Hansa-Brandenburg W.29, Eastern Express, 1/72

[Torbjorn]

I can’t decide on what salty stuff to build, so in the mean-time, I’m putting this thing together:

 

 

The W.29 was the last major type of fighter-patrol craft that the Germans used over the North sea and Channel during the Great war. As the box art suggests, it was used to attack both floating and shore targets in addition to flying targets. The type was very succesful, and even post-war derivations of it were exported and served as the major naval aircraft in several nations during the entire 20s and much of the 30s, as the producers found ways to circumvent the peace treaty forbidding them to do so.

 

The kit is rather nicely detailed, except the quite empty cockpit. Therefore I also have the Parts part (I wish they had made another choice of name of their company, it makes googling unncessarily difficult).

 

 

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

This is a curious one.

 

Was the entire fuselage metal?

[Faraway]

Are you going to finish the wings with the hexagonal pattern ?

I do hope so.

Jon

[DaddyO]

I was given this one as a prezzy with a bonus of the Pegasus one in the same box so I look forward to seeing how this one turns out. 😀

[Torbjorn]

45 minutes ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

This is a curious one.

 

Was the entire fuselage metal?

No; the artist took some liberties with the reflections. Only the upper panels from cockpots forward were metal, the rest plywood.

 

38 minutes ago, Faraway said:

Are you going to finish the wings with the hexagonal pattern ?

I do hope so.

Jon

Yep: as far as I know all wartime production machines had the same hexagonal scheme on the upper surfaces. 

 

30 minutes ago, DaddyO said:

I was given this one as a prezzy with a bonus of the Pegasus one in the same box so I look forward to seeing how this one turns out. 😀

Didn’t know there was a Pegasus kit! Jow do they compare?

 

 

.

 

[Toryu]

Interesting variation of our topic. A WWI model nicely completes the participant list.

[Torbjorn]

Obligatory sprue shots:

 

Insides have some prominent moulding issues to remove. As evident from the tailplane and wings, there’s also some gooey leftovers from whatever process they use.

 

Same sprue, flipped, showing fuselage and floats:

 

There are two versions of tailplane and rudder, enabling different versions to be built.

 

The other sprue contains the rest, and includes a trolley. The propeller is awful and will be replaced. It looks like one of those old Airfix with two flat plates fastened to a hub. The rough finish on the mould is evident on the wing surface:

 

The engine is a nicely moulded Mercedes D.III engine. Unfortunately only a single prototype had that engine.  Most had a Benz engine, as depicted on the box art, while one batch of 11 had BMW III. Haven’t yet decided which individual to build, but certainly not the Mercedes.

There were two main variants, which I call scout (ie fighter in WWI parlance) and recon:

C3MG - three guns, two forward and one for the observer

C2MGHFT - two guns and a radio, one of the forward guns removed

 I will therefore have to make some decision regarding individual aircraft already before closing the fuselage. The Pparts set contains cooling gaskets for three guns, but neither PE nor kit has a radio, so I’m tempted to do a scout version.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Torbjorn

[TonyOD]

That's a great new addition to the Build List. Look forward to seeing how you get along with it.

[DaddyO]

6 hours ago, Torbjorn said:

Didn’t know there was a Pegasus kit! Jow do they compare?

 

Actually I think it's resin one by CMS (having Pegasus on the brain at the moment) I'll dig it out and do a couple of pictures for you 🙂

[Torbjorn]

I’ve started. The internal frames are not at all shabby, but I removed them anyway simce they will be represented by the PE.

 

The remaining protrusion in the observer’s cockpit is the footstep moulded from the outside. I should probably remove that too?

 

 

These are the decals I have:

 

Top left are Toko decals for their issue of the plastic, the yellow sheet came with the kit and the bottom is Aviatik lozenge decal if I remember correctly. The kit instruction sheets show only one Norwegian machine for which there no decals were included(????).

The Toko hexes are way too large, but I may be able to use the crosses. The serial numbers look like no font I’ve seen on photos. The EE sheet is very yellow, but the serials look right. The EE hexes look allright size-wise, and with a base colour and filterd could be made to look right. Aviatik is last resort (I bought them for a scratchbuild project!).

