Wingnut Wings 1/32 AEG G.IV - Finished

[Viking]

Wingnut Wings 1/32 AEG G.IV

 

 

This will be my 'Big winter project' for this year. It was a decision between the Gotha G.IV, the Flixstowe F.2a, or this. Of the 3 this one looks the simplest with comparitively straightforward rigging, and no natural wood areas to pant. The kit was originally reviewed here.

 

I'm not particulary attracted to the 'sharkmouth' version depicetd on the box art, instead I will finish it as  Option D. G.IV 574/18, ‘White IV’ Bogohl 8b, November 1918.

 

Option D. G.IV 574/18, ‘White IV’ Bogohl 8b, November 1918.

 

This aircraft is preserved at the Canadian Air and Space museum at Rockliffe (fantastic museum btw), and I was lucky enough to see it a few years ago when working in Ottawa. In my wildest dreams I would never have thought that a few years later I would be building a state of the art 1/32 injection moulded kit of it. So it really has to be 'White IV'.

 

Link to museum AEG G.IV page

 

And there is a Youtube of it here. Note that the engines are incorrect replacements as the originals went missing sometime in the 1930's/40's.

 

I started by cutting out all the components mentioned in stages 1 & 2 of the instructions, covering most of the cockpit construction, gliung a few parts together where appropriate. The aim is to get everything ready fro priming and spraying in pale green. The balance is between getting as much as possble assembled before painting, thus avoiding getting glue marks on the paintwork, and not having so much assembled that it is awkward to paint the detail.

 

 

I often start Wingnut kits with the engines, as they are great fun to build. I have both pepared both with items that are 'halves' joined up,and seams sanded off, and most other parts cut out ready for primer.

 

Engines are now bagged up separately, and smaller cockpit parts kept in a small tuuerware tub with a lid, so as not to lose anything.

Next up, Halfords grey plastic primer followed by airbrushing basic colours.

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

[Darby]

This looks to be a tasty venture. And I thought my Pfalz with etch was going to be an undertaking.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Darby
spelling

[Crossofiron1971]

Wow!

Always wanted to have a go at a subject like this but squeak and pass the cheese!

Will be watching for sure!

[stringbag]

I guess we won't be seeing much of you over the Christmas period then John?

This will be one to watch and thoroughly enjoy I'm sure.

 

Chris.

[Viking]

Short update. i've got the basic interior colours on, with the finer detail painting still to do.

The main coluor is airbrushed Tamiya XF-76 Light grey-green as specified in the instuctions. To break up the plain look of it I mixed some with a dash of XF-53 Neutral grey and sprayed around the edges and tubular work. then blended it back with more neat XF-76 on top. It looks fairly dramtic and unsubtle, but this is deliberate as once it is all dry fitted together inside the fuselage halves, I found it needed to be really obvious to show up at all.

 

 

The floor is done in XF-85 Rubber black, again with the XF-53 Neutral grey treatment to break up the starkness of it. An oil paint was of Paines Grey has also been applied at this stage.

 

Various interior parts have been prepared and painted. These are the 12.5 Kg bomb racks that fit inside the fuselage.

 

Other parts have been basic painted, most with details still to be picked out.

 

Dry fit of main parts.The fit is so good that it all holds together without glue at this stage. Note how the crew seats are fitted on top of the petrol tanks!

 

Dry fit within fuselage halves. Hopefully you can see why I have gone for fairly obvious shading.

 

Etched brass seatbelts have been painted in readiness for fitting.

 

The next stage is to actually start gluing a lot of this together and getting some of the finer detail painting done, hopefully this weekend

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Looks like a great kit. I've seen a few built and it certainly comes up nicely. I'll be watching for tips to use when I get around to my 1:72 vac of this!

 

Ian

[Robin-42]

Did you anneal the seat belts before painting? They may be hard to make "drape" naturally without it.

[Viking]

On 12/9/2016 at 1:25 AM, Robin-42 said:

Did you anneal the seat belts before painting? They may be hard to make "drape" naturally without it.

