2009 by Lucien Harpress

[Blackcollar]

Wow!

What a monster! While you're at it, build a monster shelve!!

-Al

[Lucien Harpress]

Alrighty, another update. I got the major tail pieces back from school, and they are mostly sealed.

I have NO idea what kind of wood this is- it was scrap from my sculpture class, and it was free.

Couple quick mockup shots. There will be a few more auxillary surfaces to be added- two more vertical surfaces under the tail about where the marks are located, and two more horizontal surfaces to connect the arforementioned vertical surfaces to the main rudder.

I was also able to add some interior detail. Not much, mind you, and it's about 50% accurate and 50% filler. Looks fine to me. (More Ju 290Z parts showing up, by the way.)

I had the covering done as well, with hatches and windows cut out, but the windows disconnected from the part before I could photograph it. Later, perhaps. Now? I'm going to bed.

[Aggressor Supporter]

Wow...........

[jeff briner]

Lucien, you sure do have a knack for picking obscure subjects, and the talent to bring those subjects to life. It is always a special treat to follow one of your builds and this is no exception. BTW, you do know that Trumpeter plans to release a 1/32 scale kit of this early next year, don't you???

[Lucien Harpress]

Even if that IS a joke (which I think it is....), I'm not too worried. I'm a straight 1/72 guy anyway. But if you want it, by all means go ahead and buy one! Just watch out for the 4.5 foot wingspan on that sucker....

I was able to get the upper decking on the rear position last night. I'll post a pic or two eventually. Next up should be the most interesting part- detailing the cockpit and radio room. Before I get too much "crap" on it, though, I'll need to drill the holes for a number of round portholes on the sides. I'm not going to hollow out the entire interior, but to give the illusion of a dark space I'm going to drill each porthole all the way through (it's mirrored on each side) so light can make it all the way through.

The wings are going to be a joy to build. The top one I'd like to make one piece and "hang" the lower wings off it. This way alignment isn't such a pain. However, getting a thin wing 26 inches long not to sag is going to be a challenge. I can GUARANTEE the rigging is going to be functional on this beast.

I still need to cut the nose windows out.... see how those came out.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'll keep plugging away on this one as long as I'm able.

[Sebastijan]

nice progress on the scratch - looks like a submarine without wings :lol:

[Youngtiger1]

Wow, this is some project Lucien and the size of it.......you're not kidding about HUGE. This sucker will be, as you put it, Huge :lol: Keep up the good work

Mike

[Lucien Harpress]

After three days and four attempts, I finally got the covering on the rear gunner position.

A thick section of clear plastic extends the length of the original opening to give a bit of rigidity to the whole top piece. Don't ask me how I know why to do this. The seams around this piece are a bit rough, but all that will be taken care of before initial painting.

I've also started drilling out the portholes. I was planning on just adding small clear disks to each end of the "tunnel", but the balsa inside frayed a bit more than I anticipated. I might find correctly sized acrylic rod and shove it in each hole- they'll still look clear, and it should push all the nasty frayed bits out of the way.

Next up, a real focal point of the build- the cockpit. Construction method is the same as the rear position, only bigger. The front third will be the open cockpit, and thus will be the most detailed. The second third is the covered navigation compartment, which will be detailed with a chair, table, and some other stuff. The rear third exists only as empty space under another set of upper deck windows. I'm not sure if I'm painting it black or wood (like the rest of the cockpit). In reality it would open up onto the engine room a level lower than what I've cut, but I can only cut away so much of the balsa core.

Finally, people may be wondering something- "Sure, it's big- but it's not really THAT big." You may be correct. The SSW R.VIII did have a rather stumpy fuselage. Where the size of this sucker really shines is the wingspan. No, I don't have the wings done yet. But to give an impression of size, here's how big they are GOING to be.

Until next time.

[Aggressor Supporter]

Wow to that wingspan!

[Lucien Harpress]

Work has begun on the area directly behind the cockpit- the navagator's compartment.

The side closest is accurate. The side farthest- not so much. The schematic I was working off of had the one side with the chair, but no opposite side, so I just basically threw a bunch of filler stuff over there. Hopefully it won't be too visible.

Same goes for the black section- on the real thing this dropped down to the engine room a level lower. I wasn't really able to build the entire engine room, so a bit more visual trickery was in order.

