Knights of the Sky II- The End

satisfaction- That weathering you did looks top shelf!  Well done.  Looking forward to the pics of the repaired kits.

SC- I thought you said you screwed it up?  Looks just right in my book.  Sorry about the illness, but glad to see you back and posting again.

Frank,

So there I was placing the final decal on the Hansa-Brandenburg (the big cross on the top left wing), when tragedy struck.   I was attempting to re-position the decal when it rolled up in an unrecoverable manner.  I used many of my old nautical terms when it happened and scared the heck out of the cats, and possibly my spouse.  Anyway, this is going to take some thinking to work through, and working thirteen-hour days for the outage right now, I do not have the brain wattage.  Sooner or later, I will figure out a solution, but that is where I am stuck in the ditch for now.

Alright here they are three months after starting!  The rebuilt and finished Nieuports .  The final additions were Alcad Polished Aluminum cowls, weathered with thin black acrylic.  The "handles" from the cockpit up into the upper wing are scrathbuilt made out of wire, as 3/4 of the originals were crushed.  Hope you enjoy, it is wonderful having them done and on the shelf.  I'm starting to get really fond of 1/72 aircraft, especially these biplanes.  Just something about the tiny little things.  Note the penny in the picture to see how little these are.

What has Peter Jackson been upto lately?

More Power Scotty wrote:

". . .Stephen,  How are you doing your streaking?  The last Dr.I that I built, I used a brush 1/16 inch wide and thinned olive drab paint in a rather wet drybrush effort.  The 1/16 inch brush (I think it was a #1) was in line with the 3 inch brush used on the real planes. . ."

First here is where I talk about it. Click Here.

Greetings Scotty, Here is the short version for model kits in scale. 

". . .The fabric olive colour varied with age it seems. Dark green olive or brown-ish olive. The metal paint tended to be either brown-ish olive or a lighter green olive. These are base coats. . . The fabric olive is not dry brushed at first it is mostly thinner with some pigment, after that over all "wash dries then you add the more solid areas. These are still translucent. The final coat adds a bit more and is the dry brushed portion. Do not scrub. Each step must dry. For me I usually do either an acrylic base and enamel streaks or vise versa. . ."

satisfaction wrote:

Alright here they are three months after starting!  The rebuilt and finished Nieuports

Nicely Done!  A fine save, well done!

 Wow! Satisfaction, Incredible work. I really like the alcad finish on the cowlings. Fantastic. The rigging is beyond words. Two Thumbs Up and a Bow,Bow,Bow!

 Hey Scotty, Sorry to hear about the decal problems. Have you given masking a thought as a fix for the decal?

I knew I was going to get myself in over my head by trying to build one of theses multicolored WWI biplanes. Everything has gone ok so far until I discovered that the fuselage colors were not a decal but would have to be painted. I have tried to duplicate this multicolor faded fabric but my efforts really looks like total crap. I am going to have to strip the fuselage and start all over agian it looks so bad. Anybody have an idea on how to replicate this faded and stained fuselage look. I am at a total loss for ideas and completly stuck until I can figure out a way to reproduce it. Here is a pic of the plane I am trying to do. Man I whish Dave was in this GB at least I could blame him! Need help please, totally lost!

                                                                                Soulcrusher

I did a very faint version of that for weathering on my Ni 23's and it turned out well enough.  It was only for faint weathering, but might work for you.  I painted the lighter base coat with an acrylic; which for you looks like a lighter green.  Then I put little dots of the darker streak colors on with oil colors along the very top of the fuesalage.  Then took a very slightly moistened (with turpenoid) flat brush and "pulled" the dots down to make streaks.  I continued pulling until they were very faint streaks, but for you think you would stop a lot sooner than I did.  For multiple colored streaks I'd either put all the dots on at once or once the first batch is dry, coat with Future (or any acrylic base clear coat to seal the oil) and once set apply the next color of dots.  Seen this done a lot with armor and it worked very well for me on these biplanes.  Hope this helps and doesn't lead to more damage!

EDIT:  Something really nice about this technique is that if the streaking doesn't look right just wipe it off with a little turpenoid and rag.  Comes right off if done over a gloss coat.

Thanks. That sound like a good aproach reproduce this streaked fabric effect. I have seen the dot filtering done on armor and it looks great. Like you said with this fuselage just do'nt remove as much of the paint. I think I will strip the fuselage and then pratice first on a spare fuselage first as I have never tried this before. Now I know why everyone builds the other versions with the painted fuselages or lozenge patterns.

