Aviation Art,My way

[JohnReid]

[JohnReid]

Everything you see is 1/16th scale.Museums seem to prefer the larger scales for their displays.

[JohnReid]

[JohnReid]

The floor boards,cockpit seat,and wing root supports are now temporarily installed.

[JohnReid]

Somebody asked me why the dark color Bleriot.Well the simple answer is,
this is a art piece and not meant to look like the real airplane.I wanted the airplane dark but not a cold black so I used burnt umber instead.The falcon will be painted white (and it is not white in real life),the ring will be brass.I want the emphasis on the storyline and I don't want to distract the viewers attention with color.Call it "artistic license.

[JohnReid]

[JohnReid]

Bleriot flotation device.

Here is another great example of not believing everything you see or read without doing some personal research on it yourself.
I followed the model instructions booklet and assumed that because the book said to make this piece with wood strips using a very long and convoluted method that took a forever and tested my patience ,I thought that I was ok to assume that it was made of wood. Wrong ! further research by me found out it is made of rubber and has a smooth surface all around.
Luckily I hadn't followed the other strange reason of making it in two pieces .Why bother when the wood strips are long enough to make it in one piece ? Or why not just make it in dowel (solid wood) ? less work getting the shape ,sanding etc.. and a dowel would have the added advantage of being able to carve some imperfections into the surface like ripples or bumps without worrying about breaking through the flotation bags thin wood strips skin.
If the excuse for this is they couldn't find a dowel of the right size (too small) it could be turned down just like the two end cone pieces were.
This kit has not only terrible instructions but terrible methodology as well.
The wood itself however is of a very high quality.

[JohnReid]

In view of the above I have decided to turn this negative experience into a positive one by doing a tutorial on sanding and finishing wood, so it doesn't look like wood but as in this case rubber.
I have absolutely no references on the type of rubber used way back then on the Bleriot but I would imagine that it would look something like an old fisherman's rubber coat like they used on the whalers at the turn of the century.It was blown up with air under pressure(I believe) so therefore it would have to be leak proof with quite a shiny surface like a semi-gloss paint.
I have taken lots of pics of the process of building and finishing this flotation bag,so not a lot of text should be required.

[JohnReid]

Sanding Wood Tutorial

[JohnReid]

The above two pics illustrate their method of building the rubber flotation bag.