DocRob

After I figured out, which parts were needed for the nacelles and radiators, I started to paint them. The left engine will be displayed un-cowled, the right one with cowlings. All parts were sprayed with AK matte aluminum, which is not that matte, but covers great and has a nice metallic sheen. It will be only the base layer for weathering and was followed by two coats of horrible smelly hairspray for later chipping. Then the parts were sprayed with Tamiya XF-22 (RLM 22) for the engine bearers and XF-17 sea blue for the outside of the cowlings and radiators. The sea blue was highlighted then, with some drops of sand color added, highlighting the upper sides and the panel borders. The effect is hard to see on the pic, but it´s there. Later, the cowling outsides will be dampened to activate the hairspray and scratched with a variety of tools for chipping. Airbrushing slightly lighted sea blue onto the dark surfaces proved difficult, but I remembered that with my H&S Infinity Giraldez edition airbrush came three different nozzle guide horns (the mounted one is the longest), which were very helpful, placing the slightly lighter dots and will come handy with free hand squiggle camo, as you keep the same distance to the kit and it makes aiming easier. Cheers Rob

Just stumbled into your log Greg. With a bit of time, I will read the entire thread about how your masterpiece was made. I´m sure, there´s a lot to learn in it. Your Dreadnought looks fantastic overall and I couldn´t imagine, how difficult the antenna rigging was. Cheers Rob

That sounds like a great idea, wefalck. I guess, there were some interesting speedboats built with airplane engines and there are some great engine kits around in 1/32, 1/48 and 1/72. Lukgraph for example has some in their portfolio as has Copper State. I once built the ´predecessor´ of the SH4 (I know, it´s not the same amount of cylinders, ...) the SH3 twice for my 1/48 Siemens Schuckert D.III twin build. Left, the Eduard Brassin engine and right the kit part. There are the evil twins. Cheers Rob

No worries Egilman, nothing against some detours once in a while, which widens the horizon. Nice kits by the way, love the Albatros. Cheers Rob

I haven´t build any Lukgraph kits, but thought about buying one or two. The Friedrichshafen caught my eye, when it came out. You can buy them from Hanants in the UK, they are well stocked with Lukgraph kits. Their kits are a mix of resin cast for fuselage and wings, 3D print for engines, weapons, etc. and PE and they cover a great range of not often seen subjects. The only Lukgraph bit, I ever built was the Oberursel engine for my Fokker D.VIII. It was a 3D printed gem, relatively easy to build and fitted without modifications under the Aviattic cowling and would have fitted even into the MikroMir cowling. If you want to see, how they build up, Mike `Sandbagger´Norris is actually building a Lukgraph Halberstadt over on LargeScaleModeler. He is a very gifted WWI builder and you can learn a lot from his well documented builds, which he also offers as PDF download, when finished. 1:32nd scale Halberstadt D.II - LSM 1/35 and Larger Work In Progress - Large Scale Modeller Cheers Rob

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

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 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

Thank you James and you are very welcome to peek into my build. I´m also a newbie here on MSW and with wooden ship modelling, finishing my Duchess of Kingston sans rigging with a lot of input and help from fellow members here. Cheers Rob

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

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

The creature got it´s creature jaws. After finishing the fuselage lozenge camo, I added the shark? mouth and the fuselage markings. The serial number of my plane is not known, but the command is and so I used a fictional number for the correct unit. With the lozenge decals, I had some unexpected troubles, when I used the hairdryer carefully onto one fuselage side, it wrinkled terribly and I was next to bin the kit, but leaned back and continued with Micro Sol and trying to push the wrinkles away, with every tool come to mind. Finally it was ok-ish but not perfect. I hope for the matte finish and tinted overlayer, to look good in the end. I also started with the tail, applying lozenge camo decals. It proved to be hard to fit them around the corners, which needed several applications of Micro Sol and hairdryer treatment. I could have used a stronger decal solvent, but decided against it, after I´ve seen, how sensible the decals are with thinner. Patience is the key here, a virtue I´m a bit short of possession, unfortunately. Then it was decision time about the shark mouth or maybe better whale mouth. WNW supplies two different options, one only in white and one with bluish brushstrokes around. Further, you can decide if the inner mouth should be dark or red. The red was omitted initially and after inspecting the very good existing front section photo, I decided for the one with the blue brushstrokes around. No worries, the last wrinkles will be gone after some more Sol applications. This all looks a bit stark now, but will tuned down a bit due to the use of tinted varnish, matte coat and weathering. Cheers Rob

