Steve's Models

[Aktungbby]

Überflieger: Any chance of a group shot of your whole WWI air fleet...revisit my album for inspiration! what camera are u using and is it a macro lens- it's great on details?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Überflieger: Any chance of a group shot of your whole WWI air fleet...revisit my album for inspiration! what camera are u using and is it a macro lens- it's great on details?

That would be difficult, as there are too many to fit into one shot. I did take the pictures of the four layers in my big suitcase earlier. It's quite stripped now, since I've been slowly making new ones, one each for Allied and Central, and probably more as time goes on.

The camera? It's a Fuji AX-330, a simple digital pocket-cam with 5x zoom and a 'tulip' button for close-ups, which I bought off Amazon for $65, if I'm recalling correctly. It does good enough long shots and close-ups for my needs.

[Sailor Steve]

Engine and interior painted and installed last night, lower wings assembled and drying.



I spent most of the day out running errands and practicing for the show in just two days.

While the Albatros C.III bears a resemblance to the C.I at first glance (actually most of the early German two-seaters look a lot alike), the C.III was based on the earlier B.III and there were quite a few differences between the different 'C' types. I originally bid on one kit on eBay, then found another for an even better 'Buy It Now' price. I bought the second one and refused to bid any more on the first. Unfortunately no one else bid on it at all so I ended up with two. The bright side is that I can build this one specifically for the earlier period when they hadn't yet installed the synchronized gun for the pilot, and do the second one later.

A frightening side-note to that is that while I already have two Hansa-Brandenburg C.Is, I now have an opportunity for three more. For the next period I'll need the one with the forward-firing gun in the "baby coffin", but I've just discovered that one of the Polish resin-kit manufacturers makes the late-war versions with the 200hp and then 230hp Hiero engines...and they do look very different from the early ones.

[Jimbuna]

Treat yersel for Xmas

[Sailor Steve]

I installed the tail fins on Thursday before I went gaming, but never took a picture. After three days off I got the landing gear installed and a bunch of tail skid and stabilizer braces that don't show up very well.

[Sailor Steve]

I've tried different methods for scribing rib lines on the flying surfaces - paint, sharpie (marker pen) and finally a brown colored pencil. My hand isn't steady enough for the first two, but I seem to be doing okay with the pencil. Unfortunately the pencil doesn't adhere well to bare plastic, so I have to put a primer coat on first and then draw the lines on that. It's a little hard to see with darker colors, so I used my CDL mix for the primer coat. We'll see how it looks when I spray a thin coat on top of them.



I also did a little puttying and sanding. A primer coat really brings out the blemishes.

[Jimbuna]

Should be fine depending on the colour of the final coat...a dark marker pen was always my preferred choice for panel lines.

[Sailor Steve]

Painted and aircrew installed. This is the early 'sky' camoflage as required by Idflieg. It was backwards, which I'll explain later. I try to get the crew into interesting poses so they don't all look the same.

[Sailor Steve]

It only took me five hours of work to mount the top wing. The kit comes with some nice white metal parts, including cabanes with the mountings for the radiator built in. I glued on one, then the other. They mated alright, but were low and the back end bumped the pilot's head. I didn't mind that, but the halves wouldn't quite go together that way. I used a tiny pair of pliers to try to force them. The glue joins at the bottom broke. I finally got it to fit. The upper wing wouldn't fit properly. I sawed and cut a slot in the underside of the gravity tank. It still didn't fit. I tried to force it, and the cabanes unglued themselves again. I gave up and went and did something else for awhile.

I came back and started all over again. Same problem. I finally made a whole new cabane out of brass rod, then cut the little radiator supports off and glued them onto my new cabane. Glued on the top wing, and everything lined up perfectly. Then I cut the struts out of the airfoil-shaped rods they gave me. They went in just fine but were flimsy and tended to bend under the slightest pressure - okay for a static model but hardly desirable in something that's going to be handled a lot. More brass rod did the trick. It's not quite the proper shape, but it's strong.



Tomorrow should be rigging and final paint.

[Buddahaid]

God bless K & B! I learned to silver solder a couple of years ago and became a great fan of brass.

[Sailor Steve]

I've read a lot of build logs by modellers who solder their brass. I never learned. I just superglue it.

[Jimbuna]

Improvise and overcome...well done that man

I always found soldering a lot tidier than using glue but it is an operation you must master before you reap any benefits.

[Buddahaid]

I didn't find it all that hard to learn. My biggest problem usually boils down to holding all the parts and the bit of solder in place. It's an odd process as the solder will wick itself toward the heat.

[Sailor Steve]

Today I got the struts painted and the radiator installed. Albatros used a sort of grayish-green for their exposed steel parts, rather than just paint them the same color as the rest. Of course I have to remind myself that "the rest" isn't paint at all, but a pigment applied to the dope. Except the fuselage is the same color, so it must be painted. Unless they covered the plywood with doped fabric. Exept in this case the metal panels are also the same color. But the steel struts are not...

[Sailor Steve]

Spent the whole day not doing much of anything, then went to bed and couldn't sleep. I got back up and started rigging. Now it's past midnight and the rigging is mostly done, and I'm finally ready for bed.