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Ologist

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  • Birthday 11/11/1960

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  1. Thanks everyone for your very positive and kind comments I haven't built the new Airfix Gladiator, but have it in the stash and intend to do so soon. The Airfix Gladiator is superior in every respect to either the Matchbox or Heller originals, indeed, as it should be with the benefit of four decades of kit development. The older two were enjoyable and rewarding builds, but neither is by no means perfect. The Heller version has serious compromises in cockpit width to accommodate the open canopy, and the pre-existing rigging holes are huge and really have to be filled and redrilled. The undercarriage has some issues, and in retrospect, it would be better built with the supplied skis. The Matchbox seems to be a more accurate shape, except for the parallel sided cowling, and the split across the cylinder 'humps' makes for a difficult seam to eliminate. The trailing edge of the control surfaces are very thick. If the Airfix Gladiator is to hand, it is the obvious, possibly only choice for an accurate, well detailed Gladiator out of the box, but the other two certainly represent some of the best of their time, and the end results with a little extra work are more than satisfactory in my opinion. Jon
  2. A comparison build in more ways than one. Both kits first appeared in the 1970s, and whilst not necessarily the first choice for a Gladiator nowadays, both are still pretty decent, The Heller version as repackaged by Humbrol, with rather uninspiring box art has some lovely surface detail, but is marred by the huge holes for the rigging and a cockpit that is very narrow to allow for the open canopy option. Matchbox biplanes were always some of their better efforts, and the Gladiator is still a worthy inclusion in Revell's range. It doesn't quite have the same surface finesse, but apart from the cowling the overall shape is probably better. Both built mostly OOB, the Heller has the somewhat pointless addition of the the Airwaves cockpit etch, and some of the displaced plastic has ended up in the Matchbox 'pit. The Heller uncovered wheels are a poor effort, so were replaced with ones from Pavla, whilst the underwing gun barrels were Quickboost. I've tried to show two aircraft from the same small batch at very different points in their careers. The Heller version represents an aircraft (N2313) of 605 Squadron just before the outbreak of the war, when 'nearly new', and was inspired by the superb aerial photo of the vic of three in the Wing Leader book. Decals from Kits-World, Alclad white aluminium undersurfaces with Mr Hobby aqueous dark earth (which is very light) and Tamiya dark green on the topside. In contrast, N2308 is represented as on the books of 247 Squadron in the Autumn of 1940 - from 605 Squadron, then to France with 615 Squadron, where it acquired the shadow compensating camouflage scheme, before being one of the few 615 Squadron Gladiators to return to England after the fall of France. At some point in time it was fitted with a Watts 2 bladed propeller. Xtradecal markings, Humbrol duck egg blue (23) for the undersurfaces, and the top surfaces in dark green, light earth (both Humbrol), light green (Colourcoats) and dark earth (Xtracolour). Jon
  3. A lovely silk purse conversion job, beautifully presented Jon
  4. Belated thanks to everyone for their kind words. I would certainly built another Roden Fokker. But perhaps not just yet....... The overhead photo of the OAW built version had me scurrying to check the wing alignment, as it appears to be quite askew and this shouldn't have been possible using the Aeroclub jig. Thankfully it seems to be a camera issue. It's surprising how different they are, even when comparing the four and five colour versions. Pegasus lozenge was considered very accurate for many years, but it may be based on age darkened samples. In contrast the Aviattic seems very light, its noticeable that the blue of the rib tapes does dominate the overall effect. Jon
  5. These two are the result of a very protracted build, documented over the past 11 months as a work in progress. The idea was that a dual build would be a more efficient use of time doesn't seem to have been realised. Not the most straightforward of builds. There are well documented issues with Roden's D.VIIs but these can be mostly overcome with a little effort. Fokker D.VII, Fokker early version. Ltn Werner Niethammer, Jasta 13, June 1918. Personal markings from the Mac Distribution Fokker D.VII (OAW), Pegasus 5 colour lozenge Fokker D.VII OAW early. Ltn Heinz Graf von Gluszewski-Kwilecki of Jasta 4, August 1918. Lozenge is Aviattic 4 colour, crosses and shield modified Americal-Gryphon. Thanks for looking Jon
  6. That's a little jewel. A two bay fully rigged plane is a very brave choice for a first attempt at a vacform biplane, and you done it proud. Jon
  7. A lovely build, and wonderfully atmospheric photography
  8. After further delays, including through house renovations creating too much dust to risk painting, I'm declaring these two wee beasties finished. My thanks to everyone who has stayed with these builds, which have turned into something of an odyssey. Its now time to post a 'ready for inspection'. Of course what could have been predicted when I started early last year was that by the end Ukraine would have been invaded, and there must be doubts about whether we will see a resurrection of the Ukraine model industry. Whilst the Fokker D.VII with its flaws it's not one of Roden's best products, I hope that these two examples can be a small tribute to the talents of company's designers and toolmakers. Jon
  9. And the final task, and one (or in this case two) that I can't get very enthusiastic about: replicating the very obvious laminations in WW1 German propellers. I ought to have started this much earlier, as it always takes me ages. For the Fokker built example, the only photo of Niethammer's original machine I know of looks like it has a Heine, which is one of the three choices Roden provide. Painting the front of the first blade is the the less daunting task - getting the second blade to be identical is something I find very frustrating. Base coat of Humbrol 225 (awful stuff which took 4 days to dry), dark laminations mostly Vallejo, but also an experiment with Hataka red line. The Vallejo flows much better, but dries very quickly. I don't get on with masking Vallejo, so the striping is mostly done freehand. It's fragile though, so each lamination has to be overcoated with Future before moving on to the next. The moulded propeller boss was sacrificed in the original clean-up - replacements from PART will be added when finished. Jon
  10. I don't want to risk the wrath of Albatros Publications by posting an overlay with the plans in the Windsock Datafile Anthology, but all the angles and gaps seem to be very close matches: John Adams must take a lot of the credit - setting up the upper wing would have been very difficult indeed without the Aeroclub jig
  11. Definitely not that crude! It's a MAC tooling dating from the indeterminate 2000s according to Scalemates. It even includes a small, but not very useful PE. Albatros and OAW built versions were released but MAC got into a mess with the decals for the OAW, to the extent that not one of the five(?) included schemes featured the numerous small cowling louvres of the mid production OAW planes present on the kit part.
