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Torbjorn

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Everything posted by Torbjorn

  1. It has turned out to cause issues, as it were. Back from summer absence, I’ve started with the rigging. The hard and brittle plastic does make great details, but is correspondingly unsuited for strut material. They snap if you apply some pressure, which I tend to do when tightening the wires. The good thing is that the fit is excellent, so not much forcing is necessary, but I’ve still managed to snap two strut. Did I say the outer struts are supposed go be narrower than the inner pairs? They kit struts aren’t, which is the only real inaccuracy ob the kit. I made them narrower, after measuring the WNW struts, but this didn’t help to cure the brittleness issue - two out of four broke right off. I’ve glued them together, better knowledge defeated by sheer laziness. I should’ve made new from a better materal. Oh well, here we are. There is one more issue with the plastic: all other kit plastic I’ve worked with has happily smelted when a blob of Tamiya green stuff has been pooled in the little placing holes for struts - the Clear prop plastic is annoyingly resistant. This makes it more difficult to fasten the damn things and I’ve resorted to CA (gasp!). No pictures today, but by the weekend it’s either do or, well, not finish on time.
  2. Heh, that I had missed. No worries, will take a break and play with other projects. I am undecided which option to do - probably the one that is easiest to achieve, and I’m trying to find photos of the two machines to help that decision.
  3. I intended to participate with this in the Italian GB, having misunderstood the scope. Fortunately this GB came along to save it! Hobby2000 kit of repopped Japanese plastic, options two Italian Lightnings operating from the Fuka airfield in Egypt famous for receiving an unfriendly visit by the newly founded SAS. The two desert-camo options (Italian decals - Cartograf!) Sprue shots: I have started with the rudimentary cockpit, consisting of seat stick, floor and IP. And filled this strategically placed sinkhole: I know nothing about Italian aircraft, so now I have to figure out how to translate ”anticorrosion green” to Vallejo.
  4. If we consider, for all military hardware, the ratio between real importance to warfare and popularity among modellers, the humble field kitchen would likely be among the top. Likely at least a magnitude higher than for example the Sherman tank or Kübelwagen.
  5. Second page? Not good, consider this a signing-up bump!
  6. The Austro-Hungarian airforce was considerably smaller than the German or Entente counterparts, but they had a number of domestic producers building and designing both their own and German designs on license. The Lloyd C.V (as for the Germans, ”C” designed armed two-seater recon aircraft) was built in only 144 examples and was not one of the more succesful types. It was nicknamed the Kikeriki (apparently this what Austrian roosters say) after it’s birdlike appearence. The model is Special Hobby’s 1/72 series 46, showing a 1917 aircraft on the Italian front. Build thread here:
  7. Recon and artillery spotting were the main tasks for the Great war warhorse LVG C.VI. It frist flew in 1917, and by the end of the war a bit more than a thousand were built. The model is KP’s 1/72 with decals from Peddinghaus, representing a 1918 machine on the Western front. Build thread:
  8. I use pretty much the same method as Ian described already, down to smilarly modified wooden clothespins for applying tension. For material I’m using hair. Besides me being a cheapskate, hair has ok dimensions for the only scale I play with, 1/72: between 0.06 and 0.1 mm (I have the luxury of having two long-haired individuals in the house with different hair thickness). It is also very strong and withstands the test of time. You can also tie knots with it, which helps immensily in many cases. It results in strong constructions. For some tricky locations or control wires (or other wires which should be thinner than the hair) I sometimes resort to metal wire or monofilament thread or even stretched sprue. I don’t like the elastic stuff. Streamlined RAF wires in 1/72 aren’t an issue (and no, I don’t do turnbuckles except in very special cases), but to give the impression of a non-circular cross section, I drag a silver pencil brush loaded with a little metal paint along the upper side of the wires, carefully trying to apply paint only on a part of the circumference. Observing while you move your head gives an illusion of asymmetry. Typically I attach all wires in the upper wing when it’s still off the model, taking great care to attach them firmly (filling the holes with CA or white glue) and test them by tugging. Few things are more devastating for morale as wires getting loose! I predrill holes in the lower wing and thread all the wires after attaching the upper wing. Once they’re all through their proper holes I start actually tensioning and fastening them with CA, a few at a time. Patience is key: take a break as soon as you start considering speeding up. Some of the early wing-warpers had huge turnbuckles: in these cases I’ve added them, usually by twisting fine wire to a hoop and applying a wee bit glue or solder to make the round part (PE looks too flat).
