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How many of you have Wingnut Wings kits in your stash? and Why if not


Beardie

  

278 members have voted

  1. 1. How many Wingnut Wings kits in your stash?

    • The complete range
      4
    • A considerable number
      88
    • One just to see what they're like/try them out
      42
    • None not interested in WWI subjects
      29
    • None they are too expensive
      27
    • None rigging puts me off bi-planes
      5
    • None they are too big
      44
    • None but becoming very tempted
      26
    • Would love them all but not financially possible
      13


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I have an Albatross D.V and a Ship's Camel. 

I would like a few more, but everything that interests me, is sold out.  

Very clever Peter Jackson, inflate demand by making shortages part of your business model. Very clever.... now if only the concept of shortening things was within your film-making palette, you hirsute monster.  

Edited by SoftScience
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I built the SE5a (pure joy at every step) and have the Roland DVIa in my stash. I want more but can't justify them at the moment.

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I purchased my first Wingnut wing back in december - the Sopwith Camel and now thinking about getting the taube .   Incidentally , I jumped on the bitcoin bandwagon to fund my hobby , luckily made decent returns and that has fueled the recent additions to the stash :) 

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On 2/15/2018 at 3:32 PM, Basuroy said:

I purchased my first Wingnut wing back in december - the Sopwith Camel and now thinking about getting the taube .   Incidentally , I jumped on the bitcoin bandwagon to fund my hobby , luckily made decent returns and that has fueled the recent additions to the stash :) 

i'm between two worlds--the old school, blue collar world of installing equipment, and the equipment i install and service is internet servers and switches. so the more people use social media in Thailand, the faster my stash grows... 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I can now add my name to the list of official Britmodeller Wingnut Wings Stash hoarders! (does this now make me a 'Wingnutter' © too?) I kept the last of the Albatros Jasta 5 Trios for myself. It has a slightly bashed box (although the parts are perfectly fine) so I figured it would be more hassle to sell it anyway and let's face it, who can resist an Albatros or two or three anyway?

I do fancy getting a Fokker D.VII and a Junkers D.1 to keep them company so I'd better make some more space available in my stash. Oh and the post war Snipe and Brisfit look really nice in their silver doped clothes too. I remember making an Airfix Roland when I was a nipper.........

 

Duncan B

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7 hours ago, Duncan B said:

can now add my name to the list of official Britmodeller Wingnut Wings Stash hoarders!

must be hard to make a living in your line of work... temptation abounds. 

 

if it's any consolation my Albatrio box was squashed too (i don't think it was Weta's fault, i blame the Thai post office, they sat on my Pfalzie too, but at least i've figured out how to dodge import duties). 

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payday, baby. just ordered the E.II/E.III early and early Snipe. these may be the next two on the extinction list, when i 'previewed' the inventory end of December there were 33 Eindeckers and 41 Snipes available to order, now there's one less of each. already had the Barker Snipe decal sheet from Pheon. so that's 20 kits, 22 aircraft. well over half my stash. 

and no free time to play with these toys :(

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6 hours ago, Duncan B said:

How do you 'preview' the inventory?

 

doesn't seem to work anymore but around the end of December if you put in an order for more than they had, the site told you how many you could order. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've recently bought a couple of Taube's and a couple of Dolphin's, to add to my WNW stash of way too many.

 

The "Sold Out" signs really spooked me, so I've "invested" in pretty much every single kit they've produced over the years, right from the SE.5a, junker J1, Brisfit & LVG C.VI they first produced, all the way back in 2009, through 2010 giving us the amazing Gotha, Albie & RE.8 kits, amongst others. I bought multiples of kits I particularly liked, such as the RE.8. FE.2b, Felixstowe and, of course, the Albies, with so many very cool & colourful camo finishes. That's back when a single seater was $59, a twin seater $79, Sterling was knocking $1.65 and postage was completely free. Furthermore, Parcelforce rarely intercepted the parcels in the early days, so they arrived VAT free. Those were the days!!

 

They've turned a relative desert of 1/32 WWI aviation into a cornucopia of the very highest quality WWI kits. I remember when Roden brought out their DII Albie and DH2, amongst others, and the press were absolutely amazed and heaped praise on them as the very best of their type. Poor Roden, their kits are still very decent and can be had for far, far less than WNW kits, especially if you shop around.

 

WNW have also allowed Pheon decals, Gaspatch, HGW, Aviattic (with amazing fabric decals) and Taurus to expand to meet the suddenly large AM market. Master & Aber have stepped up with various WWI machine guns, as have Eduard. Even the fishing industry has chipped in with 2lb fishing line, whilst the kicker elastic industry has give us EZ-Line!

 

I put WNW kits at the top of the tree, up there with Tamiya.

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  • 4 years later...

Over the years before they went out of business I asked for a kit on Birthdays Christmas Fathers day etc so I built up a stash that I intend to build over time. Never mind how high the price goes up on ebay I will build them because they are an absolute great modeling experience and joy to work with 

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I built up quite a sizeable stash before they closed for business. I'm mostly interested in scratch building these days but I will build them all eventually. Building their Sopwith Triplane was the most enjoyable kit build I've ever done.

