Scratchbuilt 1/72 Antoinette-Latham Monobloc of 1911

From the archive (2006):

The Antoinette-Latham Monobloc of 1911 produced a very elegant, retro-futuristic shape that resembles an old refrigerator mated with an ocean liner. 

Essentially another canoe-shaped fuselage flying machine –well, may be not that flying- from the popular Antoinette stables, this airplane is a sure candidate for simple scratch modeling, offering a squared fuselage section, simple details, almost no rigging (just control cables), no visible engine detail, no struts, no canopy or windshield, no decals and it is a monoplane! So there you have it, as simple as it can be.  
Although some skills are required and a basic balsa airplane modeling construction experience would be useful, you may do well with this one. No exotic materials or accessories were used, just the tools of the trade. Not much is found in terms of graphic documentation for the Monobloc.

The pictures will guide you (hopefully) through the building process, where, as usual, a basic “kit” is first made and the details are worked out in the way. 

As common practice, I start finding a plan or two, resizing it to 1/72 scale, and gladly set out to cut some styrene sheet using the patterns already cut from a printed copy. 

Then all very much proceeds as building a balsa plane: two fuselage sides are cut and reinforced with styrene strip along the upper and lower edges, formers (three in this case) are made and upper and lower fuselage parts are created. A post in form of styrene rod is glued at the front of one side, the positions of the formers marked at their proper stations on the fuselage sides. Then what you can do is fix the formers to the bottom floor and the add the sides later, or glue the formers to one side and immediately glue the sides at the tail post, then curve the fuselage around the formers and glue the sides again together at the front post. With this last approach you have to be careful, because it may produce the dreaded banana fuselage, equally feared by balsa and plastic modelers alike.  

It is a good idea to glue here and there little reinforcements where you think that they may help. In your soul, for example. 

The tail in this case was made of the whole shape of the horizontal stabilizer/elevator plus an added curved section just at the front part to provide with some sense of airfoil. The fin/rudder is one piece of styrene. 

Since no instruction sheet is involved, for one time in your life you are liberated from starting with the cockpit. Ah, freedom at last! 

Wings are just two pieces (top and bottom) with a rod leading edge and a tube spar. Since the dihedral is very pronounced, you will have to adjust the fit against the fuselage sides. The landing gear presents itself as two pants, with an aerodynamic shape that hides almost completely the two-wheel train per pant (front –smaller- and rear). I solved the shape as two sides, a vertical former in the middle of the wheels and a small piece of rod at the front, creating a rather sharp leading edge. The holes for the axles of the wheels were drilled side to side. 

A jig was devised to build the side fuselage radiators from stretched sprue and tiny styrene rod.
They were painted black and highlighted with copper Rub-n-buff, a creamy, wax-based metallic patina. 

A floor was made for the cockpit which was boxed-up and it was time for the interior parts. Two seats were fabricated from styrene sheet. For the propeller I tried a flying model technique, gluing two pieces of three-layer, very thin plywood (0.8 mm). I first carved the contours and then started to sand, aiming to give the propeller a sort of airfoil. I glued a prop boss from a photo-etched set and used the tip of a spare part as the spinner.

Regarding the wheels (as said, four of them) two approaches were used. For the main ones “o” rings and a tri-ply styrene disc arrangements was envisioned, and for the small ones a styrene disc punched out from an office hole puncher was surrounded by solder wire painted black (see images).
With the airframe put together it was time for the primer (white, spray can, household type).
From photos you can guess that the Monobloc color was very light, natural fabric. The panel where the exhausts stacks are located seems metal color, and the front of the fuselage seems black with a metal tip. The cockpit was given a light wood color, as the interior of the wheel pants.
Acrylic paint was used in several hues going from darker to lighter. Nylon monofilament painted black with a Sharpie was utilized for the control cables, for which tiny holes were drilled in the appropriate fuselage locations.
The exhausts were made of solder wire snippets glued -through holes drilled on top of the fuselage- to a hidden backing plate inside.
The stance of the Monobloc if something to behold. Considering that was 1911, the design is very modern, almost Art Nouveau.
A not so complicated build that renders a classic of old times, with gracious lines that will shine on any shelf.