waylandsmithy

Whoa! This is awesome! It's like a deviant marriage of steam punk and a drop tank racer. There's an awkward beauty to the design, absolutely incredible. And a brilliant model too. I'm in awe.

Hi, I'm having improved success with watering down Vallejo acrylics when brush painting: I get a much better finish. However, when I brush on varnish (AK, I think) it isn't so good. It ends up patchy. What an I doing wrong?

Wow, interesting project! Just to confuse things more, I found this picture, which has the port holes and the higher wing:

Well, the models were finished and the carnival was a success! The models weren't terribly accurate but they seemed to go down quite well. The Sopwith Camel met a sticky end. At the end of the carnival, we took it down off the sticks and placed it carefully on the ground. A tiny child suddenly made a beeline for it, jumped in the air, and landed with a leg either side of the fuselage. A look of shock on his face, and then he was off before we really took in what happened. Never mind, he was probably about 4 and only wanted to get in it. He wasn't to know. We've been donated the next project: a 1/48 Halifax by Fonderie Miniature. My word, it looks intimidating!

The more I see amazing finishes like this that have been done with brushes, the less inclined I am to buy an airbrush. Outstanding, I think I need to develop my brush skills!

Lovely model. The cockpit in particular is excellent!

Just beautiful. Quite an achievement!

Beautiful work! I hadn't heard of these kits before: just Googled them and they're quite pricey! Judging by your example, they're worth every penny.

Nearly there now! Camel went together quite well with barbecue skewers and high grab building adhesive. I also painted the Camel and Typhoon today. Decals next. I'm printing these out on paper, and then attaching them with that clear plastic sheet you used to wrap your school books in. Unfortunately, it doesn't stick to polystyrene! I'll experiment with spray mount next... Today was a maintenance day at the squadron, and someone found a frisbee on the roof. This will now be sprayed black and become the Camel's wheel. Still not sure about propellors.

Very impressive work! I was lucky enough to go up in one of these in the '80s: a proper antique by then. It's the most exciting thing I've ever been in. It wasn't great at gliding, but that open cockpit, snub nose and high wing is surely the closest you can get to being a bird: you're hardly aware of the airframe when you're up. I can still remember it very clearly, it was joyous. All 3 minutes of it.

Fantastic finish, I can't believe that's achieved with brush painting! I'll have to try your technique...

Bit more progress last night: Typhoon is more or less together but had a slight disaster: the section below the slot on the fuselage snapped off. I tried to fix it with a line of cocktail sticks and PVA glue, but it's not holding that well. I think I'll try the suggestion of barbecue skewers: that should work better. Started on the Camel too. I decided to include a section above the fuselage to loosely mimic the spars and support the top wing. The plan is to use 2 (or maybe 4) of these between the wings. I'm a little concerned that it might be very wobbly, time to explore Steve's suggestion of E6000 glue...

Oof! Rigging is hard! I bought some 0.05mm vape coil wire, which is nickel-chromium. Nice and shiny, very cheap, but really, really hard to see. For my first go, the plan is to cut it to length and then glue it with glue n' glaze. First snag: it's very wobbly. Quick Google suggested holding it right one end and twisting the other, so I trapped one end under the collar of a pin vice (it's too thin to trap in the jaws). That's pretty straight! I then tried cutting it with a knife, which is a bad idea: side cutters work better. Then I rolled the length of wire under a flat edge to straighten it again. Rigging on the right was without following this palaver, rigging on left is the second attempt. It's not perfect by any means, but an improvement. Quite a bit more to do, this is going to take some mastering! I think I'll try the hole-drilling technique for my next kit...

Aha! I thought it was some kind of arcane treatment or other...

Looks really good! I forgot to ask though: why did you put it in a plastic bag for a while??