Wingnut Wings 1/32 Jeannin Stahltaube
By Przemysław Litewka
The Taube was produced in 1914 but was still flown in 1917 by the test pilot Emil Wendler at Berlin-Johannisthal.
The plastic painted propeller was replaced with a wood carved final version. Carving of the veneer prop is not that difficult. One can get the veneers cut to the outline shape at KoTeBi. Glue them together, soak with liquid CA glue, and when dry use a knife and sandpaper to shape. Very feasible!
As for rigging, some years ago I have made a presentation of my methods. It is available on the WWI Aircraft Models website. There you can see that I recommend fishing line for 1/32nd scale. Yet, the delicate elements on ailerons, tail and engine bay in this Taube would not survive any accidental force. So here I used the elastic Uschi line instead.
I struggled to use it in the same manner as I use the fishing line - i.e., eyelets and tubes. I do not like the look of the line just glued to the drilled hole. It is doable but tricky, the line likes to be attracted to anything around, especially another section of itself; it is not very stiff so pushing it through the polyimide tubing is not easy. I reckon it all took three times more work than it would have with fishing line. Besides, it is evident that Uschi is not round in cross-section, the flatness of the section is evident under magnification. Also, it is clearly thinner than 0.12mm fishing line. Yet, I saw no other choice to rig the delicate structure of this bird with those flexible pylons at the wing tips and the tail.
The main structural rigging is from 0.12 fishing line as the main pylons over and under the fuselage were very solid.
There is also a build log on the WWI Models website if you are interested.
Enjoy!
© Przemysław Litewka 2022
This article was published on Saturday, April 30 2022; Last modified on Saturday, April 30 2022