28 Sqn Westland Wapiti (1/48) scratch 'n' print

[John Masters]

I am excited to see this one...

[Max Headroom]

I’m stunned. This 3D printing wizardry is beyond this ‘umble kit basher’s ken. If I were you, I’d see if this could be used commercially either by you or licensing it to a kit maker as I’m sure there is a market for this.

 

My brane struggles with basic concepts such as pronunciation. ‘Wapiti’……waaaapeeeteee? Woppity?

 

Trevor

[Terry1954]

Re the colours, I can't offer much other than to observe that several similar artworks are out there, and to me the struts look distinctly black, but it's artwork and open to the artists interpretation of things. Any contemporary artists would perhaps have painted true to what they saw at the time, but it's hard to judge the source of many of these paintings.

 

Not much help, sorry!

 

Terry

[Dave Swindell]

13 minutes ago, Max Headroom said:

My brane struggles with basic concepts such as pronunciation. ‘Wapiti’……waaaapeeeteee? Woppity?

Allegedly referred to as the Westland What A Pity.... 

[Terry1954]

Contradicting my earlier remarks above re black struts, I found this series of four pictures of a scratch built Wapiti that seems to be based on the aircraft in your picture Alan. The modeller may have had some insight to the strut/top decking colours, which is more in line with what @perdu is suggesting....

 

http://osmaniac.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-best-westland-wapiti-indian-scale.html

 

Who knows........?

 

Terry

[hendie]

On 10/4/2021 at 12:25 PM, dogsbody said:

About all I have on Wapiti colours is this Granger drawing.

 

<snip>

 

Chris

 

'doh!   Thanks Chris - I should have thought to have looked at that.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 12:53 PM, perdu said:

I am trying not to throw any more opinion suggestions now Hendie but I agree with you re the struts, they don't to my eye, have the harsh darkness of black paint, that dark finish looks far more 'like' a Darkish Green.

 

Must add that nice as it is the artists impression of the Wapiti in flight has serious, er shall I say, inconsistencies to the photowapiti below it.

 

A new interpretation of the under nose panel amongst others...

 

NIco it is then Bill - thanks for the confirmation

 

On 10/4/2021 at 1:38 PM, Brandy said:

Good luck with the compressor 

 issues. Mine has a tank, but runs all the time since I got here, never seeming to get up to pressure. I'm thinking of replacing it too, but it's not that old!

As for Waptiti, she looks great in grey. No idea on the colours, but I do know that NIVO was developed for, and  used on, WWI night bombers so I'd be surprised if that was the colour. 

Stranger things have happened though!

 

Ian

 

I bit the bullet and ordered a new compressor.  What a difference.  Mine must have been on the way out for some time and I didn't realize it.  I bought a cheapy Asian import and while it's a lot better, it is also a lot noisier, but hey... it works.

Ian,  all the references I found point to Nico being used on the upper half of the Wapiti so unless someone can confirm a different color... wait... too late

 

On 10/4/2021 at 1:50 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

The cabin struts are a tad impressionistic in the painting, too.

 

doesn't that give me a bit of freedom to improvise Crisp?

 

On 10/4/2021 at 1:54 PM, John Masters said:

I am excited to see this one...

 

every now and then I get the urge to move on with this one - it's almost looking like an aeroplane now

 

On 10/4/2021 at 2:11 PM, Max Headroom said:

I’m stunned. This 3D printing wizardry is beyond this ‘umble kit basher’s ken. If I were you, I’d see if this could be used commercially either by you or licensing it to a kit maker as I’m sure there is a market for this.

 

My brane struggles with basic concepts such as pronunciation. ‘Wapiti’……waaaapeeeteee? Woppity?

 

Trevor

 

Thanks Trevor.  I considered offering it out, but there are a few things that I wouldn't be happy with offering to others - such as the wings.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 2:23 PM, Terry1954 said:

Re the colours, I can't offer much other than to observe that several similar artworks are out there, and to me the struts look distinctly black, but it's artwork and open to the artists interpretation of things. Any contemporary artists would perhaps have painted true to what they saw at the time, but it's hard to judge the source of many of these paintings.

 

Not much help, sorry!

 

Terry

 

Thanks Terry, but I'm going to go with Nivo just to make things a bit different.

 

On 10/4/2021 at 2:25 PM, Dave Swindell said:

Allegedly referred to as the Westland What A Pity.... 

