Making Sailplanes in 1/200 scale for dioramas By Daniel Iscold

Introduction

I've been in love with Sailplanes since my childhood. My father is an aeronautical engineer, and he always loved airplanes too. He bought me a free flight sailplane and built it together with me. Then plastic models came with the practice to build aeromodels.

So I decided some years ago to scratch build sailplanes in 1/48 scale and 1/72 scale. I have success with 1/72 scale building a model of the Polish sailplane Jantar. Some time later I tried to build an 1/48 Grob Twin Astir without success.

Now the new trial is to build in small scales. Inspiration comes from an article published by Tony Goetz in September 1998 issue of Internet Modeler. In this article Tony describes how he did a Pearl Harbor diorama in 1/12300 scale!!!!! I decided to build these small models. So I'll explain how to do this.

First, I take a three view drawings from the internet. In this case we have a Blanik L-13.

Now you must to put this design in the desired scale - in this case 1/200. I use a simple way. I take the information about the wing span and length of fuselage. In this case the Blanik have an wing span of 16.20m and fuselage length of 8.40 m. I put all the sizes in mm and then divided it by scale factor that is 200. In this case we have 16200/ 200 = 81mm to wing span of the model and 8400/ 200 = 42mm to fuselage length of the model.

I use Microsoft photo editor to put everything in the desired size. You can use other software if you want. When you have the correct design in your hands it's time to scratch build.

So now you need a square piece of balsawood. I use this because it is very soft and easy to sand. But if you have another kind of wood that has the same characteristics, go ahead.

Cut out the lateral view of the fuselage without the rudder and fin. Save these parts to use later as a pattern to build the rudder and fin. Take the lateral view and glue it to the piece of balsa wood. Note that the profile of balsa wood cover all the front view of design. Now cut around of side view.

When it's ready, remove the pattern from the balsa wood. Now comes the most difficult part - to give the right shape to the fuselage. The major part of sail planes have a round or elliptical profile to fuselage, so don't worry about getting the exact shape of your small airplane, remember it's a too small scale and the hobby must be fun for you. Begin at the rear part of fuselage, use a sandpaper with 220 grit and later use a 360 grit to finish it. Make the fuselage more narrow at rear part and then make it round. Now work the front part in the same way.

Now it's time to make the tail parts and wings. Because of scale I used thin sheets of styrene (0.04mm), it's easy to cut and sand. I use the design as pattern to cut out the wings and tail parts. As seen below it's very small and a very sharp x-acto blade is needed.

Sand all borders to take out all the flash generated in the cut with x-acto blade.

Now it's time to put all things together. Use another design if you want in a large scale (I prefer in same scale) to glue wing and tail parts. This part must be done carefully because you don't have any reference line in fuselage to mount wings in it, the only source that you have is your three view design, remenber one more time it is a sailplane in 1/200 scale!!! Don't take things so seriously.

To gave fuselage smooth finish I used Tamiya Putty thinned with acetone. I let it dry and sand with 400 grit sand paper ou 600 grit. I use this filler to wing root and joints of tail parts.

To paint models I used acrylic colours or enamels. First I used a thin coat, and the second one is more fat. I use the paint as filler, this is to reduce small imperfections. To paint the canopy I use the design as a reference again. In this case I used enamels to paint the canopy and wing strips.

If you want, you can find some picture of real thing on the internet, not to make details but just to take shape of fuselage and see where the wing joins with the fuselage and how the tail parts are disposed of on the airplane.

I have plans to make these sailplanes in resin to sell them as kits. I also have plans to make aerobatic airplanes as well in small scales such as 1/100, or 1/144.