Marcus.K.

When this kit first arrived, I noticed that it is designed to use butt joints. I really dislike butt joints. Because it uses butt joints, no joiner strips are provided -- not even the sort that are typically used to close rings. Hmph.
 
Work proceeded on the first fuselage section. Regardless of what the kit designer intended, I simply made myself a joiner strip to close up the ring, which, as you can see in this first photo, is not entirely ring-shaped. It's a ring where it joins the cowl, but then flares to a flat bottom along the rest of the fuselage. The forward-most bulkhead is a simple circle, but the aft bulkhead has a cutout where cockpit elements will be located. I stiffened the entire flimsy-looking bulkhead with thin CA. I also painted the interior a sort-of canvas-colored tan, because I don't know how much of it will be visible once the fuselage and cockpit are assembled. (BTW, that's just an old, dried glue blob in the lower left corner.)

 
Both bulkheads required some sanding to get them to slip easily into the ring. Here's the completed fuselage section, now mated to the cowl assembly. The cowl has numerous blisters, which I will add later to avoid smooshing them while working on the fuselage.
 

 
That first butt joint turned out well. I'll be very happy if the rest turn out as nice. Moving to the next fuselage section, construction of the forward cockpit begins, so there will be a lot more elements.
 
Cheers!

Great work so far! I note that in your upside-down photos, the hull displays right-side up, so it all evens out.
 
Cheers!

First Cuts
 
Construction begins with the forward fuselage. One unusual feature of the Salmson was its powerplant -- a liquid-cooled, 9-cylinder Salmson 9Z radial producing 231 hp. The radiator layout featured shutters that looked rather like fan blades. You can easily see them in this photo:

from Wikimedia Commons
 
And here are the shutters as seen in the construction diagram:

 
The shutters are provided as a flat, printed part depicting the shutters closed, but the instructions say that experienced models may attempt to display them in the open position.
 
Challenge accepted:

 
That job took awhile, so that's all I got done this evening.
 

I've since learned that Capt. Coyle was born in Vermont, making him one of the 'Northern Coyles', who were mostly Catholic. His forebears arrived in Quebec in the early 19th Century before eventually making their way south into Vermont. Our family were Ulster Scots who arrived in the Carolinas sometime in the 18th Century.

Greetings!
 
Whenever I order stuff from Poland, I like to max out the order that can be sent at a certain shipping price point. That means that for my last order from WAK, received just this week, I was able to slip WAK's latest release into my cart. It's a Salmson 2 A.2, a French two-seat observation plane used in the last year of the Great War. First Squadron of the US Air Service also operated the type.
 

 
The kit is designed by Maciej Lewan and features very nice artwork done by Marcin Dworzecki.
 

 

 
A little skimpy on the diagrams, but hopefully enough to get the job done.
 

 

 
Of course I also ordered the requisite laser-cut frames . . .
 

 
. . . as well as a pair of resin Lewis guns for the observer's twin mounting.
 

 
Okay, so you might be wondering why I decided to start this build when I just finished the Hurricane and had started back on Phoenix. Well, I'll tell you why. I blame this wholly on WAK. I checked the inside front cover to see if there was any information about the aircraft depicted in the kit, and there I saw the following (in English, no less):
 

 
Yup, the plane was "piloted by A.J. Coyle."
 
That did it. Hot new release . . . chance to be one of the first to build it . . . pilot with the same surname as myself (and it's not a common one) . . . the kit fairly screamed "build me NOW!"
 
So I caved. BTW, I have not yet been able to determine if Capt. Coyle and I are distant relatives, but I have an extensive family tree, and he's not in it, so I suspect we are not. Oh, well.
 

Capt. Arthur J. Coyle (standing), with Lt. A.E. Easterbrook. Anonymous unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
 
I may try to build this concurrently with Phoenix, or I might not. I'll just have to see how it plays out. Plus, I have another project on my radar. 😬  So many projects, so little time!!
 
Cheers!

Nailed it!

It's been a long time since I made it.
I've been working on the forward deck of the ship.

I was going to do planking work on the main deck, but I had to work on the bow section first, so I went to the bow side.

Although the result is not as good as the brass wire, the result was satisfactory in its own way.

Pear wood was used, and paper was inserted into the gaps.

I was conflicted with one more thing.
This lowest part, the Gun Deck, is a place that cannot be seen unless the lattice window of the Main Deck is opened.
Reserve space for the Bowsprit in advance.

Remove the traces of bond on the side of the hull and perform reinforcement work.

Aloha!!!
 
Painting underway...fun, but going slow due to work and slow dry time of oil paints.
 

 
 

Meanwhile, I finished the propellers, painting the hubs with gun metal, later pointing out the screws in silver and last adding black panel line wash for accentuation. When dried, I added the propeller brand logos and on they went.
This was followed by two very frustrating hours, where all the guns fell apart, which were only temporarily fitted. The two in the gun rings while adjusting and worse ,the one in the fuselage fell out. After said two hours, I somehow managed to get the one in the fuselage back in place, using different tweezers and a torch, to reach into that now hard to access area. The other guns fixing is for tomorrow, but I used the chance and varnished their stock and grip with transparent orange.

 
 

 
Cheers Rob

Good work on the propeller. If I may, this is my take with normal pastels over a layer of Tamiya paint, followed by Tamiya clear orange.

