Classic Aviation GB 1903-1938 (Feb 5-Oct 31, 2010)

Aaron, hate to be a pain in the you know where but I'm gonna change my build. It was gonna be Sopwith Camel but I got my new "toy" in the mail to that will fit perfect with build and another buiild I stepped forward for (Battle of the Atlantic), the beast is...

Will be starting in the next day or so. Build will be OOB, but will be slowish till I get a few almost completes out of the way.

Andrew

Sweet!!! Another Stringbag!!!!

Ok, I've got you updated with the Swordfish.

Still need to add the rigging, but the Siskin has decals. They went on pretty well despite their age, I was a little worried as the sheet had curled and slightly yellowed. The only problem was the roundels wrinkled slightly with the microsol.

and the Seafox, it is starting to look like a plane.

Aaron they both are looking awesome!!!! Not far away from the Siskin being finished!! WOOHOO!!

Aaron,

Those are a couple of nice clean builds.  Looking forward to seeing the rigging.  By the way, what do you use for rigging?

I'll get some update pics here shortly.  

Cheers

Dave

I get several hours of bench time today so, no complaints here.  I'm still a ways off from getting the fuselage halves together.  Here are the engine bearers in place.  

A shot of the office.  The wood portions were painted with Tamiya XF-59. Once it was dried I gave it a light rubbing from a sponge with Windsor & Newton oil Burnt Umber.  I then took a flat brush dampened with mineral spirits and took off the excess burnt umber.  

This is the panel for the gunners office.

A mock up of the office

The fuselage dry fitted

Not much of the front office will be seen once all the parts are in place

Cheers

Dave

I haven't done much rigging, but I found I like the wire cut to length and glued into place method. I just can't see myself drilling a bunch of holes and trying to run strings through them. I use guitar string glued in place with 5 min epoxy.

This Airfix RE-8 was my first attempt and I was pretty happy with the outcome.

I'd be interested in hearing a bit more about your wood grain technique, it looks good and doesn't sound particularly difficult.

I'm still here! I've been busy with work and such lately so I havent gotten anything done. I'm thinking weathering for this plane wont happen. Modelling is going to be a winter hobby for me as I paintball during the spring/summer/fall seasons. I have about a month to finish the 109 so I'm going to try to finish it up soon as the last build for the season. I shall post pics when the prop and spinner are painted, everything else is on for the most part so there isnt much left to do.

Dave that looks fantastic!!!! Love the wood grain effect!!!

Dave, for rigging I use some stuff I found out about from keeping track of some builds. It's called "knitting-in elastic". It is great stuff IMHO. If it is a bit thick it can be patiently split into a smaller size as it is a bunch of stretchy fibres together, not unlike a cable. Can be anchored with either epoxy or ACC and stretched to the other anchor point and glued. Instantly dead straight with no fuss. One thing that is the best asset is that it gives and doesn't break if you happen to put a wayward finger into it all, then snaps back dead straight again. I used some as the bracing wires on the floats of my Hase Jake I am building atm.

This is the stage it is at now, not much more to do now.

HI Guys. Well my build is Trumpeters 1/32 Fairey Swordfish. A great plane the rounds off the end of the build era. IIRC she was also the Britains last Biplane in frontline service taking it to the enemy right till the end of the war in europe.

Well heres the box and the sprues laid out, building start tonight :)

Andrew

Aaron,

Thank you for the info on the rigging. There really isn't a whole lot more to tell about the wood grain technique other than when you wet the brush with mineral spirits, touching the side of the brush to the edge of a paper towel to pull of the excess spirits.  It actually is very easy.  It's what I've used on wood handled tools for my armor buildsin 1/35. I like the RE-8 you posted.  What scale is it? 

Simpilot,

Thank you for the heads up on the rigging you use.  How does it hold up over time?  Does it sag? How well does it take paint?  By the way, I like that Jake you're building. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Andrew,

That is going to be one mighty big beastie when you are done.  Can't wait to see it.  I build Tamiya's version a couple of years ago and, at 1/48 it is a pretty good size.

Cheers

Dave

Thanks Dave!! Well so far it hasn't sagged one bit and it's been about 9 months. Yeah, so I build slow! Not sure how it would take paint, haven't tried that yet.

