Martin Ford

It arrived today, safe and sound. Just in time for me to go back to work. Many thanks again, Duncan at BlackMike models.

That was me my friend 🙂. I wanted to get a Junkers D1 off of you, without paying much attention, I didnt realise how quick they would go. That Gotha might be an acquired taste but I think it looks great, am so glad a bought it. Thanks for the great service you provide. I genuinely get excited when one of your parcels arrives with a wingnut wings kit inside. I hope somehow, someway they reemerge one day. All the best, Martin

Thanks mate. I always find it hard to pick out what to build next. I get one out of the cupboard, then put it back. Get another out, put it back and so on. I might go with the DH.9a 'Ninak', but not sure. I have 3 I really want to make, the Stahltaube, an FE.2B and a Felixstowe but I am saving them for the future. Incidentally i have just seen your WIP of your Eindecker. That is very, very good and way better than mine. Cannot wait to see that finished. Get that cabinet filled up. Best wishes to you, take care, Martin

Thanks mate, Yes it does look nice. Funnily enough my love of WW1 aircraft came from Wingnut wings being great kits rather than an initial love of how they look. I bought a Sopwith Camel just to have one of their kits, due to their reputation, then realised I love how they look. I get a thrill go through me when I see a Spitfire (I live near Southampton Airport) I'd imagine I'd get the same thrill if I ever saw some biplanes. I'm now a fully paid up Wingnut lover. Have over 20 now. Hope they somehow carry on trading. All the best, Martin

Thank you very much for the reply my friend. Steampunk is a great way of describing the exhaust look. It mainly seems to be the German planes that have an exhaust like that. I hope you get the chance to finish your build soon, I have attached a pic of my finished Wingnut kits. All the best, Martin

Hello everyone, best wishes, hope you are all coping as well as possible. Just posting my latest effort. I seem to be whizzing through some builds, due to the lockdown, so went with this plane. Im not totally sure I have got the colour right, but in some respects I guess there isnt a right colour with these old planes. So just went with what was in my paint box. Picking a colour scheme is becoming as hard as picking what to make out of my stash lately. This is my ninth wing nut build (currently Germany 6 England 3) and for the first time I came across a couple of little problems. Had some warped sprues, some odd numbering for the build - bottom wings before undercarriage was definitely wrong. Also a few decals not numbered in the instructions. But dont want to quibble as they are by far my favourite manufacturer (fingers crossed they carry on). I also had to make my own rigging holes for some of it, which was unusual. This is a fairly large plane, 410mm wingspan compared to 265mm for a Sopwith Camel, im running out of space to put these. I think I made a few mistakes, 1 or 2 bent struts. I bonded the wing struts to the bottom wing, way, way to early, wont do that again. They are so fragile and I snapped 3 off. Quite a nice amount of rigging on this one, compared to the AMC DH2 or the FE.2B for instance. Ive stopped putting in the internal rigging, as there doesnt seem much point really. But do enjoy the external rigging. Am always reading about it putting people off, which was an outloook I used to have myself, then I had a go and really enjoyed it. Am a brush painter and am reasonably happy with the finish, for some reason, crap as I am at taking pics, they always show up the mistakes and not the good bits. I do like trying to recreate the wood effect on the propeller, there are so many different techniques for this, sometimes it just works, other times not so much. Would love to hear any comments, thank you for looking and take care, cheers, Martin

Thanks Dave and chaps. I think I did overdo it a bit on the weathering front. To break up the white a bit I used a Tamiya weathering stick. Seemed to do what I wanted, it's like a lipstick, you can just wipe it on. I always use brushes apart from an occasional use of a rattle can for some undercoat. I've just had a look at the artwork for the version you are making and it looks great, I look forward to seeing it soon. I agree about the machine guns, it's always a bit of a ball ache to get them spot on. All the best, Martin

Hi everyone, hope you're all doing ok. Just thought I'd add my latest effort to this wonderful site. It is minus Mr. Goring as I havent got round to painting figures as yet. I seem to have gone one bit of a Wingnut blitz of late, find it hard to make any other make of model at the moment. This one was as usual a pleasure to build. There is very little rigging, which actually I have come to enjoy, I find it therapeutic. So this build didnt take long due to the lockdown I have had much more spare time. I'm still very much making it up as I go when it comes to weathering, hopefully my latest attempt looks okayish. I had a bit of a nightmare when bonding the machine guns, they are aiming downwards slightly and I think would have blown off the radiator if used by Hermann (what a shame that would have been 😉). I hope I have managed to pull off the white look of the plane okay. It's not the easiest of colours to cover. The only bit of the aircraft that isnt white is the top side of the bottom wing, which is doped linen but due to my appalling pictures you cant really see it. I'm a brush painter and still havent made the transition to airbrush, not sure I ever will now. Would love to hear any comments or critiques. Thanks for looking. Take care everyone, all the best, Martin

Just having another test, for some reason I cant post on my laptop but seems ok on my iPad.

