LVG C.VI "The Duellists" (Part 2) - 1:32 Wingnut Wings. Finished!

[Viking]

LVG C.VI  "The Duellists" (Part 2)

1:32 Wingnut Wings

 

 

This is the Wingnut Wings boxing of the Sopwith Camel and LVG C.VI double kit, depicting an actual event that took place in the Great War. LVG C.VI 7243/18 piloted by Sgt. Greyer with Lt. Köhnke as observer, was shot down and captured, By Harold Norman Kerr in Camel E7190, and Vincent Harry Thornton in Camel E7241.

An in box review is here.

 

I have already built the Camel and created a WIP thread Sopwith F.1 Camel "The Duellists" (Part 1) - 1:32 Wingnut Wings

With Ready for Inspection thread Here.

 

Now thats all out of the way we can get on with the WIP for the LVG!

 

First up was to remove all the fuselage parts that required painting in natural wood, plus all the fittings. They were primed in Halfords grey, followed by an airbrushed  coat of Tamiya 'Decak tan' as a base.

 

Then the woodgrain was appied by brush using Griffin Alkyd quick drying artists oils (the tube kind). I use Raw Sienna, Light Red, and Burnt Umber mixed in various proportions to give different tones. Raw Sienna is the lightest, Burnt Umber the darkest. By blending you can get a huge range of tones.

 

 

 

The Wingnut Wings decals give you all the instruments, completely readable, even the tiny little dials on the radio set.

 

Unusually the fuselage goes together before the completed cockpit unit is inserted. It is a very tight fit but can be eased in

 

The cockpit unit. I anly added a couple of pulleys for the rudder cables, (the round black units in the front corners) as I rigged all the control wires and it didn't make sense without some sort of pulleys for them. This is one of Wingnuts very first kits, and I doubt a detail like this would be omitted on any of their subsequent models.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up was the engine. 2 sets of cylinder mouldings are provided. The kit tells you to use those with pushrods moulded on. But there is also a set without them and I opted to use those, and add my own pushrods from wire, for a better appearance. These are the 'moulded on' ones that I elected not to use;

 

The pushrods I added are the red wire seen below. I also decided to wire up the ignition, with fine copper wire. The magnetos were done first with more length than needed so that I can trim to fit later. The plug leads go through some flat tapered tubes along the cylinders, shown in photos of the real engine in the instructions. None are in the kit but they are simply fabricated from plasticard, and plug leads attached, aslo from copper wire.

 

I left the cylinders & crankcase separate, as the cylinders will be black and the crankcase natural metal and it eases the painting. Might as well do the gun, oil tank and inlets whilst preparing all these parts.

 

It all needs painting now!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

[Crossofiron1971]

Fantastic Work there sir!

[Viking]

Some more progress to show. Engine components now have basic painting done;

 

Meanwhile the wings need the lozenge decals applying, top and bottom. It is essential to paint the parts as the decals need a to bite into something, and bare palstic will not do. I always use pale blue for the underside and dark green for the uppers. Ther shouldn't be any scratches or tears in the decals when you are finished, but if there are these are appropriate colours that will blend and hide any blemishes. There are some panels on the undersides that need to be grey-green, so I sprayed them at the same time. there is no need to be too neat!

 

The dceals are in strips and need cutting out and applying chordwise, just like the real fabric covering. The lozenge pattern is directional as shown in the instructions.

 

Decaling under way. Cut strips to fit, I usually apply 2 at a time and leave it 24 hours. This is a slow process!

 

almost there, just cut out sections to fit on the wingtips.

 

Ailerons and elevators need sections cut out and applied, the pattern on these is spanwise.

Back to the fuselage. I have to deviate from the insructions here as I need the cockpit coaming areas left clear of obstructions, as I am going to cover the entire fuselage with woodgrain decal. You are supposed to fit the machine gun and cabane struts and then put the cockpit coaming section on. Dry fitting it all suggested it will be ok to attach them later, and also it should be ok to put the engine in later. So on went the coaming section, with the only bit of filler used so far, where it joins the fuselage half way down.  All holes were blocked up either with blu-tack or Tamiya tape, before a coat of Halfords grey plastic primer was sprayed on.

 

this was smoothed off with superfine wire wool. Tamiy XF-57 Buff was then airbrushed on as a base colour for the wood finish.

 

All the 'metal' fittings need to be painted in Grey-Green, which I brush painted with Citadel 'Death World Forest'.

 

 

The fuselage will be covered with Uschi van der Rosten woodgrain decal, wich comes as 2 A5 sheets per pack.

