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[Finished] Two Sopwiths and a Funeral...


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Guys, as my Duck has come to a rest due to some parts went into orkus, so I need something in between, until the parts will arrive. Or maybe more, as I'm afraid I've lost a bit of rhythm in the Duck build, due to some work issues and consequently long breaks, so maybe some pause from that will turn healthy.

 

As for this I will return a bit more on my homeground of WWI biplanes, and now it's for some classics as well. And I plan not to do only one, but two fishnets at once. Here's what's on the bench, waiting for some paint and glue:

 

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It's the Sopwith 1½ Strutter by Roden and the Sopwith Camel by Eduard in the Revell boxing, both in 1/48.

 

Well, can't be more classic, and as I usually try to get somewhat involved in history as well, I hope to double this with this build of two. (And yes, I hope to reduce the stash faster buy this. Let's see).

I don't (yet) plan to build some specific aces' machines, but rather generic ones, but concentrate on materials, and some details. Still not sure about turnbuckles, as I usually find these oversized in 1/48, but I have to order some pieces at Gaspatch, so this could have an effect on this decision.

 

Apart from the type/company and scale, there will not be to many similarities, the kits look rather different. Also I plan two different schemes, while the Strutter will receive a brownish scheme, the Camel will get more Olive Drab, with the cockpit panels most likely unpainted wood. Or so far's my thoughts on it.

 

As I'm not that much of an expert on Sopwiths, I definitely hope for your input and remarks. 🙂

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Initially I wanted to start with the Strutter, to work on the more easy bit, but found that the sprues need a wash - the paint just didn't stick, so I being the liberated husband I am, I made some dishwashing...

39659793wl.jpg

 

Yes, it's the one with the clear sprues - wouldn't have been my decision, but here we are.

 

A few things I know already to add on - the Eduard PE set, which wasn't included in the Revell kit

 

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and some resin wicker seats from Baracuda:


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Aren't these true gems? I think these are the pieces I waited for the longest time ever, almost half a year. I ordered them right after lockdown this spring, didn't receive any message or notice, and thought that the money was lost, when a few months later the postman handed me a parcel, which I totally forgot about. And here they are.

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Following with interest. I'm currently reading 'Sopwith, the Man and his Aircraft', an excellent book, and have recently purchased a Tabloid in 1/48. I'm hankering after a float plane though, the 1914 Schneider race winner is high on my list.

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5 minutes ago, Quiet Mike said:

Following with interest. I'm currently reading 'Sopwith, the Man and his Aircraft', an excellent book, and have recently purchased a Tabloid in 1/48. I'm hankering after a float plane though, the 1914 Schneider race winner is high on my list.

I thought about getting this very book as well, but mainly for research reasons, but the reviews claimed it's more about focusing on the life of Tomas Sopwith - just as the title implies - and less on planes. So I'm still after some good literature for sources.

 

There was a Schneider from Special Hobby, but currently they just have the Tabloid/Lebed. Which I am thinking about, but...

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Duelling above the trenches is probably the best aviation book I’ve read; it charts the history of Sopwith up to the Hawker switchover.


50263006978_db16861ded_c.jpg

 

I’ll follow along as I have the same Camel in WIP as well as a dolphin, a Snipe and a Swallow. ( I have a Pup, a Snark and a Triplane built, and a 1 1/2 Strutter and two camels( earmarked for conversions to a Comic and a Salamander)in the stash;  so yes a big Sopwith  fan :) .

Edited by Marklo
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Actually the revel kit is really nice. The spare upper decking is going onto my Swallow. 
 

if you’re looking for interesting schemes try Googling the uss Texas, I reckon I’ll finish my Camel in this scheme as ( you can see from the picture) I’ve quite enough PC 10 in the collection :) 

 

Started re reading Duelling above the Trenches as well :) 

Edited by Marklo
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Feels like I'm among frieds here - so many Camels on the workbenches... 🙂
 

On 10/16/2020 at 9:05 PM, Marklo said:

if you’re looking for interesting schemes try Googling the uss Texas, I reckon I’ll finish my Camel in this scheme as ( you can see from the picture) I’ve quite enough PC 10 in the collection :) 

 

Started re reading Duelling above the Trenches as well :) 

 

Also thanks for the recommendation on "Duelling..." - just ordered, I found one on the bay. Cheap, but the postage was almost double the price. I haven't really decided on the scheme, but the USS Texas definitely look nice. 🙂

But on to the build - I've worked on some parts on the Camel, and as it's Eduard, it's familiar homeground. I'd say in this class (one below WNW, but above ancients and stort runs) they pretty much defined the standard. Things go together easy, and one doesn't have to dig too deep into research and stuff, if he doesn't want do. 

