[Finished] Two Sopwiths and a Funeral...

[bertielissie]

Lovely work ---and all in 1/72nd scale. So impressed and envious.

[Chief Cohiba]

7 hours ago, bertielissie said:

all in 1/72nd scale. So impressed and envious

Well thank you sir!

 

But there's no reason to be - it's 1/48. I can't imagine doing this in 1/72, as I consider even this almost to small handle with my shaking hands.

 

Oh, the cat's in full size - some say oversize, but that depends of the perspective...

[Chief Cohiba]

Continuing on mounting the upper wing, and fixing the inner struts.

 

Struts are in place and glued in with CA, currently waiting to let this thoroughly dry. Releasing it from the Blue Tac might need some force.

 

 

 

[Chief Cohiba]

There is some room for improvement - when trying to release the struts from the jig, the blue tack proved to be stronger than CA (and the manual forces necessary to remove), so they snapped off. Whatta shy*~§%*!

 

I managed to save three of the four struts, but for the fourth I need to do some magic with spells I don't know yet.

 

 

Ooomph!

[Brandy]

I'm sure you'll find your magic spell!

 

Ian

[Chief Cohiba]

26 minutes ago, Brandy said:

I'm sure you'll find your magic spell!

Thanks for you optimism, which I can't share at this moment. But I was more involved in splatterin CA around the place (or plane, to be a bit precise), and didn't dig into Harry Potter for advice. Maybe I should do some "Glueamus Upawingus", or how did that go?

[Chief Cohiba]

Guys, sometimes one has to know when something is doomed - and if it's doomed to die, then there's no reason to go on forever.

 

So, I declare the Camel dead. ⚰️

 

Not only haven't I been able to mount more than five struts at a time, before another snapped off - it also fell off the jig when one of the rigging wires stuck to a tweezer, stained with some CA leftover. I will spare you the disturbing pictures.

 

Honestly, playing this game for two days doesn't only seriously question one's modelling skills, it also started to make my mood go down more than a hobby should do. This was frustrating and I want to end it. Maybe I give the new tooling a chance once, but this one: Farewell!

 

Here's what left from it, and I raise a glass it's ended.

 

 

So, I finish the Strutter, which looks promising, and forget about this nightmare.

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Discretion being the better part of valour, that's probably a wise, if unwelcome, decision. After all, this is a hobby and is supposed to be fun!

 

Ian

[roginoz]

Just waded all the way through all 6 pages of your double builds, @Chief Cohiba, thinking what a great job you were making of them both, especially the Roden[t] kit which I've sworn never to build.

 

Lo 'n' behold......a deceased Camel !! What a sad ending to such a potentially optimistic result. 

 

I share your pain, but have to remind myself, when things go badly wrong, that life is too short to lose sleep over bits of plastic.

 

Onwards and upwards with the Strutter !

 

Rog

[Chief Cohiba]

23 hours ago, Brandy said:

After all, this is a hobby and is supposed to be fun!

 

3 hours ago, roginoz said:

t life is too short to lose sleep over bits of plastic

Guys, many thanks for your encouraging words, it helped. What is even more frustrating, that I can't blame no-one except myself for this failure. Neither is this kit poorly engineered, nor haven't I been in this situation before. I have no real explanation why this failed, my guess is that the CA just didn't stick on the overly painted plastic, I don't know.

 

Anyway, while honestly this did damper my mood a bit yesterday, I managed to drag myself to the bench today and work on the Strutter.

 

Working on the Rigging, and in the mid to final part of it it does look a bit weird:

 

[Chief Cohiba]

So, rigging done - a few mishaps, and one mustn't look too close on some spots, but hey, here it stands:

 

 

There's just a few finalising things to do on the prop and doing the wheels, but nothing where I expect mayor issues.

 

But anyway, wish me luck! 😉

[TempestV]

On 3/21/2022 at 10:40 AM, Chief Cohiba said:

 

1 dy Chief Cohiba changed the title to Two Sopwiths and a Funeral...

 

Maybe Richard Curtis will make a film about your woes...

[Chief Cohiba]

1 hour ago, TempestV said:

Richard Curtis will make a film about your woes...

I guess he did, in a way; take a confused, young man (which I was way back then, though by far not that handsome) and replace the ladies with models, and watch the leading man mess things up. Here we go... 😆

[Chief Cohiba]

And propeller, wheels and tyres in the making.

 

 

The tyres are in a reddish grey, and the spoke wheels are glossy black, which I spotted on some vintage pictures. 

[Chief Cohiba]

Final parts are mounted.

 

 

Which means, I call this build finished.

 

Here's a few more, last impressions from the workbench:

 

 

 

 

 

It's far from being perfect, but I'm rather happy with the result. While the Roden Kit was a rather sure bet to fall out, it was at some points a surprisingly enjoyable build and this definitely is a solid base for after market parts.

[Chief Cohiba]

A few words as a retro on this rather long build, being only partly sucessful, before I move it over to RFI. 

 

It's been one of the longest builds I had (excluding those with a year long break and restart after, of which I had some), and I lost the fun several times here. This has been partly due to me lacking some skills, which resulted in the demise of the Camel in the final steps of this build. I thought something about making a few tools for the more repetitive steps in this, like mounting the upper wing, or making a template for painting the stripes on the propeller. We'll see, but I will make out a call once I'm closer to this. I also thought about starting learning some 3D modelling/CAD, given the rise of 3D printers in the last years. I had some trainings on CATIA some years ago (around 20, so a lot is lost), but at least this should work as a foundation.  

 

But it's main reason for being so bumpy was more the idea of making this a double build - I guess it was simply to much for my rather limited budget in time and brain capacity, which resulted in to many breaks and ramp ups. See, I started a small IT company a few years ago with some friends, and lucky us it runs fine, but resources are limited, and of course there's also family live, which has to have priorities. And my wife is very supportive - I have to thank her for that.

 

I really love modelling, as it helps to shift my mind from daily work to issues of lesser importance, so to say, and of course I love it to look at my small collection of planes, getting slowly more. But, I have to adapt to what I'm able to deliver, not to loose the fun of it. So, I promised myself to keep it simple the next few builds, sticking to rather simple or at least well engineered, issue-less builds to regain the Mojo. So, when I look to my stash, it's sorry, you lovely Amodel short-run flying boats, you have to wait a bit. Also, you wonderful Matchbox Stranraers and Do-18s, with all your scribing, riveting, and scratchbuilding - we see each other. But not now. 

 

I'm thinking of some easy, yet rewarding kit as a next, we'll see. There's a Saab 29, which shouldn't be too much of an issue, or maybe continue with the F104? I also might do a car as a follow up - we'll see.

 

But for now, I call this finished, and am rather happy so! Thanks for your support and interest in following this, this is really what helps to keep interest in our hobby sometimes.

 

All the best from Vienna, and see you soon!

 

Guenther