Major Flannel

Finally having time to push ahead with Roden/Toko/EE's exquisitely molded Hansa D.III I started by priming with a single sand coloured coat. It revealed, at least on the upper wings, such wondrous, fine, detail I did a double take and considered building another arabian Dhow ship. Perhaps this time an Omani vessel? An Indian dhow? Not one of mine; it is too classy a build. So... Well. At least the lowers aren't that bad. The wings do have more rib detail than the camera picked up - but not by much. The upper wing is as you can see a simple rectangle; therefore I shall scratch it, retaining the centrally located manhole cover. I note that the PART Hansa Brandenburger PE contains this but the fuse is going to be buttoned up next. So no, Mr PART, you and your shiny brass baubles. Not today. Best wishes until next time.

On hold whilst RL intrudes and when my Hansa Brandenburg is done. Hopefully this week. Meanwhile, do you fancy building a Shvetsov M11 from individual tiny PE pieces? PART sees you right! Yes. You can.

It's looking 'steampunky' by virtue of the photography. Believe me, this is high praise. Artisanal finishes impress in preference to a pristine finished WW1 bird; after all, sometimes ad hoc repairs and personal markings and legends were applied crudely with a latrine bucket and big old mop, unlike today's rather drab polished-with-a-chamois Dassault Mirage or F35 with uniformly uniform low-vis schemes, say. Boring. Love the look of your Sopwiths, in short

Indeed, yes. Roden's FWD flatbed truck is perfect for such a diorama but sadly in the one true believers' scale. It's a gem of a kit as well, except for Roden's shorted molds on the tailgate in some cases. No idea why 48th is so poor a source for vehicles. Also, the Tabloid. Have you ever made this baby or the Lebed clone? Heck even the 33rd scale card model is a stunner. Such a graceful aircraft.

Wonderful stuff. In 1912 The Kaiser allowed the export of the fast-growing Gotterdamerung strain of hardy garden ivy. By 1913, most of England's granite walls were over-run. Sopwith was a name of the era, with a proud heritage and a lasting legacy. These will look stunning.

Your expertise will be greatly welcomed! This is quite outside my interests ('Eastern Roman Empire' 'galleys' and soviet interwar airplanes, really) so any corrections will be appreciated. I fell in love with the Amodel Nie. IV last year during lockdown and decided to look at these magnificent early craft in detail. Bought a whole Windsock book to date: the NiD. 29 which I find a gorgeous bird. So that's leaning into the inter-war theme once more. ------ So now, you know what? Out comes the desert yellow rattle can and spray the interior again. That Tamiya clear orange has dreadful chemical properties. Best wishes. Much better.

Barely progressing, such are real life interruptions, hordes of steppe cold callers, Yodel drivers and other nuisances. A carved cedarwood floor was added (posh!), the interior given a W&S Naples Yellow base coat, then a clear acrylic barrier, because Tamiya clear orange detests sheer oil coats, required it and was applied last. The inner structure highlighted with a Faber pencil, ivory in colour. Barely progressing as stated a hundred times before I noticed the edit button again. This bird is tiny. It shall have wings. Virtually nothing can be seen inside the interior here except the dash and the seat and stick, so we move on. ...Aaaaand Toko's sprue C has a lateral physical weakness; the seat support, the smaller engine details all broke into several pieces with the merest application of force. Looks like the fuse front will have to be cut out to add in another, whole, Roden Astro-Daimler with a supporting member. Annoying. The struts, landing gear parts are on another sprue and seperated just fine. Thanks for looking. Sorry about the poor light; the orange wash is far 'tidier' than it appears here.

Thank you gentlemen. Perhaps there's the kernel of a project going now, these infos are greatly appreciated. As for repoussage, the Wings of Intent website has practical demonstrations aplenty by someone who has promulgated the pioneering era in aviation for years. A damn good, often surrealist, read too with some satirical prose. I think our Hanriot will see the light of day, why not?

