Steve's Models

[Sailor Steve]

Thanks for the link. That is way cool!

A flying Bristol Bullet! They mention it twice, but the second time it's accompanied by a picture of the SE.5a!

Even worse is their grammar: "It had a speed of up to 50mph, faster than any of the German Fokker Eindecker monoplanes." The comma makes it seem that the top speed was only 50 mph, which is about 30 mph slower than the eindeckers. The comma is very misleading. In another section they mention the M.1c's true top speed of 130 mph, which was indeed about 50 mph faster than the E.I.

[DragonRider]

Yes us English we can never speak the language the right way
I have been lucky to see a few first and second world war aircraft flying overhead as its the Farnborough air show going on

[Sailor Steve]

Landing gear assembled, first primer coat in place. The earlier C.III I did was pale blue over linen. This one reverts to the totally bare scheme of doped linen and varnished wood, so I used the linen color for the base coat rather than grey.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

"It had a speed of up to 50mph, faster than any of the German Fokker Eindecker monoplanes."

I noticed that, but just figured that they forgot to put a 1 in front of the 50.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by DragonRider

Hi Steve You Might find this interesting.

http://news.uk.msn.com/airworthy-ww1-planes-unveiled

Extremely interesting! Major Charles Pickthorn, who flew nearly the entire war both as an observer and pilot, commanded 84 Squadron at the war's end. Wounded in his third victory, 3/6/17, his fourth, 3/11/17, won him the Military Cross, largely on the celebrity of his opponent. Crown Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, himself in command of Fliegerabteilung (Artillerie) 258 (artillery aerial observer squadron) often flew as a fighter pilot with Jasta 2 (Boelcke) in an Albatross D.I (somewhat outdated) painted black with skull and crossbones. Forced down with a foot wound, the unfortunate prince was shot by Australian troops attempting to regain German lines- he died in April, in hospital. Major Pickthorn's last victory, and into the ranks of acedom, was on 11/10/18, the day before the war ended. More pics of his victorious SE-5a aircraft! Freidrich Karl; unfortunate #4: Iron Cross First and Second Class.

[Sailor Steve]

Gun ring installed and wood grain started. The kit didn't come with a gun ring, so I had to cut one out of sheet plastic, and sand it a bunch to get a good circle. The wood grain is going to take some sanding before it's ready, but it needs to be completely dry so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

[Sailor Steve]

Normally I try to keep the best parts for last, but in this case the decals had to be applied before the upper wing went on. Back when I first accidentally ended up with two Albatros C.III kits, I found that the Meikraft kit had a really cool dragon decal for both sides of the airplane. I started doing some research and discovered that this was wrong. Originally there was only one photo of the plane, showing the starboard side with the cool dragon. It turns out that in 1996 the great aviation artist Bob Pearson had talked about doing a portrait of the airplane. He was contacted by a collector who informed him of the crocodile on the port side and shared his pictures.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...53328611448659

Other artists have since done profiles as well as action paintings. The plane belonged to Lt. Erwin Böhme and his observer, Lt. Lademacher (one post on the web says Lademacher's first name was Fritz, but there is no other source and the poster gives no reference). They served on the Eastern Front, in Kagohl 2, Kasta 10, Kavel Aerodrome, in early 1916.

Böhme was one of two pilots later asked to join Oswald Boelke's new Jasta 2. The other was Manfred von Richtofen. Böhme was 37 at the time. He and Boelke became best friends. It was Böhme who suffered the unfortunate collision that killed Boelke, and legend has it that it was von Richtofen who talked Böhme out of committing suicide over the affair.

There is some minor controversy over the colors of the 'Dragodile'. Some people feel it should be pale green, but Bob Pearson and Ray Rimell are both convinced the portraits were white. The main clue is the point where the animals meet the fuselage cross backgrounds. There is no observable difference between them, indicating that they are the same color, i.e. white. The final clue is from a letter that Erwin Böhme himself wrote to his fiancé, describing the plane. He called it "Schutzgeist", which translates to "guardian ghost", or "spirit". This may mean that it was white like a ghost, or it may mean nothing. Still, it's all there is.

Pearson did some drawings in both 1/72 and 1/48 scales, and I since nobody does an accurate decal I ended up printing the drawings onto decal paper. This is what I've been working towards ever since I did my own Morane and Pfalz logos. I first printed them onto regular paper and carefully cut them out. They were a little large for the model. Was Pearson's drawing out of scale? Was the model kit a bit too small? Probably the latter. It doesn't matter. I resized the drawing down about 10% and it was almost perfect, though the Dragon's legs were too long.

I printed the pictures onto the decal paper, and they looked great but when I transferred them they were clear, not white. I used my publishing/drawing program, PageStream, to add a white background, but they still came out clear. I traced an outline around the drawings and made it white, hoping to use it as a background. It also came out clear. My fourth attempt was to put the clear background onto the model and use its black outline as a guide, and just paint the white. Then I found I had some small white decal sheet. I printed the drawings onto that but they were a little blurry. I went ahead and put them on the model, let them dry thoroughly and then put the clear version on top. It came out pretty well.





I painted the tongues red daubing on the paint with very thin brass rod. I used the same method to touch up the edges with brown paint. I still need to fix the white backgrounds and to smooth out the paint so it doesn't look so lumpy in the pictures.

[Sailor Steve]

Pilots, guns and cabanes installed.

[Jimbuna]

Looks great

[Sailor Steve]

Upper wing and radiator mounted.

[Sailor Steve]

Nothin' left but the details.

[MajorArtNZ]

That looks like a nice kit!
Glad that Kombrig release some really interesting subjects.

Great images all round!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by MajorArtNZ

That looks like a nice kit!
Glad that Kombrig release some really interesting subjects.

I now have several, and they are all gorgeous. I just wish I had the time to build one of them.

Great images all round!

Thanks!

[Sailor Steve]

I posted pictures of the finished model yesterday, and decided I didn't like them. A couple were out of focus and I thought the propeller looked sloppy. I bought a special paintbrush several months ago, thinking it might be good for the streaked look Fokker used later in the war, and I wondered if it wouldn't do a better job. it did.

Here is the usual front quarter portrait.


Left rear quarter, showing the crocodile.


Right quarter, showing the dragon.


The beasts had dark-colored tongues, almost certainly red. I have no brush capable of that kind of fine work, but I had an idea. I dipped a .020 brass wire in the paint cap and 'tatooed' the paint onto the tongues. The result actually left it looking like there are teeth in front of the tongue. I then looked at the Albatros factory logo. It was a picture of a black bird with a man's head. Behind is a red sun with a yellow flame sunburst and 'Albatros' in black over the flames. I couldn't make a decal that size that would show anything, and I already have decal sheets with the general idea all in black. I tried the wire daubing for the red and yellow and got a result I can live with.


Close-ups.




Oh, yeah - the new brush.

[mapuc]

Your Models are real eye teaser

Markus