Mike, all I can say is WOW.

Finally got this properly finished. With the plan background, I think the rigging stands out a bit more. I think next time I have to rig a bi plane, I will do it with a touch thicker line.

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement. There is some stunning builds going on here, and its been a real honour to be a part of it. Its not the sort of GB I would have even thought about joining a few months ago. But I am really glad I did.

Its been 'enlightening'  

Bish,

CONGRATULATIONS!

That is a fine bomber and I hope that it takes a prominent spot on your display shelves. It's been great having you in the GB. Make sure to stick with us though, as we still have plenty of models to get through. And don't forget to snag your badge!

Tim

Thanks Tim. I think the other half will be making sure it has a prime spot. And I will defiantly be keeping on eye on the other builds. I will be adding the badge to my sig once the 262 is done, then I can add all 4 at once.

Its a great GB, thanks to you guys for hosting it.

Bish  - excellent display of your finished build - but gosh that must take up quite a bit of space.  Rigging size looks fine from here (great stuff), but if you wish to make the wires to stand out more you can darken them.

Mike - lovely looking Eindecker, and I noticed you have added  dirt to the finish as well.  Exactly how are you achieving these subtle nuances in colour - airbrush, layered filters, weathering powders?

John - nice addition to the house there, great place to enjoy your model building during the summer months.

Yes, the Alps printer would of solved a lot of problems, but as I understand it, that make of printer is on the extinction list.  The company itself is still in business creating other electrical/computer gadgets, so most printers that can be found for sale are used refurbished models.  Needless to say, prices have sky rocketed.

Quite right, ink jet printers are not designed to print white ink, nor am I aware of any entity working on changing that - seems 3D printing is where most r&d energy is being funnelled into.   I had thought of changing to a lighter base coat on the model so that I could use the orginal plan of clear decals, but this would of posed another problem: any overlap of decals would create a darker tone in said area, and a decal that was trimmed short of a panel line would leave an exposed section of the lighter base coat, which again all would have to be touched up afterwards.

Pre-painting white on clear decal film - interesting idea, but I am doubtful.  In the past I had experimented with applying flat and gloss coats on decal paper, and tried printing over that.  Results were just a runny mess.  The decal paper is specialy coated to hold printer ink, so covering it up just wouldn't do.

regards,

Jack

Thanks Jack. ye, is rather a biggy. I compared it to my build B-17 and the 0/400 isn't much smaller. As for the base, I normally build dio's anyway, so this isn't to bad compared to some of them. As for the rigging, I will leave this one alone now. But I have just got myself a Swordfish kit, so I will keep all this in mind when it comes to that.

great job Bish. Looks incredible. Nice job on the base aswell.

Wow, beautiful Bish! And the base is pretty snazzy too!

Very fine job, Bish! The 0/400 is one of those rare a/c that manages to look stately and bad-a@# at the same time. Beautiful work, and the base is simple, but very classy.

Bish, that's beautiful work! I really enjoyed watching that one come together. Display it proudly. We're very glad you enjoyed your first foray into the world of these amazing WWI birds.

Jack, for the most part I've been doing it with the airbrush (a lightened Tamiya base color and Tamiya smoke) and their weathering powders, which I love using. The tough part was to make it look as random as possible without looking haphazard - think it comes pretty close.

Bish, congratulations on finishing your bird :) She looks gorgeos!

Bets regards,

Sasho

Bish, to quote a line for a song... She's some kind of wonderful

Mike, what is there to say but  DAY_UM

Still very busy with jobs but managing to find a few minutes here and there to get things done. Got the LG installed and rigged. MGs and exhaust on the motor. If you recall the alignment jig i made using the holes for the cabanes struts on the bottom of the upper wing and the previous D.Va, here it is in use again.

Wow Marc, I know it sounds trite but gee I'd swear esp looking at the middle photo that I were looking at a real plane!

