100th Anniversary of WWI GB

I got a little more work done this weekend.

I also pre drilled the rigging holes next to the fuselage.   also pre shaded the fuselage and painted it gray as well as paint the tail feathers green.

John

Well done, Doug; the coaming looks very effective.  Your D.VII is coming along nicely.

My weekend progress is that I have all (well, basically all) of the decals on my Fokker.

No major difficulties with any of them, although I did have some small seams along the upper corners where the side markings meet the top which I have touched up since the photos.  I sprayed some thinned Tamiya Smoke to knock down the blue and white a bit.  The rudder is painted using Gunze Off-White.  I have given everything another gloss coat, and will break out the oil paints for some additional weathering before taking the shine down a couple of notches.

Other than that, I have started painting the undercarriage parts, and planning out where I need to drill for rigging attachment points.  That will be a big task.

Blue

I like what you have done with the padding Doug, and those oil stains are a nice touch.

Nice work on the IP PJ.

Rigid, Takes a big pair of tomatoes to make mods AFTER it painted  Well done.

Morning all... Made a bit of progress this weekend, it rained alot this week so couldnt get to the yard work and such...(awww shucks) But any way, heres a bit more wip...

The molded in padding had to go, It was not a good fit being two different pieces and it looked like crap, so it will be replaced. Got part of it filed off here...

Finished filing it off and it took a bit but I took a piece of 20gauge coated wire and slowly bent it into shape and after many fittings finally got to where I could super glue into place, after painting.

I cut some "nubs" from an old chrome plated sprue to use as instrument bezels. I dont have the faces on yet, I will do kind of like PJ did on his pit, difference is I found and ordered some "Airscale" brand instrument dials from the LHS. They come in a variaty of eras and countries and scales and all they are is the instrument dial face. They also have placards.

Lastly starting some of the filishing details and effects... Tis all for now! (guns are a bit chinsey but didnt have anything in spare pe to dress up)

Thanks

Doug 

PJ... Nice looking pit, love the wood look!

Nice work PJ, I do like how you have done the IP.

Looks good, PJ!  

Lookin' good PJ!  The IP definitely looks the part and the wood work is really very impressive.  Nice attention to detail! 

Did a little more work on this little guy. I shaved off the clunky control arms on the ailerons and elevators that will be replaced by thin pe  pieces.

The clunky hand grabs were glued in and when dry were cut off and sanded smooth. They too will be replaced with pe parts.

Broke out my Micromark mini punch set and punched out some instrument faces from my spares.

A few instruments on the wood dash

I did used the kit seat which believe it or not had he correct shape, just sanded it a bit to thin it and painted it dark brown and added the pe belts. The seats also got the tubing detail but it's barely vible when the fuselage halves are joined. I will be closing the fuselage soon but I still need to make the ammo box. The pe control pedals are there but are covered by the IP.

That sounds interesting with the rippled fuselage. Given the look of that frame work, it would not have surprised me if they supplied fabric to cover it, so I had to ask.

Marc - off to your typical great start I see.  That's looking real nice.  I'm glad you're building that kit - I've yet to see one here all built up. 

PJ - I wish I had used the rippled fuselage for my SE.5.  I had an 'accident' with it and was relegated to option 'B', the smooth fuselage.  Still looks good and I'm happy with it,  but the other one would have been awesome!

wing_nut

there are ripples in the "fabric" to look like it was pulled taut and stressed.

Yes I have the same rippled molded effect on the skin of my WNW SE5 model.

Thanks PJ

Yes the fuselage is a typical 2 halves of plastic affair.  If I recall from the 1st glance at the parts there are ripples in the "fabric" to look like it was pulled taut and stressed.

wingnut

That is some beautiful work on the frame. You really can't go wrong with any of the WNW kits.

Ouch, well I am sure we have all been there.

So is the covering of the frame plastic.

Thanks guys.  Bish, the skin seems such a longs ways off... Especially since I am going backwards in that respect. I've already had to remove some "skin" after a CA glue mishap

Doug, liking that scheme, great job on those strips. I hope you have a couple of Flak guns set up to protect it this time.

Mike, I do recall hearing that this Triplane was extremely manoeuvrable.

PJ, I have tried it on small items, like weapons and a 72nd table, and ye, its quite easy to get the hang of. But the time I get to a prop, I should have it nailed. Certainly some great example of it on here.

Marc, very nice. Some lovely work there, looking forward to seeing some skin on this.

Ruddratt  I kinda like the sectional design, Your not having to hold everything together to work on 1 thing, but again, Im not a big WWI builder and am trying to learn from you more experianced guys, all I have at the time to go by is pictures.

PJ,  yes the colors of the WWI combatants were really out there! I do love em !