 

 

Scrounging the internet and WNW’s fabulous instruction booklet I’ve found out the following regarding individuals:

 

 

All 200 planes looked similar regarding painting: lozenge uppers, bluegrey sides, tarred floats and linen underside flying surfaces, with 4-digit serial. A few carried limited personal markings, while planes based at Nordeney had two parallel oblique white stripes on the fuselage. National insignia varied with time as regulations changed.

 

Kit serials:

2292 - recon version with radio, Benz III engine

2611 - no idea

 

Since those are out (I decided on no radio and I have no source for 2611) I checked WNW and Scribed. Other versions, which I may achieve with tweaking the serials I have:

2204  - scout prototype, entered frontline service. This one had the early Prussian-style iron crosses and is out.

2512 - scout, Christiansen’s machine

2516 - scout with paintable personal emblem

2532 - scout, Nordeney stripes

Edited January 22, 2023 by Torbjorn

[Torbjorn]

11 minutes ago, DaddyO said:

 

Actually I think it's resin one by CMS (having Pegasus on the brain at the moment) I'll dig it out and do a couple of pictures for you 🙂

That was kind - but please don’t bother for my sake if you have to dig deep to find it! If you do, it would be nice to see the decals/painting scheme.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Torbjorn

[Mark]

I had no idea that this was available in that scale! I’ll certainly be looking in from time to time!

[Bertie McBoatface]

The plastic looks so crude but the PE is wonderfully delicate.

[DaddyO]

On 22/01/2023 at 20:32, Torbjorn said:

That was kind - but please don’t bother for my sake if you have to dig deep to find it! If you do, it would be nice to see the decals/painting scheme.

Didn't take long to find them, but then I had to get new batteries for the camera 🙄

 

Anyway turns out it WAS a Pegasus version and it had the CMR kit pieces in the same box. Both looked pretty close to the windsock plans generally apart from the wing cut out being too large on one and the wing tips being a bit too rounded on the other. Not a problem in either case since they are easily sorted out  . . .

 

No decals for the CMR kit and the Pegasus ones look like they've seen better days🤨

 

 

 

And here's the CMR version. Looks pretty complete although no plans or decals and you'd need to replace those struts with something more suitable unless you were very brave 🧐

 

 

Hopefully of interest to somebody. Of the two I like the wings of the CMR one best since I'm not a great fan of the way Pegasus represents ribs in their kits although maybe they'd look okay under the decals

 

Cheers

Paul

[Torbjorn]

Many thanks Paul. From the pictures I would say the EE kit looks the most crisp of the lot.

 

Been plodding along with the Parts cockpit. Using the WNW instructions, I’ve added an auxilliary fuel tank and a trunk between the cockpits, and PE sear belts from a separate set. I added a floor of plastic sheet to hide the ugly fuselage seem. Some material needs to be removed from the fuselage pieces for that to fit. Control cables can be conventiently added at this stage: they are the wires going on the outside of the frames - they *should* be on the inside, but for those who can see the difference, kudos to your eyesight.

WNW says dark wood and gray primer for metsl parts, so I went with that.

 

 

That front firewall should maybe not be wood, but it won’t be seen and I will have to cut half of it to fit the engine anyway.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Torbjorn

[CliffB]

That PE will greatly improve the cockpit.  A good decision .

[Bertie McBoatface]

Impressive PE! I hope it's a good fit and that it remains visible. 

[Torbjorn]

1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Impressive PE! I hope it's a good fit and that it remains visible. 

Most of it will be visible fortunately - I have passed the point where I put PE in invisible locations or even behind closed canopies (exceptions may apply).

 

2 hours ago, CliffB said:

That PE will greatly improve the cockpit.  A good decision .

Parts PE are really neat - I have bought some sets I plan to scratchbuild a model around, rather than the other way round.

[Toryu]

Very nice interior structure! The PE strings must have been fiddly.

[Torbjorn]

On 1/26/2023 at 5:04 PM, Toryu said:

Very nice interior structure! The PE strings must have been fiddly.

