Sopwith F.1 Camel "The Duellists" (Part 1) - 1:32 Wingnut Wings

[Beardie]

John, something occurred to me last night while scraping paint off where the cockpit frames fit in the fuselage to ensure fit and I seem to recall yourself or another BM builder masking off the locations of a cockpit frame prior to painting the inside of the fuselage for the same reason. It suddenly occurred to me, and it might be a daft idea as I haven't tried it yet, that you (not you specifically but anyone building a WnW kit) could temporarily stick the cockpit frame sides into the fuselage halves and then spray with CDL and the frames would do their own fitting location masking. For me anyway the frames will get a coat of this colour as the start of creating the wood effect so there is no worry about getting the frames 'dirty'.

[matteo44]

Fantastic work !

[Viking]

On 5/3/2017 at 9:54 AM, Beardie said:

John, something occurred to me last night while scraping paint off where the cockpit frames fit in the fuselage to ensure fit and I seem to recall yourself or another BM builder masking off the locations of a cockpit frame prior to painting the inside of the fuselage for the same reason. It suddenly occurred to me, and it might be a daft idea as I haven't tried it yet, that you (not you specifically but anyone building a WnW kit) could temporarily stick the cockpit frame sides into the fuselage halves and then spray with CDL and the frames would do their own fitting location masking. For me anyway the frames will get a coat of this colour as the start of creating the wood effect so there is no worry about getting the frames 'dirty'.

 

Hi Beardie, that sounds like a good idea, a couple of spots of white glue to temporarily tack the frames into place would work. Thinking of it, you might not even need that as the side frames fit quite nicely and dont fall out even without glue. Its the 'circle and hole' thing in the mid fuselage interior that holds it in tight. Give it a try, I think it is a really good idea. see who gets there first, you on your current Camel or me on my next one!

It was me who laid thin strips of tape into the recesses in the fuselage interiors of the Albatros kit. The fit is very tight on that one!

 

Not much progress on the Camel this week, work sometimes gets in the way of modelling! The fuselage is now primed though, and I hope to spray the CDL colour on the wings & fuselage undersides today.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Beardie]

Hi John,

 

It will need to be my next victim. It only came to me while I was trying to cleanly scrape away the paint to get the cockpit to fit properly on my current one which is now all buttoned up.

 

Looking forward to seeing your Camel heading toward the finishing line

Marty

[RNAS1916]

Finally,

Started on my Br1!

😄

[Beardie]

There are three errors that I think I have discovered in the Br.1 kit, so far anyway.

 

1. The instructions have the forward starboard interplane strut as No.10 on sprue B which is actually the mounting frame for the guns. It should be Sprue A part 1

    I am sure this one won't give anyone a problem. Just a moment of puzzlement.

 

2. In the engine assembly it gives deccal no.90 as the engine plate on the crankcase of the engine. I believe it is actually decal no.89 that should go here. Decal number 90 is an ID plate for a BR.1 engine (you can actually read it clearly with suitable magnification ) but I am guessing it is meant to be a plate for the cowling(?)

 

3.  This was from Richard Alexander at Wingnuts - One of the white decals for the elevators of the Hinchliffe decal set has been printed the wrong way around and so will need flipped over for application.

 

Other than these three things and a minor bit of tidying (probably my own fault) my BR.1 is going great guns.

[Beardie]

Thought I better add, the decals are reasonably thick for the Br.1 kit (at least my copy anyway) I found that the most effect way to lay them down (Hinchliffe scheme) was a liberal application of Micro set to the model before application and then a careful application of Daco Strong setting solution (no scrubbing, just wet the area) to bed them down, especially around the cowl mountings and other tricky areas.. Sometimes more than one application was needed to really bed them down. Micro Sol didn't seem to soften them to a suitable level. The finished decals look like they could have been painted on.

[Beardie]

Just thought I would drop in a pic of the decals on my Camel. Partly to show how good they go down and partly as my latest attempt to post a photo on Britmodeller

 

 

[Beardie]

Hi John, any progress? Keen to see what wonders you have worked.

[Viking]

21 hours ago, Beardie said:

Hi John, any progress? Keen to see what wonders you have worked.

 

Hi Marty, yes, I've got a bit more done here we go....

 

Starting with doing the Clear Doped Linen undersides. First a coat of Tamiya acrylic airbrushed on. (My own mix of deck tan, white, & a dash of yellow).

 

Looks a bit bland, so I mark out all the ribs etc in thin tape.

 

Good thing about taking photos is that I noticed I'd missed a few, so got them on before the next stage.

 

And mist on some Tamiya 'smoke' along the lines;

 

 

 

Looks a bit harsh for my liking, I prefer 'subtle', so we go over again with a very light thin coat of the CDL;

 

 

The PC10 was next, again my own mix of Tamiya acrylic airbrushed on. (Olove Drab, Khaki, and red brown mix).

I then did the wooden panels around the cockpit in the same mix but with a dash of black added to provide a contrast, as shown on the WnW instructions, as I rather like it.Then it was the metal areas, shown here masked off. They were sprayed black as an undercoat for the silver which followed,

 

I decided to spray the engine panels in a contrasting silver and used the spare fuselage half to make masks. Just lay tape on and cut out. Remove and apply to model.

 

like this;

 

the fltying surfaces have a thin PC10 wrap around. A lot of masking and a minutes spraying later, then peel off all the tape covering the CDL to give the wrap around.

