Nieuport Newbie

[eng]

Evening all,

Just wanted to share a few pic's with the masses and get some feedback, (good and bad, I can take it both barrels!), on this wee beauty, a 1/72 Nieuport 11 from the Eastern Express kit.

Firstly I must thank Tornado64 for the kit and the other 3 that came along with it - Thank's very much indeed.

This is the first WW1 aircraft I have built, and I know nothing of the history or markings of this aircraft, I didn't do any homework this time and managed to complete it in 4 evenings. The kit is pretty basic, but has a seat, control column and rudder pedals which are all visible, I added a Tamiya tape lap belt as a wee addition. The rest of the kit went together surprisingly well and very quickly and used no filler at all. The tricky part with the whole thing was cleaning up the sprue attachments on the gun support arms due to there tiny size and thinness, next time I would be inclined to re-make them from thin wire.

The gear struts are very slightly offset to the port side and I never noticed this til tonight, it was intended as a quick build to get the feel for WW1 stuff and has been just that.

The paint is Halfords Aluminium out of a rattle can and a few area's around the engine picked out with Vallejo natural steel to break up the uniformity. The engine was Vallejo Gun Metal with a black wash and a light drybrushing of light grey. The prop (very chuffed with this!) was Vallejo Buff with stripes of Vallejo Natural Wood and then overcoated with Tamiya Clear Orange and a gun metal hub plate.

The decals (all 8 of them) weren't too bad and were sandwiched between layers of clear as they had alot of carrier film, the port upper roundel had wrinkled badly last night but has settled a bit, but on close examination it's still got a few there that aren't going to go away.

Before I post the pic's, "rigging" I hear you cry, "he hasn't mentioned rigging!". Well I played about with some stretched sprue on the gear struts for about 45 mins tonight and it wasn't happening. I am going to try it using some fine wire I've aquired and see how we get on with that, the builds been a wee experiment so I'm quite prepared to try it again and will persevere, just thought I'd post pic's in case I wreck it trying to rig it!!

Here's the pic's -

So am I happy with it........most definetly, it was built in 4 days (a record for me!), it was fiddly but very enjoyable to build something way out of my normal field of interest, and I think it looks brilliant. If I can do this with a 1/72 kit measuring approx 3" x 4" then I can't wait to get my teeth into some 1/48 stuff!

All comments welcome, especially any critisism or tips that will help next time - don't hold back please folk's.

Thanks taking a peek,

Eng

[CPNGROATS]

Dear Eng. Nice Ni-11..it's a wee thing, that... Rigging would certainly add to the model, but it's going to be delicate work on such a small kit...good luck with that...!

WWI Cheers,

ggc

[eng]

Eng is an idiot!

This was supposed to go in the "Ready for Inspection" thread.

Can any of the Mod's move it for me, sorry folk's.

Rgds,

Eng

[Doug Rogers]

Nice work, and great for 1/72! Got to get my finger out and try something like this, as you say if you can do one of these, 1/48 should be a doddle.

[Dances With Wolves]

Hi Eng:

Very - very well done on a really fine result. In the spirit of your request for feedback, my limited WWI understanding tells me WWI tyres were other than black - light grey or brown (I've heard light grey-ish pink mentioned too) predominantly but apparently never black. When you fancy giving rigging a go I heartily recommend you use Bob's Buckles. Here's a link to his site:

Bob's Buckles

Again, great stuff.

Best regards

Steve

[Richard B.]

Congratulations on your first Nieuport, and a 1/72 scale one at that - no wonder they call it 'Braille scale'. That is one tiny model!

You mentined you used rattle can silver plus some brushed on steel - good as you said to break up the monotony of the silver. Nicely done propeller - I can't believe you managed that in 1/72 scale.

A lovely aircraft - classic lines - beautiful.

I wouldn't worry about the rigging - there's always next time.

Try the Eduard Nieuport's. There is a 1/48 Nieuport 17 Weekend version. The Hanriot HD 1 goes together very well too.

I tried a 1/72 scale Roden Sopwith Camel and couldn't finnish it - I blame my 56 year old eye-sight and my shaky hands. I stick to 1/48 and larger scales now.

Edited February 22, 2009 by Richard B.

[Rowan Broadbent]

Great work!

I used to love the bijou quality of 1/72 until the eyes couldn't cope anymore. The Nieuport is a pretty little thing and you've really done it justice - and in four days too!

Rigging would really make it. If you're going to try some wire, try rolling it on a flat hard surface under that nice steel ruler you've got there, measure the distance with dividers, cut the wire and attach with white glue or superglue if you're feeling brave. Sprue is a bit easier to work with if you can master pulling consistent thicknesses; the best bit about stretched sprue is that if it droops a bit you can tighten it by holding a heat source near, but not too near!!!! the wire and it snaps tight - try a heated small diameter nail -pins loose their heat too quickly as the diameter is so small. Also if you have some sprue from a silver plastic model, you don't need to paint it!

A stirling effort!

[Stephen]

Very nice Mate!

Stephen

[tornado64]

gorgeous build !! love the prop effect looks stunning , strewth Grae i had trouble seeing it when i posted to you never mind trying to build it ..looking forwards to seeing more ww1 stuff from you who knows it may encourage me to build the 1/72 roden gotha bomber that i keep looking at ..

[Obi-Jiff Kenobi]

Looks very nice indeed.