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Well here she is folks, a fun, if challenging, build! Representing a machine flown by Jean Navarre of Escadrille MS12, Muizon, France, October 1915 To sum it up: Fuselage shortened by 11.5mm, turtledeck lowered by 2mm, rear fuselage widened by 5mm, entire fuselage reskinned, 2.5mm removed from wing trailing edges, 2mm added to wing roots, wings raised by 1mm. All struts, tail surfaces, and landing gear scratch built. Aeroclub wheels and MG, prop and spinner modified from spares box items. Close, Revell, so close! ] Thanks for following along! Ian

I don't think I need to post a pic of the box and contents of this one, I'm sure most of us are familiar with this oldie! I haven't yet decided on a scheme but since the kit decals are not too accurate colour-wise I'll replace them with after market ones, and if I can find enough reference pics, I'm considering Roland Garros' machine. I chose this from my stash because I wanted something relatively quick and simple after the hassles with the Short (which WILL be finished, I just need a "change of scenery"). Since I got off work early today I decided to dig it out and start checking it against the DF plans.... Not bad! The span is almost exactly right, and although the chord is about 2.5mm too deep it's not a major problem to correct. So far so good, until.... errr....Houston, we have a problem!! The fuselage is a whopping 11.5mm too long! It is also the wrong shape at the tail (round instead of rectangular section), and about 1.5mm too deep (top to bottom) at the cockpit! So, start with the easy part - the wings! The trailing edge was relieved of 2.5mm of lovely thin plastic and re-thinned to an acceptable edge, and the tip trailing edges were re-shaped. Shown here with the offending excess after removal! Much better! Now the tricky bit - how to go about correcting the awful fuselage. I decided to chop the 11.5mm out of the cockpit area. This would also remove the area which was too deep and bring the fuselage to the correct depth. I measured 45mm from the tail and marked the first cut, then a further 11.5mm and marked that. Masking tape was wound round the cut line and further marked with a pencil. Marked up ready to cut: After cutting the fuselage just a little inside the tape, I simply sanded the ends to remove all the pencil marks - I now knew I had the edges exactly where they were marked and had the correct length! The problem of the plan shape was solved by adding spacers between the fuselage halves - 2mm at the rear tapering to 1mm at the top front and .75mm at the bottom front The front end spacers were added separately as I didn't realise at the time that the front would need widening too! After closing the rear part of the fuselage I added the front pieces that were removed earlier: Much better! That's all I've done today as I want to let the fuselage harden properly before any further work. There are still other problems to deal with: The cockpit decking has been reduced in height to match the new shape of the fuselage but it will need shortening by 2mm and narrowing a little so that will be done later. The wings also sit about 1mm too low so I will remove them from their fuselage moulding, lengthen them slightly to allow for the curvature of the fuselage and keep the span correct, then pin them and add them as one piece before I add the cockpit combing. The spinner also needs attention as it is too pointed and not wide enough.... So much for quick and simple! Fortunately I love this kind of modelling so today has been a very therapeutic rest from the trials of putting together the Short's wings! Thanks for looking in! Ian

Well, I've finally managed to get this one done. It's not one of my best efforts: the fuselage decals fought me hard, but I've learnt from it...I hope! She's good enough to go in the cabinet though....ironically right underneath Frank Luke's SPAD XIII - Georg von Hantelmann's 16th victory was Joseph Wehner, Luke's wing-man! Jasta 15 must have been unlucky in some way - Rudolph Berthold survived only to be strangled with his "Pour le Merit" by a mob in 1920, and von Hantelmann was murdered in 1924 by poachers he caught on his land...so sad to have survived the carnage only to be murdered a few years later... The Aviattic decals are great, but I did have a little trouble with them lifting at the edges - probably my application rather than the decals though. Engine and MG's are Roden items, and all wing and tail struts were replaced with .020" plastic rod. Anyway, here she is.... Hope you like her! Ian