Hey guys - happy Friday and I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Bish - Congrats, man.  Your 0-400 is outstanding.  I actually like the wires the way they are.  I've seen some models that have "in your face" wires that are too thick.  My opinion, better a little thin maybe than too thick.  Great job, and hopefully this GB has hooked you on WW1.

Marc - the Albie is outstanding.  Must feel nice coming into the home stretch

Mike - Wow.  This is the nicest E.III I've seen.  Hands down.

I'll be studying and one of these days hopefully trying out all these ideas you guys have had.  The triplane has some decals on it, but I've decided I need more practice with the oil painting - I actually have some texture to the model now (I'll claim it was intentional if anyone asks ).  If I get a chance, I'll post some pics over the weekend.  I've solved a gun-mounting problem by using one of the left over mounts from my D.VII (hey...it's a Fokker too...).  Hope to make more progress.  Take care everyone - safe building!

Good afternoon,

Here is the link to the latest vlog!

Great work in here this week you guys. Have a great weekend!

Tim

Good w/e to you too.  Nice vlog update.  What the heck happened to Aaron?  Did he fall asleep under a sun lamp

And what's up with a tie?  Granted it gives you an air of distinction but... "Ties, we don't need no steenkin' ties"

Marc - nice update pics, and those pipes look like the real deal.

Tim - enjoyed another great vlog, and digging those lozenge wings.

------------------------

I'm a glutton for punishment, as now I'm working on some more homemade decals, this time for the aluminum sections of the Oeffag Albatros. 

Aiming to capture that turned metal look, I've used a paintbrush effect named angelhair from the Corel paint program.  It allows only short strokes, so it involves a lot of mouse clicking.  To keep the pattern somewhat random looking, I rotated the image both 90 and 45 degrees when adding more strokes. 

The second image has increased contrast to make the whites more solid.  I'd really be interested in seeing some opinions, what do you guys think?

regards,

Jack

Jack, I definitely believe you're on the right track. The pattern seems to match one of the common variants of swirls seen on German a/c metalwork. Assuming you'll be printing it out on clear decal, your main challenge, I suppose, will be getting the contrast right between the light and dark areas. If you undercoat with aluminum color paint, I don't see any problems other than getting the decal (and more crucially the pattern) around the compound curves. Still, it shouldn't be as bad as, say, an E.III cowling.

It's a neat idea. Please keep us updated as to how things develop. [Always on the lookout for good techniques to borrow.]

Cheers

Thnaks guys.

Chuck, I am not sure if I would be hooked, I like my WW2 German to much. But I do like the look of some of these birds, and these WnW kits look stunning. So one of these days, I may just be tempted. But I will wait until I have all the time I need to do it right.

Just a quick run through ...

I came across something interesting in my reading yesterday and immediately thought of Bish. I'm toward the end of "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by T.E. Lawrence, and he's writing about the final days as they are drawing the noose around Damascus. He asks for air support and ends up with two Bristols, a D.H. 9 and a Handley-Page 0/400.

Lawrence writes:

"At Um el Surab the Handley stood majestic on the grass, with Bristols and 9.A like fledglings beneath its spread of wings. Round it admired the Arabs, saying, 'Indeed and at last they have sent to us THE aeroplane, of which these things were foals'. ... We talked with [Borton] while our men drew from her bomb-racks and fuselage a ton of petrol; oil and spare parts for Bristol Fighters; tea and sugar and rations for our men; letters, Reuter telegrams and medicines for us. Then the great machine rose into the early dusk, for Ramleh, with an agreed programme of night-bombing against Deraa and Mafrak, to complete that ruin of the railway traffic which our gun-cotton had begun."

Tim & Aaron -  thanks again for another great vlog! Can't even begin to tell you how much I've enjoyed each and every one of 'em.

Jack - interesting technique there, and you're on the right track. Not sure if it's my thing personally as at this point I prefer painting random effects (hammered metal, Fokker streaked camo, etc.), but I can see where decals would come in handy. Looking forward to hearing more about this though - I'm intrigued.