 

The strings are hair, and I just glued them to the outside, so they were actually the simplest of the lot

 

 

 

The kit comes with the wrong engine. I made a wee Benz III by grabbing a 6-cyl inline engine from the spares box of the right dimension, and adding the inlet tubes and valve and push rod arrangment that is prominent to the type.

 

 

 

First step to add some styrene:

 

The gaps between the pieces of the inlet tubes were filled with PVA to make it look a bit more like two single pieces. The pushrods I wanted to make from shiny aluminium or lead wire, but that would have required about 0.2mm diameter which was just about the only dimension I didn’t have, so I used stretched sprue instead. 

 

Installed and painted:

 

 

 

I’ve painted it as factory new: dark colours hide imperfections! I think I should tone down the shine a bit, though both cylinders and inlet manifold ought to be shiny as new. 

 

 

I almost forgot to add the windows in the cockpit floor: both crew had one. I cut open the deck I made previously and made a corresponding hole in the fuselage below it. The latter hole was made considerably larger than the actual window: I then should be able to fill and sand at leisure without clouding the window. The pilot’s window is hidden behind the IP and would require cutting through the very thick wing section: that’s too much work to get it good so I plan to just mark the periphery and pretend the glass is temporarily blocked due to maintenance…

The observer’s window is in the middle of his pit and too obvious to omit:

 

 

Started with the engine panels too. This is kit version:

 

First thing I did was to open the large spent cartridge chutes: the panels are there but not the holes. If you build the version with only one gun, the port panel should be removed instead, and some other surgery performed to remove the gun rest. I also tinkered with the louvres to have six evenly spaced backwards-facing ones rather than the 4+2 arrangement of the kit. 

 

 

Time to put the things together.

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Torbjorn

[Bertie McBoatface]

This level of detail made me think you were working in 1/48. I had to go to the box top to check. Marvelous skills.

[Grandboof]

Fine detail work there . 

Martin H

[Torbjorn]

On 1/30/2023 at 10:19 PM, Torbjorn said:

 

 

 

 

Time to put the things together.

 

 

 

That turned out to be too optimistic, as there were more things to alter. Toko seems to have modelled the floats based on a surviving Finnish machine - unfortunately that’s a derivative and the W29 and had different details: not a biggie and yes, one probably has to have been set up with strange wiring to even care, but here goes. Little chisels come in handy to remove excess detail. They are made for wood and far too sharp for the job, but with care I got rid the offending ridges.

 

 

Untouched version on the lower side, the altered above. Some major gaps and sanding to do:

 

 

Here is another offender to Historical Accuracy:

 

 

 

Unless you want to build the prototype that is: only the first 2-3 planes had this jutting out part. The rest had a slightly outwards tilting flush shape. Cutting and lots of milliput followed. We are currently here, waiting for said milliput to dry:

 

 

I used some excess milliput to hide the sharp bend in the engine cowlings: these should be smooth with kinks. I’ve glued the struts to the floats, but the fuselage is just dryfitter. The white strut is a missing part I added, and so are the footsteps on the front struts too.

 

 

I made a booboo regarding painting - the insides of the metal top cowlings around the cockpits should be white not wood… Will try to fix. 

 

 

The wing doesn’t fit: it comes in one part and the central section that should close the fuselage is way too large. I don’t know why I didn’t check that *before* painting and doing all the fiddly bits.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Torbjorn

[Andwil]

31 minutes ago, Torbjorn said:

The wing doesn’t fit: it comes in one part and the central section that should close the fuselage is way too large.

This is the ex Toko/Roden kit isn’t it?  Seems to have the same issue as the Roden Fokker DVII.  I’ve no doubt you’ll whip it into shape.

 

AW

[Torbjorn]

11 minutes ago, Andwil said:

This is the ex Toko/Roden kit isn’t it?  Seems to have the same issue as the Roden Fokker DVII.  I’ve no doubt you’ll whip it into shape.

 

AW

Yes it is the Toko plastic, but it’s not nearly as bad as the D.VII. The ”plug” that goes into the fuselage needs whittling down to fit, but at least is has the correct width as opposed to the D.VII parts. Not that it matters much since my port wing snapped off anyway…

Edited February 4, 2023 by Torbjorn