I started this build a month or so back for a group build on another forum, and thought I might as well add it to the GB here! The first 3 posts are copied from my other post and are pasted here as one entry, the last one is the current state of affairs: 1) My will power being what it is, (non-existant) I have decided to enter this GB with one of the newtool MAC Distribution kits. I have a couple of them and they appear to be very good: with crisp detail, comprehensive decal sheets and even a small PE set, although for some reason this doesn't include the MG cooling jackets! I will build the machine of Ltn Georg von Hantelmann, Jasta 15. I will finish the Hannover first, so there will be no updates for a little while - this post is so I can't change my mind! Ian just noticed they spelt Goering's name wrong on the box! oops! 2) I've finally made a start on this one, although nothing worth any pics yet. I've thinned out the cockpit and engine cowl edges and removed the horizontal frame moulded into the cockpit sides right under the opening as it isn't visible on the real thing. Also given the interior a coat of white ready for the interior lozenge decals. I'm thinking of using a spare Roden engine that I have in my spares box, but I'm missing the valve train part for the top. Does anyone have one to spare? Thanks, Ian 3) The more I work on this, the worse the kit appears to be! I spent today thinning the flight surface trailing edges and separating the control surfaces. It looks as though I've ground to a halt almost before I've begun as I need an engine (email sent to Roden) and decals - I thought I had Aviattic 5 colour so I could at least do the insides and get the fuselage together, but I don't, so I'll have to wait on the generosity of Richard and his free decals to arrive! I've also attacked the decal stash to find the correct interim wide crosses for the fuselage and wings. Almost tempted to start another in the meantime but then I'd be back where I started...... : Ian

After an extraordinarily long build I'm happy to say this one is finally finished! The interior, windshield, undercarriage and detail parts such as control actuators, flare rack, engine plumbing and Parabellum mount are scratchbuilt, the engine is Choroszy, the Parabellum is Mini-World, and the Spandau was stolen from a MAC Pfalz DIII kit. The fuselage and wings were altered to correct plan and elevation profiles and the struts were modified. I used Aviattic decals for the wings and control surfaces and although a little tricky they were nice to work with. The main problem was cutting the slots for the control actuators as these decals don't cut easily once in place. Wood & Wire supplied the rib tapes. I've a couple of other projects in line, then the other Airfix stalwarts - Roland C.II and RE8 will be tackled! Build log is here for anyone interested Thanks for looking in! Ian

