Beardie

Hi Christian thanks for the input, I have the Gotha one now, I got it with the Gotha from Bushbrit66 (Many thanks again Sean ) and it does look like it will be a real help in building the kit which is a monster!

Hah it is a devil of a thing. I know I can pick up a Roden kit or a Special hobby etc. any time I want them but the Wingnuts are against the clock. Personally I predict that the Se5a, Bristol F.2b and Junkers J.1 as well as the Albatros D.Va(OAW) will be sold out by the end of the year if not sooner. Fortunately the only one of those that I really need is the J.1 as I already have the Se5a and Bristol and a D.Va. I don't have the OAW variant but I can live without it if I don't get one.

I would happily pay the price and I do think they are worth it but economics intervenes and, if I want to get as many as I can on a limited budget I have to hunt out the cheapest option on each kit. The difficulty is that the kits have increased considerably in price in a very short time, not helped by the weakening of the pound and at the same time the generally poor bidding on kits that have come up on ebay over the last couple of months suggests that demand is not high enough (even on Sold Out kits) to entice people to spend their cash on the kits. The company should recoup it's development, production and staff costs but at the same time you have to read your market and not price yourself out even if you are worth it. There are bizarre exceptions. I bought the Albatros D.V (*sold out' kit) from a fellow BM'er for £110 or it might have been £115 including shipping and one apparently went a day or two ago on ebay having been 'slightly started' and, according to the listing, missing the cylinder jackets for £144.

Hi Gary it does really seem like the project is not as important, or perhaps not as successful as they hoped. Certainly it seems to me that, from a business point of view they aren't exactly trying very hard. When I think about it I currently have eleven of their kits and not one of them put a single pound of new money into the company as they are all second hand because the disparity between the prices in the second hand market and the new prices is too large. The only new kits I have bought are a Rumpler that I bought from hannants just before they hiked the price up by £20 and two from ebay sellers. I bought the feetoobee(late) for £93 posted new from an ebay seller which is five pounds less than the base price on Weta before you add the shipping and VAT and an OOP Albatros D.Va for £90 posted. Speaking of kits selling out I see that the Albatros D.Va(OAW) kit is now listed as 'Low stock' on Weta so I am guessing that it will sell out soon.

That's not good. I can't help but think that it puts the kits even further out of the reach of the average modeller. OK the kits don't come up often on the second hand market but they do come up and are, generally, cheaper than the kits are costing new once VAT etc. is factored in. I can understand the kits being expensive due to quality, development costs etc. etc. but it is a limited market and, when the money is tight kits will be recycled from one person to another before new kits are bought. I also notice they aren't exactly pushed on the Weta site and you have to scout for them. It all suggests that the interest of the owners may be waning somewhat although I really do hope this is not the case.

That is the method I traditionally employed when I was building in 1/48 but, moving up to Wingnuts etc. I decided to try out the EZ Line that is raved about as I thought it might be a simpler less stressful option.

Couple of things I was wondering about the EZ Line. 1. Has anyone used accelerator and can say that it won't affect the EZLine any time down the line? 2. I wonder if it would be worth dousing the EZLine in accelerator so that, no matter what length you cut it would be ready coated for quick sticking. Has this occurred to anyone and have they tried it? Not the cheapest stuff and I would be wary of ruining it.

Thanks everyone for the input it is much appreciated. Thanks for the info Christian although I find it (historically) deeply worrying., At one point in my varied career I worked as a technician for perhaps six months building and testing special laboratory incubators which involved tons and tons of cyanoacrylate and accelerator. To give you an idea, a weeks work would see a 'tray' of loctite glue bottles (around 24 x 24ml bottles) and a 'tray' of accelerator (around 12 small spray cans) and the small workshop didn't have any special ventilation. I had thought accelerator would be a relative simple affair. A spot of Alkali to neutralise the acid in the glue and some oxidising agent (Alcohol of some form)

Yup it is a standard thing. The moisture in the air drops out when the air is pressurised in the tank. You should really check and drain weekly if you are using the compressor a lot, or if you are working in an area with high humidity. The moisture trap on the regulator is only really to try and drop out moisture from recently pressurised air that hasn't had a chance to drop out in the tank. It's not an easy job to prevent rust inside the tank as just draining it is not going to dry out the inside of the tank. If the tank was thin enough to rust through (unless it has been operating for years) I would say that it is a bit on the thin side. Not really a problem with these relatively low pressure/cheap compressors I suppose but I would rather have a compressor with a storage tank made of some nice thick steel.

Ah I have a couple of aerosol cans. Just trying to decant and de-gas some just now.

That may be where I am going wrong as I only have the spray accelerator here at the moment. Where do you get the liquid? Another thing I have noticed is that if stretched the easy line separates into fine threads, Does anyone know what this stuff actually is?

What scale you doing Benty?

