Beardie

Come over to the Dark Side Resistance is futile. For me part of the beauty is the expense with each one being a careful and long considered purchase. It will take me a long time before I have caught 'em all so I won't end up buying loads of kits that don't interest me that much just because they were cheap and into the bargain those boxes all look rather pretty stacked neatly on my shelves awaiting their day in the sun.

Oh I think I can live with a stahltaube

Now that is a difficult one. In my experience they are patchy, some are really good and some are no use. The plus side with them is that they are generally pretty cheap so can be considered reasonably disposable. For detail brushes you really want the best you can afford. You only need a few small round brushes. For painting larger areas flat brushes are the way to go and there is far less need for them to be first rate brushes.

I would suspect that you might stand a better chance of making money with something like a Scimitar than you would with a mainstream type these days for the reasons I mentioned in my last post. How can you improve on the Brand X, Y or Z kit of the Spitcane just released a year or two ago. So, if you based your projections on how that other brands kit of that particular aircraft sold you may find that bears no relation to how well yours will. If the existing kit has a strong reputation you will struggling against the reputation that kit already has. Taking a punt on something odd/rare/niche which has never been kitted well or in quantity may be a smarter move. As for how long it needs to produce to make money I have no professional experience but Airfix, Revell etc. are still turning kits out of molds that are somewhere around 70 years old so I am guessing they feel that it is worthwhile to produce and package kits from those venerable old moulds.

Yes they should be pretty good. Winsor and Newton are well known for producing good quality brushes of all types although, as always try to avoid their 'student' ranges like 'Cotman' and 'Galeria'. Their 'Cirrus' pure sables are a rather good brush as well at a very reasonable price if you are looking for small round brushes for detail work.

I have found that sable synthetics are pretty good at holding their shape. I regularly use th Proarte 'Connosieur' range of sable synthetic brushes although I have found some other sable/synthetic mix brushes are not quite so good. The connossieur are not much cheaper than mid range pure sable and I think the synthetic fibres in the mix are largely to give th brush more spring when working with thicker paint.

Not a Scimitar fan myself as it doesn't have a propellor or multiple wings but I would still like to see one on the shelves for those who are. Every new tooled kit of a previously unkitted or inadequately kitted aircraft is a brilliant addition to the hobby and to people interested in aviation history. Whether it is worthwhile to the bean counters or not or whether it delays the creation of another wonderkit is 'just one of those things'. Every little gap leaves some enthusiast without a model of their pet subject to fondle, study, admire and, with the technology available today, it is likely that most new kits will plug holes in such a way that they won't need to be or can't really be superceded without going into minutiae. It is a golden age of modelling from the standpoint of being able to measure, examine and recreate existing aircraft accurately in scale and, from that standpoint, it is a prime time to snap up subjects that no-one else has done as all the mainstream species are becoming available in kits which make it commercially pointless for other manufacturies to kit them. You may not get your money back first go with that obscure or little known aircraft but it may become a solid seller over the next twenty years and the molds will probably last you 100+ years. There will always be someone, somewhere wanting one.

Scrubbing paint in too hard with a brush can also cause it to fork and, of course, the infamous 'bent end' comes from leaving a brush standing in your pot of thinners or water and will leave your tip permanently curved One tip that I got from a brush maker and I have mentioned before elsewhere which is worth repeating is to wet a dry brush with thinners/water depending on type of paint you are using before dipping into the paint for the first time as this will reduce the likelihood of pigment particles being drawn up into the ferrule end of the brush by capillary action which clogs up the hairs and causes them to fan out.

I have had some 'top of the line' synthetics that almost instantly lost their shape when wetted. I have, oh, at least two hundred brushes of various brands, types and styles, synthetic, sable, hog, russian black sable, squirrel and even mongoose and, when it comes to holding a point for detail work I always pick up a sable. On the other hand, when I need to 'scrub' in colour or do large areas a synthetic round or flat works well and is cheaper with less worry about destroying the brush. Good synthetic is especially good for flat type brushes allowing you to spread reasonably thick colour smoothly and thinly over a surface. 'Student' 'Graduate' 'studio' etc. labelled brushes I find are generally more trouble than they are worth in synthetics. Particularly bad I have found are the brushes with white nylon bristles which are liable to make a students or graduates hair turn white before they achieve the desired effect.

I would add my two pennorth in support of buying the best artists sable brushes you can afford. It is a strange thing but a professional artist (or model painter) will be able to handle cheap brushes and 'student' quality paint to a good standard but it is easier for the beginner to work with the best equipment. The problem with synthetic brushes is that they don't tend to hold their point very well as the 'hairs' are a uniform thickness throughout where sable hairs have a natural variation in thickness which produces a 'belly' when made into brushes which holds more fluid/paint while the hairs still taper to a very nice point. Two things to always remember with any brushes are - Thoroughly clean your brushes after use and never leave them standing in your wash tub/jar etc. Rosemary Brushes and Winsor and Newton Series 7 have a great reputation but are at the top end of pricy. I find that the Uk company Proarte do a number of excellent but more affordable brushes including their full sable 'Renaissance' and sable/synthetic mix 'Connoisseur' ranges. DaVinci from Germany are good as well.

