Steve's Models

[Sailor Steve]

First regular paint coat.

[Sailor Steve]

Wood fuselage.

[Sailor Steve]

Crew observer's gun and engine details added.

[Sailor Steve]

Cabane installed. Now for a whole lot of sanding to make the upper wing. The square made of plastic sheet bits glued together will soon be the box radiator this particular plane used.

[Sailor Steve]

Twelve days to get the upper wing made, but it's in place now.

[Sailor Steve]

Radiator, forward gun and gravity tank in place.

[Sailor Steve]

FINALLY!

After almost three months of fits, starts, stops, and working on other projects, my third Hansa-Brandenberg C.I is finally done! This one represents a slightly later version, built by Ungarisch Flugzeugfabrik Alles Geselschaft (UFAG), with the new "Universal" fuselage, which was designed to mount different engines and had pre-fitted mountings for cameras and bomb racks. It also was the first series to contain a gun for the pilot, in this case mounted to the top wing alongside the gravity tank.

The usual left front view.


The usual left rear view.


The usual close-up right side view.


Right front close-up showing pilot and observer. A part of the aircrew set I found contained two copies of an observer in full high-altitude gear dropping a bomb...or maybe he's making a low-altitude gas attack. Either way I removed the bomb from one of them and made him the pilot, cutting off the head and right arm and refitting them in a forward-facing pose.


Upper view showing pilot's gun and gravity tank. I was going to use the gun housing known as the "baby coffin", but I found some pictures of the exposed version of the Schwarzlose, still wearing the jacket over the barrel, and thought it was too good to pass up. The small grey box on the right side of the gun is the ammunition housing.


I used a flash on this one to show off the crew. The high-altitude helmet has its own goggles so the regular goggles are perched on top.


Left front close-up showing the crew and the observer's Schwarzlose pushed out of his way.


Another view of same from the left rear.

[Fish40]

Looking good Steve!

[Sailor Steve]

Next Project: 'Big Ack', the Armstrong-Whitworth F.K.8. Designed by Frederick Koolhoven, who would manufacture aircraft in his native Netherlands in the years before World War 2, the F.K.8 was meant to replace the aging B.E.2. It was a large, stable aircraft, but with the 120-horsepower Beardmore engine it was slower than the plane it was supposed to replace. This would be remedied when the newer 160-horsepower Beardmore came out, but it ended up being a stopgap until the arrival of still better two-seaters. It's main advantage over earlier models was finally having the observer in the rear cockpit with a fully-flexible Lewis gun.

The kit is a low-pressure injection molding from Pegasus.

[Sailor Steve]

The interior is fairly basic, and I saw no need to add anything special, since no one will ever see it once it's together.

[Eichhörnchen]

Crikey! I presume that's come down from the attic, Steve? I last saw a Pegasus kit when I built the Fairey "Fulmar", back in the early 1990's probably. Or maybe they're still going? (I'm right out of touch now with aeromodelling) I think it was a one-man-band company, run by a guy named Chris Gannon.

I don't know what you mix your paints on (when you're not airbrushing) but a very good and cheap material I've discovered (good for both water-based and spirit-based colours) is the so called "lining paper" sold by d.i.y. stores for helping smooth out old plastered walls before hanging new wallpaper. You want the type with a coating on one side (a slightly textured matt acrylic surface this) on which you can mix up just about anything without it soaking through. Then you just throw it away and cut another piece. I usually just cut them out in A4 sized sheets, VERY much cheaper than tear-off waxed or parchment palettes, which I used to use...

[Eichhörnchen]

I built this vacform model from a "Contrail" kit back in about 1984 (I hope you don't mind me sticking it on here). It looks to me as though you use nylon line for the rigging too? I was always fascinated by the inter-war aircraft, in particular these exotic types which, if they hadn't built all those concrete runways for B-17s and Lancs during the war, might have had a longer history in both military and civil aviation.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Eichhornchen

Crikey! I presume that's come down from the attic, Steve? I last saw a Pegasus kit when I built the Fairey "Fulmar", back in the early 1990's probably. Or maybe they're still going? (I'm right out of touch now with aeromodelling) I think it was a one-man-band company, run by a guy named Chris Gannon.

They've been out of business for quite some time, but a handful are still available through FreightDog models in Britain.

I don't know what you mix your paints on...

Mostly I use them right out of the bottle. If I do need to mix something, it's usually a very small amount and the box top works just fine. If I need more I do the mixing in bottles and then keep them for the next plane.

Originally Posted by Eichhornchen

I built this vacform model from a "Contrail" kit back in about 1984 (I hope you don't mind me sticking it on here).

Not at all. And it looks real good!

The only time I ask someone to start his own thread is if he's doing what I do; posting lots of pictures of an ongoing project.

I still have a half-finished Contrail kit of the Consolidated P-2-Y, the father of the Catalina.

It looks to me as though you use nylon line for the rigging too?

Yep. It's a very thin line, .003 I think.

I was always fascinated by the inter-war aircraft, in particular these exotic types which, if they hadn't built all those concrete runways for B-17s and Lancs during the war, might have had a longer history in both military and civil aviation.

Oh yeah. some forty years ago I did some conversions of the old Monogram P-6E kit into early Curtiss P-1s. Not too long ago I found that there is a small firm making resin models of the same. I want to get some, among other things, but right now I'm tied up doing WWI models for gaming.

[Eichhörnchen]

I never did get into resin kits and now many of the vacforms have been superseded by unexpected injection-moulded releases I don't build them either; I must have quite a few obsolete kits in the loft (attic).

Some of these "short run" kits like those of Pegasus and Merlin Models have also since appeared as state of the art kits by bigger names. There were aircraft we never expected to see as injection-moulded kits, but they materialised nonetheless. I think "Matchbox" were very brave way, way back with some of their quite obscure releases.

[Sailor Steve]

I ended up doing other things yesterday, so today I devoted to working on the model. Got the tail section done this morning, then the lower wings, and finally the landing gear just a few minutes ago.