 

 

On 10/4/2021 at 5:33 PM, Terry1954 said:

Contradicting my earlier remarks above re black struts, I found this series of four pictures of a scratch built Wapiti that seems to be based on the aircraft in your picture Alan. The modeller may have had some insight to the strut/top decking colours, which is more in line with what @perdu is suggesting....

 

http://osmaniac.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-best-westland-wapiti-indian-scale.html

 

Who knows........?

 

Terry

 

I've came across that build a few times - great skills on show there.  I'm not so sure about the dark grey (or is it my eyes) on the upper surface though.

 

Well it's been a while since the Wapiti got any attention. It wasn't forgotten and I've been working on it inbetween Scoutery stuff - unfortunately I seem to have lost the pictures.  Therefore in the absence of any evidence, you'll have to imagine that dull aluminum was sprayed over pretty much everything including the wings, followed by some gloss black around the nose.  Then today this happened.

 

 

Not without issue though.  I had bought some Mission Models Nivo especially for this job.  It's supposed to be able to be airbrushed straight from the pot but I reckon you'd need and industrial sprayer to get that gloop through any nozzle.

I thinned it initially with some Mr Color self leveling thinner.  It went on okay, but dried to a really pale green and just didn't look right. Then I tried to mix up a second batch, and I don't know what happened but it was as if the pigment separated from the carrier - it was awful. That was discarded immediately and I went for some AK PC10 instead.  

It may not be accurate but it looks good enough to my eyes.

 

 

The best I can tell from the few photos I have of the tail region is that the paint line does not follow the ribbed rear deck and instead flows in towards the tail plane - so that's what I did.

 

 

I did have one tiny spot of paint lift through given my recent experiences with Alclad, I'm calling this a win.  I'll touch that up later

 

 

Nice sharp delineation between the colors - Aizu tape was very useful here.  The panel lines turned out very nicely as well - very pleased with those.

 

 

Of course I couldn't resist the dry fit feelgood factor and stuck an engine in the nose

 

 

All in all a decent days work.  It's good to finally be able to throw some color on this one.

 

 

While this was going on I also painted up the undercarriage and a few other bits.  I still have the struts to paint and then I can start getting onto the awful territory of rigging.

I'm still not sure if my printed struts will do the job so I guess I'll find out in the next episode.

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Very nice. I'm impressed!

 

Ian

[Terry1954]

Going with Nivo seems like a very respectable decision, especially since you have done such a superb job of it. Love the way the paint has gone on. You should indeed be very pleased with that Alan.

 

Terry

[giemme]

13 hours ago, hendie said:

I had bought some Mission Models Nivo especially for this job.  It's supposed to be able to be airbrushed straight from the pot but I reckon you'd need and industrial sprayer to get that gloop through any nozzle.

I thinned it initially with some Mr Color self leveling thinner.  It went on okay, but dried to a really pale green and just didn't look right. Then I tried to mix up a second batch, and I don't know what happened but it was as if the pigment separated from the carrier - it was awful.

I have a couple of Mission Models paint pots myself: White and Light Gull Grey. As you say, they don't spray if you pour them straight out of the pot, but I found that a very small quantity of water does the trick. A surprisingly small quantity of water, I should specify; if you try thinning them like a regular acrylic vinyl-based paint (such as Lifecolor or the likes) they will become very watery and just unusable. Also, I'm afraid any solvent based thinner would cause the pigment separation you experienced.

 

Having said that, lovely paint job on the Wapiti (and that chopper hiding in the back, on the first pic  )  

 

Ciao

[Maginot]

Wow! Will you look at that? She's coming up a treat. Better than a bought one.

 

I always learn something reading these threads. Aizu tape. Gotta try that. Noted in the methods and materials file. NIVO. That's new to me, too. It's interesting reading about you, Mr H, and others groping around looking for military swatches lost in time yet tantalisingly close in B&W images. There's a certain Pierce-Arrow AA armoured lorry thread with discussion around WW1 vehicle paint jobs. I must say that your colour choice looks convincing to me.

 

Wapiti is another type that served all over the place in the 30s. There's gotta be a market out here in modellers' land for these old colonial crates. Oops! Maybe that's the hitch.

[Fritag]

15 hours ago, hendie said:

Nice sharp delineation between the colors

 

Nice sharp paint job all round so far I’d say.

