druxey

Scraping moldings: some tricks I found helped me:
 
1) Glue the blank strip down on a solid backing piece. I use  PVA white glue. This may be soaked off in 95% isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) when complete.
 
2) Make the strip no deeper than the deepest dimension of the finished molding.
 
3) Scrape lightly and gently. If you apply pressure, the scraper will wander with the wood grain. As the molding develops, you can add a bit more pressure.
 
4) When the blank edge of  the scraper runs against the backing board, you are at the correct depth and the scraper will not bite in deeper.

But, if the second set is the correct thickness....

Things to bear in mind:
 
1) The roundup or spring of each transom and gallery increases as you go upward. This counteracts the illusion of sagging.
 
2) The apparent spring in photos can look exaggerated as the lower the viewpoint, the greater it appears to be. This illusion is because of the round aft of the various knuckles and rows of lights.
 
3) Any row of lights have the same height throughout, as you've noted, Mark. 
 
I thinks that exhausts the subject - for now, anyway!

. . . then you still have to wait for it to arrive from Poland. 😉 I already have the new parts cut out.

Added the pilot's headrest and windscreens. The kit provide neither interior frames nor glazing templates for the latter; I made photocopies and used those as templates.
 

My priorities are in perfect order -- they just don't match my wife's priorities!

More cowl bits added. I mighta got more done today except I spent the entire day stripping the old finish off my fence. 😬
 

Eighteen cowl blisters done. 😵

 

For those of you who are interested, I thought you might like to see what an insanely talented card modeler (not me, obviously) can do by kit-bashing a rather rudimentary model. Scroll down to the pics at the bottom to see the scratch-built super-detailing. It's on a whole 'nother level.
 
MiG-3 at Kartonowki gallery

The main fuselage sections are done now. Next I'll need to go back and mount all the little lumpy-bumpy parts.
 

Two more sections added to the fuselage.
 

Zipped up . . .
 

 
. . . and skinned.
 

The observer's position is complete. These are the last views anyone will see before it gets zipped up.
 

 

 

 

 
After this, anyone wanting to get a good closeup look will need to use an endoscope. 😑

Gradually the fuselage lengthens.
 

I call this next one the "last time you'll ever have a clear view of this cockpit" shot.
 

 
And here's the cockpit section all closed up and mated to the forward fuselage. The butt joint did not turn out as nicely this time.
 

 
A simple fuselage slice is next, followed by construction of the observer's position.
 
Cheers!

All the cockpit bulkheads have been prepped.
 

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!

First two cowl rings and radiator shutters completed.

 
Now I'm busy trying to make sense of the assembly instructions and diagrams, which leave a substantial portion of the build process to the imagination.

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.
 

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!

You could, if A.) you were willing to pay for a new set, B.) the replacement set were also the wrong thickness, and C.) you were willing to wait two weeks or so for the new set to arrive. No, thanks!

If the laser parts are only half thickness, could you order a second set of them and laminate them together (with the laser parts you have) to create the desired 1mm thickness?
 
Andy

Bit of a hiccup on the Salmson. The sheet of laser-cut parts for the wings was cut from the wrong thickness of card -- only 0.5 mm instead of 1.0 mm. I suspect the sheet containing the fuselage bulkheads was likewise cut from the wrong thickness, but thickness was less critical for those parts. Anyways, I assembled one wing frame, hoping I could make the thinner parts work, but the resulting structure is very flimsy. So, I made the painful decision to ditch the laser-cut parts and use the printed kit parts after laminating them to some leftover 1.0 mm pulpboard. This means I will now need to cut out 28 parts for the wing frames. Also, because the frame pieces are so narrow in the vertical dimension, cutting out the notches where the parts intersect greatly weakens the pulpboard at that point, so I need to stiffen all of the cut-out parts with thin CA. Depending on how motivated I am, this task may take a few days.
 

Empennage is done. I can't give this kit high marks for number and quality of diagrams, not for sufficiency of internal structure. I had to muddle through the former and scratch-build some of the latter, but it turned out okay, I think.
 

 

 

From Lincoln Paine's blog:
 
This is a preliminary list of the 110+ books submitted for consideration for one of the eight John R. Lyman Book Awards in maritime history presented by the North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH) for titles published in 2023.
 
 
 
https://lincolnp.substack.com/p/john-r-lyman-book-award-submissions