 

Hi Robin. No, I used to but found it unnecessary as the brass is very thin and bends easily.

 

The whole cockpit unit is now complete, I just need to complete work on the fuselage halves to close them around this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

[Mike]

Lovely crisp looking job so far John.

[krow113]

Going well.

Looks factory fresh!

[stringbag]

It's the speed at which you produce these stunners that gets me.  Amazing.

 

Chris.

[Chris Jephcott]

Ok John, you've got my attention. Beautiful work so far!! Following with great interest...

[Viking]

Thanks for the comments guys. A little more progress to report.

The kit contains 'reverse side' lozenge decals to fit inside the rear fuselage (now there is attention to detail!) where you can see in.I used a base coat of Tamiya X-3 Royal blue, I'll add a couple of stretched sprue cross braces to each cell.

 

 

There is an openable window for the rear gunner on the underside. HGW include masks for it on their AEG set, which saves time masking it yourself. Even with pre-cut masks I like to cut them into halves, and place them with a bit more 'wiggle room'.

 

 

Work now moves onto the engines. Being a twin, there are not surprisingly  2 to make!

I really enjoy building Wingnuts engines and often start the build with them.

 

 

The only improvement I make is to add spark plugs and  'wire up' the ingnition system using fine copper wire. It is a little tedious but well worth it.The picture above shows the white spark plugs added from rod, 2 per cylinder.

 

 

The  magnetos and 'feeder bars' are drilled with an 0.3 mm drill, and lengths of wire secured in with cyano & accelerator.

Halfords grey plastic primer is then sprayed on, and the units painted. Rather than paint the wires black, I ise a lighter colour, in this case buff. It might not be strictly accurate, but I'm not going to all this trouble only to have them blend in unseen on the engine. A lighter colour at least means they attract the eye!

 

 

[Edit[ - note that what follows (now italicised and in lighter colour) is all wrong! Part E15 does not need fitting. I didn't study the instructions thoroughly enough. Parts J3 &J4 are supplied, and are the same but have some pipework attached. I leave it in here to own up to my mistake and in case it helps anyone else avoid falling into the same trap!

 

One point to note is that the pipework at the back of the engine has nowhere to attach at the bottom, unless you fit part E15, the circular pump unit. I think it is a simple case of E15 (circled) being missed of the instructions.

 

Pop it on, and the pipework naturally fits onto it. [/edit]

 

The engines are very clean and shiny at the moment. The next stage will be to weather them and dull them down.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

 

 

 

[Viking]

With a few days off over Christmas, progress has been made.

The fuselage has been zipped up and coated with Halfords grey primer from a rattle can. The cocktail sticks are to protect the strut location holes, while small balls of blu-tack were suished into the circular location holes in the wing stub, to protect the strut locations associated with the engine bearers.

 

Then an overall base coat of Tamiya XF-17 Royal Blue overall, with a couple of coats of brushed on Johnsons Kleer. It is important to give the decals soemthing to bite into, and virtually the whole of this is covered in very dark lozenge decal. Tailplanes and stub wing are only dry fitted at this stage.

 

There are an awful lot of lozenge decals to be applied! More than 3 A4 sized sheets.

 

Several days later, virtually the whole lot is decalled and coated with more kleer to protect & seal it.

 

 

 

 

Back onto the engines, now given a dirty wash and the correct parts fitted underneath.

 

The AEG's engines were often flown either partially or completely uncovered, and Wingnuts provide both options. The instructions note that with careful cutting and combining of parts, several configurations can be modeled. I decided to have a go as I did not want to enclose all the work on the engines, but felt that the fully exposed option was rather skeletal. I liked the picture at the bottom of page 14 where most of the lower gondola was in place, with some of the covering behind the prop, as also shown in Ronnie Barrs side profile for the option I am building. I have spent hours poring over the instuctions with photos of the real thing to try and figure it all out. What I really acheived was to make myself very nervous about chopping up these crucial parts of the kit!

Top and bottom are the 'closed' parts, with the fully open parts in the middle. As they come that are an 'either/or' option and I had to start chopping them up. Note that I have removed the rear section of the lower gondolas.