Thank you Dan, after working with the decals, I had some really bad experiences, after working with a hairdryer onto one fuselage side, the huge decals wrinkled terribly, where the others worked fine with the same treatment. With a lot of patience, I got it sorted out finally. I always use Micro Set for the application and later, if there are wrinkles or details, over which the decal didn´t conform too well, I use Micro Sol, in this case multiple times, with a hairdryer in between. I wouldn´t use Sol for the first application, because it softens the decal and makes it more sensible for destruction and unwanted stretch, which can cause fit issues. Cheers Rob

Today I decaled the lower fuselage and wing stubs with lozenge camo. The provided decals are ABSOLUTELY fantastic, maybe the best I ever worked with. The fit, even for the cut outs and strut holes are perfect, which is a great relieve. I decided to work my way up, in case there are overlaps, which indeed are minimal. I used Micro Set and Sol and a hairdryer for the application along a flat brush, to push the bubbles away. One strange thing, on two of the five decal sheets, the decals need to soak for more than five minutes, where the others need only a minute. Then I changed plans for the umpteenth time in this build and build the undercarriage, which luckily is a very sturdy construction. Not visible on the pic are the eyelets, which I glued in, before painting as a preparation for rigging. Now the fuselage can rest on the undercarriage and the underside decals remain unharmed. Cheers Rob

I started to clean up the engine parts and parts of the nacelles, because I wanted to get a grip for the fit and for the painting process. By the way, I decided to wire the engines and pre drilled the magnetos with 0,3 mm holes for the wiring and the cylinder heads with 0,5 mm holes for my brass tube spark plugs. Meanwhile the fuselage was airbrushed with Tamiya XF-17 sea blue. In case you wonder, why the AEG looks like a porcupine, I put in wood plugs into the holes for the struts, adhered with a drop of thinned PVA. If you know about WNW tolerances, you got the idea, I don´t want to clean out every hole, before assembly. For the same reason, the engine support struts were loosely mounted. As much as I like the matte look, I need a glossy surface for the lozenge decals and sprayed on Mr Hobby GX-100 clear gloss, with two thirds of leveling thinner in the mix and ruined the perfect mattedness. Cheers Rob

I haven´t done as much as I wanted lately, but checked the gaps in the fuselage and sanded a bit. A tiny bit more filling and sanding is needed, before I can continue with airbrushing the base layer for the lozenge decals. What I did, was pondering about the painting and decaling sequence, identifying where the fuselage decals go. Nose, decks and parts of the wing stubs are only painted, the rest will receive decals. The next decision was about the base layer, therefore I decaled a gloss white plastic strip, which I painted with areas of gloss black and added a spare decal, to see, how much transparency the decals have. It´s almost non visible, which means, I will airbrush Tamiya XF-17 sea blue as a base, followed by a gloss coat for the decals. If I would have base coated with gloss white, I would have had the possibility of pre shading, like with Aviatic decals, but this makes no sense here. It has to be post shading then. Cheers Rob

Preliminary to closing the fuselage permanently, I made a last test fit of the decks and had a last peek at the interior, where the final details were added, like the folding seat for the commander. I displayed it folded and stored, which leaves a narrow tunnel for the crew to slide through to the back of the cockpit, not too easy I guess with the thick leather outfit and maybe a life jacket. Then I closed the fuselage, did a first bit of sanding on the seams. Fit was good, but not perfect, due to the very thin plastic and multiple parts intersecting. On the lower side, you can see the dark patch of the tiltable window for the fuselage gun. WNW chose to produce the stitching on the lower side as separate parts, which seal the lower fuselage side seamless, genial. There is one rectangular part fitting between the two bomb slots in front of said window, where the WNW manual calls falsely for part A45, where A44 is the correct one. I shimmed the lower nose section with a strip of evergreen, because this area is very flexible, due to the thinness of the plastic. Cheers Rob

Thank you wefalck, you possibly got me there. I´m mostly sure, these planes had a relatively short service time, due to technical failures, enemy fire, accidents and further technological development. On the other hand, they were used under less than comfortable conditions, at night time in cold, windy and humid weather conditions, with a crew, trying to stay warm, crawling around in the crammed space with their thick leather outfits on. The envisioned picture, I painted in the second part, led to my rendered image, I developed before I even started the build. When I start a project, I always try to get a feel for the subject, the conditions and circumstances and this along with other sources forms that said picture in my head and that´s what I follow through the build. I like to build realistic models, but not to the last possible aspect. With my picture in mind, I keep the liberty of freestyling a bit. With the AEG, I was sure, the question will arise sooner or later, but rendering this picture I have pre-envisioned into scaled reality is what drives me in modeling. On a side note, with wooden ship modeling, there seems to be a great hesitation with weathering and ageing in general, which is a pity. The majority of builds look brand new, my feeble attempt with the Duchess of Kingston included. I think, weathering and ageing is an art and will use it on wooden ships as well, when I have some more experience with the subject. A first try might be a fishing vessel or similar. Cheers Rob