I bought the Spad VII c.1 1/32 scale a while back, purely because it was available as opposed to Wingnut wings not making a similar model. Have been making it for a few weeks and have just decided to put it back in the box. Admittedly I havent been at my best recently but I haven't been enjoying it, it feels like I'm just bonding some random plastic together. Maybe what hasnt helped is the fact I've been building pretty much nothing else but Wingnut kits for the last couple of years. The difference seems like night and day to me. The Roden kit has poor fitting pieces and I havent got the energy right now to alter things. Obviously there is a big price difference. I dont like to give bad reviews for anything, books, music etc as I wouldht have a clue how to manufacture a model kit but the standard does seem poor. Maybe one day I will reopen the box. I think I will have to get another wingnut kit out of the cupboard. All the best Duncan, hope you and yours are fit and well, Martin

The unused parts are the parts that are blued out on page 2 of the instructions. I've made quite a few and I believe the amount of unused parts can vary from kit to kit. I've built at least 2 kits so far that even has a teddy bear on the sprue, which was used as a mascot by a few pilots. Have you enjoyed your Wingnut experience? I have to admit I am hooked and have somehow ended up with 23. God knows how that happened 🙂 I haven't got the Junkers D1 though. Would love to see your build when you are done. All the best, Martin

Thanks mate, I wont make the same mistake again. Maybe it will push me into trying airbrushing. Cheers, Martin

Hi everyone, thought I'd post my latest build/attempt. I'm not totally happy with the finish but I enjoyed building it, which is the main thing. This was my first attempt/foray/failure into the lozenge type of decal, or indeed any type of large covering decal. I am pretty sure I made a mistake, dont know if anyone on here can confirm that I did indeed go wrong? I decided to apply the lozenge decals onto bare styrene. I had a hell of a job getting them to stick, also they became very brittle. After they were dry just the slightest touch to trim them would make part of them shatter. Dont look too close to the leading edges of the wings. Over the last couple of years I have come to enjoy doing rigging on my WW1 builds, this plane had next to none. I was finished in ten minutes, whereas I made a AMC DH2 a while back which took me over a week to rig. I am very happy with my wooden propeller and loved the little map on the drop down table in the cockpit. I'm still very much making it up as I go along when it comes to weathering. I put too much dried salt effect on the floats of this I think. One day I will take a good pic. Would love to read any comments, all the best, Martin

I can post this pic which is from my flickr account but after a certain time the option to copy url is not there. Seems to be all older pics are ok but then anything after July/August last year the option has gone. The odd thing being it has happened to pics I have already posted on this forum. Very strange and annoying, oh well.

James, I'm having the same trouble as you. I've posted pics on here many times using flickr, both through a tablet and a laptop. Dogsbody/Chris, thanks for your informative post (i have never used the choose a size option before) but that right pointing arrow you mention in your post above is not highlighted for me on a lot of my pics. Even for ones I have previously posted in my threads on here. When I scroll a bit lower in my pics then the arrow becomes active at about last June. Very odd. Previously when posting via a laptop I would just copy and paste the url into my thread and the pic would then appear. God knows what's gone wrong. I have only just noticed it as I was about to start a thread for my latest build. Is anyone else having trouble with flickr? Thanks in advance, Martin

I agree with your sentiment about building for your enjoyment. I'm very far from being an expert but I'm on my 7th wingnut kit now and all I've ever used is the prym knitting in elastic for everything. It looks fine to my eyes and there is a lot of stretchiness in it so you can overcome mistakes by snipping a bit more off and glueing again. I dont know if it's any help but when glueing the rigging I used to use CA accelerator but for my last 2 builds I stopped using it and just held the wire in place for those few seconds longer (whilst trying not to shake too much 🙂) I find it easier now not to use accelerator. Good luck with your Sopwith Camel, that was my first wingnut kit that I bought. Good luck with the rigging of the bullet 👍 All the best, Martin

