French a/c group build 2012-13

John.. sidetracked... You're as bad as I am!!!

VanceCrozier

bsyamato... BELLISSIMO!!!

Hmm - Feb 28 is the original deadline date - how is everyone doing? I'll take a peek at the original "roster" & send reminders if necessary. Still considering adding something last-minute.

I'm reasonably confident I can finish the two H-34 helicopters along with the Noratlas 2501

I did spend a lot of time on the net researching 'French Wings Over Algeria' and got a little side-tracked starting other builds . I'll concentrate on the H-34's for the next four weeks , I must complete those two .

John .

bsyamato... BELLISSIMO!!!

Hmm - Feb 28 is the original deadline date - how is everyone doing? I'll take a peek at the original "roster" & send reminders if necessary. Still considering adding something last-minute.

Good stuff on the Nieuport BSY, that's hard work.

Cheers

Tony

I use to drill holes through fuselage srtuts and wings, starting often from fuselage i glue fishing tiny wire and after glued upper wing pull the wire to the end and glue (even with CA) keeping the wire under tension.

Ps upper twisted wing are not fault by wires  just old kit 

Great looking rigging in 1/72 Bsyamato - what are you using for that?? And just drilling holes into the plastic & attaching with CA??

Superb work on the helo engine John 

That bird is sharp but also twisted wings  but now have wires 

At the next!

Yamato- That bird is looking very sharp! It is interesting to me though, as the plane would not have been metal, so it is not NMF. I guess they actually used silver paint on them? Very neat.

Helo- Um, no words. The amount of work your are putting into that is... incredible. I feel ashamed. That is going to be a fantastic build in the end!

Helo - WOW, that is a great little pile of photo-etch. The H-34s are shaping up well! I'm just popping in quickly at work, I'll have to get back in this evening to take a better look at your details.

Bsyamato - The Black Baron is gone! At least your decals have kept the Black Heart, a very nice looking machine, you're almost finished up.

Only a small update on my French H-34 builds .

I glued the bulkhead pieces in place and cut the nose clamshell doors open for the French Naval helo

I'll have to add some thin strip ribbing to the inside of the doors like in this next reference pic ;

And I haven't worked out how to do the exhaust as yet , it seems to tapper in diameter quite a bit  and there's also lots of wiring to do . I may leave those two items till later and concentrate on getting the cockpit and cabin interiors glued in place and close up the fuselage halves .

I'll keep toilling away .

John .

Your build is looking good Bsyamato ...

As for me , my progress has been quite slow as I've been adding more scratch built detail than I originally had planned .

I've drilled out most of the screen and vent area's on the nose and fuselage pieces ; I started to wonder that the empty nose section might be quite noticeable once I add the PE screens and I suddenly remembered about an article in the Aprill 2005 issue of FSM with a modeler detailing a Revell/Italeri SH-34J Sea Bat ;

There are some 1/72 template bulkhead diagrams in the article , so I traced around the diagrams and made some for my two builds .

I then decided to try and put together an engine to fit inside the French Navy H-34A and I scrounged up an Italeri M4 Sherman and some extra bits ;

I also used two small resin sections from a resin S-55/H-19 engine

Front section ,

Rear fan ,

I'll cut the nose clamshell doors next to pose open and then fit the bulkhead pieces in place and see how the engine looks . There's lot's of PE to add to the cockpit as well and now I'm feeling a little more brave and crazy , so perhaps I'll try for a main rotor fold ...

John .

Perfect setup as ever John   Lost the count of your h-34 helo versions ,i'm wishing a third for me 

oui! je suis ici (lots of years i'm not write in french)

at the next!

I checked my group build calendar this morning and suddenly realised that this GB finishes at the end of Feburary ...

I guess I better try and getting going on the Sud Est H-34 Helicopters . I was going to use the Hobby Boss H-34A kit for the French Naval helo , however I've decided to use two Italeri UH-34 kits , one for the Navy and the other an Army Gunship Version ( Pirate) .

I also decided to use the Airwaves and Eduard H-34 PE sets fro both builds ;

The Airwaves set has some PE for a tail pylon fold , perfect for the navy bird and some cockpit frame pieces for an open cockpit window option .

The Eduard set has a nice cabin roof piece and some additional PE for the cabin door cannon which is ideal for the Army Gunship H-34A .

I suppose the best place to start is with the PE ;

I'm guessing but I'll probably spend the next four evenings just on drilling , filing and fitting the PE in place ;

I've made a tentative start ,

Hopfully I'll have some more WIP pic's shortly .

BTW , I checked the front page and the finished builds are awesome ...

John .