                                                                                     Soulcrusher

soulcrusher wrote:

I knew I was going to get myself in over my head by trying to build one of theses multicolored WWI biplanes. Everything has gone ok so far until I discovered that the fuselage colors were not a decal but would have to be painted. I have tried to duplicate this multicolor faded fabric but my efforts really looks like total crap. I am going to have to strip the fuselage and start all over agian it looks so bad. Anybody have an idea on how to replicate this faded and stained fuselage look. I am at a total loss for ideas and completly stuck until I can figure out a way to reproduce it. Here is a pic of the plane I am trying to do. Man I whish Dave was in this GB at least I could blame him! Need help please, totally lost!   Soulcrusher

Ok deep breath. . .Its not faded or stained.  Its streaked like the Fokker Dr.I types. The early Schwerin built Fokker D.VII types were streaked on their fuselages and had lozenge covered wings.  Fabric samples say these were a bit more green than the olive of the Dr.I types. I usually go with a Testors Model Masters medium green.

First here is where I talk about it. Click Here.

Here is the short version for model kits in scale. 

". . .The fabric medium green colour varied with age it seems.   The metal paint tended to be either grey-ish green or a lighter medium green. These are base coats. . . The fabric medium green is not dry brushed at first it is mostly thinner with some pigment, after that over all "wash dries then you add the more solid areas. These are still translucent. The final coat adds a bit more and is the dry brushed portion. Do not scrub. Each step must dry. For me I usually do either an acrylic base and enamel streaks or vise versa. . ."

StephenLawson wrote:

For the Fokker Schwerin builds I go with a Testors Model Master dark green and a lt. gull grey at 2 parts green to 1 part grey. OAW is considerably lighter and I go with medium green & light gull grey same proportions. Then there is the OAW mauve patches.   For the Albatros built types it can be the same as the Schwerin but a bit darker.

Thank you for the quick response.  I'm in the middle of an Eduard 1/48 Albatros DV.

ps1scw wrote:

StephenLawson wrote: For the Fokker Schwerin builds I go with a Testors Model Master dark green and a lt. gull grey at 2 parts green to 1 part grey. OAW is considerably lighter and I go with medium green & light gull grey same proportions. Then there is the OAW mauve patches.   For the Albatros built types it can be the same as the Schwerin but a bit darker. Thank you for the quick response.  I'm in the middle of an Eduard 1/48 Albatros DV.

WAIT!! Hold that paint bottle!!!  That was a quote for only the Fokker D.VII types.  Albatros D.V types were only built by the Johannistal factory.  The nose cowlings  and metal fittings were done in a  lt. gray that can be reproduced using lt. gull grey with black. 5 parts grey to 1 part black.   The D.Va was a different story.

Bobs Buckles wrote:

and the bird nest begins... My 32nd buckles in place. Sleeving is made out of 0.5 brass tube dipped in "Blacken-It!"  The fishing line will be painted black and then dry brushed with a steel colour. I'm half way through the rigging process, It's a slow job but the rewards are well worth the effort. Cheers, Von Buckle

Greetings Bob.  You probably know this, but for others who don't know -  "Blacken it" tends to leave an acidic residue that works even after it is wiped clean. If not neutralized few weeks from now it could degrade the brass tubes.  Baking soda neutralizes any left over acidic residue.  Then painting over the part is just added insurance.    

Stunning stuff Bob, those buckles really look the part in 1/32. What are they like in 1/48.

Stephen. Im giving up on the decals for my Gotha. Were there any that were sprayed without lozenge decals on em?

...Guy

 Guy,

The buckles look the same but finer wire used on 48th.

Cheers,

Bob

Luftwoller wrote:

Stunning stuff Bob, those buckles really look the part in 1/32. What are they like in 1/48. Stephen. Im giving up on the decals for my Gotha. Were there any that were sprayed without lozenge decals on em? ...Guy

Luftwoller wrote:

Stephen. Im giving up on the decals for my Gotha. Were there any that were sprayed without lozenge decals on em? . . .Guy

There were some painted an all lt. blue or white and some painted a uniform green.  But they were specific to types A bit more research is called for.

Here is a bit on the 1/48 DML Fok. Dr.I.  The wings you saw previously at the bottom of page 32 several days back.

satisfaction,

very impressive work!

Stephen,

Thanks for the link!  I think on my last streaking escapade I did use an enamel base coat (light blue per DML kit instructions, and yes, I now know they were wrong) and acrylic for the olive drab.

Mobious,

I was giving some thought to airbrushing a cross on clear decal paper in order to attempt to make the white edging a little less bright, as the original decals look.  As mentioned previously, with the long days right now, it is hard to think my way through this one, but in a few weeks, things should be back to normal, and I will be able to focus better on a solution.

Bob those buckles look great. very relistic.

Stephen thanks for the information once agian. The painting guide is confusion. it show a color sample of what looks to be a light green for the top of the fuselage but next to the sample it is calling in dark green? So is the name right or the decription right? This is giving me a headache!

                                                                                                  Soulcrusher

wing_nut wrote:

Just one question... the wingys are to flat side to side things... right?

OMG!!!

Sounds like you have Armorbuilderitis, and the only remedy is to build an airplane STAT!