Thanks for your viewpoint, Chief. When all's said and done, It's still a boxy, typical for the period, monoplane structure that could form the basis of an unusual project -- but not a trivial project as you say -- quite the opposite. Earlier I was reading on hyperscale or someplace about a scratch build where a technique for external ribbing was such a damn good idea it is worth copying or nicking and ideal for this. Or instead depoussage (sp?) could be the basis of the thing by default (much more linear a process) and already looking again at such limited info, it could be done to some level of satisfaction if the sources were in agreement, such as they are. If there are good sources at all. Is the Nie. IV a good basis for it? Or for that last kit, a Nie.II (2) (another beauty) instead as a project? There's a wealth of info out there by comparison with the H. D.I after all. I perhaps think an absolute web crawl of epic proportions is required before lifting a hobby scalpel in anger, perhaps to no avail. But I do like the look of the Hanriot. It has chutzpah. We shall see. Best wishes to you.

Amodel's Nieuport IV or the rarer 48th scales seem to be the perfect kits with which to hack to produce this fine looking bird. Apparently it was flying during 1912 with the Regio Esercito. Has anyone attempted this conversion? If so, do your results justify the means? Long shot I know but someone might have. One Amodel Nie. IV left at home and prepared to at least try. Thanks for looking.

watchlar Edit : oil paint's dry☆. The cockpit aperture is pea sized. Also, darker varnishes on the real planes existed perhaps as a Phonix or Brandenburg variation. So might go for a darker orange chic style. ☆Used a dab of 'Liquin' accelerator. That stuff is gold. A word about Liquin Original. It's a Windsor and Newton patented (iirc) accelerator,in effect, that artists use to mix -- at no more than 5% of total volume -- into oil paints before and durung application. From wikipedia: "Winsor & Newton suggests the use of Liquin as a ''fat'' or ''flexible'' agent, to increase the flexibility subsequent layers. While Liquin Original, and Liquin Light Gel Medium are mixtures of petroleum distillates, Liquin Oleopasto, and Liquin Impasto are mixtures of alkyd resin and petroleum distillates." The drying time is slashed dramatically but the downside for modellers is the ultra glossy finish and if you're not careful, some noticeable texture. For 72nd scale this could be disastrous. Even in 32nd you'll not want much texture in your pretend cedar or spruce. I used a tiny dab added with a broken sharp edge of a Sting CD☆, about the only enjoyable use it has ever had, in truth. Remember. 5% is just sufficient to assist. ☆ I didn't deliberately break it. ☆Yes, I did. Pics tonight.

Larger image is D.I 28.30 of Flik 16D. Note star struts sleeved fairings. #nofunk

Update: Ghost in the Machine. The wings were lost years ago (hence this diorama) along with half a heretic scale Shturmovik, an SB, half a Yak 3 and more. And all -ALL - my decals. Every last one. Or so I had believed. Today, fate pointed me to a fiction book of that time and so out fell this kit's CCCP - L737 decals, exactly as in the image above. Spooky but very welcomed. : )

There are more images for when you recover : p The fuse had around <>2mm thick at the worst sections, but the finer parts weren't so bad. Treated it like a vacform and cut it roughly into simple flash shapes to work on further. There's deffo a W4 in here somewhere. It was a clearly branded Roden offering btw, mail order from mojehobby.pl. Best wishes to you. Edit: Roden's FWD WW1 truck was similarly grossly shorted in the tail gate area, but flash much much better. This shorting has only been a nuisance with Roden.

Just a note on the Austro engine. Toko/EE supplies half a one that simply drops into its recess. In the spares box there are many Austro- Daimlers from previous Rodens but we won't use them. Funk's D. I 28.30 profile shows the hood buttoned up tightly. We'll go that way. This is Karaya's A-D 200hp in 1/48th. They're silly cheap, well packaged, Neomega☆, and in resin, too. Also available are an Argus, Mercedeses and a Hispano V. Completely useless for this thread but they're nice to have knocking about for heretics in their own scale to enjoy assembling. In real life, the Emperor of Wien und Buda-Pest used one or more Austros to power giant whisks in the Imperial kitchens as an easy but noisy means to whip up some delicious Caramel sorbets for his Royal entourage. "Viribus Unitis" is latin for "One more unit of caramel fancy, and be quick about it ". ☆ Don't ask.

