dcaponeII

I built the A-6 and the A-8 about a year ago for Scale Aircraft Modelling magazine (The A-6 was on the cover) and didn't have any trouble with the engine installations. You do have to be careful about alignment and dry fit before gluing but if you're careful it will go together just fine. No trimming was required. I will second the statement that if you want the cowl panels closed then leave out most of the interior details because it will not fit together with the cowl panels closed up. Nothing in my builds was protruding too far forward however.

I thought the same thing when I saw the decal sheet. It looked too "striped" not sure that is the right word but it ends up looking pretty close to dead on once they are on the model.

I'm on vacation for the past couple of weeks and have plenty of time to build. Back to work on Monday however so I'll be back to 4 or 5 hours a week instead of 4 - 5 hours per day of build time.

The rigging is 0.004" steel wire. I have glued both ends using clear parts cement. It has a little give which tends to be enough to keep everything together at 1/48 scale. In this 1/32 scale bird I think you're suggestion of only gluing one end might have been a good one.

I've got this one almost finished. Here are a couple of new shots I took while waiting for the rigging on the starboard side to dry.

The instructions clearly call for a feathered demarcation between the wing colors so I'll assume they sprayed them. Paint Spraying was already a common practice by the middle of WWI so I didn't think too much of the possibility that it was wrong. Since the customer wanted an OOB build I tried to stick fairly close to the kit instructions in all areas. I'll put some additional pictures up tomorrow now that the model is reading for rigging. The woodgrain looks very good with the clear coat over the top. If you're building an Albatros these decals are definitely the way to go in my book.

The blue is PRU Blue with a little bit of US Bright Blue added to match the color chip on the instructions. Now take a look at these Aeromaster wood grain decals!!! No gloss coat over the top yet but these decals fit like a glove. Each side around the tail consists of 5 pieces of decal on each side but they fit really well together. This is the "bad" side where I dinged the decal material in a couple spots.

Here are a couple of shots with the model prepped for decaling. The colors are Testor's Modelmaster enamels. The light green is Field Green lightened with Flat White. The dark green is US Dark Green and the red brown is Burnt Sienna. The wood fuselage is Wood and will receive Aeromaster woodgrain decals tomorrow after the Clear Gloss Lacquer has a chance to cure overnight.

I sprayed regular ole' Testor's Modelmaster Aluminum enamel paint. I then did an acrylic wash using Black/brown on the lower casting and just Black on the cylinders. The cylinders are probably not quite as dark as they should be but I think they look the part nonetheless. The upper fuselage is on now but it has much masking tape to coax it into position. Fortunately all the molded fuselage external detail has to be removed and replaced with PE parts so I'll have a good opportunity to smooth any seam imperfections. I'm going to be using the new Aeromaster wood grain decals specifically designed for D-I through D-III fuselages. I'm looking forward to using it as my earlier 1/48 Albatros D-V came out great with the earlier wood grain decals material they made. The new set is pre cut to match the panel lines so I won't have to make paper templates to cut the decal materials like before.

I've gotten pretty far on my second commission build. This is the Encore Models 1/32 Albatros D-II. It's a companion to the SE-5A I posted earlier. The interior is quite tricky to get into the fuselage but I managed after a couple of false starts. The instructions are not the most obvious to follow but it does go together.

Nope that's a resin prop hand painted with Testor's ModelMaster Wood followed by Oil-based Burnt Umber applied almost as dry brushing with a small fan brush. Then I used a cotton swab to soften the demarcations of the Burnt Umber. Finally I sprayed a semi-gloss clear lacquer over the top. The PC10 is a blend of Floquil Red Brown and Testor's Modelmaster Flat Black and a touch of Olive Green. The doped linen is a Floquil Dust with a bit of flat green and a little tan added. The Encore instructions have a great little set of color chips so I just eyeballed the colors (dried of course).

Thanks guys. Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night.

