My FE2b reproduction..

[John McKenzie]

The 1st rudder pulley assembly sits on a tapered spruce (circular) block which aligns it correctly for the cables .......(cross shaft is temporarily protected in film .)......The bracket to the left of the picture is the Front landing gear connection bracket...(see later ).....Forward is towards the right.........It was specified that the original parts were to retain their "Patina"......Splined socket has yet to be fitted....as also the bearings.

[John McKenzie]

[John McKenzie]

[John McKenzie]

[John McKenzie]

[John McKenzie]

[Dogtail2]

Mind bogglingly awesome ! Keep the pictures coming.

[John McKenzie]

Hi there Dogtail2 , Thanks for that ...Ive still got a few more photos to get through yet.......Went up to Hendon yesterday for the Unveiling ceremony of the FE , very hot going up..horrendous traffic in London.....They're all mad ******s up there

[tengew]

John , I have been following both of the builds you have done very close.
Wow , very nice work indeed. Do English ordnance factories still build by the team concept ?
If so it could explain the discrepancies of the prints . During the 90’s I worked for my state as the artillery repair man and also on all of the small arms . I had a close relationship with the agency that procured the arms for our military. When our country started to buy the M119 105mm towed howitzer we has some major problems with repair part. Most of the parts came in the rough.. Not fully finished .this was because of the “Team” concept as it was explained to me a group the workers built one gun at a time . Say Fred cut the plates for the trail .but some were a lil off. The when Bill went to weld them together he made a few “adjustments “ to get them close then Harvey came along and had to make more “adjustments to get his parts to fit ..and so on and so forth till the gun was done ..so instead of having the parts made and held to close tolerances they hand fitted them to work .
The Rock island arsenal had to take over the contract to finish the guns to speck so the repair parts would fit all and any gun it was sent to…. This happened in the 1990’s . I really don’t think it was much different back in the teens.

[John McKenzie]

Hi there Tengew , thanks for that.....Although this is the case with some types such as Sopwith and maybe others , where in the case of diverse manufacturers making up their own drawings from "pattern" aircraft , supplied by the parent company , ..A wing or aileron from one firm , may not fit the same or a mateing part from another firm.........This was NOT the case with Royal Aircraft Factory design products.....With proper engineering design / drawing office , all drawings contained " parts must not be altered to effect interchangabilaty "....(this applied of course to the actual drawing) ....Also within each schedule , there was a list of drawings that fitted together. Therefor , all parts within a schedule could be made by anyone , and , provided the "limits on tolerances" were complied with , then everything would go together nicely ,. however , if the part was out of tolerance (and the tollerance would vary depending on the part )..then it would be rejected as unsuitable....It was in fact the Royal Aircraft Factory (RAF) that set up the pattern for standardisation that has come down , developed ,to us today .....For example , the identification part numbers for bolts , nut etc. ad infinitum,.....RAF (Not Royal air force ) drawings /parts became standard parts within the british A.G.S. designation system , which were used by all manufacturers as it became available...Thus , any small suitable machine shop , once an inspection scheme had been set up , could manufacture to Governement contract say 2000 of AGS157b or whatever , These would go into government stores to be drawn out by manufacturers as per contract requirement....Eg. Once a special Sopwith part , The petrol filler /neck /flange , on a Snipe say ,would now be a standard AGS part ,designed (perhaps originaly for the BE2 series ,)by the RAF at Farnborough......And (if the same AGS number ) would be interchangeable from one off say RE8 .......With reference to munitions ,(from memory ) the BSA (Birmingham Small Arms ) drawings for Lewis MG's have two or three tolerance bands for critical parts...High(stamped H ) med ? & Low (stamped L ).....Parts with the same letter will fit together ......It would be different with "Large " ordinance ,probably as you say , perhaps because of physical size and economics ?...........A wing from any manufacturers BE2c/d ..will fit any FE2b..(provided they are made to a common schedule and are within inspection tolerances )...............................The critical thing with any of these "Large" reproductions ,especially if you only have a small workshop , is First Checking and adjusting all the relavent drawings for compatabilaty and then makeing all the parts WITHIN the Strict TOLERANCES ,.........Therein lies the difficult engineering part........." Then , any old Tom , Dick & Harry can put it together "........Regards...John.