Quentin

Haven't visited for quite a while now but this looks like one to follow! Looking fantastic so far. I like the idea of the carbon fibre wing spars.

Well, I would never have predicted that as a follow-up to the SE5. Looking fantastic. Keep up the good work! (I've been a bit slow catching up on this one.)

Wow, amazing paintwork. Absolutely flawless.

Looking good. Nice wood grain effect.

That is looking superb. Don't envy you all those lozenges. There's a reason I stick to British subject(s). Bet you breathed a sigh of relief when the masking tape came off.

Thanks for the latest comments and advice. Love the Bleriot. I'll definitely think about monofilament for my next project, whenever that will be, because cutting tiny pieces of stretched sprue to length and then tautening them up without melting them into little spools of plastic is a nightmare, as I may have mentioned. I've just logged in for the first time in months, so quite lucky to be able to reply in a reasonable time. Must be a special dolphin sense. While I'm here, though... Just got round to ordering a display case (http://www.acrylicdisplaycases.co.uk/) and here it is. My plan now is to make a scenic base and then it's just about finished and ready for RFI. (I remember saying I was going to do a figure representing Lt Worthington, but hopefully nobody will remember about that).

I completely agree. Once you start to lose interest, it's all too easy to get a bit reckless and make stupid mistakes. I like the magic marker idea. I'll be interested to see how it turns out. And by the way, hooray! Glad to see this build on its way again.

Oh blinking heck, I was feeling quite smug about my own efforts in 1/72nd scale until I read this. Absolutely astonishing. Useful reminder that you don't have to use styrene for everything. I keep forgetting that. Thanks for posting.

Thanks everyone. Hope to have it on its scenic base before long.

Nice to see some more progress on this build. It's looking great.

Thanks for the tip - I didn't think of that. For the record, I think I melted 4 or 5 stretches out of a total of 50ish, so it wasn't as bad as I feared. And after a while you find yourself waving the soldering iron about as cool as a few cucumbers (to quote P G Wodehouse).

I concur - that's how I did it when adding a bit of detailing to the Toko Snipe. I'll keep an eye on this build. I like the methodical way you've set about it. Also I like the Snipe and I like the look of these WNW kits. In short: like.

Thanks! There are quite a few mistakes, inaccuracies and imperfections that I might describe in due course - they could serve as useful warnings or reminders to others. But overall I'm quite pleased with the way it's turned out.

They certainly are. I'd be interested to know how you get on with bending the vanes to shape, though. I had to give up.

Thanks - I'm quite pleased with it myself. I might be the reason that Hannants is out of stock - I had their last one. But they say that more are on their way. That is a fiendish-looking device by the way. I'd be interested to know if it works. I'm just going to stick with your toothbrush technique.

Finished! As you can see, the new Mini World Lewis gun arrived. I think you will agree the etched vane sights alone give it the edge over anything you can get in styrene form. Judging from my sources, the sights were often taken off in service - they can't have been a great deal of use - but the photo I've got of C4056 shows the sights still on, so on they went. And they look great. Now you can tell which way the wind was blowing in my scenario. The remaining jobs I had to do were (1) to splash a bit of mud on the undersides, concentrating on the undercarriage, tailskid and rudder and (2) to glue the pitot tube on for the 2nd time; and then a 3rd time after it broke off again. So there it is. Next, I'm going to make a scenic base for it. The plan is: Cut a piece of thin MDF Create an uneven surface with Polyfilla Paint surface an earth colour. Apply static grass. Thanks to Keef for advice on this. I'm also going to be studying the wargaming blog of a friend of mine, who has lent me some static grass and Vallejo acrylics for the job and who has achieved some very nice results with wargaming scenery. http://thewargamestable.blogspot.co.uk/ Thanks for all the interest and advice, everyone. Nearly there now.

Well, I've finished the rigging, and I think it was 6 months well spent. Still waiting for the new Lewis gun to arrive. In the meantime, I think I'm going to do a few splatters of mud here and there and start work on Lt W himself. Not far to go now...

