Texian

Only now, you have to find air crew for the 'Moth! Sounds like a vicious (or delightful depending your point of view) circle. Might be time for a diorama with it sitting quietly on the hardstand awaiting the day's activity... maybe with a tarp over the cockpits?

Gad-ZOOKS! There be some dust on this here old topic! (5Years Let's see if I can knock some of it off. Howdy. Nice little review, thank you. I am fixing to try this one myself. One curious discrepancy between your and my kit is that mine is molded in dark blue/gray plastic, not the color you described. One bright ray however. You wrote; As it happens, Eduard has this same aircraft in a "ProfiPACK" version which has among it's extra goodies a multi-color instruction sheet which in fact DOES show the rigging in different color from the basic black/gray. The good news is it's available on line in pdf. I printed out the desired pages. Here's a link to it... It also shows the extra detail such as the correct seat which has holes in it. Such can be drilled through the 'Week end" edition's solid back rest. Likely other details as well. My biggest gripe is the color scheme on this which doesn't impress me at all. Frankly, I wouldn't have bought this individually. What I did was find a couple or three kits I wanted in a lot of 8 on Ebay. I made an offer and got a deal on them. I pulled the ones I wanted and listed the others individually. I got my money back anyway but this one nobody wanted.I decided to use this to experiment some modeling techniques on it. I'll do some posting on it as I get along. (I'm not very fast either!)

Try looking for old kits. There are always some on ebay and here's a site I have found the occasional old kit on... http://www.oldmodelkits.com/

Oh well. Like I said, it was just a thought. I wondered if it had been thought of before and it is no surprise to me that it was. As for the finish texture, you're right of course. I never expected it would "look real" I was thinking more in the line of just not looking like plastic. But, being a typical American, a Heinz 57 blood line, you know, a "mutt" (specifically, I'm mostly Hrvat with some German, Irish and English mixed in) and hardheaded to boot, I still have to give it a try just to get it out of my system.

I am working on an old model of a Fokker D-VI and I know that the inside cockpit "fabric" should show a faint lozenge cammo pattern used by the Germans at the time. This is an old Eduard kit from the 90s I think, but there's no decal for that. So I got to thinking (a dangerous thing, that ) what I might could do about that, Had a brain storm and came up with this. Copying and printing the cammo onto tissue paper! I reasoned the tissue paper might not want to track through the printer very well so what I did was to cut the sheet about legal length and fold the excess over the end of a standard paper sheet. Went through that machine like going through a goose. Here's an image of what I got. Weelll no, there won't be an image of what I got. It seems there's a major cyber or some such attack going on right now that has disrupted photobucket (among many others) and I don't know of any other way to post an image here so we'll just have to go with what we've got. One problem is that the cammo samples I have copied so far are too bright and bold for the interior. Now, I have the cammo pattern from a Siemens- Schuckert that is known to be considerably washed out so I copied those as well. They might do though I'll have to do a little research to see if they would be appropriate for my D-VI. But, yet another thought occurs. I can scan or photograph a decal set and fade them all I want in my photo software (in this case "Irfanview"). Now. I know some models have side detailing going on inside the fuselages but, tissue paper can easily be trimmed so as to appear to be on the 'outside' of such features. Then yet another thought occurs. I wonder if perhaps such printed stuff might not make an excellent total cover for surfaces such as wings. Might not the texture of the tissue make convincing surface treatment for a WWI fabric covered wing even after clear coating? I'm interested in you alls thoughts on this and barring accusations of total lunacy (which might not be too far off at that) I might just give these thoughts a try. What's to lose? It's not a fancy high-brow or expensive model. Right?

I don't have any right now and we'll have to wait and see what the future offers. I only just recently became aware of this model line. I am thrillingly impressed by what I see. Unfortunately, many are sold out and I really am not interested enough in what they have left to pay the price they want for them.

What's wrong with a little keeping it simple? it is sharp looking and well made. As another member said, a "neat and tidy build." I quite agree. I like it.

Thanks Malpaso. That answers my question.

A question from and for the ignorant. (Me that is.) What, eggzackly, is "strut stock?" Ok, yeah. I mean I figure it's something to make struts out of. But first of all, are we talking about plastic model stuff, stick and tissue, what? I ask because it would seem to me that card stock or balsa or spruce wood do for the other. If round is desired, there are sprues, stretchable to many configurations or if wood, dowels or various bamboo 'skewers' which lend themselves nicely for fine wood construction. Is it possible you all are referring to scale operational struts as in oleo strut? I'm at the point of, 'what else is there?' which brings me to my question. Bear with me please and thanks.

