DocRob

German WWI biplane rigging is relatively straight forward, even these twin engine bombers, compared to RAF planes with flat rigging and mostly a lot more rigging lines. I have a WNW FE.2b in stash as well as a Copper State Model Caudron G.3. These giving me the creeps with their spider web rigging. With the AEG, it´s all about planning the sequence, when it comes to when to add the eyelets, struts and actual rigging. Cheers Rob

Believe me, it isn´t wefalck. I build the Duchess of Kingston as my first serious attempt in wooden ship modelling and tackled the build in three month, including hull, detailing, mast and yards. Well, what´s amiss, right - rigging. I got nightmares doing it halfway right only for the bowsprit and postponed the build for now. I think, rigging the mid part of the plane with the nacelles with elastic thread was a good decision. The thread is easier to handle and is easy to tauten. For the outer wings, I will use fishing line, which gives some strength to the construction. Cheers Rob

Today, I managed a very dreaded step in the build, finishing the mid section of the upper wing. Before, I added rigging wires from the nacelles through the cabane struts and later to be fixed under the upper wing, therefore they are not taught. WNW tells you to install the cabane struts first, reaching diagonally from the fuselage, which makes perfect sense, but then let you put the inner struts from the top of the fuselage to the gas tank in the middle of the upper wing to be glued into it´s wing fitting and then last into the fuselage. I didn´t like that second part like shown here in the manual and preferred to have all strut gluing to make on the upper wing, which worked good. Alignment was not easy, but now all looks more or less straight. Cheers Rob

Thank you Greg, it´s a great kit and is a generally straight forward build, with the exception of decaling, which takes time and the area around the nacelles, with rigging, many struts and not so much space to wiggle, but there is no need to wait until retirement. I even thought about buying another AEG, but this time the early version. Cheers Rob

Today, I reached one important milestone with the huge bat. After painting the internal MG, I installed it into the fuselage, because this area will be harder to reach, when the wings are on. Then, I installed the nacelle struts, which received eyelets before for the nacelles rigging. Before adding the engine nacelles itself, I finished the rigging between the fuselage and the struts, a hard to reach area, after the engines are in place. I used Infini elastic rigging thread and tiny aluminum tubes for the rigging and tried successfully not to break the struts while rigging. Lastly, I added the engine nacelles itself and the radiator and engine steering axles. It was a nerve wrecking task and not all went completely satisfactory. The starbord engine isn´t perfectly upright, but there was no way to correct it without a lot of fuss. Cheers Rob

There is a lot of hot air travelling through the engine compartment via tubes and turbos. I´ve never been a friend of turbo charged engines and their characteristics, but yours look fine to me. They are a nightmare to build, like I found with my Tamiya 1/12 F1 Renault lately. This and the exhausts were the worst parts of the build. It seems you are on a good way with your Ferrari. Thanks for reminding me on pink primer, I will soon test that. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias señhores, oil colors are indeed perfect for leather replication with their good coverage, easy blending and brushstroke free application. My love for oil colors in modelling started only four years ago with the replication of wood, another area, where oil colors are perfectly suitable. I use different thinners for different finishes, like in this case the matte thinner. Everything started with my Hansa Brandenburg build, where I tried to get a grip on wood reproduction. For the same build, I first discovered the oils capability for looking like aged leather: Later, I used oil colors more and more and don´t even use pre fabricated washes and panel liners any more, as oil colors render the same with a much better ability to control the result. I even decided to make an experiment and paint a whole airplane kit with brush and oil colors. The Polish PZL was perfect for the job with it´s single color camouflage and corrugated wings, where the oils added some depth. The oil colors proved very versatile in breaking off the monotone olive surface. Cheers Rob

The beast got teeth, literally I mean. After installing the bomb racks, I added the bomb load. Again, I used CA to glue the parts in place, which I prefer with painted parts. There is less risk of damaging the paint and applied with a tooth pick, it´s a very fine method. I will add some holding belts later, which I will make from fine Kabuki strips. The tailskid fits into a massive part inside the fuselage, but lasts only on a tiny plastic peg on the rear end. As this was damaged while handling the AEG, I replaced it with a 1mm brass rod for some extra strength. The fuselage window was very dirty from the inside, possibly due to lacquer fumes, but I could reach the inside from above and clean the panes. I removed the masks from the cockpit openings and painted the paddings with oil colors and matte medium thinner. I used a dark brown base color, which I darkened for crevices and shadows with dark blue and lightened with some vanilla yellow for highlighting. I really like oil colors for replicating leather, you get great coverage, easy modulation and about the right shine. Cheers Rob