  9. A wee (<-hopefully) issue with the dihedral - I made it too small, should be equal to that of the too wing. Will have to loosen the wingroot joint with some green stuff and see if I can correct it without snapping. Both sides have the same issue. The cabane strut solution is excellent by the way: strong and gives you correct location, so they can easily carry the top wing by themselves.
  10. I only used (a liberal helping of) Tamiya glue this time: put enough to dissolve and fuse the halves together. Didn’t bother with a dovel since there is another even weaker section further inboard anyway. I’m putting my hope to the rigging: I make it structural, and there’s lots of it here to keep her together.
  11. I’ve had much worse 😃 I have mended the wing, you can see the break if you know where to look. As you can see I also lost the undercarriage in the crash - to reduce stress on the joint I will now wait until the upper wing is on, plus some of the wires (there is a pair of especially handy bracing wires from the fuselage to the middle of the innermost bay!). Have started with the rigging - I shall rig the tailplane first this time, mostly because I find it boring and tend to put off finishing models if I leave it for last… Did some photographic trickery to change the colour warmth so the PC10 looks like it does to my eyes:
  12. ….And I managed to snap the weak wing! When cleaning dust of all things
  13. Looks like I shall manage on time after all. Took the easy way out and made new struts - they are about 1 mm longer than the originals, I apparently exaggerated a bit. Only touchups (amazing how much dust a varnished surface collects!) and mending the holes left from the rigging left. And reattaching the aileron for the n:th time. The wooden finish makes hiding the rigging holes easier, since it doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth or single tone. First I blather a dark colour over the holes and their surround.
  14. Going through the fiddly bits. Elevator control cable links are PE - I drilled open the holes at the ends to be able to fasten the wires more easily. British planes have more tricky rigging than German in general and although the DH9 is not the worst, they have some fiddly lines. All wires on the upper wing are attached with CA, holes then filled with PVA glue diluted with the wing colour (linen in this case). A few details left only. Attached most of the decals, right now waiting to see how they respond to Microsol. They are certainly thin.
  15. Hit a bit of a snag: the struts are a good 2-3 mm too short. The reason can be several: 1) cabane struts sit too high/ are too tall 2) too little dihedral 3) they really *are* too short For number one, it is certainly easy to do this error since there are no locators whatsoever for the cabane struts. I have however measured several times, both from wing to wing and from top wing to wheel axle, and if anything the cabanes are too *low*. For number 2: Can not see that there should be much dihedral, certainly no where close what recquired to raise the tips by some 2 mm. It will look wrong. That leaves #3, but I’ve never seen such a big error. Making new struts would prevent damage that would inevitably be inflicted when changing #1 or #2, so I’m tempted to go this route for that reason alone. Otherwise we would be close to finish. I have only the wheels, prop, gun and radiator to mount (after making new radiator pipes due to not being able to find the resin bit I’m sure I painted already), all of which are painted and awaiting. Apologies for the dirty exhaust pipes: they should prbably be nice and shiny, but the plastic became so rough when trying to clean them I decided to make them gritty rather trying to sand the little things smooth.
  16. Getting close. Touch ups and decals going on.
  17. Take two: Overspray of 1-4 mix of Vallejo olive drab and 71.029 dark earth (some use of that finally, it’s too dark for its intended WWII purpose): For colour reference a (my take of) PC12 and the RNAS olive green and, bottom right, the colours mentioned. Still too green. Take three: Overspray with pure dark earth, but somewhat thinned. It *still* looks green. But, it is certainly different. For contrast, check the little piece I missed to unmask between takes one and three: And, on its own, with green background, I think it looks just brown enough: The photos also look greener on my screen than the real thing, so I shall stop here.