...existed! Everybody knows the major WWI fighter planes; Spad, Albatross, Nieuport, SE5a, Pfalz, and of course, Fokker's many well known contributions. Of that fruitful designer's list, the EIII, Dr1, DVII and DVIII immediately come to mind. But, I recently started building models again after a hiatus of about 40 years and have suddenly, it seems, become aware of aircraft I never imagined. For the letter/numbers of Fokker I just assumed (Yeah, I should have known better) they represented designs that just never made or even just never were. So now I find out there were actual flying production aircraft, however few be it, such as EI, BII; DI, DII, DIII, & DIV; DV, DVI. After all, there was a CI, basically a two seater DVII it never saw service in WWI but was still a product of it first flying before the armistice in 1918. Then too, there's the Sieman Schukert DI, DII, DIII, & DIV I started out with an intention to ultimately build each of Ernst Udet's known aircraft/color schemes and yet will. But, it might be nice to have a collection of each of Fokker's planes then maybe the SSW series too. It would probably take some altering and scratch building along the way. (And as slow as I'm going, this will likely never really come to pass but at least I can consider it.) Anybody know of any other little known fighter craft of the major powers keeping it to, say, France, England & Germany? re the "DDoS and Brute Force Attacks" I cannot even imagine why anyone would want to do such to a quiet, apolitical modelers site. I hope it all comes out ok!

I came back to look at this again and caught this... Since I am going to have both kits, I don't see why I can't just swap the decals. Simple and cheap solution. Then I sell off the unused kit (noting the decal swap of course.)

Thanks! But, in all honesty, it is more a matter of luck than cleverness. Whjo could have planned for a hardware part to so perfectly fit a model part?!

Both suggestions work out. I have no doubt those are good quality but I am in Texas and 12 pounds works out to about $18.00 with shipping will equal or exceed $20.00. I wonder if that is about average or if it would be a little cheaper to find a supplier in the States. Shipping might be a lot less. I will keep those in mind to use as a standard for appearance and quality. I won't say I won't buy from them either just that I probably should look about first. Thanks much

Great rendition Cratecruncher! Far better than anything I can render. Paul. Thanks for the links. Unfortunately, they are not of much use to me. The one decal site doesn't show but a single wing plan view and doesn't carry Udet's color scheme it seems and my plan is to try and build all of Udet's color plans as far as they are known. There certainly are a vast array of wonderful color schemes available. Regrettably, your second link just brought up a 404 error. Could there be a mistake in it? Just for those interested, here's a link to another wonderfully done Eduard model SSW DIII in Lt. Dembrosky's simple but elegant scheme... http://www.themodellingnews.com/2014/11/eduards-new-148th-scale-ssw-d-iii-turns.html Thanks again. Jim

Great job! I am going to tackle this plane myself soon. I (soon will) have all three Eduard kits. I just am not sure which one or combination of, I will build but, I asked about that on a separate topic. What I would like to know is, what paint did you use for the bright metal parts?

Hello. I am going to build one of Eduard's SSW DIII model kits but, not sure which one or... combination of to build. As it happens, I have (or have on the way) all three kits. All three are 1:48 scale. I had first got the early #8001 kit. Truly awesome PE but the plastic set stinks. Very crude and near solidly encased in flash. It also came with a weissmetal engine but frankly, it isn't very encouraging. Then I picked up the weekender kit. Shortly after, I see I had my signals crossed and there's no pe or any extras of any kind. Maybe not a problem but, we'll see. that's why I'm here. I figured I want the extras so I ordered the Profipack 8256 kit. It appears that the pe sheet is less detailed than that in the 8001 kit but, maybe that's due to expanded plastic components for the cockpit? Then there's the question of decals. I have heard there's much debate as to the accuracy of the colors and such. Now, I don't want to build all three. The 8001 offers great opportunity for scratch building but, I don't want to go there just now. I had enough fun on my last build trying to use spaghetti noodles for framing. Joy! But now, in the last two kits, are there any differences in the plastic sets? How is the cockpit detailing? I have been looking at on-line builds and of course imagery is all over the place! One cockpit image I saw made it appear as if the plastic parts were a bit oversized. One thing I'm thinking is, take the pe from the 8001 kit and combining it into the weekender model. I wonder how hard it would be to make that work. Not to hard I should think. A question of guns. One review gave me the impression that the gun kit was something separate, and of 16 pcs a kit unto itself.. But, looking at the sprue set in the (last two) models, I see two options for the guns using pe. Seems to be good enough for a rank amateur modeler in 1:48 scale. Harking back to the 8001 kit, the included metal "engine leaves much to be desired especially considering (a.) the detail offered in the later plastic renditions and (b.) how little of the engine that will really be visible. I also understand there is some griping about the size of pe engine pushrods. Is it really as bad as all that? In a nutshell, does the profipack kit offer any real advantages over the combo I described above? Does this one kit cover everything the first two could provide? Finally, does any one kit offer a more nearly correct ('lozenge' camo pattern) appearance over the others, at least as far as can be ascertained today? Lotsa questions! Thanks all!