[Pete in Lincs]

Paint! Yay! Are you absolutely sure it's not olive green?

[davidl]

On 10/5/2021 at 7:33 AM, Terry1954 said:

Contradicting my earlier remarks above re black struts, I found this series of four pictures of a scratch built Wapiti that seems to be based on the aircraft in your picture Alan. The modeller may have had some insight to the strut/top decking colours, which is more in line with what @perdu is suggesting....

 

http://osmaniac.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-best-westland-wapiti-indian-scale.html

 

Who knows........?

 

Terry

The Scale Model World winner who scratch-built the Wapati was Master modeller Nicholas Poncini

[hendie]

There I was, just about to start applying transfers when I thought I had better check my references and make a final decision on which airframe I was going to depict. 

I finally settled on airframe J9506, mainly because it didn't have the tail flash which would force me into having to have custom decals made (again)

This was my initial reference shot

 

 

Upon further googling I happened across another couple of shots of this airframe including this formation of 28 Sqn Wapiti's.  J9506 is second from the front

 

 

and that's where things started to go south.  Notice how most of the other aircraft have a band of color just forward of the tailplane. The 5th aircraft from the front doesn't have that color band either.

Then this cropped up.  J9506 did at some point, have that color band.

 

 

Lastly, I came across this rather fetching shot of J9506

 

 

Now I have a problem. Well two problems.  Problem one is that I now quite fancy adding that fuselage band, even though it would force me down the custom decal path again as the J & the 9 of the serial is on that band and would (?) have had a white background.

Problem two is - I have no idea what color that band would be.   I have searched high google, low google, and every google in between but I cannot find a single reference anywhere which states what color that band would be.  The most information I have come across is a statement that all Wapiti Sqn's in India carried a color band as identification, but that band could be any color. 

I have ruled out red as that was associated with an Indian Squadron.

 

 

Would anyone out there have any scrap of information which could point to a specific color?

 

Do I just go for the scheme in the first photo where there doesn't appear to be any ID band?

Or, do I just wing it and choose any color as it doesn't appear that anyone would be able to contradict my choice. If so, I'm leaning towards a blue as the Demi Pegasus on later squadron badges has a blue background.  There doesn't look like there's any difference between color on the fuselage spine and the color band but a Nivo colored band woudl just be boring.

The more I think on it, the more I'm leaning towards a darker shade of blue

 

 

(I'm not going to mention the third problem of the wheels having wire spokes and no hub covers. No sir, I'm not going to mention it)

 

Any input from the hive would be appreciated

 

 

[Teuchter]

Re the bands, I can’t remember what the colours are, but didn’t different flights have different colours within squadrons?

You may have addressed this earlier as well, but to me that rudder looks white in the last pic above. Primer for the stripes?

Don

 

[hendie]

10 minutes ago, Teuchter said:

You may have addressed this earlier as well, but to me that rudder looks white in the last pic above. Primer for the stripes?

 

Oh, good catch Don. Excellent spot.

In the third photo it also looks like white, or at least not like silver dope.

Many thanks!

[Teuchter]

There is some variation in the colour, looking at the difference between Z and M in the formation pic. Z seems to have the rudder in that colour, M, the whole tail, as do the others. 

[Brandy]

The fuselage band appears to have gone along with the aircraft id letter too. Only the aircraft with the band have an id letter, "C" in the case of 9506. It isn't there on the first pic so I think you'd be safe if you do want to omit the band.

As for colour, be very careful trying to judge colours from b&w pics just from the tone. Lighting and many other factors play a part and the same aircraft can appear a totally different colour in different photos.

You've already ruled out red so I'd go for a dark blue just for interest. As you say, no-one can prove you wrong!

 

Ian

 

[AndyL]

What excellent work indeed!

 

While not 28 Squadron, here's a few from 55 Squadron for reference. The come from the album of Francis Soper DFM, who was the highest scoring NCO in the Battle of France and was ex 55 pre war.

 

 

 

 

[hendie]

7 hours ago, Brandy said:

The fuselage band appears to have gone along with the aircraft id letter too. Only the aircraft with the band have an id letter, "C" in the case of 9506. It isn't there on the first pic so I think you'd be safe if you do want to omit the band.

As for colour, be very careful trying to judge colours from b&w pics just from the tone. Lighting and many other factors play a part and the same aircraft can appear a totally different colour in different photos.

