davec

https://lukgraph.pl/
https://www.facebook.com/LukGraph/
 
They have an online store.... Best, (read cheapest) place to buy them... And they have all the extras (decals, both camo and plywood) as well...
 
I have his Halberstadt D.II and Albatross C.III....
 

They are beautiful kits....
 
Send Lukasz a message, he's a great guy...

Beautiful work, Rob.
 
Have you or any others who may read this have any experience with Lukgraph resin kits? They offer a range of various 1:32 WW1 multimedia kits that are priced in the range of current WnW kit prices...average price point seems to be in the $200 - $225 range. The only place I've seen the kits offered for sale are on Ebay. No place local to me nor my regular online suppliers carry them. 
 
Here are a few examples:
1/32 LukGraph #32-30 Resin FF.33L Friedrichshafen ESY 53 | eBay
LUKGRAPH 1/32 Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 | eBay
LUKGRAPH ALBATROS C.III 1/32 | eBay

Thank you OC, building those WNW engines is a lot of fun. There are so many different materials involved, some under varying thermal conditions, it´s like a party for modeling material fetishists. With the AEG´s engine, there are no pushrods to substitute for a change.
I thought long about getting the Taurus sets for the timing gear, but with the two engine design, it´s not that visible, hidden under the top wing. Engraving the coil springs with a needle and rubbing them with steel pigments was sufficient for these engines.
I will add some staining in the end and maybe some more pigments.
 
Cheers Rob

Look at that  engine   -   (now  where  did you put the  model one  you  was working on)
 
OC.

I finished the engines today, which were fun to build, but a ton of work. I wired only the left engine, as the right one will be hidden under cowlings.

After priming all the parts with Tamiya LP-5 semi gloss black, the aluminum parts were sprayed with AK´s Extreme metals matte aluminum, the ignition harness in copper and the tiny ´golden´ parts in brass, all from AK.

I wanted a blotchy look for the lower aluminum parts and used the salt technique again, spraying dark aluminum on top. After that, I used AK´s true metal wax aluminum, dark aluminum and steel, dabbed on with a stiff old brush and then worked into the surface with a flat brush. The result looks more dotted to the real eye.
 
The tubing received my usual treatment of steel pigment rubbed in only slightly for a tiny bit of sheen, followed by some dark brown pigments on the intake manifold and cylinders.
 
The oil tanks were sprayed brass, salted and followed by pale brass, later waxes of brass and bronze for a worn, but shiny metal look.
I applied a self mixed black oil wash, thinned with matte thinner, to enhance the details.


 
Wiring was next, I but glued the ignition cables to the spark plugs with CA and cut the overlap with a fresh blade, easy with 0,2 mm lead wire.
The ´bushes´ of 6 cables for each magneto were sorted out and glued into place. Finally, I dabbed some semi matte black onto CA residues.
 
Per my usual practice, I used CA for mounting painted parts, which is more comfortable to me. I use a toothpick to add the CA, a less potential messy affair than using Extra thin, eating through the paint and running into unwanted places.
 

 
Cheers Rob

The creature got it´s tail, but without the rudder and elevator for now. The joints are fragile and therefore they will be added later. The intersecting tail parts are pure genius, they hold all three parts exactly in place with perfect fit, I only glued for security.
 

 
As a break from decaling, I decided to start the engines. One will be covered with cowls and less detailed, the other will be without cowls and receive some updates, to enhance detail level. 
First, I scratched the top rocker springs for a more coiled look with a sharp scribing needle. Next, I drilled out the holes for the spark plugs with a 0,5 mm drill bit, to accept 1,5 mm long pieces of brass tube with an outer diameter of 0,5 mm and an inner diameter of 0,3 mm.
Said tube pieces were cut with a sharp blade, only rolling them on a flat surface with only slight pressure. This way, you cut easily without leaving burr in the hole.
 

 
These spark plugs will be CA-ed into the holes and will become 0,2 mm lead wire inserted for the ignition cables.
 
 
 
Then I prepared the ignition harness, using the kit part and gluing a six pack of 0,2 mm lead wires to the end of the tubes, which will later be connected with the magnetos and glued a pair of lead wires for every cylinder to the plastic part, which will later be inserted into the spark plugs.
 

