Valom 1/144 WW1 Trio

[Epeeman]

Dear all,

Just finished building the last of the great little Valom kits.   Very straightforward (if a bit fiddly in places) enjoyable builds that make for a real change of pace.

The kits are a mixture of plastic, metal and some feature some resin bits.  I was very dubious of the PE struts before building.  However, pleased to report once all in place the setup is surprisingly strong. 

The trio is made up of the Camel, SE5a and DR1.

 

 

Individually in detail -

Sopwith Camel built completly OOB:

 

 

 

 

 

Fokker DR1 - added the missing support strut for the tailplane and used stretched sprue (instead of the PE which was just to small) for the tail skid:
 

 

 

 

 

 

RAF SE5a - stratched a replacement foster mount for the PE overwing Lewis; Windscreen and frame and Aldis sight:
 

 

 

 

 

To give you an idea of scale size - picture with £1 British coin and 1/72 Roden SE5a:

 

 

 

Altogether again:

 

 

 

For the sake of my eyes, fingers and sanity, kept rigging basic! 

The great thing is you get two of each aircraft kits in the box - so therefore have the others to build in the future with different markings.

Regards

Dave

 

[ajmm]

Very nice! I’ve built a couple of Nieuports (which have much easier strut arrangements) so understand how much work went into these and it shows. Congratulations- I hope you’re pleased with them. 

[RichieW]

Lovely to meet you today Dave and see these little stunners. The photographs look terrific but face to prop they are even more striking and perfect. 

 

Richie

[Tim R-T-C]

Splendid work on these incredibly delicate little birds.

[MicTroy23]

These are miracles! 👍

[binbrook87]

Incredible! To build these type of aircraft at this scale let alone tackle all that rigging is mind blowing! I've built one or two jets in 1/144 and appreciate how small they are...but WW1 biplanes.... that takes another level of skill and patience. Great job... thanks for sharing and maybe inspiring me to have a bash one day. I must admit the Valom twin boxings do look appealing.

[Bertie McBoatface]

Very smart, and so tiny. This is 'ship in a bottle' clever!

[Epeeman]

Thank you all kindly, gents -

 

Don't let the scale put you off - these are very buildable (and certainly don't take up any display space!) and make for a nice change of pace.

 

18 hours ago, binbrook87 said:

Incredible! To build these type of aircraft at this scale let alone tackle all that rigging is mind blowing! I've built one or two jets in 1/144 and appreciate how small they are...but WW1 biplanes.... that takes another level of skill and patience. Great job... thanks for sharing and maybe inspiring me to have a bash one day. I must admit the Valom twin boxings do look appealing.

The rigging is not too bad - I made the mistake of using the Oschi 'fine' thread (on my first attempt being the Camel) which is great for scale but was a real nightmare to use being very, very fiddly to use in practice.   I therefore switched to the Oschi standard thread which being a bit larger diameter, was much easier to see when treading through the pre-drilled holes.

 

And yes, getting two kits in a box is certainly great value for money so I will save these for another day.

 

Regards

 

Dave