Merry Christmas to you too Mike. Yes this is one of the two I'm building for the Nuremburg Toy Fair. I've got about three hours into the Mercedes engine for the 1/32 Albatros D-II. You should see this beauty of a resin engine. I'll post the Albatros as I get into it. For all of the rest of you, Mike knows I don't build scales that have 7's in them. I've been coerced into two 1/700 ships and a couple of 1/72 scale aircraft in the past year. Now this 1/32 stuff. I've got to get back to God's scale SOON!! Of course my F6F-3 on another thread came out pretty well.

This is my SE-5A in 1/32 scale. This is the Encore Models packaging of the Roden plastic with a great set of resin parts and three frets of PE. I'm not a figure modeler but I thought I'd take a crack at McCudden as well as he comes with the kit too. Comments welcome on this unusual scale for me. I'll be honest in that I much prefer the 1/48 scale WWI aircraft models.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the comments.

I guess that old statement is true...Those that have it...flaunt it. Good luck with the build. My eyes are still good enough to stick with 1/48 and a few years longer.

Thanks Gil. I'll do some touch up on the prop post haste and I agree just a little bit is needed. I should have masked the prop tips too. I do like how the weathering came out on the wings. I preshaded with black under the seams but most of the effect is from postshading with a lightened shade of sea blue shot to the rear along the edge of some card stock. I preshaded using dark grey for the underside and although I've not posted any pic of the underside I think it came out fairly well. We'll find out in February when contests begin again.

I agree on both counts. I'll take a crack at it shortly. Keep those comments coming.

Hi all. I've finished this build over the weekend and I thought I'd let you comment. This is the Arri release of the Otaki F6F-3. The kit was missing the clear parts so I stole the F6F-3 clear parts from my Eduard F6F-5 kit (Thank you Eduard for leaving extra parts in your kits.) The cockpit is the True Details F6F-3 cockpit designed for the Hasegawa kit. It fit with a little fiddling. Mostly I spliced the kit headrest section onto the resin bulkhead to better match the inside contour of the fuselage. The kit is finished with Testor's Modelmaster enamel paints. The decals are leftover from a MicroScale F6F set combined with Aeromaster stencils and Stars. The model depicts an F6F-3 on the Princeton in 1944 which is why I decided to go a little heavy with the weathering since by then the F6F-5 had been in service for a while. I'm looking for other eyes to find the goofs I might should still fix.

Why not save all that cash and get a quart of MEK from the Home Depot or Lowes and get on with modeling. It will probably last a decade even with lots of modeling.

My only comment other than the overall nice job on the post shading is that I prefer to set the faded edge in the direction of the slipstream as opposed to towards the interior of the panel areas as you have done. Personal preference more than anything else I'm sure. It is hard to tell from the photos and the lighting conditions will change how it looks as well. If you think it's good then it's good and if you feel the need to tone it down a bit you can always overcoat with tinted clear flat. Sorry about your job loss don't spend so much time modeling that you don't get enough time job hunting. I've always reminded myself during previous bouts of unemployment that job searching is a full time job.

What I often do is to add one or two drops of the color to the Clear Flat lacquer during the final coat. It gives you tons of control and the lacquer thinner. For many aircraft I will shoot the major areas on the upper surfaces (wings, stab, upper half of the fuselage) with two drops of light grey in the clear flat lacquer and then add a drop of two of flat black and shoot around the perimeters and into the shadow areas to provide more depth to the finish. What was said above is very true. Less is more and build up in thin coats.

I've had a couple of OOB wins with Biplanes that have had stainless steel rigging without any problems with the judges. I think the explanation above is dead on. If you're very concerned you can always used stretch sprue using the sprues from the kit and then you'd be ok in any case. I find stretched sprue tends to sag with time.

The Sigma 7 didn't place at Ft. Worth this past weekend but the porthole version took first place mounted on a Redstone Conversion I did using two Glencoe Jupiter C kits and some scratch building. Here's a photo from the contest of the Redstone.

FYI The Gemini took a 3rd place at Ft. Worth last weekend (after I fixed the windows) and the Mercury (port hole version) took 1st place after I mounted it onto a Mercury Redstone Conversion.