Shakey

Lovely work Murdo. My old ATC Squadron 2489 Bridge of Don, walked in to the site as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme in about 1984-85 to rebuild the cairn and place the gun turret on top. There was a photograph in Flypast magazine at the time of the cadets with the memorial. Did you use any aftermarket parts for your model?

Nice work Ian. I am following along with great interest- my grandfather was on duty and witnessed the entire incident from the southern side of the Forth. I recall him telling me about it during the 1970's. All the best with the rest of the build.

Hi Far North, PM sent.

Thanks very much for your reply Derek. The XF-5 green colour suggested “may” be correct for this era , early 1940 produced aircraft and would be an interesting alternative to the later ubiquitous grey green. Maybe the ICM guys who produced the kit can answer the reason for the colour choice. I will reach out to them and report back….

The ICM instructions are suggesting Tamiya XF-5 (Green)for the interior colour of the Sea Gladiator, can anyone comment whether this is likely to be correct? This is a darker and deeper shade than cockpit grey-green which appears on other types.

Thanks Tony, that is great news. No pictures or anything on the website that I can see though.

Anybody got any more info on the 1/32 Jaguar release apart from the previous? Nothing shows about any news for the Jag on the Kittyhawk website. Anyone "hear" anything at Telford? Anyone? Anything? Pretty please? So near to Christmas, does Santa know anything? I love all these new 1/32 scale kits. 32 is the new 72, for all those old duffers like me who cannot see much in 72 any more.

Wonder what the "surprise" release at Telford will be this year? Airfix have brought us some really bold and magnificent kits over the last few years...1/24 Mosquito and Typhoon, to name but two. I am going to speculate it is something big like a 1/24 Jaguar or a 1/24 EE Lightning! Let's see what they reveal.

Here is the link to the polyamide tubing. For the size required, the inside diameter of the tube will have to take the thickness of your rigging wire or fishing line etc. Not too expensive for a single length and it is delivered quickly. Hope this link works ok? https://amzn.com/B003TLNL5I

The Tamiya accelerator smells not unlike lighter fluid or nail varnish remover. Must be something with a high volatllity? As the previous posters imply- carefully does it.

I find ez line is too flexible and like trying to glue cooked sphagetti into pin-holes as you say Beardie. Not trying to thread drfit but here is another method.... I have had greater success with 0.15 monofilament fishing line. It is very strong and will not perish. Not sure how well ez line will last in twenty or thirty years? Will it perish? Fishing line is pretty much indestructible. It also adds strength to the structure unlike ez line which is purely cosmetic and just deforms under load. Even if you don't want to go down the Gaspatch turnbuckle or Bob's Buckles routes, you can anchor one end into a deepened rigging hole, filled with thin superglue. It takes maybe twenty seconds to "grab" the line for such a small area. The other end you can anchor either by drilling all the way through the wing ,and trimming of the end afterwards with a razor blade. A tiny touch of paint with a cocktail stick and the area is invisible. If you don't want to drill all the way through, you have to accurately cut the loose end, plus say 2mm to anchor into the second hole. Again a good pair of tweezers and a thin fuse wire with a tiny drop of superglue will help you. I recommend a set of 2.5x magnifiers as essential to improve your vision and accuracy of the work you are attempting. To replicate the anchoring points, you can chop 2mm lengths of polyamide tubing ( you can order single lengths of this from amazon, one length will last for ages). Just slide a couple of pieces onto the line before you glue the second end and you can anchor the two polyamide pieces at either end with white glue afterwards. Works a treat and in 1/32 looks better than ez line IMHO. One last tip, be careful with accelerator because it can cause the superglue to expand as it dries and hardens. As ever, best practise on a dummy piece first before comitting to your expensive and flawless model!, I think Uschi has a video either on his website or youtube on how to rig WNW biplanes....worth a look.

The Roland is a beauty. The price and final cost of building them is probably 1.5 to 2 times cost price by the time you factor in paint, glue,aftermarket parts etc. The end result though is better than anything else out there. Just take your time and do not rush them.

I have built and completed five -nearly six WNW kits so far. I have another 7 at various stages of construction. The quickest build took about three months - Hansa Brandenburg W-12, the longest is running at over two years so far. My motivation is purely interest in WW1 aircraft, besides the fact they are very well researched and high quality kits. WNW say they have many more projects in development but there is only one other subject I will buy from them, depending on whether or not they produce it- Halberstadt CII, To do them justice, they really cannot be rushed and it pays to look at other modeller's builds online to help get the best results. The WNW customer gallery serves as some good inspiration.

Hi sorry to see your misfortune with the photoetch parts! The Uschi photoetching blackening fluid works well and I have used it successfully several times on machine gun pe jackets etc. On such small parts the fluid works really quite quickly and you can actually watch it change colour over the course of two or three minutes. I usually remove it after a few minutes when it turns black then give it a rinse under tap water. I then give it a second bath for another couple of minutes, just to ensure it has etched the surface and cannot be rubbed off too easily. When you finally remove the parts, rinse them off with tap water and then dry the parts with an airbrush to stop the corroding process. If you accidentally crush a jacket you can reinstate it's cylindrical shape by gently heating the part above a candle to anneal and soften the metal. You can then bend it back round either the round shape tool supplied by Wingnuts or else an appropriate sized drill bit. Be really careful if you heat the jacket as if it is too close to the flame you can end up melting the metal lattice. I recommend storing the assembled guns in a special box away from the model until final assembly as they are easily the most fragile parts of the model and will not withstand any handling on the pe parts without great risk of damage. Hope this is of help and best of luck with the final stages of your build. The W-12 is a very well engineered kit. "Shakey"

Hope they release this in the livery that Loganair flew throughout the UK during the 1990's- all over white , with black and red trim.