This is a build I've had on (and off) the bench for a while.This timearound I WILL finish it! EDIT: July 2017 - Since I have to replace all the old PB pic links, I'll simply paste and copy from the other forum that this post was on, to give a little more detail of what was done. Here are the copied posts, in order: Oh well...despite the others on my bench not being finished I couldn't resist making a start! I've removed the locator pins for the engine and pilot, the Parabellum gun ring and all the rib detail from the wings and tail, leaving just the coolant tank and radiator. I've also opened up the starboard fuselage side for the Spandau and exhaust cutouts, along with thinning the sides in those areas and sanded the upper fuselage sides below the observer's position to round it out and remove the squared off look on the mouldings. The Parabellum and ring will be replaced by an Aeroclub item. The engine will be a Choroszy Modelbud item which is on its way (it'll need a little alteration to the induction to change it from Argus As.II to As.III) and decals are on order form Doug Baumann. There is still a bit of work required on the wing and tail planforms, but nothing major. I haven't checked the rest of the parts to the plans yet, so I'm hoping it'll be fairly minor work required - certainly nothing on the scale of the RE8! Ian Since my bench is now clear, I've made a little more progress on this one. Both upper and lower wings, and the ailerons needed a little re-profiling, so the wing tips were sanded to a flat edge, plastic card fillets were added, and then sanded to shape and filled as necessary. The same was done for the centre section cut-out which was way too wide. The wings also required a little bending to get the correct dihedral and flat centre section. The engine has arrived and it's a little beauty! A little work was required opening up slightly clogged areas on the inlet manifolds, and I drilled the exhaust side and added some plastic rod. The rest of the exhaust was carefully removed from what passes as an engine in the kit and these parts will be added towards the end of the build. I've reprofiled the prop a little, removed the kit mounting peg and drilled the engine to accept plastic rod for the prop shaft. The front part of the engine cowling has also been drilled out and thinned so it fits over the front of the engine properly. Slowly but surely.... Ian A little more progress. I've got most of the interior done and the engine painted Not too much more now before I can get the fuselage buttoned up and start figuring out the finish...hopefully Doug's decals won't be too long in coming... Ian The engine is complete and installed and the fuselage is buttoned up. I've corrected the profiles on the tail which were pretty awful, and given the wings a quick base coat to check all is well. Hope to do the same for the fuselage tomorrow morning. I've fitted the MG but I'm not sure if I'll leave it as is or try to improve the fit a little... Ian OK folks, 18 months later (no, it didn't take THAT long for the decals to arrive...) and I'm finally back on this one. I dug it out this morning and immediately decided it needed more work on the wings and control surfaces - mainly just thinning them a little more at the trailing edges. That's all done, I've drilled out the hand holds in the upper wing cutout, and fitted lower wing. While waiting for that to dry properly I thought I'd post a couple of pics. Doug's decals are unfortunately not complete. The wing lozenge is 1st rate, but he decided to do the fuselage as a wrap instead of just providing a sheet to fit as required. Hopefully it will work ok with the alterations I've made around the cockpits. Also the wing midsection lozenge is one wrap around piece, the same colour all across, instead of being lower colours for the underside. At least it will provide a pattern to paint the lower side myself. I'll also have to photocopy it to use as a pattern for the lower tail as no decal has been included for that. I'm looking forward to getting on with this now, it's been WAY too long.... Ian It's a fun kit to build despite (or perhaps because of?) its shortcomings. Just a small update - I began yesterday thinking I was ready to give it a quick coat of primer to check for blemishes and then spent the whole day improving what I had! I removed the weird little lump in front of the pilot's cockpit (supposed to be a windshield maybe?) and reshaped the cockpit opening. Somehow I'd missed that previously - it would have been a lot simpler to have done it earlier. I widened it slightly towards the rear and then brought the back edge forward by about 1mm by adding small amounts of Mr Liquid Putty and gradually building it up. The front edge was squared off a little in the same way. The gunner's ring mounting was added using an Aeroclub part, rounded off at the edges, and added the gun mount using a tiny piece of .020" rod and.... Mr Liquid Putty! How I managed for so long without this stuff I have no idea - it is much stronger than normal putty and easier to file and drill too. I also moved the mounting point for the rear cabane strut about 1.5mm rearwards and 2mm upwards (the original and the newly drilled hole can both be seen on the 2nd pic below). All the rest of the strut mounting holes have also been drilled. The wing struts were separated and mounting pins added, and the undercarriage main legs have been made from .016" brass rod and .020x.030" strip. A little liquid putty along the joining edges, and a gentle filing and the seams won't show! I've also included a pic of Doug's decals - I know this doesn't do them justice but it gives an idea of what I got. As I mentioned previously, the lozenge is very nice, but I'm not sure about the fuselage. The tail section is fine, but I may paint over the rest using the decal as a guide, then overspray it as required. I think he tried to do the decal as the finished "oversprayed" look and it doesn't quite give the look I want - plus the wing section shouldn't be oversprayed, and the lower tail section is missing completely, so that will enable me to match all those sections to each other. I'm not sure that the "wrap" format will work either - we'll see.... I did mention these points to Doug, so hopefully future prints will be a little better - this was, I believe, his first try at these (It's also only my opinion, and others may find this exactly what they need....) Ian Doug's decals are not made to cover the bottom unfortunately so mine will have a blue underside. I had no major problems with the fit of the decals, but they don't stick very well and when I handled it about 5 hrs later part of the tail decal lifted - the same happened around the cockpit today, days later! Hopefully these issues are now resolved.... Here are some pics of the newly applied decals... A couple of spots suffered damage where the colours came off, but since I intended to overpaint most of it anyway it wasn't an issue. After the decals had dried properly (this morning), I mixed up some acryllics to match the lozenge as closely as possible and overpainted the wing centre section, and tail, and painted the nose cowlings, struts, undercarriage and lower tail to match. I was actually very pleased with my handywork until I saw this pic of the upper wing! It looks terrible, but believe me, you can't see the bad lines with the naked eye! I then got out the airbrush and gave the fuselage a blow over of Prussian blue to blend it all in and change the decals from their original purple look.... Next step will be to give it all a dullcoat, and then mask it and spray the wings white in preparation for the lozenge. I should have done this first but forgot, so know I have made myself a problem - hopefully the decals won't lift! Ian Well, I'm getting good at painting the lozenge....I had to redo it a couple of times, then I compared the colours to the Datafile and W&W lozenge I have and the colours were totally wrong! Not sure where the lilac and brown came from, but from what I can see the 4 colour was light and dark green, dull blue, and "dark blond" so...I repainted it all again! I must admit I'm much happier now even though the light green is a little too bright. The dull blue is RLM 24 Dunkelblau and the dark blond is Afrika Grunbraun, both Modelmaster colours. They are an almost perfect match to the W&W decals - it sort of makes sense that colours that already existed would be used 20 years later instead of remixing them, so maybe there are other matches in the RLM series for WWI colours.... I also painted and oversprayed the fuselage underside while I was doing it. I may have gone a little too much on the blue overspray but I like the way it looks, so it'll stay. Next step - not sure yet...I've sprayed the wings white but I'm not sure whether I should respray the upper surfaces in a buff or light tan colour as the W&W decals are so transparent......views from those who've used them would be welcome! Then a gloss coat, drill the rigging holes and add some decals...... Oh, and does anyone know what the rudder colour was for Flieger Abteilung (A) 226? Looking at the pic in the Datafile it is one solid, light colour. Not white as there is plenty of contrast between it and the white of the cross. I'm thinking maybe yellow or light blue? Ian One step forward two steps back.... I kept having problems with the decals, they wouldn't stick or form to the details, and wrinkled up, so I finally took the plunge and ripped them off. They came off extremely easily, just like that old painted-on rubber masking that used to be available. This really doesn't sit well as I also have a set of Doug's decals for my Merlin AEG G.IV - I guess I'll have to hand paint that too. My advice - don't even think about these decals, they're awful - they won't adhere, won't mould to the details, and separate/wrinkle if handled even a week after application. They behave just like a painted rubber sheath! A whole week's work down the drain, (not to mention the cost, long wait and overall hassle of these "decals") - but it needs to be right..... Ian Almost back to where I was! All the lozenge is painted, a little touch-up maybe in places, but ready for the blue overspray again. I also changed the colours slightly: Dark Green is Modelmaster Imperial Japanese Army Green, light green is "coach green", a Polyscale railway colour. Ian Here are the promised pics now that the blue overspray has been added. I'm pleased with the look, but it's not totally accurate for the aircraft I'm modelling. The pic in the Datafile shows very fuzzy edges to the painted lozenge and short of spraying it, which I'm not up to quite yet, I can't replicate that. I've also filed out the area of the Spandau mounting a little to make it sit a little lower and refitted the exhausts. I plan on painting the cockpit coaming, gun ring, radiator and header tank next, and drilling all the rigging holes, then the fuselage decals will go on. I have some Wood & Wire faded lozenge decals, but they may be too transparent for my needs so I have ordered some Aviattic as well. I'll try them both to see which I prefer for this project. Ian Just a small update, a little more detail painting and the fairing for the Spandau added... Ian That's where I'd got to when I started this thread, so back to the original posts... Ian

