Steve's Models

[Sailor Steve]

Much happier now. It's not exactly the same shade as the last batch, but similar.


[edit] Oh! I almost forgot! My next project came in the mail today! I'm trying to build them in the order they appear in our game generators. The unarmed two-seaters on both sides are the planes that roll up on a 2 in our first period, which covers from July 1915 to June 1916. A roll of 3 gets the first of the armed two-seaters, the Morane L and Be.2c on the Allied side and the Albatros C.I and Hansa C.I on the Central side. I wanted to do the Albatros first, since within a section they are listed in alphabetical order, and I would have switched if the Albatros had come before I started all that sanding. The hard part is done now, and all that remains is the finish work. I should start the Albatros on Friday.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

[edit] Oh! I almost forgot! My next project came in the mail today! .

hardly...you told Jeff and I on Skype last night

[Sailor Steve]

Good news! I'm old, blind and stupid!

Well, that's not good news, but the good news is I figured it out. There is a page in the Hansa C.I booklet that does indeed have pictures of the elevated gun ring experiments. I just figured out a way to miss it the first dozen times I looked.

So here are the different trials.

Steel tube tower.


Tower design apparently used by both UFAG and Phönix.


Tower with faired fabric extension. It turns out the idea was to create better airflow over the rudder. It was actually tried at the front and the book says the results were "unsatisfactory".

[Jimbuna]

Sometimes you can't see the trees for the woods

[Sailor Steve]

They didn't usually bleach the linen they used, so it had a slight tannish tint to it. Afer it was doped the fabric would yellow in the sun. How yellow it got depended on the original color of the linen, how pure the dope was and whether they tinted the dope. New airplanes with bleached lined could appear be a slightly brownish white, while unbleached linen could be almost yellow, almost brown and anywhere in between. Once this batch gets a little low I plan to start adding one color or another so they aren't all the same. I have some older ones that are quite a bit different from these.

I'm also slowly getting to the point where they started adding color to the dope, and then using colored fabrics.

[Sailor Steve]

My friend got sick and couldn't come gaming last night, so I still haven't looked at the Austrian Army Aircraft book. I suspect I'll find that historically my model is totally bogus. The modified tower was likely only on 26.17, and for all I know 27.23 only had the steel tube tower. On the other hand if I'd known about that one I might have done it instead. Whatever the truth is, it's done. Other than the tower it's identical to the last one.

Posing for the camera.


Left quarter.


Right close-up - warts, blemishes and all.


Front close-up showing the crew to effect. There used to be a company called Micro-Scale, who did an outstanding series of decals for planes of all eras, as well as many products to help with detailing. Today they only still make the products: Micro-Set and Micro-Sol setting solutions, Decal Film for saving dried-out old decals and for making your own, and Krystal-Klear, a product for filling in "glass" windows on models. The windows on this model are made of Krystal-Klear.


I had a major boo-boo with this one. I mounted the top wing, put in the struts, did all the rigging and realized I hadn't put the pilot in! I couldn't get the seat and supports in through all the rigging, so I cut them loose and used tweezers to maneuver the pilot into place. There is no real floorboard so I couldn't glue him in by his feet. I finally ended up placing him a scale two feet further back than he should be and gluing his head and shoulders to the tower front behind him. D'OH!

[Jimbuna]

Putting aside whether she existed or not she is certainly different Steve and I should imagine she'll turn a few heads in the games room