 
Cheers Rob

I think actually, that much what could be (only) achieved with galvanoplastics in the past, can be achieved today with 3D-printing. The complex shape of the exhaust-manifolds can be modelled and then printed on a 3D-printer. However, the then to-scale-thickness of the end-tubes is difficult to achieve in anything but metal. If it was me, I would design the 3D-printed manifolds for inserting short pieces of metal tubing, because in photocured resin, the end-tubes would be still too thick-walled and very fragile.

If memory serves correctly, Moskit exhausts were also produced in Ukraine.

I don´t know about Moskit exhausts, but remember at least, that there was another company producing exhausts with a similar process. This is my first purchase of Rexx products, but they are hard to get and were even before the war in Ukraine.
 
 
No, Ken, it´s not printed, but galvanic grown. The exhaust are made from metal (some kind of copper?), like @wefalck or @Egilman described the process in post #66 and #67.
 

Thank you for the warning Egilman, the exhaust are indeed very delicate with their very thin material. I had only the AEG´s exhausts in my hands for the photo and they didn´t feel too fragile then. Adding them to the model will be another subject, but I hope for the best. I haven´t been reading a lot about the Rexx products in advance, but since I started my first WNW kit some years ago, they spooked around in my head. The sets are very hard to find and I was lucky, when I saw the three sets for sale, fitting for some of my WNW kits. I will of course keep the kit ones and to be honest, as good as the Rexx exhausts look, they are not a must buy. The plastic supplied by WNW isn´t too shabby and with a bit of talented painting and ageing, they will look good.
The purchase was more about, what, there are three sets available for my projects, I couldn´t let pass.

I will try to get a better feeling for how fragile the exhaust are, when I very soon (maybe today) start with the engines of the AEG. I may have liked some tiny deformations in the exhaust, but not unwanted .
 

Thank you, for describing the process, wefalck. When I was young, I had an internship in a galvanic shop for two weeks and applied different kinds of metals onto primary coppered parts of different metal origin, but never knew about using it to create 3D objects. 
 
Cheers Rob

There was/is a Russian/Ukrainian (I don't remember which ...) colleague on this forum, who made galvanoplastic ventilators and similar hollow parts. I also know of railway modellers, who 'grow' rivets on metal with this technique. In galvanoplastic, you make a wax core, cover it in a silver paint to make it electrically conducting and then galvanically deposit copper on it. The way then is melted out. It was once a very common method to reproduce medals, small objects and even architectural decorative items (in the latter case using zinc).
Basically, if you are set up to do your own photoetched parts, you could also do galvanoplastics.
 
 

Yep Moskit, They were just as difficult to find as REXx sets today are...
 
I guess you could call them 3D printed in a sense, but what they are is electroplated over a master form, then the form is melted away leaving a very fine metal shell... This is why they state they are "grown" rather than printed... 
 
They (Moskit) were the thickness of tinfoil... (it's why they looked so realistic) I've been told that the REXx sets are a bit thicker but not by much....
 
Moskit died a quick death when it was discovered that their parts were so fragile, you had to be careful even looking at it... REXx has the same reputation.... Also, when they say they are designed for a specific model they mean it... You will have a very, very difficult time adapting/modifying them to any other kit...
 
Most modelers I've inquired about them would not recommend them...
Museum quality looks?  yes,
Very difficult to actually use without destroying them?  yes,
Worth it in the long run? opinions vary...
 
Don't dispose of your kit exhausts until your completely done with the kit, there are any number of reports on REXx sets getting completely destroyed beyond repair by just picking up the model in the wrong spot...
 
Personally, not worth it in my opinion....

I too remember Moskit, but they disappeared into the fog of yesterdays. Are those 3D prints? Nice and delicate.

Those exhaust look fantastic. There once was another company that produced very thin, realistic exhaust similar to these for a large variety of different kits. Was the name of that company, Moskit, or something similar? I have not seen their products on the shelves in a number of years and I have wondered what happened to them. 

