Eduard Photo Etch kits

I have not yet built any photo etch. But I am about to. As I have soldered quite a lot of fine brass, railings for model boats, Masts for same, all scratch built, I have found that the best method is to lightly "tin" each mating surface with the mearest smear of solder and then "sweat" the pieces together.
Now. Is there anyone out there who makes generic Dipole radar aerials? I have just received a kit of a Whitley and among other troubles the ariels are malformed so it's either scratch build or find a 1/72 set of etched brass.
Dai

Thanks Hammer - I have three Eindeckers in the box on the shelf waiting to be built. Having trouble finding another Piper? I'll do some searching .

I've built a few of these kits and they are really good models. I loved the Eindeker a lot. I would like to find the Piper again since my first one got totaled out on the move to our new home.(new to us) I did all of my construction with just CA and used it sparingly. If you aren't handling them a lot, this is the best route to go so you don't hav a solder joint to clean up and file down and all. The solder joint is hard to keep small enough to keep from being very noticable. At least, that's been my experience with them anyway. I do a lot of soldering on circuits so soldering isn't new to me, but trying to clean the brass enough to take a good solder joint is a painus in the anus if you catch my drift. I sure wish they would do a 1/48 scale Piper now.

Thanks David - How interesting to have reached my one hundreth post and have a reponse to my very first!
Appreciate your experience with these models. Would like to see some pics of your Piper. What kit is your Bell 48? Is that an Eduard?
Regards,
stinger

I've built one, the Piper Cub. Also built a Bell 48 helo which was mostly brass. I replaced the plastic cowl with the kit engine, made engine mounts, exhausts, etc. Looks better to me. Glue (super glue) works for me. I apply with a needle. Have got various sizes, thickness and length. Some held with pin vice, others heated and stuck in a piece of sprue to make a handle. Soldering seems to me to be a lot of trouble. Thinking of some of the problems I had with gluing small parts, I can't imagine those parts with solder. Mistakes with glue can be corrected with the degluer available. Desoldering is a pain.
Thats it, my 2 cents.

Luft46.com is pretty cool, Stinger. Thanks for sharing it!

God Bless

Kevin

Stinger,
I believe Micromark makes a low power soldering tool thgat works similar to a spot welder so you might want to check them out. I would also suggest lots of heat sinks and several different solders with different melting points.

P.S. I DO NOT have experiance with these kits but I do have a little experiance in circuit board repair.

QUOTE: Originally posted by stinger please ignore that 'snap together' attachment with my user name.I don't know where that came from, but it is very misleading.

First off the attachments next to our names is only to rank us in the forum I believe. ex: you have a few post so they rank you as "snap together" As you do more post eventually you will be given another rank.
Its not ranking us in our modeling ability know what I mean.
Thank you too much, the site is very cool.
Flaps up, Mike

Yeah Butz - The aircraft are WW I. Sopwith, Fokker, etc. They are in 1/72 scale. Some are OOP, but I've been lucky enough to find duplicates of the ones that I really want. There are some still available that are non WW I, such as a Piper L3, and a Fiesler Storch. You can view them by checking some of the retailers sites such as Greatmodels.com or Sqaudron.com. Their photos show the box covers with actual assembled models. I would be happy to send pictures of my progress when I finally get around to building them. Also, check your email for a message from me. Here's a site that you might like, if you don't already know of it: luft46.com

Hey stinger,
What kind of a/c are these and from time period WWII, Korea?? O yeah what scale.
Thanks for the kind word.
Would you mind posting some pics of your progress??
Flaps up, Mike

Thanks Butz and erush. First of all, please ignore that 'snap together' attachment with my user name.I don't know where that came from, but it is very misleading. To fill you in on these kits, they are almost entirely photo etch, thus providing only the basic skeletal structure as the final display model. Only a few small parts are plastic, quite the reverse of the usual photo etch accessorized kits. I trust your advice about the use of CA's, but I am such a purist I was hoping that someone out there had some experience with the soldering technique. Thankfully I have duplicates of several of these models, so I can afford to experiment. Besides, one can always 'unglue' them if it doesn't work. By the way Butz, nice work on the Me 262!

stinger if you are good at soldering it is the "best" method of attaching photo-etch to photo-etch. CA (super) glue is fine for most photo-etch though. You will have to attach the photo-etch to the kit with CA glue as Butz mentioned, styrene glue's won't work for that.

Eric

Hey stinger,
I take it that the kit contains plastic as well right? Are you asking what to bond the photo etched parts together with?
I have worked w/ photo etched and to me super glue is the best route to go.
Just be patient and take your time my friend
I even use super glue to attach the PE to the plastic
Flaps up, Mike