I don't know if these may be wanted or even if this is the right place for them. But, I took these photos of a Stearman PT17 courtesy of the CAF- "Commemorative Air Force" (formerly Confederate Air Force) out of Harlingen Texas USA. I took the photos this past summer at an airshow at Barksdale AFB, Bossier City, Louisiana, USA, one time home of the mighty 8th Air Force. Hopefully they'll be of use to somebody. What's ironic. I am building a pt13 and was recently scouring the 'net for images for reference. I had plumb forgot I had these. Hah! At least this is a 17 to my 13. I'll be posting my primitive build efforts on that in the near future. For now, here you go. Last note. The Stearman is named "Spirit of Marshall" in reference to the community of Marshall Texas which is only only about 30 miles distant from where I live.

I realize this is an old thread but, I think I have something to contribute to the discussion and when is it too late to remember people like Guynemer & Udet?! In reference to the painting, it is very nicely done! My only 'complaint' is that it just doesn't look right w/out the legend "Vieux Charles" on the plane's side. In the artist's defense, images of that Spad XIII do not show any name on it either so he is accurate. I can add to the comment relating to Brown & Udet. There's this; That was borrowed from Wikipedia. I know. Wikipedia is hardly known for it's accuracy but, in this case it parallels very closely to what I heard Brown say in an interview done as part of a documentary on the man. So, Guynemer's act of chivalry goes full circle. Yes it allowed Udet to shoot down all those planes and pilots & air crew. But then again it allowed for the good of establishing Brown into the pilot he became. On the flip side, Udet's life was no source of pronounced joy following the defeat of his nation in war and the disillusionment with it's resurgence that led to his tragic end. Maybe it were a kindness for Guynemer to have finished him when he had the chance. No telling...

In the photo, #1 is the kit's engine as it came only I had started to paint it. I got nosy, did some research and that led me here. Though the kit is labeled "PT17" that is pretty clearly the Lycoming. The thing that prompted me to scratch build on the engine was the fact the the pipes to the collector (is that the same as an exhaust manifold?) went the wrong way, turning outward clockwise opposite from thee actual engine. That was just too much to bear. 2. is the pipes trimmed off, 3. with a domed washer in place for the 'exhaust collector' and a couple spares beside it for example. To the immediate right, obviously a real engine and 4. my clumsy attempts at making the engine. After much hemming and hawing I decided that copper wire was the right. Of course now, I think smaller had been better. Also the cylinder heads could be taller. The dime is for comparison. As noted, I am not done yet. Have to manage the exhaust pipe and tri-bracket... thing... behind the prop and painting of course. You know, if I had it to do over, I would just have made a new engine from scratch. I think it would have been easier and looked better in the long run. For the record, I have been mostly out of modeling for a few... uhhh... decades, other than one here or there. I do not have the shoe box full of parts I had back in the day. Heck, I got NO spare parts! Everything I scratch build has to be from whatever I can find lying around. I was thrilled that dome washer fit as well as it did. I just had to relieve the back side some is all.

Hello. This isn't much but, this site has some great images of 'tween & WWII radial a/c engines, front & rear. Not a whole lot but I reckon they would be helpful to a scratch builder. That's what I used it for. http://www.he-artefakte.de/Sternmotor/Image%20Gallery%20Radial%20EngineE.html

Now that my title has you totally confused, welcome to my world! I got a Lindberg two in one kit set with an SE5 and a Stearman PT17.* As most here are aware, I sure, the Lindberg line of models are best known for being cheap. That goes for Quality (I use the word loosely) as well as in cost. Well, the engine included bears a pretty strong resemblance to the Lycoming R680. I looked the PT17 up and it seems it wore a number of different engines over the years. Then I ran across one reference that said a Stearman with that Lycoming was actually not a PT17 but was in fact a PT13. I only had time for a quick look but, what I saw seemed to bear that out. Enough so that I thought to run it by here. I know there are some very knowledgeable people here that came give me some sound reference backed (not necessary to provide that) information. Thanks in advance for any and all info. * When I get a little farther along I'll open a build thread. That will be a first for me. Not building a model, but, posting it on line. Wish me luck.

Another oldie but relative. I just recentyly picked up an old ICM Spitfire XVI but, there were misplaced sprues in here with enough spare parts to build 3 different variations. Mine also has the Malcolm hood in it so I'll go for a version earlier than the XVI. I have never cared for either the clipped or pointed wing/tail look so that narrows my options considerably. I wonder how this finally turned out.

As I happens, I just picked up an old unbuilt ICM version alluded to in the original post. I realize it is an old one but, this ties right in and I think it might be of interest. One significant difference though I understand either fuselage/canopy combination may be found, my kit came with the high back fuse. & Malcolm hood canopy system. Some pics...

That's some great info but I do confess my head is spinning from it all! Thanks for the link, I'm sure that will help sort it all out while I decide just which version to build. Basically, I don't care for either the clipped wing or pointed wing and rudder look so that pretty much narrows it down. Thanks all.