Sopwith Pup - +++ FINISHED +++

[Ray S]

Hello all, this is just a place-holder at the moment for my build for this 'Less than a Tenner' GB.

 

I have decided the first subject will be the Airfix Sopwith Pup, I have had it a long time, but I cannot recall when I did buy it, but it was when Airfix were doing a 'Buy one, get one Free' promo. That is good news, because however much I paid for this or the DH4 I bought at the same time, in reality it only cost half that. I have done some research though, and I found that in this magazine...

 

 

...there is this advert from MIL Slides...

 

 

... which shows the Pup in 1988 was £1.75. This is the boxing I have, the kit is moulded in the cream plastic, and looks very sharp and crisp:

 

 

As I had some of the £10 left over, I hunted for some transfers and found something suitably subdued for this drab workhorse...

 

 

... and they cost me £5.00 from Hannants this week:

 

 

... so that makes £6.75 in total, and even adding 75p for the postage is still under budget.

 

This morning and afternoon I was hunting through all my other Windsock Magazines trying to find an article that I remembered about improving the Pup. I looked through three times but could I find it? No. Then, I tried the fourth and final time, and lo! there it was. So any more upgrades to this will be scratch built (if I do any) except for the rigging which will probably be InfiniModel rigging thread which has not been bought for this but is helping me out with a Felixstowe I am doing in another GB.

 

Hopefully I will get started soon, I have two GB's on the go at the moment but this will start soon.

 

All the best everyone with your builds!

 

Ray

Edited August 4, 2021 by Ray S
Edited Title

[Paul Thompson]

I used that decal set a loooong time ago. I found the wing panels slightly too small, and the colour density slightly not enough. If this is a later issue then it may have been improved, but to be on the safe side I'd suggest priming it with white to make your life easier, and cutting some suitable diameter white disks to go under the cockades if necessary. The mods are easy enough to do and make a huge difference to the kit. Some of them are just a bit of knife work (what were Airfix thinking, moulding control horns both sides of each aileron?). I nice little kit, as I recall (I've built 5, starting 6 months after it was first released). The old Scale Models in-depth review by Ray Rimell is worth tracking down. IIRC some of the Windsock article was recycled from that.

 

Paul.

[Ray S]

@Paul Thompson, the set I have was re-issued in 2008, but the white still looks like it will not cover underlying colours for the roundels. A white overall coat was very high on my pre-planning list!

 

Ray

[Paul Thompson]

1 hour ago, Ray S said:

@Paul Thompson, the set I have was re-issued in 2008, but the white still looks like it will not cover underlying colours for the roundels. A white overall coat was very high on my pre-planning list!

 

Ray

I wish I'd have known - it took a lot of careful overpainting to correct after the fact (and my hands shake a lot, always have). Look forward to seeing yours done.

 

Paul.

[PlaStix]

Hi Ray and welcome to the GB. Great to have you here. Great choice of kit too! Looking forward to when you get this one underway.

Kind regards,

Stix

[Ray S]

Righty-ho, I have now finished my Group Builds in 'Anything but Injection' and 'Unarmed', so I can now concentrate on this one.

 

The Sopwith Pup kit I have is one of those moulded in a cream-coloured plastic, there is very little in the way of flash, and generally the mouldings are great. Not many parts mind, less than 30. I have something like four references to give me help - two Build and Convert bookazines based on SAMI builds (one of which warned me about the opacity of Blue Rider transfers), a Windsock Magazine from the 1980's, and the instructions from my Wingnut Wings Naval Sopwith Pup. I was going to do this OOB, but I think I may try to 'tart' it up a bit. Because the transfers I will be using are full-surface, I might not do things like moving the tailplanes forward a bit as is recommended by Windsock at least, as I think that might muddle up the scheme, but I will see nearer that time.

 

One thing that was wrong though is the set of ribs either side of the front fuselage. Airfix had moulded a series of horizontal lines, and there were too many. I scraped those off with a curved blade and sanded the surface down a bit, and put some 10 thou plastic card (which I had cut into thin strips) into position and bedded them down with thin glue.

 

 

 

These are obviously way too thick, but I will sand them down when the glue has set and try to get them wafer thin. I left a small cut-out for a panel in the starboard side, which I will either leave as moulded, or replace. At the moment, the ribs look much more like a portcullis.