WingNut... Yes... tape... scarry!!! LOL When I know tape will be used during the build, I try to buff surface with a 0000steel wool washed off in lacquer thinner then bathe area in soap and water to try to assure a good adhesion...I also thin the MM acrylics and the Tamiya acrylics with straight LT for a faster dry and adhesion, this usually works, AND WOW... That frame is amazing! Very nice!

Blue... LOL...Thanks, actually it wasnt that fast, what you see here took a couple of days, I'm kinda winding down my working career and will be retiring in a few (2 or 3 yrs) and have made a deal with my employer to work just over 3 wks a month, so I have a bit of build time during the month. And on top of that my wife travels a bit in her job so again I have a bit more build time!

Bish Rollands, Kool! Good looking craft, I like any of the Albatros looking planes!

Thanks for the kind comments everyone.

Mike: I love what you have done so far on the Tripe.  Its funny how strong the Sopwith family resemblance is... other than those massive cabane struts, that really reminds me of my Snipe build.  Like others have said, I like how you have treated the Clerget; I may borrow some of those techniques when I finally get around to painting my engine.

Doug: The D.VII looks great so far.  I am impressed with how quickly you seem to be able to move through your build while still maintaining quality; I am quite slow by comparison.  The WnW D.VIIf is next up for me, and I am planning on going with the "Red W" livery, which features a black and white striped fuselage.  I have been a bit nervous about puling it off, but you have made it look easy!  Nice work.  And, yes... KEEP IT INSIDE!

Marc:  Glad to see you up and running.  The framing and wood work look quite nice so far.  I will enjoy seeing this build come together.

Blue

Rigid... very nice work on those stripes.  Always somewhat terrifying when that tape starts to come off.

Mike... Nice work there my boy.  Nice indeed.  I can almost smell the castor oil on the engine.

And wait no more for some real work Mike.  Started on the interior.  Nice and sturdy parts for the sides.  No where near as flimsy as they look.

Rrider...I like that scheme on your Fokker. Mine is gonna have some really wild colors, like groovy man.

ratt...Great job on that engine! I like using Tamiya clear blue over the Alclad for that bluish discoloration tone on the metal. That is one sharp looking tripe. And yea I had to snap a picture of Holly when I asked her about her sabotaging my build and that was her reaction! LOL

Bish.. Thanks, the wood tone thing is really easy.

That's pretty much it Bish.  They're sturdy little planes.  One big difference between this guy and Fokker's version was the lack of moveable control surfaces on the Fokker's middle and lower wings - just the upper wing had 'em.  The Sopwith had 'em on all three,  making it way more maneuverable.  Add an excellent rate of climb and a more than adequate top speed and you get a plane that was a darn good match for anything else in the air.

Rigid -  sweet looking Fokker!  I love that color scheme, and will be doing a similar one on my Roland D.VIa with the stripes running horizontally.  Interesting too how Roden tooled the front third of the fuselage as a separate assembly.  Never seen that before.

OK... a little more progress, Starting to get some of the components together...

Man this thing is small!

Getting some of the base colors in place...

Getting some of the top scheme in place...

and lastely for now a couple of coats of Future floor finish. Look around, check for hawks... This is about where I lost my SPAD... LOL!

Now you mention it, I had noticed before that the tri planes don't have much rigging in the wings. I assume the centre wing being fixed to the fuselage as well as the bottom one give it enough strength not to need all the wires.

Thanks Bish! There's a bit of rigging on this guy, but it's fairly minimal - mostly control lines and a handful of bracing wires, but nothing close to an Eindecker or SE.5a. EZLIne will do the job here - love that stuff!

PJ, really nice wood effects, I really must work on that, you guys are really pulling out all the stops here.

Mike, lovely work, that engine looks really nice. Going to be interested to se how you rig this one.

Blue, that's is some sweet work there. I love those huge crosses.

Well, as promised, here's a few pics to show where the Tripe stands.  The fuselage is buttoned up and the lower wing attached. Everything fit like it should. Next step is to clean up the seams and add the tail sections, mask 'er up and get some paint on 'er.

Here's the engine all painted up and weathered.  A base coat of Alclad II Aluminum was lightly overcoated with Tamiya clear yellow and then Tamiya smoke to give it a sort of heated, oxidized look. The manifolds got an additional treatment of varying shades of rust with Tamiya weathering powders to carry it a bit further and set 'em apart from the heads.  Lastly came a wash of Citadel Devlan Mud (this stuff is awesome for simulating grime!) and Badab Black. The lifters were painted with a Burnt Umber/Testors silver mix and EZLine was used for the ignition wires.

Love that "who, me?" look on her face PJ.  Priceless!   Really nice progress on the D.VII too.  They are tiny planes.  My WnW D.VII in 1/32 is about as big as a 1/48 P-47.

Blue, you're knockin' my socks off here!  Great technique - really gives the impression of structure underneath the fabric and adds a lot of depth.  Awesome stuff!

Marc, I knew you'd be showing up soon. Can't wait to see you get started!