Rob this is a brilliant build log for a newbie like me to follow, I'm learning a lot and your detailed process descriptions and photos are fantastic and very informative. I'll follow along if you don't mind
 

Yes Gentlemen, the decals are made by Cartograph and they are very good. Even the tiniest cutout is in the right place, what makes my head scratch is, different decal sheets from the five supplied ones behave different, some soak in seconds others take more than five minutes. 
Generally spoken, I have had very good experiences with Cartograph decals, but found, they do not behave all the same. I´m pretty sure, there are different qualities, thicknesses and opacities to be had. 
Please remember, that´s not some insignia to decal here, it´s nearly the whole airframe, plastered with the camo decals and some are huge, which makes it a bit more daunting.

I had another very pleasant decaling session with Cartograph products, when I built the fantastic Zoukei Moura Kai Phantom, but these decals were more robust and a tad thicker.


 
Like Craig said, decals are always a gamble and that counts especially for these plastered WWI birds. i dread decaling, as it´s a stage late in the build usually, where you can ruin your precious work in an instant.

I used Aviattic´s decals for some builds and liked them a lot, robust, well settling, with a nice woven texture and the right tiny bit of stretch to work them around the wings edges. Another plus is the semi transparency, which allows pre shading, which I prefer to post shading. For the AEG, the use of Aviattic decals would have been too much for me, not only to cut out every single decal, but also match the lozenge pattern.

This Fokker D.VIII, a really tough build, but a kind of a pet project, was decaled using Aviattic lozenge decals. You can clearly see the woven structure which I find very convincing for WWI planes.
 

 
My Hansa Brandenburg was also decaled using Aviattic decals for the naval lozenge camo. Here you can clearly see the pre shading effect, which I miss with the Cartograph decals for the AEG.


 

 
Cheers Rob
 
 
 

Anyone know anything about this table saw?  I picked it up recently and there is no brand name or indication of where or who made it.   Looks well made and solid.
Sorry about the upside down pictures.  I am not real good at graphic editing.

I can't remember the brand as there were several saws made with this junk motor type.  Jarmac? for the brand possibly.  A lot of end play so the blade kind of goes where it wants and it goes way too fast.    It's wort $5 at the most sorry but it's junk.
 

It is a Jarmac.   The ID label has been removed.  It was made in a one-man shop in Springfield, IL.  When the owner died,  his shop died with him.
It filled the small table saw niche during the time between the loss of the Unimat with its saw attachment and the JIM saw.  The motor is probably a repurposed sewing machine motor - no power.  It sorta worked with stock that was essentially veneer thickness. 
The fence was a welded bar - low - no adjustment.  Simple miter gauge.  Two tracks -  so a home made sliding table worked for it.
If you make a sliding table - about a full afternoon's time expense -  it will be machine that fills the crosscut function that the recent chopper saw thread was all about.
Note that the blade is a slotting blade - too many teeth for anything more than thick veneer.
The companies that made reasonably priced blades that fit - Thurston and Martindale - no longer do.
 
I think that there was a similarly T-ball league disc sander in the Jarmac line. Not really good, frustrating, but better than nothing if it was the only thing available.
 
In my imagination, I can see this machine as a negative example for Jim. 

Jaager: Your reference to the Unimat saw attachment made me smile. Back in 1970 that was the only way I could cut plank and other stock. A lot of hit and miss with any cut depths or widths! And the dust everywhere....

Where ever possible I have gone to copper in place of brass.  It is softer, so not applicable for everything, but the beauty is that it can be blackened instantly after being fixed in place with diluted liver of sulfur as this will not stain the wood.   Brush on the LoS then brush some clean water and wipe dry.
 
Allan

I'm still catching up with my progress in case you think i had a super-productive 2 days.
 
Masts and spars were next and went fairly well. I'm  used to making masts out of square stock or 2-ply laser cut wood and this was the first time tapering a dowel. I do not, like most people, have a mini lathe. I didn't know mini lathes were a thing until recently. I also didn't  want to have to create buckets (mini buckets) of sawdust samding dowels down to size and so used my mini plane on the dowels much like I would have with square stock. It went well!
 