 

I will build up a bit more of an interior for this too. Airfix supplied a seat on a fuselage width-wide ledge and an instrument panel, but I will do a bit more to that. This is the seat they supply:

 

 

In my accessories spares box, I found that I had these:

 

 

One of those looks like it would fit, and I would still be within my 'budget'. The Pup was £1.75 but was really half that price as it was bought on a buy-one-get-one-free basis, the transfers were £4.99, and the etch set was also bought in the 1980's, and is one of four in the pack so will still be less than £10. It will also supply the control column or provide a template to make one.

 

It is good to have got this started, albeit in a small way. More soon with luck.

 

Ray

[Paul Thompson]

Rereading what you said earlier, I assumed you had a different Windsock with the easy improvements to the Pup kit - I was wrong.  Which one are you using? I can then check if I have it and see if the old Scale Models article has more in it.

 

Paul.

[Ray S]

22 minutes ago, Paul Thompson said:

Rereading what you said earlier, I assumed you had a different Windsock with the easy improvements to the Pup kit - I was wrong.  Which one are you using? I can then check if I have it and see if the old Scale Models article has more in it.

 

Paul.

 

Hello Paul, the Windsock magazine I have is Vol 4 No 4 Winter 1988. There is a review of the then just re-issued Pup, and it gave a written list of things required. I remember the Scale Models article, but do not have it. I had the Black-covered WWI Special issue but no Pup's in there. My other references are Build and Converts 'Aviation Classics Part 1' and 'Beyond the Box - More Circuits and Bumps', along with the Wingnut Wings' instruction guide.

 

I hope to improve the kit, but I know my limitations and will not be looking for 'super accuracy' but just 'something better'.

 

All the best, Ray

[AdrianMF]

Wow! No PC10 for you! Should go nicely with the Felixstowe.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Torbjorn]

I recently bought one of these at a sale. For such an old kit I thought it looked fabulous, but do tart it up without restraint - I shall be paying close attention

[Ray S]

18 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Wow! No PC10 for you! Should go nicely with the Felixstowe.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

Adrian, I seem to have a preference for colourful aircraft at the moment. I am not sure which is more psychedelic - this or the Felixstowe!

 

17 hours ago, Torbjorn said:

I recently bought one of these at a sale. For such an old kit I thought it looked fabulous, but do tart it up without restraint - I shall be paying close attention

 

No pressure then @Torbjorn, I will see what I can do.

 

Today has been a destruction day. I find it quite surprising how often it is that I destroy parts of a kit before constructing same. The first thing was to reduce the 'portcullis' effect my replacement ribbing had made. I masked the ends of the ribs

 

 

At this point I was wondering just what the Dickens I had done. If I did another Pup (Airfix) I would probably have used my initial first choice of material, .5mm rod rather than using the card strips. However, I only have the one Pup (Airfix) so I stuck with what I had done. I filed and sanded like fury, and then when I was happy, I coated the lot with some Tamiya Thin Cement to seal and soften the surfaces:

 

 

I will find out later if it any good, when I pop some primer on. It is certainly better than to begin with. I kept checking back on my references, and it was only after I had done that I found that Ray Rimell in the Albatros Magazine had suggested simply scribing the ribs in. While on the fuselage, the kit was moulded like this at the back end:

 

 

I filed a slot in at the back end for a king post, and used .5mm rod for that:

 

 

Having looked at a number of images, the gap between the king post and the fuselage did not appear to be too big so I tried to do the same. It can be adjusted if I have got that wrong! There was also some fuselage side stitching shown on both sides of the fuselage in the kit:

 

 

That was okay for the starboard side, but the port side had to go according to Windsock, so I scrabbed it off with my handy old curved blade which is also useful for scratching off ejection pin marks. The biggest issue Ray Rimell found was that there was no triangular channel under the front fuselage just behind the engine. It needed cutting out, so I marked out the area:

 

 

Using some cut-down Dymo tape as a guide, I scribed lines onto where I needed to cut, followed by a sharp blade to deepen the lines, and then an etched saw did the rest:

 

 

That hole will get some plastic sheet to close it up later on, when I can properly visualise the shapes needed. Finally on the fuselage today, I filled the two slots for the seat plank with Perfect Plastic Putty and also used the rounded blade to get rid of a couple of pin marks:

 

 

You may notice that I did this before cutting out the 'V'!

 

That is it for now, more in a moment.

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Now it was time for an even more required adjustment. The surface detailing on this kit is quite, mm, good. Well, it was when I was 18 or so when it came out originally. I remember thinking at the time that it was great to see a fabric effect moulded into an aircraft kit. The ribs looked good too, but both really are too exaggerated. See what I mean?...