Two more areas I took care of are thus:

The small air scoops (the other is on the other side) came from Monogram's 1/48 P-38 (Donated by the very generous DarylH ). Despite being different scales and different eras, they fit the schematics like a glove. Also, I blanked off the windows with aluminum tube to clear up the "frayed balsa" issue. A bit o' black paint, and we're in business.

I have the upper decking to the navagator's station all cut out- I just need to add the clear backing and get it in place. Then- off to the cockpit proper.

Again, thanks for looking.

[Chappie]

Awesome work! My hats off to scratchbuilders. I've got a huge list of 1/48th subjects I'd like to attempt someday.....Martin Mars, XB-15, XB-19, and a lot of other big stuff.

Keep up the good work and photos. This is gonna be cool.

Chappie

[jcfay]

Wow - that thing is going to be ginormous. I think the biggest challenge is going to be keeping the wings to scale and still supporting their own weight. I think the rigging will have to be functional as you say so I'm looking forward to your progress. What a crazy plane! Can you imagine being one of those early pilots who actually had the courage (or insanity or lack of sense of self-preservation) to get into that thing? Wow.

Jon

[Lucien Harpress]

What's worse is the guys who were forced to work in the engine rooms of these centrally-mounted planes. Cramped, loud, dirty, smelly, and not to mention dangerous. I can't even imagine trying to work on an engine while it's still running (as these crew routinely did).

All the German R-Planes were universally disliked by their aircrews. They were slow, unwieldy, unreliable, and not very effective. Still, as a study of an airplane type they are quite fascinating.

[Lucien Harpress]

Still chippin' out those details....

As you can see, the upper decking for the navagator's compartment is on. Interestingly enough, it didn't take me as long as the rear decking did, despite being much more complicated. I guess I'm learning, or something.

I've also started work on the cockpit and nose position (you can really call it a "nose gun" because no armament was, in fact, installed). The black post will recieve some control levers, and the brass bar will connect with the two control wheels to be installed later. The nose position also needs cleaning up.

The whole build in all its glory. And finally, this:

I've begun work on the auxiliary tail surfaces. While the SSW R.VIII had two sets of elevators and three rudders, it did NOT have a true "biplane" tail unit. What these are could be better called floating elevators, as they were directly controlled by the main elevators and had no additional surfaces to pivot off of. The two extra rudders (connected at each tip of this unit) are similar in this respect.

These were easier to build then I had anticipated. I basically took a brass rod the correct length of the span, glued a thin plastic sheet cut to shape to the bottom of it, then curved two more sheets over the top. Except for filling in the ends, it was that easy. I'll probably to the same for the rudders.

Except for some massively huge conical radiators, there isn't much detail left to the fuselage- I just gotta finish the cockpit, cut some windows, and glue in some porthole glass, and that's it!

As always, thanks for looking!

[kaburaya]

Lucian, that is a really great project and a stunning piece of scratch building. I bet that your enjoying this far more than anticipated! Cant wait to see more

Peter

[David Walker]

Very nice work so far. I can't wait to see your progress on the wings.

[JMan]

WOW, that is some amazing work! Will look at this one with interest as she gets built!

[Lucien Harpress]

MILESTONE POST!

No, not a milestone having to do with post count or whatever, but a milestone on the build. The fuselage is OFFICIALLY completely skinned.

There's a multitude of windows in and around the nose that had to be (carefully) cut out. The large windows in the nose won't have any glass in them, but no detailing inside either. I simply painted the interior space black, and even looking quite closely at it it's hard to tell it's nothing but painted wood.

Also note that, as the curves got more complex I needed to use smaller panels to preserve the curve detail. Despite being a nasty compound curve the nose came out really nice, and quite accurate when compared to the real thing.

The clear piece up front actually lines up with all the other pieces of plastic despite being nearly three times thicker. Don't ask me how... it just sorta happened. The scallops went in real nice as well, with everything lining up nice and neat with a minimum of fuss. Something's got to go wrong here soon....

Steering columns are bits of black zip ties, and the wheels are from my TB-3 kit. Because I used PE parts on the Tupolev, these were left over for the SSW.

The dorsal tunnel got skinned as well. When I drilled out the ladder it broke through the sides of the wooden blank. Ah, well. Skinning it wasn't too bad, and only took three pieces. Besides, now it saves me from sealing and sanding.