I finished the cockpit tub today. You have to be faithful, that a zillion of contact points fit, where they should into the fuselage and to the three deck parts. I test fitted a lot, checked again with the manual, but praise to WNW, the fit is excellent. The seat belts were added, after I mistreated them with pigments, washes and matte coat and the last bits and pieces went in. The inboard LMG can be added later, which I also tested. I prepared the fuselage halves with some fake rigging, made from 0,2 mm nickel rod with 0,5 mm aluminum tube glued to the ends and then Ca-ed into the fuselage. The fuselage got closed and left to dry overnight and I even didn´t forgot to snap in the trap door window for the fuselage LMG. Cheers Rob

I applied the first batch of lozenge decals today. They went on beautifully on the inside of the fuselage and need to be flat coated then. Initially I wanted to assemble the HGW seat belts, but couldn´t find the heart in me to start. There are four pairs to be made for the captain/observer in the front cockpit, the pilot, the foldable co-pilot seat and the rear gunner. Interestingly these four stations were only manned by a crew of three on night missions often only two crew members. The captain/ observer crept through a tunnel out of the front cockpit for takeoff and landing, because in case of a nose dive, he would be crushed in the front office. Speaking of nose dives, to distract me from the seat belts, I even had a peek on the waves for surfing, but on this cold, grey, stormy day, there was no surf to speak of, so back to the belts. Well in the end, I assembled all four pairs and now my eyes are hurting . They are a bit simpler to build u, than the WWII ones, but fiddly as well. Again, it was helpful to fiddle the belt parts through the buckles, when these are still on the PE fret. On the picture, they havent received their brown oil color wash, which will be followed by a matte coat tomorrow. Cheers Rob

More detailing and adding of pre painted parts took place, before closing the cockpit tub. WNW has a great photo in the manual, which shows the bomb release switches in the observer station, but added none in the kit. I used Albion Connecto brass parts for this. I cut the crosses to size and glued them into the switchboard. Later, I added cables for each of the switches. That´s how it looks now: Now it´s time for the seat belts, where as usual the HGW instructions for the paper and PE belts has some errors. It´s always the same with HGW, they have some great products, others are a complete fail, but the manuals are always wrong. I closed the cockpit tub, but not before checking, it fits into the fuselage, which it seems to do, phew. I haven´t added the steering wheel, because I can´t find my PE-fret, where some tiny parts have to be added to the steering column and I hope, I can find it in time. I toned down the backside of the seat with smoke pigment, because my oil color woodgrain looked too new for my bird. Then I simulated the decks for fit and what remains visible. Cheers Rob

Thank you Ken, looks like a good place for a cigar and a glass of cognac, doesn´t it. I was not satisfied, after I painted the seats up with my usual multicolor blend of oil colors, using near black in the deepest folds and work my way "up" to the most exposed areas with a lighter shade than the base color. Oils blend perfectly, but after coating semi gloss clear on top, the nice effect nearly vanished, maybe because of my chosen dark brown look. I thought about, how old leather looks and decided to play with partly shinyness, which is so typical for used leather. That was where the idea for the sanding paper came into play and I liked the result. Finally, I dabbed on some bronze metal wax with onto the knobs with a toothpicks and now am ready for my cigar. Cheers Rob

It starts to get cozy in the front office. It´s time to add the numerous details and it´s a good idea, to follow the manual with the progress. Guess how I found out. I had to wiggle one bulkhead in, because I glued the sliding pad too early. The seats are oil painted on sand yellow and accentuated with toned variations of the base color. After a coat of flat, I had a semigloss finish, which was treated carefully with 4000 grid sandpaper, to remain glossy leather patches and some worn dull areas. On most of the metal parts, I applied a very slight rub of iron pigment with a cotton swab, a technique, I use very often to enhance the metal appearance of these parts. Somehow it looks right scale wise. There was a lot of detail painting in places and I used CA mostly, as it´s not so thin to spoil surfaces and bonds well, even with painted surfaces. Cheers Rob

Thank you Yves, WNW did a great job, designing the dashboard and specially the perfect fitting decals, which made it easy to achieve a satisfying result. I haven´t spoken about it, but WNW made a mistake with this IP and moulded some British instruments onto it, but mentioned in the manual, that these are to remove. No biggie, it happens to the best. Cheers Rob