I'm posting what I got done today.  The first is a pic of the engine sans cylinders, looking aft.  The distributors are drilled out for ignition wires.  I'm going to scratch the ignition harness.

The kit supplies two sets of cylinders. One with push rods, the other without, so you can add your own.

I drilled and hollowed out the top of the

exhaust stack

The drum for the rear gun. You have the option for the one piece affair or the the three piece assembly which is much better IMHO

The rear gun. Only two pieces.

The middle section of the lower wing.  PE attached with urethane glue.  Those pieces are NOT going anywhere.

I couldn't help but mock up the upper wing after I assembled the ailerons.  With the horns the wing span is out to about 20"

This was the best pic I could get of the aileron, to show the complex curvature that was captured by the folks at Wingnuts.  I can't wait to build another of their kits.

Cheers

Dave

Dave, the RE-8 is 1/72.

The more I see those Wing Nut kits, the more impressed I am. That looks like a collection of small kits, not one model. 

Aaron,

1/72!!!!! You did rigging in 1/72?!?!  Very well done indeed!

I was impressed with Wingnut kits before I started building them.  Now, that I am finally into one, I am VERY impressed.  At this scale, is really is a collection of small kits that make up one BIG one.  You should check out Wingnuts site and see the Project Gallery, especially the D.V they just built.  Its a 1:1 flight worthy Albatros.  Oooooh, it's pretty!

Cheers

Dave

I'm likin' that ALOT Dave!!!!!!!!!!!

Got started on my J-3. This is one simple kit.   Keeping it OOB, there really is no interior or instrument panel.  If a piece on top hadn't have broken off I would have the wings on, but now I have to sand down the milliput to replace the broken off piece.

Well here is where it stands.

As you can see in the second photo the left edge broke off, and needs to be replaced.

Simpilot,

Thank you very much for the compliment. I'll get some pics posted tomorrow.  I spent awhile on the engine hatches. There were some EP marks that took a while to sand without killing the rivet detail.

B17Pilot,

A J-3, excellent! Our family had a couple of friends that had this type when I was a kid.  Very fond memories of them.  I'm looking forward to the progress of this one.

Cheers

Dave

Brother Dave looking forward to more of the Wingnutz kit, looking sweet so far bro

Bob

Bob,

I hope this works for you.

The engine hatches were the only parts with this many EP marks and they were also rather prominent.  Nothing some careful masking, Mr Putty, and VERY careful sanding couldn't take care of.  You'll notice some blobs around some of the areas filled and sanded.  There were a few holes still so I applied some disolved putty. Let it set up overnight and sand it tomorrow.

A shot of the left side of the engine.  It just has the raw base coat on.  It's a looooong way from being done.

These rocker arm assemblies are fantastic!  The penny will give you a good idea how small these buggers are.  They will glue into the square depressions on top of the cylinders (in the picture after this one)

The protrusions below the intake holes are spark plugs.  This assembly only has the base coat (Tamiya NATO black) and clear coat for the black oil wash.  The spark plugs will be painted after that.  I will be scratch building the wiring loom.

The fuselage halves finally got glued today!  Wooo Hooo!  Not much filling to be done. After I shot these pics of the fuselage I ran a bead of putty along the glue line due to a couple of fiddley spots (most likely my doing)

This is a detail shot of the stitching on the right rear upper fuselage.  There are several areas like this on this beastie.  

Cheers

Dave

B17 that lil J-3 is going to look great I can tell!!! Looking forward to more pics!!!!

Dave, looks like your scratched wiring loom is about the only thing you'll need to do to it!!! Really looking good mate!!!

I'm still ploding along, I've been out of town the past 2 weeks, so no progress to report.

The J-3 is interesting, I guess having a clear fuselage you have to use the interior color as your exterior primer.

The Junkers continues to impress, amazing how much they pack into that kit. Do you have a feeling yet for how much of your work will actually be visible when done?

Dave, Im sold, the kit is truly stunning and your work is stunning as well brother.

Bob

Aaronw

The J-3 is interesting, I guess having a clear fuselage you have to use the interior color as your exterior primer.

That's what's nice about the civil J-3, everything is yellow!  Interior color=Exterior color=Yellow.