Today, I added some multi color sponge ´chipping´ onto the non lozenged areas. I considered brown Flory clay wash, but decided against, as there are not many panel lines or similar on the fuselage for the wash to lock in. Then the bat got wheels - Does it make it a Batmobile? The undercarriage is very robust luckily and I added the first rigging through the beforehand glued in eyebolts. I used Infini flexible thread here, which was great to work with, elastic and therefore easy to tauten, but stiff enough to fiddle through the aluminum tubes, even for the second time. On with the wheels, wich are luckily included in two versions, weighted and normal. I chose the weighted ones for the heavy bird. Hard to imagine landing this huge bat on an improved airfield with only four wheels the size of my mountainbike´s. Cheers Rob

Great work on the Sea King, James. The interior looks absolutely fantastic and I hope you can see a lot through the canopy and doors. Well PE, love it or hate it. I like to work with PE, but like the others have mentioned, only where it truly enhances the plastic parts. It´s a learning curve with complicated PE assembles and good to have the appropriate tools, like bending pliers and tweezers and last but not least a trusty CA glue or solder experiences. Cheers Rob

Should be a nice kit, Craig. Peterpools over on LSM recently built the basic version of the kit and made a build log MiniArt P-47D Thunderbolt: COMPLETED 2/13/24 - LSM 1/48 Work in Progress - Large Scale Modeller Cheers Rob

It was printed, like Egilman explained. In case of my AEG, it might have been overpainted with a slightly yellow transparent varnish on the original plane. That´s what I tried to simulate. The varnish make it look a bit like on a sepia photo and I have to say, I like the effect, which unifies the lozenge with the painted areas, Balkenkreuze and markings. There are some examples of printed Lozenge on the Aviatic webpage, who sell many different variations of lozenge camo decals, which are of very good quality. used them on other builds and they looked fantastic, having a woven background and looking cloth like. You have to scroll down, too see the pics of the real thing. 1/32 "Lozenge" Decals (aviattic.co.uk) That´s a very polite way to remind me of my photographic shortcomings, Egilman There was once a build of a Gotha bomber over on LSM, where the builder used masks for the camo and in one of my Wingnut wings related books was another one building a day bomber AEG, using masks. The day bomber schemes consists of larger lozenges, but I have never seen anybody, replicating the smaller lozenged fighter or naval hex schemes. Cheers Rob

Not a lot of difference between these two pics, at least at first sight. What I tried to achieve, is to make the huge wings a little bit more interesting. First, I used a sharpened AK weathering pencil blue green and rubbed the tip over all the seams on the wing spars, quite tedious to do, but did a bit of highlighting. Then, I mixed Tamiya smoke with some drops of Tamiya clear yellow and sprayed it in slightly irregular patterns over the plane in the direction of the airflow. This tinted everything a bit and blended in the decals even better. Next was a matte coat, but the Tamiya LP matte clear was not matte enough for my liking. Therefore, I used Pledge with about 25 percent of Tamiya flat base mixed in. I would have liked it a bit more matte, but didn´t dare to add more flat base, as there is a risk at about thirty percent, that the mix sprays with a frosty surface. On the lower wing, I had some decal lifting on the trailing edge. I ´glued´ these in place with decal adhesive, but this will be a weak spot until finishing the build. Cheers Rob

Today, my long awaited parcel from Japan arrived, which included my Infini 0,135 mm aero flexible rigging thread. I never used the stuff and was eager to see, if it is suitable for the classic ´ thread through tube - then through the eyelet - and back a second time through the tube ´rigging and it worked. So this will be my method of rigging the nacelles, which are very delicate with their struts. The outer wings will be made with the same process, but with mor rigid fishing line instead for extra stability. Cheers Rob