  18. This is quite possibly the best Great war kit I’ve had my hands on. Not without imperfections, but a great kit. The landing gear is *dry-fitted* here: Try that with other 1/72 kits It does look like a flying hot rod, doesn’t it? One thing the kit misses entirely is the fuel lines from the gravity tank in the upper wing, which were built into a streamlined cover. I glued two copper wires on a paper slip, when dry added a drop of PVA and wrapped the paper around the wires - it’s not perfectly streamlined but close enough. The wires will be cut to size and stuck into the holes I drilled in the tank once the upper wing is attached. There were also some small tubes sticking out next to these on either side. I guess they may have been vents (or some gauge?) - in any case I used some copper wire for those. The small genetor props are PE coming with the kit. The two tubes sticking out on top of the engine are carburettor air intakes: I need to drill them bit a bit better. Missing here are the gunsight and Vickers gun, which I decided to add after painting. The PC10 I painted looks much greener on the photos than to the eye. I used Vallejo olive drab, oversprayed with thinned pale brown for some colour variation, though in the photos this doesn’t show at all of some reason. I’m always at a loss whether to use green (read: olive drab) or brown, having in the back of my head that quote about there not being any green British planes, just chocolate. Whatever I have will stay though: she’s wrapped up for the battleship grey: The fin is still off due to painting issues: normally I’d attach it, but the fit is so good on this kit that I expect the hazzle of attaching it to be considerably less than the hazzle of masking and painting and decalling it in situ.
  19. Oh, I hope they’ll make the Pegasus/Mercury-equipped Swedish versions (Hart and Osprey).
  20. I think I painted my Felixstowe’s prop sheathing gray as well… though maybe it was also Wingnut instructions I got that idea from. That’s a great engine. I like the contrast with the nice and clean engine&prop and the “sloppy” PC10. It signals that the modeller in fact does know how to paint and the half-covered painting on the wings are supposed to be that way (this sort of stupid thing concerns me, though I know it is silly).
  21. Ah well, it wasn’t. Having wasted more time thinking about it then it would have taken to do it I started scratching away. First the fuselage cloth-covered section was enlarged by removing the aft seam and scribing new lines. The seam is molded positively: the missing part I instead scribbled into the plastic. My eyes at least are fooled by this deception. The rounded fairing was made by plunge molding. I found a rod of perfect dimension and filed it to shape - hopefully its owner won’t even notice: I drilled a 7mm hole in scrap balsa to act as female mold. Result compared to original was not too shabby, so I decided to go for it. Here’s the finished modifications to fit the AMC-built machine I’m aiming for (“IF”): enlarged soft panel, rounded fairing and a rectangular rather than drop-shaped extrusion on the radiator. I’m thinking to simulate wrinkled cloth by heating a needle and smelting/pressing the plastic, but I need to practice on the same type of plastic first. The wrinkles in the middle are fine even though the section was enlarged: there was a frame there, and the originals did show those wrinkles.
  22. It’s been a month already? And I have but a little to show for it. Painted the linen parts, using .7mm masking tape to apply some shades effect on the underside rib tapes. Then realized I had forgotten the cover for the gravity tank, but that’s not important. Added the lower wing after drilling reinforcements into the weak joint as per the warning. Drilled small holes some mm into the wing, and CA glued copper wire through the wing like rebar and out unto the middle section. So far no break (except a crack on the aft side that was there already). Here’s the first of two: Here we are, showing off it’s hot-roddish look. Now is time to decide whether like is too short to mold vents and redraw “panel” lines and seams or not.
  23. Starting to run out oof time, so forced myself to do more painting. Most of the machine was covered in plywood. Unusually this includes the wings. First it was primed with Vallejo’s tan primer, followed by layers of Wood mixed with tan at different ratios and then oil paint for the grain. I’ve seen these finished in shades ranging from what I’ve got now to darker or reddish chestnut. Trying to find out what is correct - all I have is bad BW photos showing rather light colours, but I’m thinking to follow the boxart and apply a dark varnish or two. First off is adding some nailheads with the riveter. Here I have started on the oils on one wing: I tried a few different tools and methods on different panels and asked the honest family members which looked most like wood and ended up applying paint and rather forcefully rubbing with an old dried brush with bristles all over the place, followed by smoothing with a new, large flat brush as wide as the panels. This will be followed by tinted varnish to smoothen it - the camera significantly enhances contrast compared to what my naked eye shows though. This now has to dry for a few days. I will go through it with a brush tomorrow, when it’s half dried, to improve what I don’t like, and to add more contrast between panels (and ensure ”grain” doesn’t continue over panel edges).
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