 

The most difficult part is going to be the observer/gunners opening which has compound curves all around it. It's going to a tough call for the flat decal sheet to go all around it. For this reason I will do it first, and if it doesn't work I will paint this section and use the decals on the rest of the fuselage. To get some idea of what shape I need, I applied tape to the fuslage all around the gunners opening, and trimmed it to conform to the panel. Pelling it off and flatting it out on card, I got a template to cut the decal sheet with.

 

Decal cout out.

 

I have no photos, but the above decal didn't work as it was too big and split in several places whilst I tried to apply and position it.

So I cut the template in half and tried doing it one side at a time. It was still difficult, but worked much better. Ther are some micro-wrinkles in it, but I'm happy with the result. I put this side on last night,......

 

......and did the other side this morning

 

I'll call that a success, but it wasn't easy. The decal is very thin and tears easily. You need to work quickly with it and not move it around too much. Once in poisition I applied microsol red to help it all settle. The compound curves, which the woodgrain decal has done well to cope with;

 

Next up, the second most awkward decal, around the front cockpit! I cut out a rough shape.

 

That was a lot easier, and went ok. All the other panels will be simple after these two.

With the fuselage being coverd in woodgrain decal. and the flying surfaces in lozenge, almost 100% of this model is covered with decals!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Wow!  

[stringbag]

Stunning work as usual John.

Really enjoy watching you build these kits. 

 

Chris.

[Viking]

With the two most difficult part of the wood grain decal applied, it was time to move on to doing the rest of the fuselage, panel by panel. I used both the 'pale' and the 'rich' decals to provide a bit of contrast. In reality the whole fuselage would have been varnished and the tonal variations maybe not so obvious. On the model it is fairly subtle though, and I like the effect.

One thing to note is that any overlap on the decal instantly produces an obvious darker tone, see the overlap below (which I moved/realigned  as soon as the photo was done);

I cut each panel so that one edge butts up to the previous panel, and also the top. That leaves the bottom and right hand edge to be trimmed along the panel line. I give the decal 5 minutes to ‘bite’ and press it down with a clean cloth, and the carefully trim it with a new blade. Top and bottom of the fuselage are done first, and then the sides. I do no more than 2 panels a time and leave them to dry. Otherwise I am certain to stick my fingers on one I have just done and ruin it. Meanwhile I can get on with lozenging the upper surfaces of the wings, again a couple of strips at a time. You need to like decaling when building one of these!

 

With the fuselage completely ‘wood grained’ it is time to apply the edge trims.  These are on the Wingnuts decal sheet and represent long strips of linen cloth doped along all four corners of the fuselage. They are tricky to do as the thin strips only want to lay flat along one edge and not bend over the corner. I therefore lined them up on one, left it for 30 minutes and the applied microsol red and pressed the other edge down with a clean cloth. This has been a lot of work but I am very pleased with the outcome.  The whole lot the had a couple of coats of Johnsons Kleer to protect it.

 

 

In between working on this I finished the engine off. The plug lead channels were attached, and each lead run out to its spark plug and cyano’d on. Likewise the magnetos were fixed in place and led up to the entry of the lead channels and cyano‘d on to give the impression that they enter them. These wires and lead channels are the only addition I made to the kit engine.

 

 

 

A few more shots of things dry fitted together, because I cant resist seeing how it is all going to look.  Some of the individual hatches and inspection covers are now on, covering the holes seen below. Decalling of the wings is still not finished, I now need to apply rib tapes top and bottom along each rib. I’ve made a start and done a few.

 

 

 

 

 

Almost the entire outer surfaces of this model are covered in decal of one sort or another, the overall effect is very pleasing, and all credit is due to Wingnut Wings for such beautifully engineered and produced kits.

I think I am going to finish this in a fairly clean and minimally weathered condition. The absence of any unit markings on it suggest that it was newly delivered and pressed into service imeediately before it was shot down and captured.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

I say bravo i want to do a few ww1 kits but i think i will stick to painting. those decals and your work are super impressive. But im not sure i have that much patience. 

[stringbag]

Bloody 'ell!!!!!

Superb John.

 

Chris.

[Bigdave22014]

I'm building an Eduard Albatross D111, but painted the wood graining on the outside. Wish I'd got the transfers now .

Excellent build

[redcap]

Bloody Brilliant!

 

Gary

[Viking]

Thank you chaps!

 

Progress is slow, partly because it takes ages to get much done, and partly because I have had technical issues and had to buy a new laptop and set it all up. (Not to mention the great Photobucket issue!)

Anyway, undercarriage parts are all prepared and painted along with cabane struts and upper wing centre section/radiator;

And then fitted & rigged. stencil & eisenkruez markings were applied as well.

I'm leaving the rudder & elevator off for now, I'll only knock them off while fitting the wings.

 

 

 

 

 

The wings are still receiving rib tapes, but will soon be ready for fitting.

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

 

 

[bertrande2c]

Excellent work so far, probably the best LVG I've ever seen ! Decal job is amazing !