Today, I test fitted the engine nacelles with their struts to the fuselage/wings, not for vanity, instead for good reason, as it proved impossible to add the cabane struts to their fuselage holes, which they share with the nacelle´s struts. I will have to shave a bit off the lugs, despite, there is no color onto the lugs and holes in the fuselage. While testing, I broke one strut, because these are very fragile, close to the connection points. As this is the area, where some rigging lines lead, later, there is no way drilling through the strut and to weaken it further. I have to find another way and may rigg the nacelles with elastic thread. Speaking of cabane struts. If you ever build a WNW AEG, watch out closely, when to add them. They skipped my attention in the manual completely, until I inspected the rigging diagram and asked myself, where do these struts come from. I found them relatively hidden in the manual then. I then drilled out all the holes in the wings, where attachment points for the rigging will be with a 0,4 mm drill bit and then added Gaspatch metal cast eyelets, glued in with CA, orientated that the struts won´t interfere with rigging too much. Before airbrushing and decaling the wings, made photos to show, where the holes for the eyelets lay, which proved to be helpful now, when I probed them with a needle. With my kit, one side of the cabane struts where completely bent on the sprue. I tried to righten them, but that proved extremely difficult, as I didn´t want to break them. I used a hairdryer and bent them little by little. You can see one of the struts still bent on the picture. Cheers Rob

Just stumbled into your build log and initially my jaw dropped. That Falcon display is absolutely fantastic and has so much dynamic with it´s setting. All the best to you and your wife. Cheers Rob

I finished decaling the wings and matte coated them. I´m happy to have finished the decal phase now, never in my builds, decals have covered nearly the whole kit like here. I also started to weather the fuselage and will prepare the wings now, with fitting in the eyelets for rigging. The manual mentioned, that many AEG´s received a yellow / green tinted varnish over the lozenge cloth and I will see, If I replicate that too. She is a big girl for sure. Cheers Rob

Fantastic Craig, you built an absolute beauty out of this error prone old kit, congratulations. Cheers Rob

I really can´t remember, if primed or not. I have to go through my ancient build logs to find out and will add that later. Cheers Rob

They are made from plastic, but that would be sufficient, if they were made precisely. They had burrs, leaving marks in the wood on mine and weren´t drilled out like they should be. You initially needed a lot of force inserting a 6 mm wood rod into the 6 mm collet. I bought my Proxxon lathe for 120 Euros here in Europe, don´t know about the prices abroad. Like @barkeater mentioned, the pass through ability of the Proxxon is an important feature for shaping masts and yards. Cheers Rob

Your Mustang looks fantastic, Craig, I love the shiny finish with the panel accentuation. Good that the original decals worked, I had very mixed results with HGW wet transfers on different builds. If everything works out, they loook perfectly, but that´s only the case with perfect surface preparation, concentration and sheer luck. I liked the little worn effect on the stencils from a MIG-31 I once build, but would be carefully with a relatively new looking plane. How did you get the AK Extreme Metal black base to really cure. I used it twice as a base for chrome and polished aluminum, like you, straight from the jar and it never dried, staying tacky even after weeks. I threw my bottles away and use Tamiya LP gloss black instead. Works perfectly, is durable and dries fast. Cheers Rob

I added the three jaw chuck for larger parts for mine as well as the drill chuck with sliding sleeve for the tailstock, to enhance the possibilities of the lathe. I haven´t seen an add on tool holder, the included one is not very long, but works well enough for my cases. PROXXON - DB 250 Cheers Rob

I bought mine for the exact same reason, tapering and shaping masts and yards, which worked perfectly. The only drawback are the plastic collets, which are of a very bad quality, with lots of burr and hardly fitting the diameter, they were made for. As I couldn´t find metal substitutes, I modified mine by drilling them out finely and sanded them carefully to fit. Cheers Rob

Yup, my normally used soaking tub was too small and I had to steal something from the kitchen . There are five large sheets of decals with this kit, luckily to a very high standard quality and fit wise. Cheers Rob

Indeed the different available decal solutions help a lot with the application. In case of the wings, I used only warm water with a drop of detergent for applying. When relatively dry, there are still some folds and creases visible. The combination of decal softener solution and use of a hairdryer is used then to get rid of these and to conform the decal round the corners. In this case, I had to do this several times, because the decal solution I used (Tamiya decal adhesive softener type and Micro Sol) are relatively mild. If your decals don`t dissolve with stronger stuff, the process would be faster. The WNW (Cartograph) decals from this kit react with stronger fluids, so I always recommend to test the on a spare decal from the sheet. Like Craig described ,the use of decals on foil for representing flags should work. The only (lie) reason, I drink wine are the tinfoil caps, which are perfectly as flag or for representing other ´cloth´ material . . If you want to bend the flag after the application, I would also use a hairdryer to soften the decal material. Cheers Rob