  12. I've built the Mac Distribution OAW version, and whilst it falls together much more easily than Roden's Fokkers, I found it to be quite crude in terms of detail, and on reflection should have gone down the same route and at least replaced the interplane struts
  13. It has certainly been a challenge, but one I've quite enjoyed. I always felt that here were reasonably simple solutions to the well documented issues with these models. Most of these involved securing parts that were supposed to be joined at the right distance from, and orientation to each other, then working out how to fill the gap to permanently unite them....... The brass wire (from Alan Gibson) is a legacy of my railway modelling days, it adds a lot of strength where needed, and I was tempted to use it to pin most of the strut ends, but common sense prevailed. Its rally useful stuff, as long as you remember to use proper wire cutters and not reach for the sprue cutters instead.
  14. I'm utterly amazed as to how much time has passed since my last update. family, friends and work seems to have squeezed the time available for other things. However progress has been made, but I'm a bit behind reporting this. The Aeroclub jig didn't just help 'considerably', it turned out to be essential to get the upper wing positioned correctly in relation to the lower wing and the fuselage, and more critically, making sure the upper and lower wings are absolutely parallel. The Fokker built version was a lot easier to set up, which suggests there are some differences in the fuselage strut locating points between Roden's different versions. Once the wing position was established, there was some good news: The 'V' cabane struts (Part 6A) fitted perfectly on the Fokker built version, and reasonably well on the OAW The rear cabane struts (Part 10A) clicked very satisfying into place on both versions, once the lower locating points had been made deeper So far so good...... The long front cabane struts (Part 9A) needed attention. Roden would have you insert the top end into the same locating hole in the underside of the top wing as the point of the V struts. This wasn't going to happen. The top end needs to be faired into the V strut, 10 seconds with a sanding stick on each on did the business. The lower end sits just above the undercarriage strut, in reality it passes through a cowling panel, but here it was simply rounded off, loosing about 0.5mm of excess length in the process. Thus the top wing was theoretically firmly attached to the rest of the aircraft, and all that was left was to slip the interplane struts between the wings (even if it was getting a bit cramped in the jig), and job done. Or not. The interplane struts don't fit. They don't even nearly fit. They are completely the wrong shape, and it's this that has probably terminated many builds of Roden's Fokkers, especially for those who tried to fix the interplane struts before the cabane struts, and left others with the notoriously off upper wing geometry. Not all is lost with these struts however. It might have been simpler to scratch build completely new ones, but I decided on a rescue mission. The 'N' struts were cut so as to separate the rear leg, What is now the rear leg of the 'V-strut' needed to be extended by 1mm (a tad more for the OAW version, for some reason). I took the opportunity to insert a short length of 0.3mm hard brass wire, then slid a piece of 40thou plastic with a hole drilled over, and applied both Mr Cement and superglue. Once set, it was easy to sand to profile. The modified front V now fits easily into the front hole in the lower wing, and front and rear in the upper wing. Once firmly attached, the rear leg, with a little sanding to change the angle of the cut, fitted very nicely into the rear hole in the lower wing and nestled convincingly against the top of the intermediate leg. Hold breathe and slacken all the nuts on the jig, and to my surprise, everything stayed exactly where it was intended to be. Twice. Jon
  15. Various builds of Rodens's Fokker D.VIIs complain that the struts are too short or too long. These have an effect on the relative position of the upper and lower wings. Whatever the underlying faults, it's obvious that the top wings and struts aren't going to go on easily without some help in getting the wing position right, then adjusting the struts to fit if necessary. It's time to call upon John Adams's engineering knowledge and skills: I've had Aeroclub's jig for a number of years and not used it very often, but it's going to help considerably here. Jon
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