The second of my recent builds, another VERY basic kit with lots of mods. Here's the build log: http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=2462.0 and here's the finished item: C4906 of 150 Sqn, RAF, Macedonia, 1918. I'm happy with how this one turned out, given such a basic starting point. Unfortunately I have no idea where the cowling came from, it was part of a job lot of kits and spares that I bought online. I removed the bottom part, thinned it a little and it fitted perfectly! Thanks for looking! Ian

This was a fun one to build, although the original kit was not too accurate! The wings were thinned a LOT, the fuselage was lengthened, and all tail surfaces are scratchbuilt. Undercarriage is PART PE, thickened up with plastic rod, and brass rod was used for the main skid. The WIP is here. Ian

Another recently completed build, covered on an other forum. Here's the WIP: http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=1211.msg18995#msg18995 The wheels, prop and guns are Aeroclub, the cowling was reprofiled and widened out at the front, and I added the intake and cooling slots. The large blob for attaching the undercarriage was removed and the front underside and oil drip panel were corrrected. Spreader bar, interior, carb intake, venturi tube and cabane struts are from stock plastic rod and card. Ian

Just posting a couple of builds that I've done in the past year that I think may be of interest to some of you here. The first is a SPAD XIII from Meikraft - the kit is VERY basic - surface detail is pretty good but the fit is horrible! Here's the build log for those interested: http://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=1661.0 and here's the finished item: rigging is mostly mono but I used .004" stainless wire for the inner interplane struts and cabanes. This is Frank Luke's machine, from 27th Aero Squadron, USAS. Hope you like her! Ian

I've just finished a long term build on this old kit, mainly due to being sidetracked by other builds, but also because it's such a terrible kit to start with! With hindsight the easiest thing to do with the wings would be to scrap them and scratchbuild new ones, but I sanded the "starving cow" ribs out, leaving the wings VERY thin and still not right.... The tail section was opened up and a new tail skid made, the cockpit interior and axles/spreader bar were scratchbuilt, the wheels and MG are Aeroclub items with a scratchbuilt "windscreen" for the Vickers, control horns are PART PE (the moulded ones are not only horrible, there are too many of them!), the engine cowling was thinned and the cooling slots corrected, a new lower rear panel was made, the lower forward fuselage was corrected and a V-section added for the oil dripway, the rudder post and tail fin mounts are brass rod, and the forward cockpit opening was reprofiled. Other than that it's a basic (in every sense!) Airfix kit! I had fun with this one, now working on a Hannover with an RE8 waiting in the wings (with a resin engine and Miniworld Scarff ring and duel Lewis guns....) Thanks for looking in! Ian

Well, the time has come to jump in and tackle my first Merlin kit....when I first looked it seemed ok, but the enormous "hump" in the rear fuselage decking, the thickness of the mouldings and tail surfaces.... After shaving off about 1/2 ton of plastic (or so it seemed!) I now have a reasonably accurate basis for the project. I've made my own decals - (the result of that endeavour will be evident when I try to use them!) and have started to build up the interior. I do need referances for the positioning of the upper wing markings (I've decided on the example in the National Air Force Museum in Ohio) so if anyone has pics I'd be grateful! Ian