 

 

The sagging between the ribs is too great, and on the upper wing you can see the only flash on this moulding. The fabric effect is also just visible. Control horns were moulded on top and below the control surfaces and had to go too, if only for the transfers I will be using. I have sanded down the upper ribs, but the wing was beginning to get rather thin, so I have left the underside as-is, please forgive me!

 

 

I still need to sand it down a little more, but it is getting there. My intention later will be to add some Aizu tape on the ribs to reinstate them, but they should not be quite so prominent. I re-scribed the control surfaces afterwards too. On the undersides, Airfix had moulded slots for the struts for the interplane and cabane struts which made it easier to fit them as the struts had a connection bar moulded in. I decided to fill the slots but leave a space for the soon to be separated struts to fit later. I used some square strip to fill the slots, and Perfect Plastic Putty to fill any remaining gaps (except where the struts will go)

 

 

I just needed to scrape down the strip a little to blend it in.

 

That is now it for the day, it has been a good one despite not really gluing anything that Airfix supplied.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

[Paul Thompson]

    I remember an early seventies mag article where the otherwise wise modeller had glued tissue paper to the wings to give a nice fabric effect. Aaagh. You can't even see a fabric effect on real aeroplanes close up. Just as well, or they wouldn't be able to fly. Just one of those things old kits came automatically festooned with, same as the hills and valleys rib effect seen on no real serviceable aircraft (one of the things clear dope did, apart from fill the weave to make the surface airworthy, was shrink the fabric drum-taught). Rib tapes, OTOH, are another matter, but as ever, more is less (as in less believable). To each his own, but in 1/72nd I'd either use really thin decal strip, or (preferably) scribe each tape postion using 2 blades glued together, guided by Dymo tape. I'd not bother with anything else on the top of a camouflaged wing, but for the under surface maybe run in some thin paint of a slightly different colour. Some aircraft show darker rib tapes, some lighter (unless the top surface is CDL in which case the tape will look darker due to light from above). However, with the Blue Rider scheme you're using I wouldn't bother TBH.

 

    Of the fixes Rimell recommends, the ones that make the most difference IMHO are reducing the control horns to the correct number, cutting the nipple of each wheel,  (again, I'd do it by sanding and scribing) the fuselage stringer correction you're already tackling, and cuttinmg or filing the slot at the rear of the fuselage and putting a bit of sprue in to act as a kingpost. The vee-shaped cooling vent you'll only see if you're in the habit of often turning the nodel upside down, but is easy enough to do if you have the inclination (2 razor saw cuts, 2 triangles of plastic card, a drop or two of glue). You could mess with the indercarriage to do the split axle, but if not can at least splay the wheels by about 10 degrees, as they are when the aircraft is on the ground.

 

   The Scale Models article was the first I followed through to completion back in the day, which is why it still looms large in my advanced mind substitute, prompting reflex re-telling every time I see someone making a Pup. The thing is, having done it once, it becomes really easy if you do it again - and I've used all the Blue Rider sheets since then, plus a few more from photos and profiles.

 

Paul.

[Ray S]

@Paul Thompson, thanks for that comment. I have wondered about the ribs tapes. My initial thought was to use thin Aizu tape like I did with the Felixstowe. I got away with it on that, but I think now it may be too much for something Pup sized. I then started to wonder about masking either side of the rib positions and spray a couple of coats of primer on, remove the tape and lo! rib tapes. Having added all the tapes to the Felixstowe I thought it would not be too arduous to do on this. Then I wondered if I really needed to add them at all in 1/72! I do not have any spare transfer sheet to trim into strips (note to self - see if I have any WWI German rib tapes - they might do!).

 

Anyway, the first thing I did today was to spray one of the wings with primer and see how they look at the moment. When I looked at them with an angled light source, I saw that the sanding was not that even along the wings, so I did them again:

 

 

It is getting more even now, but the filled slots are now getting perilously close to the upper surface, so I am going to leave it there. And check out my rib-tape transfers! Back to the fuselage now, and I have drilled out holes for a tube either side of the fuselage, and added some wire from speaker cable (this is a silver colour rather than the more normal copper) as the 'rigging' in the cockpit. This is just about all that would be seen in there, but I might add some more on top of the moulded wires. I have given the interior a couple of coats of thinned Humbrol 121 Pale Stone, which is what Wingnut Wings suggested.