And, finally, the obligitory "all/everything" shot.

Next up? An all-over putty session followed by a quick (crossed fingers) sanding session to get rid of all the seams. THEN we can think about painting (which will be a chore in itself)- but we'll leave that for a point in the future.

[kellyF15]

Holy cow man that is awesome

[Patrick_Nevin]

And, finally, the obligitory "all/everything" shot.

Wow - how cool is that? Major kudos, sir, amazing work

[Sebastijan]

hmm, are you building airplane or submarine?

Great progress!

[Lucien Harpress]

I got me a little present in the mail today, courtesy of my Canadian friends to the north. I've never used it before, and I'm kind of excited.

This right here is German Night Bomber lozenge camoflage. While this sheet is meant for Gotha night bombers, the same type of fabric was used on a LOT of the SSW R.VIII, as it too was intended for night bombing.

The sheet I have here is 8 x 10 and was $16. The parts I have to use it on are the rear fuselage, the horizontal tail surfaces, and the as-yet-unfinished (and MASSIVE) wings. Clearly, this ain't going to cut it.

Being the cheapskate I am, I found it more economical to simply scan the image and make my own. Well, sorta. Right now I got the scanning part down. I still need to try my hand at actually PRINTING some of my own.... whatever.

Of course, duplicating decals like this can be interpreted as copyright infringement on SOME level, but I don't plan to sell these (and hopefully the images posted is too small to really use, so others can't get it for free). In fact, a better photo actually exists on the main site... but I digress. I just ask to be spared the moral rhetoric. Thank you.

For the front fuselage section I'm planning on something.... radical. You see, the metal forward section wasn't fabric- it was painted to sort of match the other parts. Unfortunately the colors aren't the same, and the pattern is random. So, what am I going to do? HAND-PAINT it, of course!

Yeah, I'm crazy. But you knew that, right?

As always, thanks for looking.

(If anyone's interested, these and other decals can be bought from www.orionminiatures.com. I have on good authority that they have some of the best and most accurate lozenge decals. Take a look, if you're so inclined.)

[martin_sam_2000]

this build is amazing. That thing is HUGE!!! it will an interesting and one of a kind when it is finished. Keep it up!!!

Sean

[Lucien Harpress]

Alright, back to updating. Less color discussion this time- more actual color WORK.

First up, my results from my first use of lozenge decals EVER. It's the relatively simple tail structure, but thankfully, on a craft as boxy as the SSW R.VIII, this is as about as complex as it gets.

Yeah, I know it's dark, but let me assure you there IS a method to the application of this lozenge. Let me walk you through the process.

-For now, forget the elevators. Just look at the forward structure. Starting on the left, I began placing the strips of lozenge up-and-down ways (how that for technical terms, eh?).

-Each strip was then rotated 180 degress from the last. (You can make out a "thrust" to the lozenge pattern. The first goes up, the second down, the third up, etc.)

-These strips wrapped around the leading edge to be repeated on the other side.

-Moving on to the moveable surfaces now, the strips were rotated 90 degress. The "thrust" is perpendicular from the main structure- which is accurate to the time period.

-Finally, the two elevators aren't continuous- each strip is opposite the other.

Got it? Well, if you don't, that's okay. I plan on doing the same for the wings, only on a (much) larger scale.

This, of course, STILL lacks the rib tapes- small strips of fabric sewn on top of each rib for (I'm assuming) added strength. There's probably going to be about 30 to 40 on the tail alone, and several thousand on the wings.

The fuselage is a bit different, but we'll burn that bridge when we get there. Wait, what ABOUT the fuselage? Well, there's progress there, too. You know that crazy scheme to hand-paint the lozenge? It is no longer just a scheme.

I began by spraying everything with the lightest color- in this case, a close apporximation of dull blonde. Next, I spent an evening drawing on a random lozenge pattern in pencil. Then, over the next few nights I proceeded to fill in my custom paint-by-numbers set. Here you see the start of two other colors.

Same process continued on the other side, but with more colors. I still need to add one more, a dark purple. The way I'm doing it, I'm keeping each color as evenly spaced as I can, and I'll fill in colors when and where I need to. My intent is to have the overall effect shift to dark blue (right now it's very yellow), but we'll see how it works out.