Doug: Looks good! I have to agree- using some solvent there works so much better than trying to sand the whole thing even. 

BD: Looks fantastic to me, love that cockpit detail. 

DasBeav: Yeah, I think most of the variation will vanish with the upper coat of paint. Just don't do like me and put down too much and wash it all away!

Bish: Glad to hear you had a good holiday, I need one myself.  

modelcrazy

Have fun and go to the Sistine Chapel for me. I missed it due to reconstruction when I was there in the 90's

 

Thanks, we had a great time. We didn't go into the chapel. To be honest, i had no desire to get anywhere near the vatican. The Mrs wanted to go into St peters basilica, but she wasn't dress properly, so all we managed was the Sq.

We did get into the Forum, Coliseum and a lot of the otehr Roman ruins. Seeing the temple of Caesar and the alter was the highlight for me.

Really nice weekend, damn sore legs though.

BD: From the outside rigging looks super hard. It really isn't. My first biplane was the terrific 1/32 MiniArt/Academy Camel. (Back in production courtesy of Italeri along with the lovely 1/32 Nieuport 17: both a steal at $21 at Scale Hobbyist: hope the Fokker Triplane also made with MiniArt will join the crowd.) British rigging requires pairs of lines so in theory it should be more labor, but it's very manageable (although I'd doubt anyone would notice if you used one as was normal for French and German planes.) Once you get a couple of lines secure, you'll settle down and find that it isn't even that time consuming. (I'd say one of the toughest thing about bipes isn't rigging but the complex painting sequence.) And I bet you'll like your SE5 after it's done and rigged. Biplanes have more visual eye appeal than any other type of model barring a well rigged ship on a water base or perhaps a complex armor diorama. I know at my place in St. Paul where the Camel sits, people that look at my humble offerings always check the Camel first even though it's far from my best. I can see why some very good modelers do almost nothing but biplanes - just as some terrific modelers do nothing but ships. Both are knock out display pieces.

Thanks Check.

sMEH Supermarine Walrus update: VJ flow improver has changed my life. Probably my best paint session ever! (Except for breaking off antennae post....Again) I'll post some pics soon. The one final bit of building is my attempt at scratchbuilding some Vickers K guns. I think I can do better than this......

DasBeav, Doug, Brandon:  compliments and admiration to all of you for the exceptional work you're posting.  Excellent!

rigidrider - Excellent progress, she is coming along a treat. I also read Steve's suggestion about the Dissolved putty and metho (dentured alchol) and I will add it to my list of tricks, thanks Steve.

 

Brandon - Another AAA build on the way I see, looking forward to your description of the rigging process. I'm about to start my 1/48 Roden S.E.5a Wosley Viper and will be trying my hand at rigging for the first time. I will be watching closley on your great build.

So many good builds in here I can't keep track of them all. Great work all around. As for me, I hope I can meet the level in here with my first WWI build with wings, the 1/48 Eduard Bristol F.2B.

I got started with this before realizing I may have picked one of the harder WWI subjects when it comes to the way the lower wing mounts and, of course, the rigging, but oh well, we will see.

As usual, work started with the cockpit. Nothing special here - Tamiya Desert Yellow with some oil paints for wood, and I built up the rest of the pit out of the box, which includes lots of PE as it's a Profipack kit, including the wicker pilot's seat.

Bringing the fuselage halves together was pretty straightforward, and the flat spine of the airfraft made eliminating the seam pretty simple thanks to super glue.

It appears I'll have to paint the whole thing largely disssembled, as the lower wing is suspended below the fuselage on several small struts, and no way will paint flow up in there.

I will be painting this in Mr. Paint's Clear Doped Linen and PC10 Late. I don't particularly care about this aircraft all that much, so I wanted to use it as my first attempt at rigging.

Thanks for looking!

-BD-

Well Doug, that is looking quite nice. Appoligies for not commenting earlier but all these threads are getting really hard to keep up with. I have far too much going on and my head is spinning. Its looking pretty cool. 

BK

OK... I think I got my gap issue resolved, Thanks again for the denatured alcohol tip Steve... Worked like a dream! 

Ran some tape along the area to be worked on to contain the material and lessen the chance of over working the seam.This was the third application of Mr Disolved putty. Love it!

Good Stuff!

And the finished repair... Hard to tell how nice it came out in picture, but its smooth and well blended in on both sides of fuselage. Now... On to better things.

While waiting for putty to dry. I did a bit to the underside, gear doors, and such...