 

 

In the spirit of this Group Build, I decided against using the Libramodels etched seat, so I thinned down the backrest of the kit seat, and coated the seat squab with liquid cement, then roughed up the surface with a sharp cocktail stick to give it some texture. I think I will thin down the back a bit more tomorrow:

 

 

The final thing I did today was start to build up a bit of an interior. Using the WNW guide, I came up with this:

 

 

I will drill out a small hole for a control column which I will build later, but add it after I have sprayed the plane so any masking will not damage it.

 

One of my references suggested the wings did not align square and true and were skewed, that happens on this one too, so I will try to adjust for that when the time comes.

 

Thanks for looking and for the comments,

 

Ray

[Paul Thompson]

 

Ray,

 

    At least it isn't the Spad VII wings. They can be used as rhythm instrument, if you have a stick, even with a baggy-period moulding. The latest ones are ridiculous. I sanded one down as much as  safe, decided to fill the rest of the valleys, and  the whole wing dissolved using Tamiya putty. Ended up making newones from decal strip ribs and the much lamented long gone Rosemont Hobby Shop vac wing blanks.

 

    Regarding the internal bracing, if you cut a lead pencil to a chisel shaped end, and are both careful and lucky, you can get a good result by highlighting the moulded detail with it. If you can sharpen the lead enough you can also get a very realistic result on kits without moulded bracing - obviously here you need the pointiest of points to get right into the corners, and scraps of card work wonders as mini rulers to get straight lines. OTOH, if you have the space to fit wire in it will do too, it's just that sometimes (not with the Pup though) the geometry can present problems with wire.

 

    While I'm in full wittering mode - for the breather pipes you can stretch plastic cotton bud bodies (with a wire inserted so it doesn't collapse) like sprue, then roll lightly under a sharp knife blade after painting to cut.  Unless you're a master of drilling out thin plastic rod ends (I never found any plastic tube that was fine enough, and never succesfully stretched a Contrail or Aeroclub tube to make it thinner). In 1/48th I found recently that the thinnest of Albion Alloys aluminium rod cuts easily and looks okay so long as you widen the internal diameter with a drill. Fortunately the metal is soft enough for this.

 

    Last thing,  making non-German rib tapes is a good use for the single colour tapes supplied in Pegasus and Blue Max kits if the German model needs lozenge tapes so that they become spare. Also a good use for the tapes in old Almark sets. In all cases, you need to slice the deals to the required width against a steel ruler, because the clear carrier spreads too far either side. Also applies to what I regularly use for tapes which is Xtradecal coloured stripes. The finest of those is about right without trimming, for 1/72nd scale. Whatever the source I always seal them with a coat of varnish once dried before final painting.

 

    Good progress so far.

 

Paul.

[Ray S]

@Paul Thompson thanks again for those suggestions. I remember the Spad wings, more like a washboard (of Skiffle fame!). The other internal bracing wires were eventually done with a sharpened pencil and a steady hand:

 

 

The breather pipes will probably be done with Albion Alloys brass tubing - .8mm external and .4mm internal diameters, and I can hopefully pare out the internal to slim up the edge. And as for the wing rib tapes, I had a good look through my transfer stash I found some spare Xtradecal rib tapes which do not appear to have surplus carrier film, so they may be used, but I am wondering if they would still fall within the £10 cut-off, although I did buy them in the 1980's so may well still qualify.

 

I have painted up the interior and added the rudder controls, using the WNW guide for colours.

 

 

And trying to make sure that it was all to scale, I put Algernon (or Ginger or Biggles) into place to make sure he could still reach the pedals:

 

 

That was a 'yes' then! He also needed a control panel, and the kit one was pretty good, it was painted with Humbrol 110 Natural Wood and a clear Orange over-coat, and the dials gloss black and the bezels had a silver pencil 'dry-brushed' over them to highlight the surrounds. The picture is a little fuzzy but still shows it:

 

 

The fuselage has been glued together, after I added the triangular channel under the nose. It all went together well. I cleaned up the slot on the top in front of the cockpit so I can add some plastic strip to fill the gun mount, as this was a trainer. Here are the bits waiting to go together sometime in the future:

 

 

I forgot to mention that I made the seat belts out of paper and used WNW's guide for their shape and colours.

 

I will leave this for now, and give some serious thought as to how I will do the ribs, but will probably use the spare Xtradecal rib tapes that I have had for years, and were left over from an Airfix Hannover CIII build I did years ago. I used the rib tapes on the top of the wings, but did not underneath so I had those left over:

 

 

I think the main thing from that picture is that my initial concerns that the tapes were too wide was wrong, and, as Paul said, they look good in 1/72. When I run my finger over the sheet with these tapes on, I can feel a slight ridge so they should be visible when done.