 

So, expectingly, these went together quite fine:  

 

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At this place I must apologize for the poor quality of pictures, things so small are where my phone camera quits, and I was to lazy to get out the Camera with the Macro lens. Sorry, guys...

 

The engine will look quite good, I guess, once mounted and covered with the cowling, but here, just mounted on the bulkhead, the pushroads in silver metal look to prominent and shiny ( and I don't dare to work to much on them, as I think some are already close to breaking).

 

What did turn out quite nice was the dashboard, I painted it in some bland brown, covered it with Uschi's woodgrain decals, and soaked it in Micro Sol. I did some dry painting with dark grey, and then put on the decals for the dials. It's tiny, of course, but as these are separate it's ok, and definitely the better solution than one big decal. The dials did have a minor offset, but these almost dissappear when mounted.

 

39672956vg.jpg

I've just added some wire pieces for the cables, to add some life.

So, Eduard standard, it went together well. My guess is, with the Roden kit will be quite a different story...

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Just minor steps in the meantime, not really worth posting, so I thought I let a few thing gather.

 

Worked a bit on the interior pieces of the Camel, a few lines to add some structur in the inside and simulate the internal braces - after I managed to do so I found out I've made a mistake, as the bracing in the cockpit area would have been between each strut, not between each second strut, making the usual 45° angle like I know from the Albatrosses. But here it is so far, not sure if I leave it like that or redo it.

 

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What I worked on as well was the wicker seat, here's so far:

 

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Dryfitted to the body blanks:

 

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I think these really upgrade the interior, and painting was quite easy; just a dark brown, very thin base colour, and then some dry painting with the final colour in my case some Revell linen colour. I really can recommend these, just google for Barracuda wicker seats and you'll find them

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4 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

Might have to look out for those for some future WW1 models in the stash, too late for my Camel as fuselage closed up with lower wings added.  Nice work.

Chris

 

4 hours ago, Quiet Mike said:

Those little wicker seats look great!

 

Guys, I really can recommend these. I have another set of these in my stash, so I can throw them into the some say D.H.2 once I'm mad enough to do one. If you order some of these, better take a second one, as these are really reasonably priced and you won't pay more one logistics. 

I really like them.

Only trade-off is, they do the cushions only in 1/32 and correctly without a cushion the belts wouldn't be correct.

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Not really high adventures here, but some very minor grinding - but a lot of - to bring the main body bards for the next steps together. I was honestly a bit surprised how much work it required to get here, not really Eduard-like. Especially on some parts there was some more work to be done due to offset issues, than expected. I mean, I don't believe that Revell has lesser quality control than Eduard, so maybe just some bad luck.

 

And of course, nothing that can't be solved, but on these tiny parts it is a mayor thing.

 

But we're here, here's some dry-fitting:

 

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What needs some more action are the ammo ejector chute and the carb breather pipe, which simply are too short.

 

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I don't have fitting parts in my stash, so need to find these. Lucky enough I can concentrate on the Strutter in the meantime. 

@Marklo "Duelling..." has just arrived, many thanks for the recommendation. It blend perfectly into this build. 🙂

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Not really time for doing big things on the strutter, but starting to sort things. This will be not so much a straight build like the Camel's supposed to be - and we'll see, how straight it really will be - but leave more room for improvements.

 

One thing might be the cockpit, or the dashboard, to be more precise. It's a mere plastic board with some PE part you can glue on:


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I guess one could get this into something with some wood decals and some drypainting, but I'd like to try something else:

 

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I am very curious about these, and found myself having a bid of a dashboard fetish. I once tried this on the 1/32 Swordfish a while a go, but then sticked to the plastic piece provided with the kit, which turned out nice by my then standards. Let's see what i can do with these.

 

Btw I haven't found a proper dashboard layout of the Strutter, only from what looked like replikas with Cessna instruments mounted. Any ideas?

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Yesterday was a bit of a craze here in Vienna, as we are preparing for a new lockdown. It doens't concern me that much, as businesswise we can work pretty fine from home, but a few things hhad to be arranged and it was rather a busy day.

