Steve's Models

[Sailor Steve]

Fuselage assembled, engine, wings and tailplanes mounted.

[Sailor Steve]

Landing gear installed, first paint coat. The cowling is just stuck on for test fit. I also haven't decided which upper wing to use - the one with or without the cutaway rear. Time will tell.

[Sailor Steve]

I settled on having the gun mounted on the top wing rather than the forward deck, so I ended up using the wing with the cutout. Also got some more painting done.

[Sailor Steve]

Markings, propeller, wing protectors.

[Sailor Steve]

It's been four days, and not much has been done. Not that I haven't been busy - I have the main rigging done, the gun mounted and some other details. One of the problems has been that for some reason they didn't include the ailerons on the lower wings, so I've had to scribe my own. Many WW1 planes only had one set of ailerons, on the top. Photos reveal that from the beginning Bristols had ailerons on both wings. It turns out the protector hoops below the wings, that help keep the wings from breaking if the landing is a little crooked, were further forward than I had them. I pulled the hoops back off and scribed the ailerons. I haven't yet put them back on. The gun is mounted but not painted, and I still need to put in the control horns and the control rigging.

The box says "Precision Kit", but this one has problems. The wings don't line up properly, nor do the landing gear. There are very precise little photo-etched control horns, but they're too weak for gaming so I'll have to use brass wire. A lot of work still lies ahead.

[nikimcbee]

Hey Steve,
Did you ever finish that battleship, USS Olympia?, you were working on? I saw on in the hobby shop a month ago and started thinking about yours.

This kit:
http://www.activepowersports.com/lin...FZSBfgoduwgAKg

[Sailor Steve]

I've never had a model of USS Olympia. If I mentioned that ship at some point I don't remember. Color me confused.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I've never had a model of USS Olympia. If I mentioned that ship at some point I don't remember. Color me confused.

memory fail on my end? I thought you had a photo etched/Resin kit of one of those classic Great White Fleet BBs. I think you're like me and you collect kits (that need to be built). I'll laugh if you forgot you had one... or I could be thinking of somebody else?

[Sailor Steve]

I had to go into my closet and dig out all my recently purchased resin kits, all in 1/700.

HMS Royal Sovereign
HMS Mars (Majestic class)
HMS Dreadnought
SMS Weissenburg (Brandenburg class)

I have a 1/720 Graf Spee and a 1/200 u-boat, and that's about it. For my naval game I plan to paint a whole lot of different ships from all eras, but those are and will be 1/2400 scale, so they are tiny.

[nikimcbee]

I must have been thinking of the Dreadnought. Atleast you have a model ship inventory now. Your welcome.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

I must have been thinking of the Dreadnought. Atleast you have a model ship inventory now.

Not like I'll ever get to actually build any of them. On the other hand I keep seeing new ones I want.

Your welcome.

Cool! I'll be by for dinner tonight!

[Sailor Steve]

I was only able to rig a little at a time, but it's finally done. The model represents an early Scout 'C', in early RNAS markings. This particular aircraft lived out its life in home defense over England.





Close-up showing spare drum stowage for the gun. This is rare, and later they always stowed the drums inside the cockpit.

[Sailor Steve]

I was going to post this Sunday, but spaced it. It was one year ago, June 1st 2013, that I started building models again in earnest. In that time I've had bursts of energy that left me building a model every week, and I've had times of no energy that left me not touching one for up to more than a week at a time.

So far I've built 26 new planes for our game, averaging just over two per month. I've repaired and rigged 11 old ones, not counting the original repair jobs I did two years ago. I also built several 1/2400 scale ships, all for tabletop gaming, but haven't touched those since late last year.

All this and I still haven't built all the planes for the first period of the game (July 1915-May 1916), but I'm close. Then again, there are six periods in the game. I have two repairs and three new ones to go. After that the planes will start to change a lot. New ideas, new concepts, new strategies and new designs. I'm looking forward to it. But then I know what's coming.

[Sailor Steve]

This is another very old model I built twenty or more years ago. The last of the British racer conversions, the Sopwith Tabloid. I touched up the paint a little and rigged it, but nothing else, so it's a little rough.

The engine is fully enclosed, which made it pretty fast for only 80 horsepower.


Absolute minimal markings.


Manufacturer's label on the tail.


The Lewis gun was mounted to the side, firing through deflector plates. Mounted to the top of the wing it was impossible to change the drum.

[Sailor Steve]

Had a fun game last night. Our first scenario involved a very-late-war photo recon mission by an American DH.4 escorted by two SPAD 13s. I was attacking in an Albatros D.IIIa and we also had a Fokker D.VIII parasol. We managed to bring down the recon plane and chase the SPADS away.

Our second scenario involved a German bombing raid at the beginning of the war, and three of the four defenders were all planes I've built recently. The bombers were seven Albatros C.III two-seaters with no escort. Because of the numbers and/or size of the bombers they are always represented on paper.




I rolled very poorly and was stuck in my Morane 'L' parasol.


Nine-year-old Silas was in my brand-new Bristol Scout.


Silas's grandpa, my friend Peter, flew my Nieuport 10b.


In between us was Silas's dad, Iso, using Rocky's Nieuport 11. This is the French group in formation.


The three of us started with a head-on pass. Iso rolled badly and didn't see the huge bomber formation. He just followed me around without shooting at anything.


After the head-on we climbed and broke around to attack from the rear. One of the bombers shot Iso. Automatic sighting for him!


I made the rookie mistake of changing my empty drum while heading away from the bombers, which meant that I then had to chase them from far behind. Peter and Iso turned all the way around first, then changed their drums while chasing the bombers. I was still trying to catch up while they were making a new attack. That's Silas and Iso in the picture.


Meanwhile Silas in the Bristol got the only kill of the game.


Iso was shot out of control, but managed to regain enough to make a safe landing. Peter then had his engine shot out, but glided back to an empty field. Silas made a third attack, but was so badly shot up he decided to break off his attack. This left me to go after the bomber on the far left of the formation, which was so badly damaged I figured it would only take one shot to put him down. I got close enough, made the shot...and my gun jammed! Reloading again would have taken long enough to allow them to enter their own territory, and we have rules about how far you can chase people without getting lost, so I headed home and the game ended.

Still, it was a lot of fun and a night well-spent.