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking.

 

Ray

[Paul Thompson]

Nice.

BTW, if you're feeling obsessive, I think adding the bracing wire from the Parabellum drum to the end of the barrel on the Hannover makes an inordinate amount of difference for the amount of effort (one bit of HSP or wire and it's done).  It's a nice old kit, and yours looks very good.

 

You're distracting me now, making me want to build another Pup and a Hannover, while what I really have to do is finish a 1/48th Canberra TT18...........

 

Paul.

 

Paul.

[Ray S]

23 hours ago, Paul Thompson said:

Nice.

BTW, if you're feeling obsessive, I think adding the bracing wire from the Parabellum drum to the end of the barrel on the Hannover makes an inordinate amount of difference for the amount of effort (one bit of HSP or wire and it's done).  It's a nice old kit, and yours looks very good.

 

You're distracting me now, making me want to build another Pup and a Hannover, while what I really have to do is finish a 1/48th Canberra TT18...........

 

Paul.

 

Hi Paul, sadly that Hannover is in the Great Aerodrome in the Sky now, but I do still have an original bagged kit, and I will remember that tip when I do that one, promise. And as for the Pup and Hannover, go on, you know you want to!

 

As I mentioned last time, I plugged the location hole for the gun with some plastic strip:

 

 

And added the V-shaped channel underneath, but it still needs some work:

 

 

Today I finally decided on how to do the rib tapes (thank goodness for that I hear you cry!). After thinking about how to mask it for spraying, then wondering about varnishing transfers afterwards along with associated potential problems re-spraying over that, I went back to my first thoughts, and used 0.7mm Aixu masking tape. First, I had to mark on the top surfaces where the ribs were, having sanded them off! I turned the wing upside down and used the underside ribs as a guide (having left those in place as the wing was getting thin)
 

 

I then cut a few strips of the Aizu tape and laid down the ribs, using tweezers to rub down the tape, and a fresh razor blade to trim excess off. I also found a common issue I have had with masking tape: namely that it will not stay in place when add very small bits and then you try and cut it! I have found that a lot masking canopies, and doing stuff like this. I eventually got the hang of cutting the small leading edge tapes to size and that made things easier. Anyway, after I had laid the ribs down, I coated them with some Tamiya Thin Cement

 

 

The ribs look a lot better in real life compared to those images on screen! It took me all of a Sandy Denny CD in the background to get the other wing done on this lower set and the whole of the upper wing upper surfaces, but I then had these:

 

 

And just to show how thin the wings had got...

 

 

... this is looking from the underside, and the rib tapes on the upper are easily visible! I am hoping to get the leading edge sanded down once the liquid cement has cured fully.

 

That is it for now, more soon with luck.

 

Thanks for looking and for the comments. Ray

[Ray S]

It is just a quick update today. I drilled out most of the rigging location holes this morning. I have drilled through both wings, but my intention was to drill blind holes in the upper wing, but they were so thin the drill went through before I could prevent it! Oh yes, the drill does not like going through masking tape, I should have remembered that!

 

I adjusted the wing location area underneath the fuselage and fitted the lower wing, and ensured it was square using the cutting mat as a guide:

 

 

I am letting that set fully before adding filler along the wing/fuselage joints. I also (prior to fitting the wing, sorted out the triangular channel underneath by re-skinning what I had already done and it is much neater now.

 

Thanks for looking, Ray

[PlaStix]

Hi Ray. Wow! This is turning out to be a very impressive project! I am really impressed with your attention to the small details!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Ray S]

@PlaStix, thanks for that!

 

This kit's progress came to a grinding halt shortly after my last post, in a way I was not expecting. I think I may have been impatient...

 

On Wednesday, I got it masked and ready for spraying from a rattle can or three. I am running out of Tamiya White spray and am having to self isolate at the moment (I visited my daughter in her care home on Tuesday morning, and, when I got back, I had a phone call to say she had tested positive for Coronavirus but was showing no symptoms) so cannot get any more (except online of course). I had plenty of Halfords stuff in, so I gave the Pup a spray of grey primer to unify the surface, left that for an hour then gave it another coat of White Primer this time, left that for an hour and then a coat of Appliance White. Two hours later it was still tacky which did not surprise me as the same thing happened when I did an airliner a little while ago. However, next day it was STILL tacky. I do not know if it was because it was getting warmer here or if I accidentally sprayed too much on at once.