Cheers,
Dan

I can only guess, that these are acrylics, wefalck. The artist pens from F-C should also work fine for this kind of work. Where the AK weathering pencils really shine, is dampened. You can use them as a multicolored wash and weathering medium. I really love to work with them.

Here are some examples of a Sci-Fi build, where weathering was done with the AK pencils dampened:








 
Cheers Rob

I´m closing in on the finish line. Due to some back spasms, bench time is somewhat limited lately, but I started painting the figures and props.
These were primed and sprayed with Tamiya Buff then.
 


I wanted to try a new technique for the laminated wood and graining with pencils. My AEG has two different propellers, a good opportunity to finish the props a little different. 
Number one was ´laminated´ with AK weathering pencils Dark Chipping for Wood and Dark Rust by hand following the logical ´flow´ of the lamination.



Number two was ´laminated´ with Sand and Sepia for a bit more contrast



The props were varnished differently,
Number one got Tamiya Clear Orange applied by brush, which removed a lot of the laminating effect. Not all propellers of the time had a verry apparent lamination effect, so I let it be.

Number two was varnished with the airbrush using Tamiya Clear Red, which lead the wood layers show through much more.



Cheers Rob

The AEG got it´s teeth - hmmh, well - besides the painted on jaws I mean. The LMG 17/17 Parabellum are from Gaspatch, airbrushed satin black and then  I rubbed on steel pigments with a cotton swab. Stock and grip are painted with oil colors and after seeing the pictures, I decided to put on some varnish for a more realistic look. The kit guns are not bad and I used one inside the fuselage, but detail of the Gaspatch ones is absolutely fantastic. 
Positioning of the guns is not final. I also made some touch ups and detail painting and added the artificial horizon. 
Gun mounts and other details got sprayed aluminum, then covered with hairspray with the dark sea blue on top and finally weathered with a toothpick.

 
 

 

 
Cheers Rob

The big bat flexes it´s wings. Today, I finished rigging the wings and I´m happy to have that behind me. It was not overly difficult on the outer wings, but fiddly with lots of scissors and tweezers involved, always adjusting the light and try not to knock off or scratch parts.

I loosely attached the rudder, but not the elevators. The tail will be last, as until now, it´s easy to set the plane onto some foam, bottom up. With about 60 cm of wingspan the bat starts to handle a bit awkward and it´s relatively heave, luckily quite robust.

It´s hard to see on the pics, but the white rudder has spar markings visible. I used 1mm masking tape over the spars, when I sprayed the tinted varnished over the whole airframe. 









Cheers Rob

One side done . I finished the rigging with pulling all lines taught and add a drop of CA to the anchor points to secure everything. This part of rigging was much easier, than the nacelles and inner rigging. I had to fabricate new turnbuckle tubes, which is not the most exciting work, but now, I have enough for side number two.
 

 

 

 
Cheers Rob

Ok, there was a lot of talk about tubes, loops, eyelets, ... through the last steps of the build, so I thought, it might be helpful to explain my rigging process.

I cut my ´turnbuckles´ from aluminum tube with the inner diameter of 0,3 mm, the outer 0,5 mm with a length of about 3mm. I roll a fresh blade over the tube until it splits.



You don´t want to run into trouble with burr, later when you try to loop the fishing line through in the middle of a fragile spider web, so I use a 0,5 mm drill bit to remove the burr, holding the tube with a reverse action tweezer.



I glued the eyelets into pre drilled holes into the wing, like here around one strut and for the ailerons with CA. I use Gaspatch eyelets for the structural rigging and Bob´s buckles eyelets, which are finer for steering lines. I orientate the eyelets for the easiest possible rigging.


 
Maxima Chameleon fishing line is the weapon of choice, the brownish color looks ok to me and it´s monofilament.



Now it gets serious, using one piece of tube onto the line and pass it through the eyelet.
 


With tweezers, I pick up the end of the thread and bend it back to the tube and fiddle it through the tube for a second pass.



Finally, I apply a drop of CA to near to the eyelet and push the tube onto it, holding the fishing line into it´s designated direction and cut the protruding rest with a scissor.


 
Cheers Rob

8 Years later, maybe not going to happen.
 
Thanks for the post David, after seeing a video of the USS United States from the Battleship NJ Museum folks, I was pleased to find this further information. 
 
Unfortunately I think this old girl's days are numbered, I'm not up to date on her status but these drive-by pics taken by my sister aren't real inspiring. 
 
Cheers Mates!
 
From the 2016 article:

April 2024:
 
Does anyone know of any model kits for this ship?
 
 

At last!  
Planking is done.  The last row was a royal PITA!  but all's well that ends well. 
 
Next steps?  Decide whether or not to paint.  If not, figure out a staining scheme, but experiment mightily first!   To buy time, and not derail construction, I may divert to other aspects of the build - maybe start constructing masts and spars?  Or, as seems very popular amongst others here at MSW, start on the cannons. 
 
But, First things first.  Tonight I celebrate this milestone with a double Manhattan and a fine meal out!  Tomorrow can wait. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

kind of funny. I just saw this question and this very evening I stumbled across this painting: 
 Michiel Loos merchant ship
 
The name on that pennant, indeed the vessel's name, is also reversed... and the pennant colors in exactly the same style as yours.
 
And yes, I know, funny, the flags are pointing aft while under sail...