Marc - that is SWEET!  Also, those pics gave me a great look at the way you highlighted the rib detail on the lower wing - excellent stuff!

Rigging has commenced on the E.III with all the cable runs/turnbuckles below the wings installed along with the windscreen and the rudder. The windscreen got a light sanding with 4000 grit micro mesh and a minor sludge wash with Citadel Devlan Mud, as they were rarely in any condition to be viewed through on the actual aircraft. No pics this time though, as it's so close to completion. Tim, your estimate of 10 days just may turn out to be bang on.

Greg and Mike, thanks kindly for the input, much appreciated.  

A base coat of aluminum to the required areas prior to decals is exactly how I planned to approach this.  If I could paint this freehand I think I would, certainly would require some kind of magnification as it is  a very delicate pattern at 1/48 scale.   As it is, I used the comp screen to greatly increase the  artwork  view (600dpi).  I agree though, this would not work on the curves of a full cowl.

So here's a quick four step description at how I arrived at the decal printing stage.

1.  Master patterns are made of the aluminum areas using Tamiya yellow tape, followed by a scan and importing to the paint program.

2. Instead of creating from scratch a large enough background of the machined aluminum,  I made several copies of the one section I had posted earlier.  Stitching them together resulted in this one large file.

3.  A  mask is created (orange) of the scanned shapes.

4.  The white portion is copied and pasted over the pattern.   A final crop (not shown) and is ready to print.

At the moment, the printed decals (on clear film), are drying after brushing on some Testors gloss cote.  Do hope to post some positive  results later, but in the mean time, here is how the wood grain cleaned up.  I did over spray the whole fuselage with dark brown as the wood was actually painted over.  Also added the pilot's personal insignia in the form of an owl.

regards,

Jack

Good morning, fellow aeroplane jockeys!

Jack - The panel lines look killer. You over-coated with brown; did you do anything else?

Ruddratt - Excellent! Glad to hear the vlogs aren't a disappointment, and that you're on track to getting your Eindecker out of the aerodrome and into the sky.

Marc - Yeah, I had a meeting earlier, so I was a little less casual than usual. Believe me, I was taking a ribbing in the office.

Speaking of ribs, I spent four hours at the bench Sunday morning, and I'm still not finished with the rib tape! Part of it is sussing out which decals to use because the instructions are both incomplete and fragmented. The other part is that the process is just a long and painstaking one. I have one length of tape to put on the trailing edge of the lower port wing and that assembly will be done (for taping). I have the leading and trailing edges of the upper wing, along with the 16 central ribs on top to get to. Then it's on to Balkenkreuzes.

Tim - yes, regarding the wood grain, the brown overspray was the final step.  Before that I had attempted using FloryModels wash.    Rubbing off the excess though exposed the white edges again.  So went back in with a fine brush, touching up the suspect areas with various shades of brown paint.

The aluminum decals are now on.  I'm satisfied for the most part, no hiccups this time -  I might consider a darker print out next time I try this.

regards,

Jack

Tim, thanks for that quote. I can imagine the impression such a machine would have had at the time. I imagine Europeans would have been impressed with it, let alone Arabs who would I guess be less familiar with such machines.

Jack, nice work. Is all that bare metal on the front all decals.

Jack, that Albi is absolutely stunning. Both the wood grain and the metal decals look superb.

Bish, Greg - thanks for those compliments.

Yes, the natural metal portions on the fuselage are covered with clear decals. The light coloured areas are the aluminum paint showing through, while the slightly darker pattern is the printer ink.

regards,

Jack

Jack - Wow!! Those decals turned out great! Very impressive stuff!

I saw the post further up the page after I posted and realised what you were doing. That comes out really nice. You and Mike have taken two different approaches to get this bare metal look and have both got amazing results.