Hi all, Recently bought some EZ Line as everyone says it is the thing to use and I could see the advantages of avoiding having to drill right through to rig. I decided I didn't want to use any turnbuckles or eyelets on my first attempt with the stuff as I never find them that convincing or of positive value to the model. Problem is I cannot get this damn stuff to stick easily. Even trying to get it into the pre-drilled fixing points is like sword fighting with spaghetti and once it is there I have to hold for what seems like forever before the CA gets enough grip to stick. Desperately in need of some advice and guidance with this stuff.

I thought they were too big for me and was devoted to Eduard but I know that Eduard are not focusing on WWI subjects any more. Over a year ago they told me in an email that the WWI market was far too small a part of their business now to focus resources on. And I figure that my display cases are just big enough to take the Wingnut scout and dual seat kits and at the rate I will be building them it will be about five years at least before I need another display case. Simple fact is that, if you want a good easier to build Rumpler, RE8, FE2b, LVG, Ninak, DFW, Hannover there is no real alternative.

I understand where you are coming from with that. Ease of assembly and step by step guidance is great if the aim is largely to create a really nice finished model with minimal stress but if you love the challenge of the build I can see it taking some of the fun out. For myself I know my limitations all too well and so am glad to have kits that I should be able to build without too much difficulty. Having said that I have really enjoyed my Roden Albatros so far although the decals and poor nature of the painting guide has been the cause of some hair loss.

Even the boxes look very handsome on the shelving unit in my living room and the missus doesn't mind compared to the jumble sale of all different sizes of scruffy kit boxes that I sold off to finance the Wingnuts. I plan to save the box tops once I start emptying them as the images are very good and I will be keeping the instruction books too for all the information and pics they contain.

I decided that I was going to try the super detailing to challenge myself and how good a modeller I was but by the end I just thought 'What a waste' I must admit I am not a fan of the excessively heavy weathering that I often see online and at shows either. To me it gives things a sort of cartoony look that reminds me of computer games rather than real world military equipment. I like to think that I am aiming to build my models the way the pilots who flew them wanted to see them, all shiny and impressive steeds not battered old workhorses and I certainly agree that on average not many lasted long enough to become tatty and ground crews seemed to like to do their bit and keep them nice/ patch them up well.

Gary it's funny you should say that. I was in communication with one of our members from New Zealand (hairystick) and was telling him that an email I got from Wingnut Wings said they would 'Definitely not be reissuing the Sold-Out kits in the form they are in but do have plans for release at an unspecified date of 'De-luxe' versions of the kits with Diorama accessories and a 200 piece photo-etch detailiing set' he said he relayed this info to the chap at his local model shop over in NZ who deals in Wingnut Kits and he was apparently astounded as, in his opinion PE was more likely to spoil a Wingnut kit than improve it and I tend to agree. I have been trying to do a bit of 'super detailing' on the Roden Albatros I am building and must admit that I actually felt a bit angry closing the fellow up after wiring up the spark plus and doing various other detailing for it all to disappear and I suddenly found myself wondering just why I had bothered.

I don't know about the Spads as, to date, apart from the Salmson they seem to have stayed away from the French marques. A Voisin III would certainly be a challenge An HP 0/100 or 0/400 and Vickers Vimy would be good too to go head to head with the Gotha and AEG and then a Zeppelin Staaken would be an awesome model. Then you have the Sopwith Strutter, Brandenburg Starstrutter, Roland D.II, Etrich Taube and the BE.2c Good lord there are lots and lots of WWI aircraft to do yet!

I now know why they are selling out. It sounds like iang has been scooping them all up Fifteen Fokker D.VII's jeez! As to future releases, I am hoping that the Camel arrives soon and after that I would love to see an Avro 504 , Martinsyde Elephant, Sopwith Dolphin, Phonix, Aviatik Berg D.I, Lloyd C.V, Vicker Gunbus, Halberstadt, Hanriot, Spad XIII, Breguet and many many more. When you actually think about it the marques to choose from in WWI aircraft are many and varied

It took me the last two years to come to terms with the price. I have always hunted the cheapest half -decent kits I could find and the idea of spending lots of loot on something I might ruin and have to chuck out deterred me from shelling out the moolah for Wingnut kits. Eventually I came to the conclusion that, If I want to create really good models of WWI aircraft I would have to bite the bullet and just be extra careful about doing it right first time rather my traditional style of charging through several copies of a kit getting a little bit better results each time.

Hi Chris no problem. That website is handy for all manner of kit instructions. There is another one which I downloaded pictures from but I can't remember what it was at the moment. Anyway just PM me if you need a scan and I will make it so

I do think they are a real WWI enthusiasts kit as well as just great models. Sadly trading on this side of the world is very slow and you are lucky to see one or maybe two a week coming up on the bay. I really do hope that,as the finances allow, I will be able to locate at least one copy of each kit so that I can spend the rest of my natural happily sticking them together and studying the aircraft. I never cease to be amazed by these flimsy artistic creations that men willingly climbed into and threw around the sky.

Ah but they are fun even just to read the booklet and study/admire the plastic and, being a truly limited run as WnW state they will never re-release a kit once sold out they are Limited edition and may increase in value and at the very least shouldn't depreciate much. Just playing devils advocate here

Or just that you have way more loot to spare than me