Looks good so far!

Effort spent on an RE8 is never effort wasted. Any piccies?

Thanks very much. Hope I can be forgiven for blowing my own trumpet, but I'm quite pleased that it's still looking so presentable after all the punishment it's had. More updates soon with any luck.

Hard to think of anything further removed from what I'm doing that could still claim a place in the same forum, but I'm strangely drawn to this build. Stupendous stuff.

Sounds good. I've got some Javis Countryside Scenics static grass and I've got a Gaugemaster Scenic Puffer Bottle, both of which have been languishing for years waiting for their moment. Judging by the results you've obtained, it's worth finally putting them into action. Unfortunately, the grass I've got is an autumn mix, which obviously is no good for April 1918. So another trip to Frome Model Centre is called for... Thanks for the tip. Your examples look brilliant by the way.

Thanks - I might post up the Snipe on RFI even though I finished it about 13 years ago. And I think I might use some variant of the drill-hole-pull-taut method on my next project. You live and learn.

Thanks very much. I was a bit nervous at first - but practising with a bit of scrap plastic card, I found that you can get surprisingly close to it without any ill effect; you have to actively prod it with the iron to cause any damage. Incidentally I'm going to get some advice from a wargaming friend when it comes to painting Lt W, to make sure he's looking presentable for his photo. By the way, I like the grass that your Camel is standing on. What did you use for that?

More modest progress on the rigging. I've got into a pattern now of doing a few lengths of rigging in a session and - every so often when I can work up the nerve - bringing the soldering iron to bear on the last batch, always taking care not to poke big holes in the wings or to introduce unrealistic warping effects. But before I could make any more progress, I had to make some control horns, and so the shadow of the guillotine fell over my project again. A simple job of cutting tiny little fillets of 0.25x0.5mm Evergreen strip, with cutting guides printed out from TurboCAD. Not very exciting, but it just goes to show the amount of effort involved in the smallest details on a project like this. The heartening result was a set of fairly similar plastic triangles (sorry about the blurred photo, but greater definition would not really add anything): Anyway, here's how it's looking now, with the interwing and underside rigging all done. As before, the sharper-eyed amongst you will have spotted something missing. This shedding of parts is starting to become a bit of a feature of this build. I think I've stuck most of the parts on at least twice, including the wings and tailplane. As it happens, I had been a bit unsatisfied with the starboard wheel (for that is what it is this time), because its little length of axle was noticeably longer than the other one. But I hadn't dared to do anything about it, for fear of wrecking the entire undercarriage. Now I've been able to trim the axle a bit before reattaching it. So that was lucky. So, nearly finished now. After the rigging, there's just the Lewis gun to add (for a second time, it goes without saying - but in a different place, just to ring the changes a bit). As promised in the previous post, I raided my unbuilt kits for suitable Lewises and decided to use one from a Roden Brisfit; but after I'd done a coat of paint on it I was not satisfied. Apart from not being quite as sharply detailed as the Mini World ones, it had suffered slightly from the injection moulding process, having a little blob on the barrel from the sprue attachment, which was almost impossible to clean up properly. So I've put in an order for another Mini World Lewis from Hannants. It would be a pity to stint on this last detail. I've been giving some thought to the display options for my Dolphin, and I've decided to have it on a bit of airfield, with Lt Worthington posing alongside his plane for a photo, as those chaps were wont to do. My Osprey references has some good examples of this type of picture, including some of pilots from 87 Sqn holding pipes, and some of Lt Worthington himself. But unfortunately none of Lt Worthington with a pipe. Capt A W Vigers, Capt H J Larkin, Maj J C Callaghan, yes. Lt Worthington, no. Pity that. I thought it would be a really good idea to show him with a pipe, but if the documentary evidence isn't there, then I can't really justify it. Not to worry. I've just thought how fiddly it would be to make a pipe in 1/72nd scale. More soon hopefully.