The bad thing about the J-3 is everything is in fact yellow.  I hate painting things yellow.

Aaron,

There will be quite a bit visible.  The detail that you can see now will still be visible. I got the upper portion of the fuselage over the cockpit and gunner's office and, everything is still fairly visible.  Yes, you have to get a bit closer to view the same details but, it is not obscured.  The rear panel that has the radio (at least I think thats what it is) has no detail on the back side.  The only portion that is visible from the cockpit is the upper area and that I painted to represent wood, just because grey styrene would have looked rather silly.

Bob,

Brother, thank you so much for the compliment and following along on this one. I've had to do some filling in some areas.  Nothing horrendous but, in some areas that had some very delicate detail that was very visible.  The details were the kind that I in no way wanted to recreate should I sand them off.  

Here she is with the cockpit properly fitted.  

This kind of gives an idea of just how much detail is still visible.

The grab handles were exquisitely molded.  With my armor builds I've had to resort to using brass wire to get handles this clean.

This will give one an idea of some of the detail that had to be protected while sanding.  The rearmost area has yet to be sanded

A mock up of the engine.  Still a lot of painting yet to be done.

A couple detail shot of the right side of the landing gear.

Cheers

Dave

Aaron,

There will be quite a bit visible.  The detail that you can see now will still be visible. I got the upper portion of the fuselage over the cockpit and gunner's office and, everything is still fairly visible.  Yes, you have to get a bit closer to view the same details but, it is not obscured.  The rear panel that has the radio (at least I think thats what it is) has no detail on the back side.  The only portion that is visible from the cockpit is the upper area and that I painted to represent wood, just because grey styrene would have looked rather silly.

Bob,

Brother, thank you so much for the compliment and following along on this one. I've had to do some filling in some areas.  Nothing horrendous but, in some areas that had some very delicate detail that was very visible.  The details were the kind that I in no way wanted to recreate should I sand them off.  

Here she is with the cockpit properly fitted.  

This kind of gives an idea of just how much detail is still visible.

The grab handles were exquisitely molded.  With my armor builds I've had to resort to using brass wire to get handles this clean.

This will give one an idea of some of the detail that had to be protected while sanding.  The rearmost area has yet to be sanded

A mock up of the engine.  Still a lot of painting yet to be done.

A couple detail shot of the right side of the landing gear.

Cheers

Dave

Dave that is looking awesome!!! Love the detail on the gear!!! the bungees are welldefined and crisp!!! BEAUTIFUL KIT!!!

Simpilot,

Thank you very much for the compliments!  The bungees on the gear are molded separately.  The bungees kind of reminded me of a Mobius strip, only without the twist.  The more I do with this kit the more I am impressed by the folks who engineered this beast.  Amazing detail with a minimal amount of parts to achieve the effect.  I am discovering detail as I move along with this build.  On the picture of the leading edged you will notice diagonal lines where the corrugation meets up with the leading edge.  This was not noticeable until I shot some color onto the wing.  I ended up having to go back and fill some spots that I had not caught before and, that's when I noticed the diagonal lines.  At first I thought I had done them sanding the leading edge and, then I realized that the kit designers had "stressed" the leading edge.  I can't wait to build more of their stuff.  They've got a DH2 in the works.  

Here's what I got done in the last 24 hours.  First a couple of shots of the underside.  The instructions called for Tamiya XF-23 Light Blue and XF-2 White in a ratio of 1:1.  I thinned it with 70% isopropyl alcohol and shot it through my Badger 150 with a paint jar.   I was going to use the Iwata but I needed more paint than the cup would hold.  That was a first for me.  

This shot really give a good view on how big the horizontal stabilizer is with the elevator.  It's about a 6.5" span.

Here is the best shot I was able to get to show the ripples in the "stressed" leading edge.

I ended up having to scratch part of the gun mount. As I was getting rid of a slight seam line on the kit part,  it shot off to the back of beyond.  .  I reminded myself, "Dave, this is why you have a cache of styrene stock." Doh!  Not a big part and, certainly not complex. Just very necessary.

Cheers

Dave

WOW what a kit!!!!!!! They thought of everything looks like!!!! Great work!!!!