You've already ruled out red so I'd go for a dark blue just for interest. As you say, no-one can prove you wrong!

 

Ian

 

 

thanks Ian.  Dark'ish blue it is then.

 

4 hours ago, AndyL said:

What excellent work indeed!

 

While not 28 Squadron, here's a few from 55 Squadron for reference. The come from the album of Francis Soper DFM, who was the highest scoring NCO in the Battle of France and was ex 55 pre war.

 

Thanks Andy - more photos are always welcome.  Thanks for posting them.

 

 

In todays exciting episode we have some progress. Some real visible actual progress.  Stranger things have happened y'know.

 

The Wapiti needed a band, a blue band.  Easy enough innit?

I started masking and spent about 40 minutes - yes, about 40 minutes masking up that band, making sure it was square and parallel and all those good things.

Then decided it was too narrow so had to strip it all off and start again.  It went slightly quicker second time around thankfully.

Now I don't have a large selection of blues in my paint store and didn't really have anything suitable.  I had Insignia Blue, which was a bit too vibrant, and I had Dunkelblau (why, I don't know) which looked almost right, but when I started preparing it, it looked a bit pale so I added a few drops of the Insignia Blue and here we are.

 

 

Then came the dreaded unmasking. Darnit! There's always one bit that gets through isn't there?  and there was me thinking I was taking no prisoners with the masking too.

Still, that's an easy enough touch up - I'll take care of that at the next spray session.

 

 

Color-wise I'm happy with that. I don't think it looks too out of place beside the Nivo green.

 

 

This shot shows the color a bit better. My camera always seems to lighten colors.  Now we can get ready for some action.

 

 

I was determined to get some transfers on this airframe today come hell or high water and the upper wing roundels seemed like an easy target, so the first task was to fix the ailerons in place.

 

 

Then came a bit of a surprise as I searched through my decal stash.  The surprise was just how pitiful my selection is. I have a bunch of Xtradecal roundel sheets and lo and behold, none of them were suitable.  The only sheet I had with the right type of roundels didn't have the correct size.  I was also surprised to find that I only had one partial sheet of those roundels and I'm pretty certain I have not used up a full sheet in other builds - so did I only get one sheet in that set?

After going through the stash several times, getting more desperate each time, I came across the decals for the AMG Hart. They were close enough in size so luck was with me this time.

Here we go then.... wow. This is the first time I've used the AMG decals and they took a ridiculous amount of time in the H2O to start to separate from the backing sheet. Even when they eventually separated it was like trying to drag a wet carpet across a room and I was terrified they were going to break.  Once off the sheet however, they behaved nicely and seemed to settle down quite easily.

I'll let those dry out then make the slice between wing and ailerons.

 

 

Then came the fuselage roundels. This time I was prepared for the long wait.

Again, once off the sheet the decals behaved as expected and microsol/set was slabbered on to help things settle down. The fuselage roundel is a bit of a pain as it straddles the open step for the gunners position. It may take several more applications to get it to conform properly.  Time will tell.

 

 

Exciting stuff huh?   Well, it is for me.  It's nice to see some character start to appear on the Wapiti, especially after staring at the digital model for so long and playing with numerous prints trying to get a workable model.

To finish off the session, I sprayed the rudder white in preparation for the tail serial, and that's it folks.  Now off on a Scouting session...

 

 

 

 

[giemme]

I was going to suggest painting the fuselage band after reading your previous post, and there you are  Great minds and all, right?  

Great to see the roundels are behaving properly so far

 

Ciao

[Fritag]

Still marvel all the lovely surface texturing and details.  Does it go without saying that she’s looking better and better as the painting/decaling progresses?  Well whatever I’ve said it now 

[perdu]

So far above my pay grade I am glad I am retired.

 

I think Steve nails the 'thing' about it, the textural changes stand out.

By not standing out.

[heloman1]

Wow Alan, great masking and paint work. I think, I may have tackled it another way. Blue first, upper decking second and the silver last. Then, I don't trust silver and masking tape! And the Wasp is looking good too...

 

Colin

[Terry1954]

Colour going on, lovely stuff!.

 

OK, I guess the silver and the Nivo are strictly speaking also colour, but the blue step was worthy of some brighter comment!

 

Nice one.

 

Terry