Magic. You've done this before haven't you. It's always enjoyable to observe some pioneer-themed work; "filigree and cement" as someone learned used to say.

I definitely do! Blimey... they're just exquisite. How on earth did you come by them? Meanwhile, good info on Britmodeller's own Erwin Funk is hard to come by: we know he was assigned to Flik 16D and had a single kill to his name. We know Flik 16D carried a red (cherry, mm) fuse band PLUS a white number as tactical markings (source: Petr Tesar's Offag s.53/153/253 Albatros D.III work). That's it. The search continues. Thanks for that link...

That's sad, dire, news indeed. "White Arcades" knocked my socks off, over and again, back in the day. Thanks for letting me know. All best wishes.

Who doesn't have a soft spot for these old Morane - Saulniers? They were all ethereally beautiful (and some easily and cheaply hacked in 72nd scale from ICM's Fokker E.IV), and your representation is no different. The MS 502 Criquet still a sight for our enjoyment even today. Take a bow.

So a small update. The Hansa had an enamel base coat of Hu 121 spicily topped with a Future acrylic barrier (the old Future didn't possess this strange blue hue). Now some pure W&N "Naples Yellow" was brushed into the interior, raw. 30 minutes later, without turps or thinner, the coat was removed with a dry 'saw' brush to leave a residual yellow colour that is about right for such an enclosed area. Later, the internal frame will be picked out with a very pale ochre hue. An Offag 153 joins in on the fun as well, but as a base exterior coat. Later either clear yellow and orange respectively for both aircraft. The Offag's wood much darker in colour, tending to quite the saturated orange. A suitable WW1 pilot has been chosen for each aircraft as well; our Feldwebel Erwin Funk (for it is he!) leans against the box wondering why polyethylene accepts no known earthly paint. The Offag 153.xx 's cowl has the first coat laid in of my extra secret reflective aluminium technique (traditionally known as "winging it without a coherent plan"). And yes, the fifth exhaust for the fine engine needs repositioning. Excuse the odd yellow light. That was the ambient light this morning. Stormy weather I hope. Best wishes to you. Edit: I frequently malign acrylic paints but Tamiya's 'clear yellow' is the shizzle. It fits what we think the D.I's wood hue was like a Dual Monarchic (?) fist in a glove... or something dramatic like this. Pics soon.

There is something so attractive about very ugly utilitarian aircraft. The Faireys Barracuda and Gannett, the K.u.k. Aviatik B.II, this brute and much more. You have done her justice with great honour for such an important type; many a long night poring over the humungous Komissarov Il-2/10 tome gave me an enormous respect for Il crews. Well done.

I know this is necro-posting, apologies, but to answer you long after the question was asked, the offending article was the early W4: The shorted floats were the most retrievable part.

An artist's cheapo acrylic paint was used yesterday for the small green band on a tricolour of an Italian Nieuport. Knock me out if it was actually far more durable than expected. Contrast with said AK orange that scrapes away far too absurdly easily. There's room for a closer look now. Regards to all that replied so far.

The great thing about Roden-alike aircraft is how many Austro Daimlers and Mercedes engines one can accumulate over time. No Heiros but could be wrong. This Nie. 27 likes its rotaries, danke und bitte... In the background is Amy Johnson's d.H. 60 for my daughter, in dirty heretic scale. Its pick and mix time while the base enamel coat is drying before a "naples yellow" oil application inside the cockpit. H-Bs tend to have lighter woods in hue, despite the mahogany on the box art, Lohner seaplane style. Curious.

I never use an airbrush ( my major detour is wooden sailing boats in scale, galleys and the like). Some things you will never need working with wood strip: spot welding gear and an airbrush. : D I am thinking of perhaps a younger inexperienced newcomer who is confronted by the overwhelmingly aggressive marketed acrylics range and fails in painting his models because they simply do not 'stick'. Frame it like such.