I tapered the masts and spars and stained them. I also painted the tops of the mast "like the picture". I made cleats out of scrap which was a bit thinner, and hopefully more appropriate, than the 1/16 square stock called for in the instructions. 
 

Sails next! I washed and dried the cloth twice before anything. I tried both tea and coffee with a 5h soak for staining the sail cloth. Both seemed dark and so i tried 30 minutes in tea. Both tea stains seemed a little too orange (orange pekoe???) But the 5h coffee sample looked pretty good in my opinion (ethiopian medium roast - delicious!). So I went with that for the rest of the cloth.

The original cloth is on the left but I'm not sure that the colors in the pics are accurate.  What is these days?
 
After staining and ironing the sailcloth, I traced out the sail pattern from the plans adding enough material for 2 folds on the edges. I then brushed diluted 3:1 clear pvc glue over the cloth to stiffen it. This techniques is from the David Antscherl shipwright series that I just finished. Does anyone else do this?
 
I'm thinking that I might later put shape and or texture into the sails with a spray bottle and strategic hanging.
 
Once dry, I cut out the sails using a knife and straight edge.  I purchased some FrayFix, which i assume is the same as Fray-Check, from our local fabric shop. I was the only guy there. I wasn't clear how this stuff was to be used or even if it was intended only for those not 'hemming' the edges of the sails but I used it as an adhesive to help fold over the edges of the sails. It dried slowly but worked fairly well and remained flexible. 
 
The sails really taxed my nearly nonexistent sewing skills. I'd once used YouTube to learn how to use a sewing machine to make masks at the beginning of covid. Fortunately, soon after, stores began selling them and we could buy a mask for $2 instead of spending 5 hours cursing a machine who's sole purpose seemed to be making large, complicated knots out of spools of thread. 
 
I trudged back down to the fabric store and bought matching thread. They offered me a membership card which I huffily declined.
 
The sewing of the 'hems' and seams went surprisingly well and a minimum number of thread balls were created. My regrets were that 1) I didn't choose a slightly darker thread color so that it would show up better and that 2) my skills (or luck) aren't good enough that I was willing to attempt a second, parallel line for the seams. Why push my luck?
 

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that I added the corner patches (I'm aware there's a proper term for these but it's late) until after sewing the edges. I went back and sewed over these.
 

I then began sewing the boltropes to the edges. Wow! Tedium and pinpricks! Look closely and you'll see actual bloodstains. I think these add character. But the boltrope does look good and is well worth the trouble. While sewing these, I had plenty of time to consider ways to make this task easier. I got nothing. Cheap whisky and a good Playlist helped immensely and I eventually found a rhythm.
 

I wasn't sure how large to make the cringles at the corners so used a toothpick to size them and just made each corner the same size (approximately). These I later tensioned then wound them with thread and fixed with a dab of ac glue.
 
One sail done! One to go! (I'm now rethinking my hope to build the Bluenose next. Surely, those sails are treated differently!)

I'll try to update more frequently but we're getting close to complete! 

The Sharpie has its new home.  The display case was my second adventure with acrylic after making some additional shelves for one of my display cases, and the first time I tried gluing it.   I'm very happy with how the display case came out.   It is 1/4" acrylic with a peruvian walnut base.  I still have some fogging to rub out from where I sanded and polished the joints, but they are on the side and not that visible.  I got to use the acrylic table saw blade and router table I got for Christmas - it was a fun project.

I'm pretty sure their decals are from cartograph

I'm pretty sure their decals are from cartograph

Today, I received some goodies from Aviattic.com the three days after my purchase (temporarily) defunct European distributor for Aviattic.co.uk. I spare you the details, but I was lucky enough to hold these items in my hand.
Three sets from the Ukrainian company Rexx, which produces galvanic grown metal exhausts for my AEG, Albatros and Fokker D.VII. The mechanic figure is casted by Martin Hille from Kellerkind miniatures, a company from my old hometown Berlin.
 

 
Some detail shots from the exhausts, definitely an improvement over the kit parts and fascinating product due to the thinness of the material.


 

 
Cheers Rob