Well , Thats all for now, Like was said earlier... Nothing like a couple hours puttying and smoothing! LOL... Denatured alcohol was an immense help though!

Take care all!

Doug

Armor_Aficionado

Rigidrider, how did you get the radio antenna wire on your Hurricane to look so good? I always try using real wire (very thin metal electrical wire, such as that wound around electromagnets in small appliances), but can never get it taut enough; my wires always sag quite a bit. Yours looks great, so how do you do it?

 

PJ is absolutely correct! E-Z line... Good stuff! Streachy but dont pull too tight, Bonds nearly instantly to CA.

Again great work guys, don't want to leave anyone out by accident! 

Thanks for the tip! I'll check out EZ-Line.

On the WWIAircraftmodels.com web site there is a splendid article showing how to preshade or shadow the wooden ribs underneath the paint on a biplane. (I'm thinking of doing another RAF ugly duck, the Wellington. (Ugly indeed but used by the RAF throughout WWII.) Wonder if those techniques would work on the odd construction of that plane.) There's a mini-article next to the two on preshading in which Des argues for the use of ground graphite for use on a WWI tire. I've done that and it made for the best tire I've ever done. A WWII plane had better tires, but they weren't black. Might paint the Beaufighter's tires a dark gray and give them a good dust with graphite. For the time being I'm stuck on masking the thing. The RAF did camo at the factory and chose their schemes from a pretty limited number of patterns. If this was a LW plane, I'd mask those sweet straight as a ruler splinters by eyeball and do the mottling any way I want - mottling was all field work as I understand it, so no two LW fighters would look exactly the same. Anyway, I'm using this masking adhesive paper called SureSwatch. It isn't fast, but I'm hoping it will be quite precise. Eric

EZ line has been around for a while and comes in fine, heavy and "rope" gauge. It has become the rigging line recommended for WingNut Wings, the splendid maker of WWI biplanes. As the people on Des Delatorre WorldWarIaircraft.com recommend either 1 or 2 pound monofilament fishing line, I'd guess that heavy gauge would be better for use on any aircraft. It is elastic and stretches nicely, but don't over-do it or an aerial might not be strong enough to hold it. If you ever do ships or have thought about it, Infini models make ship rigging line that is also elastic in sizes from 20 to 110 denier - in theory 40 denier is in scale for 1/700. Stuff is too thin for me - I'd use 70 denier. 110 denier might be be the better for aircraft rigging. Frankly I think EZ line is too fine for a 1/32 biplane, but it is easy to use. (WingNut recommends that you simply drill holes for the line attachment points and simply superglue both ends in and paint on a metalic color to stand in for turnbuckles & sleeves. Metal or PE buckles look a lot better to me.) 

For aerials, unless you've got a really sturdy point on the tail, I think stretched sprue is great. If you want to learn the perfect way to make stretched sprue visit the Modelwarship forum - you need not register if you just want to read. In the "Tips and Techniques" sub-forum one of the first entries is from all-around ship making genius Jim Bauman on how he makes sprue. Far faster, easier and more precise than stetching sprue over a lit candle and slowly stretch it apart which is the most common techniqe. Because the stuff is so easy to make, it's not only fine for aerials but can be just the ticket for filling in a major gap.

Both EZ line and Infini are available at FreeTime Hobbies which is a great place to buy kits, especially anything naval. Amazon has EZ, Ebay has both also.

Eric

The wonderful thing about pre-shading is that most of it will disappear under the final color, OR you can simply have a do over. Since it's not the final color your options are unlimited. Don't be too hard on yourself, you might be surprised with the final results.

BK

sMEH Supermarine Walrus update: Never try to preshade while you are in a hurry on a Sunday morning....or using Flow Improver which you have never used. It will turn out like this. Oh, and forgot to paint the tires, thank you very much. I am actually liking the preshading. I believe it exudes the essence of fecality of which this crap model began its molded life....

damouav

Fred - The Hurricane is coming along beautifully, annyoing about small parts getting broken.

CM - What a briliant job you did with the masking, and a skill I'm yet to excel in. I notice some builders add their canopies before painting the fuselage and some don't. I will try adding after, as I belive you get way to much paint build up with the canopy masks.

As for your build over all, 10/10!

Animals are funny things, one moment they can do really bad things (chew the lounge up) and the next time they can snuggle up with you (self presevation) on those cold nights.

 

Thanks, Damian.

Normally, I attach canopies before painting--as with fighter aircraft.

With the Hampden, three of the canopies have guns protruding through them, and that would have created masking issues I didn't want to deal with, if attached before painting.