Nice work on the Amiot Budd, another French type that I used to know nothing about.

I'll look forward to the petite little Nieuport BSY.

Cheers

Tony

Nice work Budd  good plane and great old kit!

Vance, just the base for silver finish on the nieuport, just jokin ; already done the first layer of humbrol 11 , soon pictures 

Bsyamato's Black Baron!! The Nieuport is looking good - is that really the final colour? It looks menacing!!

Budd - nice finish!!! And all that glass….. It really is an attractive machine, and your cam colours look great. We can just say that left wing was always left to the harshest side of the airfield, right?? ;)  I've never thought of trying to scribe after painting - interesting. (I probably won't have time to update the front page until tomorrow)

DONE.

There's a lot of things that I think went right with this build, and a lot of things that went wrong. The most noticable is probably the panel lines. I have never been able to do a decent panel line wash or anything else to make them look right. So this time I did an experiment of scribing the lines after the painting was done. After that, I actually did a very succesful wash, except that on the left wing I screwed up the lines so bad that it looks awful. I tried to fix it, but soon realized that I would have to strip the entire thing down and start over. And frankly, I'm just ready to get this done and move on. So I chocked it up to a learning experience.

I had some touch-up paint mistakes on the bottom, but I mostly covered them up with some weathering and oil stains. Also the bottom window is... just a mess.

That being said, A lot of things went better than I expected. The camo came out well, the Canopy mask worked well, the decals worked fine, and the exhaust stains came out very well. At least, I think so.

The black and white logo on the nose says that this plane was in the 2nd Escadrille of GB ll/21. The Amiot 354 was a brand new aircraft when France was invaded in 1940, and only a handfull of them were available for combat units. GB ll/21 only had six Amiot's total at the start of the invasion. Nonetheless, they did fly their share of bombing and reconaisance missions before most of them were flown to North Africa when France was overrun. From there, they flew liason missions, and some were used by the Germans as research aircraft.

Comments and critiques welcome, many thanks to Vance for hosting this awesome group build, and thanks for looking!

-Budd

What's about a "Black Baron" nieuport? 

taxtp.... yes, yes I DO want to do it.... maybe I'll give it a shot.

bsyamato - thanks for that link, I really like the work that modeler did on the engine area - I think I've already decided to steal those ideas!!! ;)

Nice shot Vance!!  i see recently a wip of it on the italian forum i write

mab.forumfree.it

Go on Vance, you know you wanna.....

Not sure if I dare look at this one for the GB or not, but I just ordered a late Christmas present...

I haven't been in since before Christmas, just trying to play catch-up on the various threads now. LOVE all that internal work bsyamato. I'm always amazed at what you are able to do in 1/72 scale.

Here more!

Last paints on the cockpit and gluing all

after lots of sanding, putty and plastic stripes to fill gaps

Problems with struts, after some refine i used only the fuselage ones, will try some new pieces for external wings struts

almost ready for paint!!! tomorrow..

Thanks BSY. The extra detail is looking great as usual.

Cheers

Tony

Sorry for the absence here   it's time to get the french badge!!

PaperPanzer

Hi guys, im back...

So i started on the simpler of the two kits, the Dewontine D 520 by Heller. Progress will be limited, as i have other projects to work on to...

Parts tree layout. The pilot figure is surprisingly well- detailed considering what were typically used to in 1/72 scale 80's kits. There are also a surplus of clear parts... good news...-

....

Nice piece of vintage kit you started  Paperpanzer 

Excellent corsair Tony  like the wheathering!

back on the little nieuport 17:

Finished to scratchbuild the cockpit with the third seat... one break and one lost..

used brass tubes for exhausts

some structures.. lots of test fitting was needed 

complete cockpit before the first paint

and after first paint layer, 94 from humbrol

At the next!

Yeah, I hacked open the cowl with a razor saw after I'd installed the kit engine and joined the fuselage halves. THEN, I decided that I didn't like the look of the kit one, so I ordered a resin one.

Call it bad planning, it delayed the completion date a bit. Fixing the cowl was pretty easy though.

Cheers

Tony

Wait, you had to slice her open to add the resin after the fuselage was assembled?!? I don't think I could have convinced myself to do that!!! Looks good!!! I'm on my iPod right now, will update the front page tomorrow.

I'm finally calling the Corsair finished. Hope you like it. Additional work on this one was to drill out the spent shell ejection chutes, detail the cockpit, scratchbuild a pitot from microtube, add rigging and saw the cowling in half so that I could add a resin engine after I'd built it !

Cheers

Tony

Sorta. Family in town (more like on island) and kids out of school. Makes it more difficult, but I will get there....