1/32 Wingnut Wings Sopwith Snipe (Early)

[Procopius]

Interior rigging! Madness, Stew!

[Andwil]

Fabulous 👏

 

AW

[CedB]

Nice strap Stew  

Interior rigging, hmmm... will that be ever seen again?

[Stew Dapple]

On 8/26/2018 at 11:03 PM, Procopius said:

Interior rigging! Madness, Stew!

 

I did think long and hard about what sort of world I was building for myself in doing this. Then I remembered that you have the same kit and that if I did it, you would feel obliged to do the same  

 

5 hours ago, CedB said:

Nice strap Stew  

Interior rigging, hmmm... will that be ever seen again?

 

Not unless you were looking with almost gynecological intrusiveness, I would imagine  

 

Even in these early fighter aircraft, a level of co-ordination was required that would defeat most of us. With your left hand on the throttle and stick, your right hand on the stick and cocking the guns etc. as well as the multitude of other tasks required simply to keep the aircraft in the air, how do you play your zither? You have to play it with your feet! Look:

 

 

I meant to use a thinner grade of Infini thread for the control wires but I forgot that I meant to do that and before I knew it it was done. There's more cables too - the control column is similarly festooned:

 

 

That should be the end of it now, although if I am feeling strong enough in mind and body I might use the thinner Infini thread to wrap the hand-grip of the control column which in real life had string wrapped round it to improve the grip - this is moulded, but faintly, and if I re-thread it though it might be less scale-accurate it might look a bit more like it was intended...

 

In other news, the seatbelts have been successfully fitted.

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Procopius]

Just now, Stew Dapple said:

 

I did think long and hard about what sort of world I was building for myself in doing this. Then I remembered that you have the same kit and that if I did it, you would feel obliged to do the same  

That's exactly what I thought, in fact! "Dammit, Stew's done it, now I have to as well."

[CedB]

Stew Dapple... setting the standard... again  

Lovely stuff Stew!

[Andwil]

Fabulous work Stew 👏

 

AW

[Stew Dapple]

Thanks gents

 

Here is the end result of the seating arrangement:

 

 

I can't say unequivocally that the HGW fabric seatbelt set is worth it for two reasons; firstly I didn't attempt to use the WNW etched brass seatbelts so I can't really judge how they would have compared, and secondly I bought the HGW seatbelts some time ago and subsequently (and perhaps mercifully) forgot how much they cost so can't really make a value-for-money comparison either. My instinctive feeling though is that they were absolutely worth it,, 

 

As the eagle-eyed amongst us will already have noticed, bearing in mind the legendarily precise tolerances of WNW kits I have done my best to make sure there is no paint left on the connection points.

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[wimbledon99]

Not sure I've ever called a seat 'Stunning' but that's just what it is!!

[CedB]

Very nice Stew, those belts look the business  

[Stew Dapple]

Thanks gents  

 

I made some progress with the propeller; first the Service Grey areas were masked and I added some 1mm JammyDog tape to represent the laminated layers - on modern reproductions of the propellers there are eight laminated layers but I don't know if the original WW1 propellers had the same number - in any case my tape, my eyesight and my patience conspired to ensure I had no more than five layers:

 

 

There. See?

 

 

I used a slightly different mix of oils this time as I didn't want exactly the same colour as the interior wood parts:

 

 

I gave that a couple of days to dry and then removed the tape and added the second oil colour, with more Yellow Ochre in it:

 

 

Again, this was given a day to dry, then a couple of coats of Tamiya Clear Yellow and one of Clear Orange were applied before removing the masking:

 

 

... and finally painting the central boss in Vallejo Metal Colour Exhaust Manifold:

 

 

I'm currently fiddling with the interior parts, but I need to get a haircut so I have to pop out, hopefully I'll update later...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

That's very nice!

[Andwil]

That’s a proper prop!

 

AW

[wimbledon99]

Notes taken

[Stew Dapple]

Thanks gents  I have to admit that the Tamiya clear paint does a lot of the work for you.

 

I masked the stringers on the inside of the fuselage sides:

 

 

... and painted the inside of the fuselage with a lightish brown mix before removing the masking:

 

 

While I was waiting for that I did a test fit of the various cockpit components which, before I really knew it, resulted in this:

 

 

 

 

I'm pretty happy with how that turned out. I think I will have to remove a lot of paint from the mating surfaces, but I'll give it a test fit in the fuselage halves when they have dried off a bit to see what I can get away with. In the meantime I have a couple of Vickers MGs to build...  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Procopius]

Christ, that's gorgeous, Stew, and in essence a complete model in and of itself. 

[Beard]

57 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

I'm pretty happy with how that turned out.

I think you'd have every right to be extremely happy with how that turned out.

[Andwil]

That really is a thing of beauty!

 

AW

[CedB]

Bloomin' lovely Stew. Lamination on the props and painted stringers? Bloomin' lovely...  

[Robert Stuart]

On 02/09/2018 at 06:41, Procopius said:

Christ, that's gorgeous, Stew, and in essence a complete model in and of itself. 

What he said ^^

[wimbledon99]

Ditto all of above

[Stew Dapple]

Thanks very much gents

 

The guns were assembled and the photo-etched parts added; the barrel ends were fine but I had a lot of grief from the cocking handles, more in fact than I have had with the whole rest of the kit put together. I must have bent them several times and knocked them off completely at least four times... anyway, they were then sprayed with Tyre Black:

 

 

There was no particular reason for choosing tyre black over pure black, except that I don't have any pure black in the paint store. Once that had a day to dry, I brush-painted the guns with Vallejo Metal Colour Exhaust Manifold:

 

 

The instructions advise that you join the guns with the cartridge supply chute at this stage, but I felt there was a bit too much flexibility there which might have led to the guns pointing in slightly different directions, so I attached them to the mounting frame instead which ensured conformity:

 

 

I felt they were still a bit shiny and new-looking so I gave them a wash of Citadel Nuln Oil:

 

 

I attached the frame and guns, and added the compass and airspeed indicator:

 

 

Then, as advised earlier, I scraped paint off all the mating surfaces so I should get a good close fit, and fitted the firewall:

 

 

Then I did a test fit of the fuselage halves:

 

 

... and the upper decking:

 

 

As discussed earlier, most of the cockpit interior detail is now invisible. Quite a few of the parts aren't actually glued in there, the fit is good enough that most parts just click into place and I have left them unglued where I deemed it safe to do so, as from time to time you find a part where the fit doesn't seem to be that good, but if you wiggle it (just a little bit) they will suddenly click together and stay there. I've still got to add the exhaust blanks and drill a couple of holes in the fuselage for the tail-skid steering cables (I know, I didn't even know it was steerable, I thought it just dragged behind on a caster). Once that is done I can join up the fuselage and fix the decking permanently. I feel masking and painting will be a tricky business...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Beard]

Lovely stuff Stew. WNW kits look rather lovely and you're doing a splendid job.

[wimbledon99]

All that magnificent work hidden away!!

[CedB]

Lovely work Stew, as usual - those guns look very realistic