Scratchbuilt 1/144 Armstrong Whitworth Wolf - Finished!

[Jonners]

A small forest of struts has sprung from the Wolf's lower wing, carved and sanded from cocktail sticks:

 

 

I find that cocktail stick wood is very strong, rigid and hard enough to shape nicely.  I've also removed the naff stretched-sprue cockpit rim and used solder instead, following the excellent advice offered by John the Master. It's overscale, more suited to 1/72, but I couldn't find anything thinner.

 

I couldn't resist a quick trial-fit of the upper wing - only resting on the struts, they aren't slotted into their respective upper wing holes yet - and it's starting to look the part:

 

 

 

I'll probably have to paint the fuselage prior to fitting the upper wing and cabane struts, otherwise masking the black section will be nigh well impossible.

 

Time to stop for today, before things start going wrong!

 

Jon

[Jonners]

Slowly but surely:

 

 

The wheels and the cabane struts in front of the cockpit will be next.

 

The wing riblets aren't as manky as I had expected they would be:

 

 

 

Purists look away now. The overscale cockpit 'padding' has changed the shape of the cockpit opening, making it too small. I considered removing the solder and searching for something narrower to replace it, but decided to live with it instead. Tough. The base of the gunner's Scarff ring is also overscale, but it is also staying:

 

 

And one more:

 

 

Jon

[Jonners]

Correction to my last: wheels and cabane struts will be nearly next. I couldn't resist adding a bit of colour:

 

 

The small tear at the edge of the starboard upper roundel will get touched up later.

 

Jon

[Learstang]

That is some remarkable scratchbuilding work there!

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[John Aero]

Jonners, You're now going to spit feathers, as I've been into my bits boxes and there is a much superior material for cockpit coamings than even copper wire. It's sold in Fishing/angling shops. It's a dense soft lead replacement solder like material sold on small reels and it comes in different thicknesses or gauges. It's also good for fuel lines.  For future reference🙂

 

The Lupe is coming along nicely.

 

John

[Jonners]

1 hour ago, Learstang said:

That is some remarkable scratchbuilding work there!

Thanks Jason, but it looks remarkably shabby compared with some of the scratchbuilding craftsmanship seen elsewhere on BM! I think I've said it before, but if it was an R/C model it would be called 'sports scale'...

1 hour ago, John Aero said:

Jonners, You're now going to spit feathers

No feather-spitting here, John, just appreciation for all the top tips from fellow BM'ers. There's a fishing section in my local haberdashery store (do we still have those?) so I'll have a look next time I'm in there or, failing that, I'll find a local angling shop. It will definitely come in handy for my next project!

Jon

[Andwil]

Looking good.  Now you’ll have to build, if you haven’t already, a Westland Wallace.

 

AW

[Britman]

Jon , I do not think you should be concerned about your next subject as these little beauties seem to be getting better with each build. What I find refreshing is the "model making" rather than kit assembly. 

 

Keith 

[Jonners]

2 hours ago, Britman said:

Jon , I do not think you should be concerned about your next subject as these little beauties seem to be getting better with each build. What I find refreshing is the "model making" rather than kit assembly. 

 

Keith 

Thanks Keith, those are very kind words. I'm thoroughly enjoying the change from injection-moulded kits, as well as not feeling that I should be obsessing over detail (or complete accuracy, to be completely honest!). This is also a great way of trying out new materials and techniques.

 

The Wolf is finally standing on its own scratchbuilt wheels. I think I need to work on my wheel-and-tyre scratchbuilding as they aren't great, and I'm having a bit of difficulty getting a neat paint demarcation between wheel and tyre. More touching up is required. I've also replaced the too-thick gun mounting ring with finer wire, which I've just realised isn't visible in this photo:

 

 

The rudder is being painted in the background, and the cabane struts are next on the list. If nothing snaps or breaks off it will then be time for rigging! Prop blades will be the last task.

Jon

[Brandy]

Lovely work on the struts etc, I couldn't even begin to do that in this scale. For cockpit coaming I use Mr Dissolved Putty. Apply with a brush and as it starts to go off it can be teased into shape. You can make it as thick or thin as you like.

 

Ian

[Marklo]

I love the build so far. this is exactly the reason I come to Britmoddeller, it's to see model making not kit assembling (no disrespect to those who are happy to do this btw, I enjoy kits too and sometimes a straight OOB build can be therapeutic and I've also  seen some impressive kit building here too)

 

For wheels I make disks and rings and laminate them together, and then either mold a center cone or use the dremel  (knock off) to turn  a centre from disks into a conical shape. 

 

Here you can see the glued blanks and the molded centres that I used on my Depredussin, granted a bit bigger as it's 1/32 scale.