 

The good news was that it was properly dry this morning, so I masked off all except the nose part and gave that a coat of Tamiya Bare-metal Silver (having tested on a spare part that I had given the same three Halfords' coat to to see if it reacted). Now I have a very nice shiny white and silver mono-winged Puplet:

 

 

This should now get a little bit more colourful in the coming days.

 

I still need to sand down the tailplanes and add the rib tapes and also still need to spray the tail surfaces and rudder along with the still to be built cowling, but it is coming along now!

 

Thanks for looking and the very nice comments,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Hmm, did I say 'a bit more colourful' yesterday? Well

 

 

 

The Blue Rider set has started to go down now, but I am beginning to think I may need to do something about my eyes. The transfers released well from the backing sheet when the water was hot, but were less ready to release their grip when it cooled off. They are sized pretty much accurately for the wings, slightly long but spot on chord-wise. It was only after I had fitted these (wearing my magnifiers) and took the pictures that I noticed that they missed the port leading edge slightly. Thankfully I still have my paint 'swatches' I did for the Felixstowe so should hopefully be able to patch in the blue and red sections that have been missed.

 

The markings are very translucent, the white was hardly visible on the sheet and I am still not sure if it was there at all. I can see the darker spots in the blue and red where I have drilled out for the rigging and for the strut locations. One fabulous thing about these markings though is that they have settled down over my rib tapes very well indeed:

 

 

I still need to work one or two little bubbles out, and trim the wingtip sections, otherwise I am very please with them so far.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Today was just a short modelling day, with pretty much one thing to be done: adding the fuselage transfer. This was a fairly complex shape, and I have to admit I was a little concerned as to how well it would go on. An initial check showed that the sections that fitted below the cockpit opening were a little too deep, and as such would settle down onto the wing surface, which was not in the plan.

 

 

I trimmed the sheet along the diamond line where the blue diamonds met the cockpit cutout and added the main section to the fuselage. It settled nicely again, but once again it was slightly large for the fuselage, so I wrapped the bottom edge round the corner underneath. I then added the starboard side under-cockpit section and realised that I had miscalculated somewhere along the line:

 

 

There was quite a section near the engine which left a lot of white. I thought that I could just paint in the missing colours, and then had another look at the instructions and noticed that the blue diamond at the back end of the cockpit opening was too far aft compared to the instruction guide. This was getting on for ten to fifteen minutes after I had added the main transfer. I wondered if I could still move it! I flooded water under the small under-cockpit section and moved that okay, but although I was able to lift the main transfer's edges, I could not slide it. Hmm, there was one solution if I was brave enough, so I went for it! After all, I could always do a PC10 one as per the kit's sheet. I got my tweezers, and lifted the whole of the main transfer off the plane (very much heart-in-mouth) and luckily the transfer did not fold, curl or disintegrate! I re-positioned it as per the guide, found that it was no longer too big for the fuselage (that was because I had positioned it wrongly) and all was well:

 

 

 

You may notice that the wing transfers are now trimmed back. Instead of using a sharp blade to trim them, I used a sanding stick and swiped down (and made sure I did not swipe up!) towards the blank underside, and the film came off very nicely indeed.

 

The transfer around the cockpit opening did bubble a little (it is a complex curved area), but I cut that with a blade and popped some Micro Set or Sol (the blue bottled one) and it settled down well.

 

If I were to do this again, I think I would add the fuselage transfer BEFORE adding the lower wing, it would be a lot simpler. I had a minimal gap between the wing and the fuselage, and I need to look very closely to see it, so it would be feasible.  Oh yes, this was the amount I cut off before adding the first section of the fuselage transfer:

 

 

That lot is going to set fully now before I seal it all in with a satin enamel varnish (after trimming the excess transfer film from the cockpit), so it will probably be a couple of days before there is more progress.

 

Thanks for looking, Ray

 

PS, As a final 'Oh yes' comment, there IS white printed on this sheet, but it is certainly very faint indeed. I strongly expect to be using the kit's transfers for the roundels, they are pretty close in colour to the Blue Rider markings, but the white is a lot denser so hopefully will not allow the blue and red to bleed through.

[AdrianMF]

You seem to be specialising in big scary decals! Nice.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PlaStix]

Hi Ray. Very impressive work with those decals!! It really does look wonderfully colourful!

Kind regards,

Stix