With Frank's permission,I am doing this "Post-Hurricane" entry:

This kit has a nice cowling that literally snaps in place, so you can remove it to show off the engine.

Another nice aspect about the old Aurora kit is that the engine rotates with the prop as it should.

I experimented with a special brush I got from Hobby Lobby to make the laminated wood effect for the prop.

Steel wire and Loctite's new Super Glue gel makes for a nice gun barrel bipod support.

I added the aeleron control rods by drilling the upper wing and poking some plastirod through the holes, sealing them with plastic welder.

Since the kit's Lewis gun appears to be an infantry version, with the mount being too short where it would shoot holes in the prop, I scavanged a spare Lewis from a Roden BE2C kit I am working on, and built the mount using stretched sprew for the main base and spare rigging wire from a Lindberg P-6E kit I recently got.

Since the Smer kit includes both a headrest and Russian markings for the -16 varient that the old Aurora kit did not, I enjoyed building this varient for a change.

I could rig it or add rockets later, but at this point in time, I prefer to make this 1/ 48th scale kit my entry for this group build, as-is.

I will probably add the rockets to the Nieuport 11 Smer kit I have (I bought two, since they are so nice to build).

To be frank, if you look at WWI photos, in most cases the rigging is nearly, if not, invisible. So when we scale modellers get all excited about using heavy thread or thin gauge wire on subjects 1/48th scale or smaller, we frequently border on obsession, if not go over the line.

The trick to sharp looking details is to use metallic miniture figure colors that acn be bought at a miniture war games shop to highlight the engine, gun mounts, etc., instead of the typical aircraft paints.

Among my favorites are colors called "Boltgun Metal", "Pig Iron", "Gunmetal Blue", as well as using "Armor Wash" to emphasize metallic crevices such as for the rotary engine fins.

Tom T

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"Messerschmitts, Messerschmitts a whole mess of Messerschmitts!"-Daffy Duck

"Except in the fundamentals, think and let think"- J. Wesley

"I am impatient with stupidity, my people have learned to live without it"

Platu:"The Day the Earth Stood Still"