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There brill and I have 32 and rising because 1've ordered 3 from the H. My thinking is this If someone else was to produce these then just look at the Border and Meng offerings, Wing nut is just a better package. My figure is squed because I've offered a good home to a couple of orphans and my 6 Albatros Dv 's are a pride and joy.Way back then when I was young  we never got anything like this I just went to shows and saw a flood of Tamifix Phantoms and Spitires,

Dead maybe but rejoice and give a cheer to the WnW's team.:clap:

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Like Bigbadbadge, I have one. I bought it a few years ago, returning to the hobby after over 50 years, fully intending to build it. I now know with certainty that I will NEVER gain the skills necessary to do it justice so it will remain unbuilt. But I still take it down from the top of the wardrobe now and then for a bit of a fondle😍

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1 minute ago, BillF67 said:

Like Bigbadbadge, I have one. I bought it a few years ago, returning to the hobby after over 50 years, fully intending to build it. I now know with certainty that I will NEVER gain the skills necessary to do it justice so it will remain unbuilt. But I still take it down from the top of the wardrobe now and then for a bit of a fondle😍

If you can build any other kit, then you can build a WNW one, no matter the number of wings, because of how they're engineered. It's one of the rare cases where the engineering, which was developed with ease of assembly in mind, is matched by the fidelity of the moulding, so that it works as intended. As a result, the most tricky part of building a biplane (getting the top wing on) is a doddle. Second trickiest is rigging, and they've made it as easy as can be done by moulding the rigging locations - okay, you need to deepen the holes a bit, but that's not rocket science. Then with EZline and superglue, you can rig the average sized scout in an hour or so.

 

 

 

Paul.

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1 hour ago, bigbadbadge said:

I have only one, the DH2, which I am looking forward to building one day.   When my skills allow

Chris

 

19 minutes ago, BillF67 said:

Like Bigbadbadge, I have one. I bought it a few years ago, returning to the hobby after over 50 years, fully intending to build it. I now know with certainty that I will NEVER gain the skills necessary to do it justice so it will remain unbuilt. But I still take it down from the top of the wardrobe now and then for a bit of a fondle😍

Chaps, like Paul said, you already have the skills. These kits are so brilliantly designed and manufactured that you can get a great looking result. The tolerances are tight so make sure you remove paint from gluing surfaces. Other than that think of them as being like recent Tamiya kits. I find Airfix 1/72  biplane kits way more difficult! 

 

Richie

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4 minutes ago, RichieW said:

 

I find Airfix 1/72  biplane kits way more difficult! 

 

Richie

A perfect example of similar design philosophy (at least in objectives) being coupled with sub-optimal moulding fidelity, which I think is largely due to the production plastic being a different quality to whatever is used for development and test building. I'm talking onlly about the BE2C and Eindekker - both Tiger Moths have worked fine for me, which may just mean I got lucky and bought a few produced on a good day. But now I'll stop talking about Airfix because this is about WNW and thread drift is oh so easy................

 

Paul.

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Interesting thread, as it's topic changed over it's long run.

When still active, I bought two, and at that time these where absolute value for the money; 69,- $ incl. Shipping to Austria from New Zealand for the Sopwith Tripe in 2014, and the same price for an Albatros DV a year later.

I started to build the Tripe, which at one point paused, and never started the Albatros. I will definitely continue with the Triplane, but add turnbuckles despite their recommendation. The build was a joy, as far as I went. You definitely can build a great model with average work and skills and a true museum piece with just a little extra effort, that's what made them stand out. And they really raised the standard in research and material provided. 

Would I buy old stock for, I don't know, 200,- € plus? I don't know, honestly, as I switched mostly to 1/48 - smaller models, faster builds, bigger range of topics, but as Paul said:

22 hours ago, Paul Thompson said:

tricky part of building a biplane (getting the top wing on)

is sometimes a drag - I failed on some at this very stage.

Are they worth it? Not me to judge, but I think these have been simply the best engineered, well researched and most lovingly created kits available. A bit like a Hiro kit - something in a different class. I you want the best in 1/32 biplanes, I'd say yes, they are worth it. But one has to decide for himself.

To me the question is, are there any heir to the throne in sight, to fill the gap?

Well, things have changed, and there are some silver linings in this field. Think of Gaspatch, maybe not as far as the wide range is concerned, but I have their Salmson in 1/48 in my stash, which shows a similar quality - though I haven't started to build one. But it's just so a lovely executed created and presented kit and looks very well engineered. And in 1/48 it ticks my box. I never had a CSM, but would love to test one. Heard good things as well. What I've heard about the new Roden Spad is very good as well (the old one wasn't definitely anywhere close to WNW quality), and let's see what's next wo come. Will Meng continue to work on this field? ICM has a few interesting Biplanes from the interwar period, maybe they will step in WWI as well?

 

Let's see what's coming up, but even though WNW has left the market, they definitely did spark this field.

 
 

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