Hi there, just thought I'd post my latest attempt. Although Im not totally happy with the end result, I thoroughly enjoyed making it, which is what counts. I chose this colour scheme as it was the only option that didnt involved lozenge artwork, im not a huge fan of that look. Im quite happy with the doped linen look but not sure I have nailed the blue. Had one nightmare session when putting the top wing on. I scratched the paintwork, drilled a hole through the wing, bent a strut. Then when I had finally got it on and glued, I went back a few hours later and another strut had actually snapped. Still I got there in the end. Its quite a big kit in relation to other Wingnut kits I have made, the wingspan is 375mm which is about 100mm bigger than the Sopwith Camel of the same scale. I seem to have become addicted to Wingnut kits lately, my stash has plenty of ww2 aircraft and various tanks and ships but I cant seem to make any of them and just start another Wingnut. Thanks for looking, apologies for the poor photos, would love to hear any comments, all the best for the new year, Martin

Thank you my friend. I'm sure you will nail it when it comes to the rigging. I feel like you have to get into a sort of zone to do it, (including understanding the instructions) then it just kind of works. The first wingnut kit I bought was the FE.2b but when I looked at the rigging instructions I just put the box back in the cupboard - it's still there. All the best to you too, Martin

Thank you for the nice comments and tips chaps, they're much appreciated. 👍

Thank you Michael. It gives me a lift to read some nice comments, its appreciated. Cheers for the advice about air brushing as well. My main gripe with air brushing would be the cleaning and hadn't really thought about the masking as well. Cheers, Martin

Hi Bill. Thank you, the rigging is a simple roll of knitting-in elastic. It seems that you can stretch it for ever. So if a bit goes wrong you can snip the end off and carry on.

Hi everyone, just finished this and thought I'd post a few pics. Had a lot of satisfaction while building this, it seemed to go well and I seemed to fly through it in a month or so which is super fast for me. I am in awe of the men who actually flew these things. As I was making it i was struck by the fragility of what the real thing must have been like. Surely one dodgy landing and the plane would crumple. This is the plane that Lanoe Hawker was killed in after a dogfight with the Red Baron. The blurb with the kit says Richthofen described his duel with Hawker as "the most difficult battle I have had" after expending 900 rounds of ammunition. As the pics show there is a lot of rigging with this kit, I had to have a lie down after each session If I had one small criticism of Wingnut Wings its that I do sometimes find the rigging diagrams a bit confusing, I know that's a bit like trying to find fault in Margot Robbie but I do wish they were a bit clearer on the intricate sections of rigging. Im still brush painting and I seem to have reached a plateau of how good I can make things look. I can never decide whether to take the plunge into getting an airbrush. Overall I am happy with it though, which is the main thing. What a very therapeutic hobby this wonderful pastime is. As usual I think I have struggled with the pics but I would love to hear any comments about what you guys think, good or bad. I'm now at my usual dilemma of trying to decide what to make next. Many thanks and best wishes to all for the new year, Martin

Thank you for the comments chaps. I've had a rough couple of years and as silly as it sounds, it really gives me a lift to see some nice feedback. Thank you. John, as for what's next, that's always a question to ponder. The stash grows and grows. Pixies seem to keep adding to my Wingnut wings collection whilst I sleep. I might build my HMS Victory, or my 1/24 Mosquito, or my Wingnut Stahltaube, always a bit of a dilemma trying to pick one. All the best, Martin

Hi everyone, just thought I'd post a few pics of my latest attempt. It was really enjoyable from start to finish and took about 3 months, I do like to be a bit slow and methodical. I'm still very much making it up as I go along when it comes to certain aspects like weathering and trying to make wood look real. There was quite a bit of rigging on this build but I do enjoy doing it and it is quite therapeutic and satisfying when done. I am still fifty fifty over whether to get an airbrush but am happy with the results of my brush painting. I feel as long as you enjoy it and like your own work that's all that matters. This particular kit came with the Raymond Collishaw figure but as yet I haven't attempted to paint a figure, I don't think I could do the man justice. This is my first attempt at trying to give a look of stretched fabric over the struts. I just shaded them with a brown pencil and I think it looks ok(ish). Though of course nowhere near as good as some of the amazing work on this site. Apologies for the pics, I can never quite master taking a photo. Would love to hear what the good people on hear think. Thanks for looking, Martin

You will love it. It took me a while to take the plunge, I did so because of the Wingnut Wings reputation rather than a love of WW1 aircraft. I was hooked straightaway. I have 15 Wingnut kits now and look forward to the rigging. I am far from being an expert but find the rigging quite therapeutic, theres something so satisfying about letting go of the tweezers and seeing it snap into place. I'm currently making a Sopwith Triplane and am loving it. I dont know if any experts agree but for my latest build, when rigging, I didn't use any CA accelerator, just the glue itself. It just means holding it in place for that bit longer without shaking too much, it seemed to give better results and I only had one fail. Sometimes I have had accelerated CA not take, then the next attempt doesnt take and you can end up with a small blob. All the best, stalal, I hope you will post your Hannover on here. Martin