Well, you can
see it by yourself. Reality can by stranger than imagination. The pioneering
work of British Horatio Philips left many contributions to science and a great
deal of machines that, after a convoluted and complex path, ended up influencing
contemporary art. Among those -reputedly- flying machines, the multiplane
(20-plane, to be precise) of 1904 is the subject of this modeling endeavor.
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images below to see larger images
Basically a simple
machine to model, the multiplane doesn't require too much effort until you
arrive to the "multi" part of multi-plane. The fuselage - a mere beam-
was built with its front part already finished and the tail parts left
temporarily aside until completion of the "multi" part, in order to be
slided in position, secured, and then the remaining bits added.
I used a jig to align the "multis", which required an even
spacing, although the evenness wasn't totally achieved, I'm afraid. May be in
the next one the venetian wing will look better. I first laid down the struts
that go on one side, then glued the narrow wings and secured them gluing the
remaining struts on top. Once the glue had set, I removed the "wing"
from the jig and snipped the excess length of the struts.
Besides styrene, a
few metal pieces were used in construction. Paint is mostly acrylic with a few
enamel touches. Notice that the original surfaces were not canvas, but covered
with calico paper, thus supposedly being darker and in a different hue than your
usual natural, doped linen plane.
The tires were made of coiled solder, cut to size, and photo-etched spokes
added. This thing has three wheels, so plan ahead when getting them. Given the
size of the model, no rigging whatsoever was intended here. I would really be
ashame about that if I would have any remaining shame.
I could find just
one image of the plane, which differed from the plan I got, so I went along with
the photo and, as usual, some details were blurry or can not not be seen at all.
Anyway, at least a nice-to-look-at model flies in the skies of imagination as
the original would have liked to.
Now, should I grow a mustache and use a bowler hat?
Gabriel
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