Sopwith Pup

[dylan the rabbit]

Here are a few in progress shots of my 1/72nd Airfix Sopwith Pup.

I pre-drilled holes in the fuselage and wings for rigging later on.

Sidewalling was made from plastic card, as was the floor. Both were painted to look wooden. Sidewall bracing was drawn on with sharp pencil.

The control stick was made from the metal inside the ties from food bags with a loop of copper wire glued on top, and the control wires are guitar strings. The slots in the side of the fuselage were filled in, and the sides of the seat (into which they slot) were sanded down. I cut up a bit of sprue to rest the seat on. Seatbelts are made from Mepore medical tape, and the very basic buckle representations are blobs of copper paint.

I made a rudder bar from a plastic card strip, painted it, and mounted it in a smaller bit of plastic strip to raise it up a bit as if it were on a pivot. I cut up a couple of guitar strings and superglued them on the underneath to represent control wires. They disappear under the seat.

The instrument panel came with the kit, and with a few drops of paint and Future looks really nice.

After the fuselage halves were glued up, I sprayed the kit with white auto primer, and then painted the ribs of the wings black. This will hopefully give me a look of the wood under the fabric when it's finished.

The wings were sprayed with a Revell equivalent (as much as possible) of doped linen.

I've still got some tarting up to do on the lower wings, but I'll sort this out after I spray the rest of the kit green later today.

That's it for now folks!

Cheers,

Nick

[Grant]

Those last few shots, with the paint tins, really give a good feeling of how tiny the kit is...So that makes the cockpit detail watchmaker tiny!!

Looking forward to seeing it progress.

cheers

Grant

[Phil @ Flory Models]

Great work on such a small scale.

My hat is off to you Nick, as I have tried to do WWI in 1/48 and still never finished one.

[geedubelyer]

Keep at it Nick.

That's some great work in such a small scale.

[dylan the rabbit]

Cheers guys. I must agree though. It is fiddly!

Just sprayed the green uppersides this morning, and will post some pics over the weekend when it's dry.

All the best,

Nick

[Darius at Home]

Nick, that's some amazing work on a seriously small kit. I find 1:48 scale biplanes and their interiors and rigging a dauntiong prospect and I take my hat off to you for your work in 1:72 scale.

Darius

[dylan the rabbit]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Here are a couple more progress shots.

I used Revell dark green, lightened up with a bit of white.

The paint was airbrushed on around 11am in bright sun and 30 degrees plus heat, so a lot of the spray dried before it hit the plane. Must remember not to to do that again, but in this case, I think it adds texture (this is doped linen we're recreating after all) and I'll be brushing a coat of Future over it anyway.

The rear wings have also been done the same, but I didn't photograph them. I'll be painting on the red white and blue on the rudder, and will leave the front part of it white for a change.

Next step will be the wheels and undercarraige, and then spraying the cowling and front of the fuselage in aluminium.

Must see about fixing that nasty seam down the underneath of the fuselage. The kit didn't fit perfectly, and it was more important to line the top up. Don't know what it is. I've used filler, sanded and tried levelling it with Future, but I can't get rid of it. Maybe I'll just leave it.

Anyway, thanks for looking.

Cheers,

Nick