 

The finished article (the wheels not the Dep )

 

This was the set for the Pup in 1/48 with turned centres.

 

Also was thinking about your cockpit coming, I use heatshrink slitted with a sharp knife and glued in place  I have .75mm that I bought off ebay. You might be able to achieve the same effect with the plastic coating stripped off an electrical wire.

 

You can just see the coming here it's .75mm heatshrink painted in brown. For your chosen scale you may need to find .5of finer.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Marklo
added extra stuff

[Marklo]

Now that I think of it on my current build the Gloster Gamecock I've gone done the road of using a donor kit, in this case a SMER Bulldog from which I've taken the wheels, undercarriage, seat and upper wing, all heavily modified (except the wheels) and used a resin engine. For my next magnificent octopus (Blackadder reference there a Pfalz triplane I've tried an all turned wheel,  and may end up buying a resin Siemens Halske engine, because I found that scratching the a radial  engine  for the Pup even in 1/48 (don't know how you managed to hold on to your sanity in 1/144 ) was just too painful, whereas the gamecock engine was still a lot of work but  mounting the resin part was easier and  much more enjoyable,  so many and multiple variations possible.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Marklo

[John Aero]

Look at the wheels on my Moth in the Gipsy Moth thread. These are rubber O rings on (in this case) metal cast wheels. If there is not a suitable O ring in the size you want, then you can buy circular section strip O ring rubber of various thicknesses and glue it together with super glue. It's dead easy just cut a strip and join the ends with cyano for an instant bond. The centres can be made up of three plasticard discs with the centre disc a little smaller in diameter. The outer disc can be thicker so that it can be turned down in a drill to a cone.. When I'm making wheels which require turning I drill the centre to a suitable brass tube size but about an inch long. super glue the wheel to the tube at one end. Stick the long end in the chuck and turn to suit. Remove from the chuck and then use a fine saw to trim off the wheel. this gives you a nice concentric hole to mount on any axle. Albion Alloys have every size tube you might need.

 

John

PS forgot to say that if you join strip rubber just sand down the joint as normal. The join just disappears.

[Jonners]

Thanks for the top tips, gents. Lots of food for thought.

 

The masochism of 1/144 rigging has begun, with an appropriate 'toolkit':

 

 

I don't normally wear glasses, but I couldn't do this without the readers!

 

Only a small amount done so far:

 

 

I'm awaiting the delivery of some clear decal sheet to help with the serial numbers.

 

As the Wolf is nearly finished, I've made a gentle start on another 'first' for me:

 

 

The idea of a vacform seems much less daunting than it used to!

 

Jon

 

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by Jonners

[AdrianMF]

It certainly comes alive when you add the roundels and the rudder striping! The wing rigging looks really good too under a coat of paint.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Marklo]

The Wolf looks really good, the rigging really finishes it.

 

Ooh I love the Snipe, possibly my favorite, Sopwith ( although I have started on some preliminary work for my Snark) still looking for one in 1/48. 1/72,s going to seem huge to you will enjoy seeing it come together, what colour scheme are you looking at? As the Snipe straddles the WWI interwar period there is actually quite a range of possibilities.

[Jonners]

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

It certainly comes alive when you add the roundels and the rudder striping! The wing rigging looks really good too under a coat of paint.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks, Adrian. I really like the contrast between the silver and the national markings.

 

9 minutes ago, Marklo said:

The Wolf looks really good, the rigging really finishes it.

 

Ooh I love the Snipe, possibly my favorite, Sopwith ( although I have started on some preliminary work for my Snark) still looking for one in 1/48. 1/72,s going to seem huge to you will enjoy seeing it come together, what colour scheme are you looking at? As the Snipe straddles the WWI interwar period there is actually quite a range of possibilities.

 

Yup, a 1/72 Sopwith suddenly doesn't seem as tiny as it used to!  Here's a quick snap:

 

 

That's it for rigging for tonight. My eyes ache (again!) and, at this time of the evening, I'll be in trouble if I hide away for much longer!

 

 

[Jonners]

Righto, this is as finished as it's going to be:

 

 

The prop is once again carved from a cocktail stick, and I printed the serial number on my inkjet printer. It's as close as I could get to the unusual font used on the original.

 

 

I haven't yet got round to finishing the small display base, hence the plain grey:

 

 

 

And the usual one for luck:

 

 

The props don't really look that garish; it's just the effect of the desklight! Once again, though, I'll tone them down a bit anyway.

 

Thanks for all the great ideas that have accompanied this thread; they will all come in handy. As for my next one, I'm thinking Bristol Berkeley...

 

Jon

[Andwil]

I’m amazed at how much detail you can achieve in something so tiny.  👏 The match really puts this microscopic beauty into perspective.

 

AW