 

Fuselage all unmasked now. Drat! my subtle toning of the oval engine panels is too subtle, it barely shows unless you catch the light. I might redo them. The darker panels around the cockpit came out well though.

 

 

Main part ready for assembly now. I'm thinking about how to tackle the rigging.

 

Couldn't resist dry fitting it together!

 

And of course I made my traditional muck up, by breaking the 2 port side cabane struts off! They are cyano'd back on though in the above picture.

 

Thanks for looking

 

John

 

[Viking]

On 5/11/2017 at 0:02 AM, Beardie said:

Just thought I would drop in a pic of the decals on my Camel. Partly to show how good they go down and partly as my latest attempt to post a photo on Britmodeller

 

 

Very Nice Marty, look forward to seeing it finished.

[Beardie]

Hi John, that is looking very tasty

Sorry to hear that you broke two cabane's. I have to say that was one of my biggest concerns on starting out on the kit being notoriously clumsy. I am extremely amazed that I have managed to get through initial assembly and only bent the forrard port cabane strut.

[Calum]

great work John. Do you have approx ratio's for the PC10 and CDL, or do you mix til it looks right to you?

[woody37]

Another masterpiece coming together John

[RNAS1916]

Hi Viking,

What width tape did you use on the rib masking, was it cut to size or ready made?

Cheers

[Beardie]

Well I have to report that, as of five minutes ago, the top wing is now on my camel.

 

Absolutely no drama whatsoever and no need for a jig. I glued the interplane struts into the lower wing a couple of hours ago. They did have a little play in them but I just set them as vertical as possible and lined up the bottom of the struts with the surface of the lower wing. I then gave them some time for the glue to go off then, placing the top wing with the underside  facing up, gently offered up the lower wing/fuselage assembly and everything just slotted together. Some of the struts needed a little push just to fully 'click' into place in the top wing, dab of extra thin glue to the junctions of the struts with the upper wing and that was it, all done.

 

Wingnut Wings are the most user friendly, well designed kits of any type that it has ever been my pleasure to build let alone the tricky wooden wonders of WWI!

 

The Sopwith Camel is well worth the wait, beautifully thought out, supremely detailed and all round excellent.

[thorfinn]

I have really enjoyed every step of your build so far. Truly inspiring work, and I love the stripes!

Great project!

[Beardie]

Hi Thorfinn,

 

I fear I have confused things a little, Viking's is the very nicely done model featured in the majority of this thread. I just dropped the picture of my own build of the stripy Naval 10 camel in to show off the quality of the Cartograf decals that Wingnut Wings supply. I, unfortunately can't take credit for Viking's excellent work in all the other pictures. I wish I could achieve such clean sharp work.

 

I will post some pics of the Hinchcliffe Naval 10 machine in a ready for inspection thread once I have got the rigging and final touches done though.

[thorfinn]

5 minutes ago, Beardie said:

Hi Thorfinn,

 

I fear I have confused things a little, Viking's is the very nicely done model featured in the majority of this thread. I just dropped the picture of my own build of the stripy Naval 10 camel in to show off the quality of the Cartograf decals that Wingnut Wings supply. I, unfortunately can't take credit for Viking's excellent work in all the other pictures. I wish I could achieve such clean sharp work.

 

I will post some pics of the Hinchcliffe Naval 10 machine in a ready for inspection thread once I have got the rigging and final touches done though.

 

No, I fear the confusion is entirely mine. Apologies separately to both of you for my wandering inattention---that's what I get for scrolling backward through posts after a long work day! (And genuine admiration for both your work.)

Cheers, and thanks for your patience. I'll go have a lie-down now....

[Beardie]

You are too kind sir. I would not claim to be on a par with John (Viking) when it comes to modelling skills and talent and I fear that the greater part of the credit for any excellence in my build is largely down to a beautifully engineered and well designed kit as the starting point. I cannot sing the praises of Wingnut WIngs kits highly enough. Previously I was a devotee of Eduard for World War one aircraft kits but there is absolutely no doubt that Wingnut WIngs knock them well and truly into a cocked hat.

[Beardie]

Well folks as John (Viking) said 'the more the merrier' I thought I would add another picture or two of my Camel build as Viking is a very busy man and says he won't be able to get much done on his this weekend so I hope you enjoy some images of this great kit coming together.

 

I should have the completed model in an RFI by the end of the Weekend or early in the coming week.

 

 

[Howlindawg]

That looks fantastic Marty.

That's the livery in intend to build too.

 

Looking at the pics I'm guessing that the blue is painted and the white stripes are decals?

[Beardie]

Why thank you for your kind comments Martin.

 

Yup all the white areas are the kit decals and the blue is Humbrol enamel 25 although the Blue is really a matter of personal choice. The kit decals are superb, easy to apply and connected together in groupings that go down easily and accurately although the one fly in the ointment is that the white isn't quite as opaque as I would like making touch ups a little tricky (I suffered a few fragments from the edges of the decals on the elevators flaking of during handling).

 

I have to say that it has been one of the most enjoyable bi-plane builds I have ever done.

[Viking]

Looking beautiful Marty! I see that you have mastered that awkward rigging on the 'bullet'.

She's certainly colourful!

 

Cheers

 

John

[Beardie]

Thanks John,

 

The bullet was actually a lot easier to drill out (while on the sprue) than I had thought it would be.

I can't deny I am tempted to do the Red/white and Black/white flight leaders aircraft as well now