 

But I've managed to source pieces for the chute and the breather, and started with fitting the cartridge chute. The kit's hole needed to be widened a bit, but with Eduards soft plastic it was quite easy.

 

Looks better than the plastic part from the kit, I'd say.

 

39762914qu.jpg

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Just a few updates on the minor parts, which caused some more work than expected, and there's less time to get along. Also, as you might have noticed in the news, we had a rather emotional week over here in Vienna, and while I have not really been personally affected, I must admit I was not really in the right mood for our hobby, or literally anything else.

 

But then I found a bit of distraction could be useful, and worked more on the chute piece, which caused some fit issues. But with a bit of CA and a few attempts it went together:

 

39813266yj.jpg

 

Not that impressive, I know, but I hope this will add a bit more detail, and of course now it's long enough to protrude out of the fuselage.

 

The airbreather intake caused much less work, just to cut it into correct length, but hopefully will add as well.

 

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I know, doesn't look that impressive either. But I was lucky that my supplier here has tube almost in .10mm steps in stock. Always feel guilty that I just buy for some 5 to 10€ .  😉

 

 

 

 

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I thought it could make sense to paint the fuselage halves prior to closing them, so started with the cowlings, which I painted with Alclad Semi-Matte Aluminium. As base colour I used gloss black, and on top I added a layer of spots in glossy grey. I used Uschi van der Rosten Trinity pattern stencil, which looks rather good. 

 

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With my dying compressor I didn't manage to catch the very sweet spot and added a bit of too much Alclad, so the effect has turned very subtle, but it's still there (although can hardly been seen on pictures).

 

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I think I will finish with painting the fuselage halves before mounting it together. Hopefully continue soo on this.

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Managed to paint the fuselage halves over the weekend, but not to weld them together so far. With the additional pieces it will take some subtle, yet brute force, and will require some change to the plan.

 

But anyway, here's the body on some dry-fitting, and this will look like a Camel, once it's done.

 

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You might notice that the paint scheme takes shape, it's standard olive drab with the cowling, and metal and wooden shields on the body unpainted. So, it will be a rather generic Camel than a specific ace's plane, but I think I find this the most attractive.  

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And some slow steps done on the interior, which doesn't want to behave like a nice little kit should, but reacts rather unwilling to my attempts of scratchbuilding.

 

First, the bar on the instrument panel broke off in my attempts to mount it on the piece with the cartridge chute, so I bend it from some wire...

39844566hf.jpg

 

Not perfect, but can stand against the rather lumpy plastic piece.

 

Then, finally I quit in trying to mount the dashboard on the chute piece, as each time when trying to mount the fuselage halfes together, it broke off. So I added a little structure directly on the fuselage half and paln to mount it there.

 

Here you see it unpainted (the white "L"shape piece): 

 

39844625ux.jpg

 

 

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When in dry-ftting mode (this takes a lot of dry-fitting here), I've noticed that the seat sits very low in the fuselage, which looks not right.

39844638np.jpg

 

Not only it looks wrong, also the wicker seat disappears in the fuselage, and as this is such a cool piece I think I want to place it more prominently, so I think off adding some structure under it.

 

And, as I'm already fiddling around with some plastic...

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I had the same issue with the IP mounting to the shoot thingie too and ended up cutting them off short so it fitted as I did not have enough hands to hold everything together.   The metal bar also broke of too and did the same and bent some metal rod to fit.  

I am not bothered with the square shoots coming out of the inspection panel on this one, maybe on the next one a 2F1.

Chris

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5 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

I had the same issue with the IP mounting to the shoot thingie too and ended up cutting them off short so it fitted as I did not have enough hands to hold everything together.   The metal bar also broke of too and did the same and bent some metal rod to fit.  

I am not bothered with the square shoots coming out of the inspection panel on this one, maybe on the next one a 2F1.

Chris

 

3 hours ago, Marklo said:

If it’s any consolation the ip fell out of my triplane and I had a difficult time getting it back in place. Will pay extra attention when I get to that stage in my Camel and/or Comic.

Yep, the panel mount looks kinda interesting engineered, but not field tested. For now, the small angle seem to hepl, but don't dare to take photos. Wish me luck that it hardens overnight (will smear some CA around anyway. Just in case).  

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