 

These are the fully open parts dry fitted as supplied in the kit. Note that the lower support struts will need to be removed so that the side panel supporting frameworks can be attached to the gondolas.  Cutting them off will be the point of no return when you will be fully commited.

 

The gondolas dry fitted, awaiting the decision to commit to cutting the frames from the 'fully open'option to attach them.

 

And with engines & props dry fitted to give some idea of where all this is headed.

 

Ok, I've gone and done it. I've cut them free and am committed now. I have to make this work as there is no going back

 

I don't think it would work to try and attach it all after painting, it has to be done with bare plastic to bare plastic joints, in order for it all to be strong. I figure that by attaching the lower edge of each frame to the gondola, but not joining the frames to each other, I can 'winkle' the engines in after painting it all, and then join the frameworks together where they meet. I'm fairly pleased that it all seems to have worked, and I will take a few beers and some time to recover from the shock of it all!

 

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

[clive_t]

Stunning work, very much looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

[Bear Paw]

That is a lovey finish you have got on the fuselage with the dark lozenge decals.  I feel your apprehension with regard to cutting the framing for the engine. 

I like the look of this German bomber and it's parts breakdown does look very good.  

Mmmm tempting.  

Thanks for posting John.  

[clive_t]

A couple of questions, if i may:

 

1. What's the length/width of the model?

2. The lozenge decals: did they need any special treatment to get them to lay 'properly' - you have done a brilliant job on them, I just wondered how much effort was required on your part to get that result?

[Howlindawg]

This is looking fantastic so far!

Would you care to share how you got that effect on the exhausts?

[Viking]

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

47 minutes ago, clive_t said:

A couple of questions, if i may:

 

1. What's the length/width of the model?

2. The lozenge decals: did they need any special treatment to get them to lay 'properly' - you have done a brilliant job on them, I just wondered how much effort was required on your part to get that result?

 

Clive,

 

It's fairly big. The tape measure is just on 22 inches against that top wing, so just under 2 feet span. Using standard modellers measurements, there is a 1:72 Spifire and a standard Tamiya paint jar for comparison.

 

I couldn't resist wiggling an engine in. I've got to get it out again now!

 

The lozenge decals went on beautifully. They are ready shaped per panel, and I did no more than 2 at a time with Microsol and Set applied. I did the bottom first then the sides, and finally the top. The way they fitted around the nose was outstanding. Wingnuts/Cartograf have cleverly left the odd lozenge 'empty' on some of the nose section to allow them to bend without creasing. Hence the need for the XF17 undercoat to fill in the blanks. I did get a few creases here and there, but slit with a scalpel when dry, and brush on more Microsol to almost completely fix them. Note that it is all too shiny still. that's for the stencils & markings yet to go on. A satin/matt coat of varnish will go on when all is done.

 

40 minutes ago, Howlindawg said:

This is looking fantastic so far!

Would you care to share how you got that effect on the exhausts?

 

Thay are first airbrushed black, then a mix of hull red and silver airbrushed over the top. I have yet to lightly spray the ends with Tamiya clear blue in a very light coat, to give a hint of 'heat shimmer'.

 

Thanks again for the comments/questions.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

[Howlindawg]

5 minutes ago, Viking said:

Thay are first airbrushed black, then a mix of hull red and silver airbrushed over the top. I have yet to lightly spray the ends with Tamiya clear blue in a very light coat, to give a hint of 'heat shimmer'.

 

 

Cheers John, I'll give that a try.

[stringbag]

Absolutely stunning John.  I guess at 22" you won't be bringing this one over. 

Chris.

[ROBOT]

Wow,

I could NEVER bring up enough courage (or skills) to tackle a WWI project, but I enjoy watching birds from WNW getting built to perfrection by you.

That is such a beautyful and clean build....

 

Thanks for sharing-ROBOT

 

 

 

[snapper_city]

Tidy looking buiild

[Sergey]

Very beautiful!

 

 

[huvut76g7gbbui7]

This is so far out of my league!

Superb work

Richard