davec

Mike - I am really enjoying these kits. I have vivid memories of building kits in the 70's and 90's and spending a lot of time and frustration trying to get things together. I've been watching your builds and have been really impressed with how you solve whatever building issues come up with your kits. There are a few downsides to the great engineering. The tight tolerances make cleaning paint off joints really important, and I have created my own gaps and filling by not doing this well enough. The other big gap is between my skills and getting the full potential out of the kit, but I'm getting better with each one I build. Some more progress on the DH9. This model has a lot of decals. Not as many as DocRob's AEG, but still a lot. I've been plugging away and have most of the applied except for one side of the fuselage. Overall, they have been going on well. There have been a few challenges, especially the roundels where there are some ~5x5x4 mm small nacelles sticking up under the edge of the decal, which I've had a really hard time getting the decals to settle over. They seem too big for the decal to fully conform to. I've got some splits in the decals and a few place where I cut them and am touching up with paint. The tamiya blue matches well and I'm pleased with the lower ones after touch up. The upper roundel has a white stripe around it. I'm going to try to touch that up tonight. There was a gas cap on the side of the fuselage that was almost as big, and I was able to get the decal to settle over it with 6-7 applications of softener and heat. Not sure it would have worked with the bigger bumps.

I spent some time travelling and work got busy, but I've been cutting out and sanding pieces. I made the jig support pieces in basswood. They are thick enough that I think they will support the sanding and bending even thought the boxwood frames and planking may exert more force than the kit basswood during the sanding and gluing. I made new parts and didn't use the kit ones as it looks like these get sacrificed when the model is cut from the jig and I wanted to leave the original kit buildable.

I decided to add some support prior to fairing. The basswood pieces will get removed after. It has been a while of gluing, debonding, and regluing, but I think I am in a good place. The frames are symmetric and look in the right place related to the bearding line. Took longer than planned, but hopefully sets me up for success for the rest of the build.

Tim - Great to see your progress. The deck framing looks excellent.

really impressive!!

Impressive work on the covering boards. I'm looking forward to seeing the progress pictures. Dave

James - I think your work looks great, and the photoetch you have used, especially the instruments, really add to the model. I also agree with CDW that a lot of the photoetch in the sets isn't very helpful. Some of the prepainted instruments are way better than paint and decal and some of the folded metal looks way better than thick molded plastic. Some definitely doesn't. Picking and choosing which to use definitely makes sense. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the model come together.

Nice! congratulations on finishing!

James - I'd promised myself I would never accumulate a stash. I had 13 or 14 wnw kits on the shelf, which was more than I ever planned. My father was a big time accumulator. When he passed he had several hundred models in his attic (and a house packed full of other things). I brought home about 50 of the models, so now I have a full utility shelf worth to build. Makes me feel guilty having them sit there when a new model comes out that I want to build more. It was funny you mentioned the Kotare Spitfire, because I got a great deal on one at the local IPMS show in February and will probably build it next. Most of his other models got sold to a wholesaler. Lots of lessons about what our families have to deal with when we leave our treasures behind. I'm travelling for a few days. Before I left I got did some more work on the DH-9. I have finished painting, other than some touch up where I pulled off the masking. I will start decaling as soon as I get home. Dave

Great to see you back at work on the model. Coming along beautifully! Dave

Hi James - It was very disappointing to see WNW go under, and then the big spike in prices. I was lucky to buy a number of their kits at list price (including when there was free shipping from NZ). I really enjoyed my first one, a Fokker EIII which went together relatively quickly, so I bought the other ones I liked, then bought some more when they had their water damaged kit sale and their final warehouse clearance sale. Then I inherited my dad's very substantial stash. I have enough models to keep me busy a long, long time. The kits were a little expensive at their original price, but spread over the 2-3 months it takes me to build one, it stays an affordable hobby. My skills don't really do them justice, but I bought them to build, not collect.

I'm impressed by your research and the drawing on the building board. I'm really looking forward to seeing your progress.

I think I'm finally in business with the frames being properly oriented. I have some night shifts and travel coming up. It will be a week or so before I can start fairing.

Ken - many thanks! That will save me a step and decrease the chance that I have another painting mishap. Sprayed a lot of red paint today. The wings are drying. I went back to the fuselage, pulled off the rest of the masking, put a wash on the leather around the cockpit, and did more touching up. I also finished painting the tail. The stabilizer doesn't lie flat, so some of that area may end up visible. I'm very pleased with the instrument panel touch up. I didn't take a before picture, but the overspray was pretty significant. This is a vast improvement and I think this is the best I'm going to do - it isn't that easy to reach with a brush. I'll touch up the red on the edge (didn't see that until the picture). The red tinge on the middle upper instrument is probably reflection. It wasn't there when I went back to the model.

I’ve been working on the model for a few minutes every few days. I got the fuselage closed. Tolerances are always so tight that despite being really careful to clean up the glue joints, I end up with a little step at the joint that requires some sanding and filling. I had a few mistakes when priming and sanding, especially not masking far enough away from where I was working and getting some overspray on the instrument panel, which was very frustrating. I always find masking world war 1 models with the exposed engines and open cockpits really challenging - please let me know if you have any suggestions. I’m painting the model red, so used white primer. I just sprayed the red paint, which went down pretty well. The lobster scheme has decals over nearly the entire fuselage, so I sprayed gloss paint, which should let me put the decals on directly (do I need a clear gloss coat over a gloss finish?). It looks pretty toylike now, but with the decals on and a clear flat coat, should look as intended. I’ve cleaned up the overspray and touched up, and am feeling better about the progress. I’ve always had difficulty getting a good finish brushing Tamiya paint and had my first revelation of the project – I highly recommend Tamiya retarder. Mixing a drop of retarder with a few drops of paint in a palette completely changes how it brushes – all of a sudden it flows really well. I’ve got a lot of the rest of the parts cut out and sanded and most painted. I masked and primed the wings this morning.