That Camel is coming together very nicely

Speaking of the Fokker D.VII early what are the major differences between it and the 'later' kits? I am afraid that, to my shame, I am not terribly familiar with the ins and outs of the D.VII as, strange as it may seem, it is not one of my favourite WWI German aircraft. I am more a fan of the Albatri and Pfalz's.

Well I'm for two of the new D.VII's when they appear, already got three in the stash. Let's face it you can never have enough Wingnut Wings. Not only a pleasure to own while in their boxes but also a pleasure to build and an investment for the future (at least that's what I tell the missus). If Wingnuts keep to their promise and never re-issue sold out kits they will only increase in value. That is a splendid FE2b John, it has got to be one of those 'did that thing really fly?' aircraft of WWI along with the other pushers.

Hi John, That is the very thing I was concerned might happen. I tend to find that they just don't have the 'grip' if they are not into drilled holes. After a bit of thought about the process I decided to drill in with a 0.3mm bit at an angle at the top and bottom of the projecting brackets and glued them in. Not ideal but seems to be fairly strong although I haven't assembled the cockpit yet so there is still a chance they will come undone at that point. The control column cables are scaring me though Did you find rigging up into the guides in the cockpit easy enough or is it tricky? I agree with you that it is probably wise to attach the lines to the rudder bar prior to putting the cockpit together. I reckon it would be near impossible once the cockpit is assembled unless, perhaps, you drilled fine holes right through the rudder bar allowing you to thread lines in from the front after everything is in place but it would definitely weaken the rudder bar considerably. Marty

I have seen that done myself. If I recall rightly you have to have another roundel which is placed in the same place on the underside of the wing and then painted over so that it still shows through slightly and also put in all the shadows for rib detail, spars etc. A lot of work to achieve a decent effect and it will always be just an impression. Too much work for me to be honest being a generally lazy sort.

John how did you attach the control lines to the rudder bar? I thought I would connect them as instructed into the projecting brackets on the bar but it is just too narrow for my drill bit without risking making a pigs ear of it.

I suppose you could always build your own wings in fine wood and covered with something like tissue paper for a very realistic effect if you are brave enough.

Oh I think it will be a great kit, sure the translucency of the real thing would be a problem but just to have a Taube in the collection will be great.

My you are a fast worker. Looks very good. I am a little slower. Just dry fitted my cockpit components together last night and you really do need to make sure all the mating surfaces are spotless don't you. The clearances are so tight that even a fine coat of paint will hamper fit.

Well get in touch with DuncanB at BlackMike models and I am sure he will be happy to sell you your first Wingnut. The FE2b is a beautiful kit as are all the rest. Sure they are expensive but they really are value for money when you handle the box and ogle the plastic. If you don't build it you will be able to sell it again some time in the future for at least what you paid for it. So either a joy to build or an investment for the future.

I am guessing that the photos have only been discovered in recent years, I think vol 44 was published in 2014 I think Richard Alexander also said there are pictures in the issue of the other naval 10 flight leaders aircraft. You can clearly see the cut down cockpit decking forard of the pit in the photo as well.

One of the things I absolutely love about the wingnuts is the way the struts have keyed ends(on my first two anyway though I haven't studied my other kits in waiting as yet) that fit neatly into the wings/fuselage and are very positive meaning that I didn't even bother using my bi-plane jig with my last one (Snipe) and there was zero fiddling about like a demented octopus trying to get all the struts located in the top wing.

Richard kindly sent me a link to the Cross & Cockade page for Donner Wetter http://www.crossandcockade.com/uploads/File/DonnerWetter.pdf There is a reference to the Naval 10 book as providing a source for at least one Br.1 having been painted with stripes. the article goes on to say that the photographs were discovered in Hinchliffe's own logbook during the digitisation of the RAF collection. Think I need to get myself a copy of C & C Vol 44 #1

I heartily recommend BlackMike as well. A superb seller. Another point on the Camels. I have found that the decals are rather exquisite in the Br.1 I am currently building although there is a decal for the elevator that has been printed back to front and so needs to be flipped before applying plus a couple of minor pitfalls on the Br.1 kit (see my thread in WWI aircraft section about the Hinchliffe scheme.) The instrument decals are very high resolution with even a little tiny silver pin at the centre of the hands on the chronometer and fit so far has been of the clicks neatly together variety.

Just to add, I asked Richard Alexander in the email when we would be likely to see the new Stahltaube kit. He said that it will be released once he is completely happy with it which he really hopes will be this year.