I did attach the cockpit and upper fuselage canopies before painting, so the Hampden is a mix of both procedures. 

Thanks for your generous comment!

As for the cats--we are still on speaking terms!

mc:  very attractive markings!  Well-done!

Steve, your tornado is looking very nice. I have a special markings kit in my stash. I hope it looks half as good as yours when I finally get around to it.

BK

Latest progress:  filling the gaps on the 1/72 Spitfire  https://www.pinterest.de/pin/55450639145781791/

And the sub-assembies are coming together on the Albion refueler; almosttime to start trowing them together on the chassis:  https://www.pinterest.de/pin/55450639145781792/

Armor_Aficionado

Rigidrider, how did you get the radio antenna wire on your Hurricane to look so good? I always try using real wire (very thin metal electrical wire, such as that wound around electromagnets in small appliances), but can never get it taut enough; my wires always sag quite a bit. Yours looks great, so how do you do it?

 

 

I believe Doug used a product called EZ Line. It's very easy to attach with ca. I recently was introduced to it by another modeler from this forum and love using it.

Rigidrider, how did you get the radio antenna wire on your Hurricane to look so good? I always try using real wire (very thin metal electrical wire, such as that wound around electromagnets in small appliances), but can never get it taut enough; my wires always sag quite a bit. Yours looks great, so how do you do it?

Great work by all.

Steve - That's some mighty fine work on the decals, very nice.

A short update,

Started placing the decals. The Xtradecals I got are fantastic. Thin enough to set nicely with setting fluid but not so thin to break or curl while removing them. I still have several to install.

Fred - The Hurricane is coming along beautifully, annyoing about small parts getting broken.

CM - What a briliant job you did with the masking, and a skill I'm yet to excel in. I notice some builders add their canopies before painting the fuselage and some don't. I will try adding after, as I belive you get way to much paint build up with the canopy masks.

As for your build over all, 10/10!

Animals are funny things, one moment they can do really bad things (chew the lounge up) and the next time they can snuggle up with you (self presevation) on those cold nights.

 

 

Thanks, Fred and DB.

The Hampden has a kind of insect-look to it, I think.  

As for the cats. . .I tried some patchwork with electrical tape, and when I tried it out, discovered even more holes along the hose.  They were pretty busy.

checkmateking02

Thanks, mc.

Got the Hampden painted up

colors look somewhat off, probably due to the room lighting; I used Colourcoats from WEM before they sold off to Sovereign

nice collection of rivets, there

decaled it yesterday and did some touch-up where the fin stripe markings don't quite meet; then went to the basement today to apply a matte finish coat, and found this!

One of the cats must have been bored and had a high old time chewing through the airbrush hose.  And to think I just bought them a nice selection of new toys last week! Ungrateful wretches!  Even the dog knows better than this!

I ordered a new one straight-off from Amazon, but it'll take a week to get here.  

Meantime, I'm stymied.

 

Looking good, Checkmate. Never done a Hampden...still creep me out how narrow they were. I always heard if the pilot died/wounded...rest of the crew was SOL. My cats haven't done the wire thing but have woke up with parts missing and/or chewed up....

checkmate canopys look awsome i still need to practice masking , dam shame about the hose mate :)

Modelcrazy a saw that spit too rich for me anytime lol :)

i`m have the same luck as Checkmate cut all the wings , sanded and glued them  where i want and the panels  , build is now on hold as the wheel struts are missing and i dont have any spares GRRRRR was going well too a mate saw my post on facebook and happy to say he has spares so now have to wait till near the end of next week for postman before i can carry on :)

 

Thanks, mc.

Got the Hampden painted up

colors look somewhat off, probably due to the room lighting; I used Colourcoats from WEM before they sold off to Sovereign

nice collection of rivets, there

decaled it yesterday and did some touch-up where the fin stripe markings don't quite meet; then went to the basement today to apply a matte finish coat, and found this!

One of the cats must have been bored and had a high old time chewing through the airbrush hose.  And to think I just bought them a nice selection of new toys last week! Ungrateful wretches!  Even the dog knows better than this!

I ordered a new one straight-off from Amazon, but it'll take a week to get here.  

Meantime, I'm stymied.

Fred thanks, Your coming along nicely as well. I saw a Hasegewa 1/32 Douglas Bader Spit yesterday but the price was a little too rich for me at the time.

Doug, It takes around 30 sec for the alcohol to start working but it won't dissolve the plastic.

Check, nice masking.