 

Bertrand

[melvyn hiscock]

On 25/06/2017 at 3:22 PM, Viking said:

The most difficult part is going to be the observer/gunners opening which has compound curves all around it. It's going to a tough call for the flat decal sheet to go all around it.

You should try making the real thing!

[ad70]

Just immaculate, I have just started the same Duellist build as well and going with the LVG first, I also have the Uschi wood grain decals on order as well as Aviattic for the fabric parts. Will be following your progress with interest.

 

Regards. Andy

[woody37]

Wow, just caught up with this, absolutely stunning John.

[Viking]

Thanks again for the comments guys!

 

Progress is slow but steady, the wings are now lozengend & rib tapes on, all except the top surface of the top wing. I noticed after this picture was taken that the very inner sections of the lower wings have a grey/green panel on them. so sprayed some decal sheet and cut out the required shapes & applied them.

 

Wheels are now fitted, ready fro the lower wings to go on.

 

I prepared all the struts and kept them in numbered bags to ensure I got the right ones in the right place.

 

The struts were glued into the lower wings, along with lengths of 4lb Maxima Chameleon fishing line, into pre drilled holes. It is much easier to do them before the top wing is on.

The whole was the flipped upside down with the top wing push fitted in (not glued) and the upper ends of the struts pushed into their locating holes in the top wing (again not glued yet) to ensure they dried in the correct position. It was left like this for 24 hours for the lower wing & struts to dry.

 

 

After 24 hours, turned over and the top wings removed. Notice the lower wings are sagging due to their weight. All will be ok when the top wing & struts are glued on & the whole becomes a strong unit

A view of all the rigging lines glued in

 

Top wing & struts now glued and set. The rigging lines are threaded with turnbuckles made from 'stretched sprue' cotton bud tubing, threaded up through pre drilled holes right through the top wing, secured with cyano.

 

Looks yucky, but makesa good strong join and allows you to pull the lines tight. The excess will be trimmed off.

 

This is why I don't lozenge the wings yet.

 

 

Turnbuckles are just floating free on the lines at the moment, they will be pushed to the ends and secured with a drop of white glue later.

 

Note the lower wing has stopped sagging and the whole unit is now a strong accurately lined up 'cell', especially with the rigging adding strength to it all. Just like the real thing!

 

The cotton bud tubing, heated & stretched over a candle flame & painted. Short sections are trimmed off to make the turnbuckles.

 

Ends trimmed off, excess cyano sanded off flush, and white milliput placed over each hole. When hardened tomorrow I will sand the milliput down to make everything tidy, and respray the dark green ready to start another round of lozenge decalling & rib tapes.

 

 

There is a lot of work here, but I am enjoying every minute of it. I'm glad I left the rudder & elevator off as I managed to whack the back end and knock the tailskid off.  There is so much twisting & turning and weilding the thing around the workbench whilst rigging, that experience has taught me to leave the vulnerable bits off.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

John

 

[matteo44]

[Beardie]

Beautiful work as ever John. Taking notes for when I tackle this beastie

[John Masters]

Pretty much amazing.  

[Viking]

Well the LVG is finally finished, these were the final steps.

 

With the top wing rigging exit holes made good, it was resprayed dark green and coated with Johnsons Kleer, ready for the lozenge decals.

 

 

Strip by strip they went on.

 

Followed by the individual rib tapes.

 

Until all were done. In this picture I have attached the elevator, and connected the control wires to the horns, ready to lead into the exit holes on the fuselage sides.

 

Next up was the rudder, which similarly had the control wires attached to the horns. A short length of stretched cotton bud tubing represents the connector/turnbuckle.

 

And then all was ready for a final coat of Humbrol semi gloss varnish, airbrushed on, and she was finished!

 

 

More pictures in Ready For Inspection

 

This has been a hugely enjoyable project due to Wingnut Wings outstanding kits.  The interest has been greatly enhanced by the backstory to both the LVG and Camel, who met on  the morning of 9th October 1918.

The LVG has been a long and meticulous build, mainly down to my use of the Uschi Van Der Rosten woodgrain decal, followed by a lot of lozenge decal and rib tapes. I fell the effort has been worth it though, as I don't know of a better way to achieve this particularly complex finish.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[redcap]

A Masterclass in WW1 modelling. Just superb in all respects.

 

Gary

[Beardie]

I have to agree with Gary. You really give a certain 'polish' to your builds Mine, like me, are scruffy and rough around the edges

[Meteor74]

Absolutely gorgeous ! I am constantly in awe of modellers who can produce work of this standard. Very well done 

 

Gary.

[woody37]

Wow, 

 

you should display all your Wingnut builds together John, they'd be quite a site. Stunning modelling