stresser Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 Well, here goes my first build thread ever. I've wanted to build a Bristol M1C for some years now - I work in structural analysis for aerospace companies and I've spent most of my career on the airfield at Filton so I have something of a soft spot for Bristol aircraft. Some time ago I started scratch building one in 32nd scale, but I couldn't find the references I needed to do it justice. Airbus UK has/had a bit of a history section at Filton and I have checked to see what they have - and they have nothing unfortunately. Anyway, I'm coming back from about a 10 year break from modelling after some big life changes (the stash has fluctuated over this time - I knew I'd get back to it one day and most of it is 1/32nd now). I saw someone else say in a different thread that modellers have to be patient...well it's paid off and I don't need to muddle on with the scratch build with this kit from Special Hobby, and the Alley Cat kit (which I have and I'm using bits and pieces from). The different interpretations of some areas are quite interesting - the prop and spinner shape stands out. I've been quite taken with the explosion of Great War aircraft and accessories over the past few years and I've been able to accumulate a fair bit as shown below. Some of it is duplicated so I can see what difference it makes. I am very interested in the archer fine transfers resin 'decals'. I still need to get some rib stitching as Historex don't stock it in the UK. I feel that the resin parts might be more subtle than the RB productions stitching. We shall see. I started with the cockpit: Points of interest: 1. Seatbelt is by HGW 2. I used some Gaspatch buckles and fine Albion Alloys tubing for line crimps for the control cables. 3. The right hand panel sits in the way of the diagonal wire brace, so that was drilled. The real thing seem to have varied quite a lot but was fixed to one of the diagonal frames by brackets top and bottom. 4. I went a little mad and drilled out the wicker diagonals on the seat. 5. The intake tubes for the engine are a big feature of the cockpit, but are missing from the kit (both if I recall....) so they were added from metal tube stock. 6. Paints are Vallejo and Mr Colour Wood paint set. More to follow... stresser mpk, Jeff and MikeC 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted February 14, 2017 Share Posted February 14, 2017 Beautiful start on a great choice of subject! Kev mpk and stresser 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericg Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 Lovely work. It is a beautiful kit that you don't see very often, I guess due to the fact that everyone is going crazy over Wingnut Wings kits. Keep it up. Eric. stresser and mpk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel_W Posted February 15, 2017 Share Posted February 15, 2017 While I'm not a WW1 builder, I do follow interesting builds, and I'll be following yours both for the skill set you've already shown in the cockpit, and for the fact that this is your 1st LSP Build Blog. Joel mpk and stresser 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flightline Posted February 16, 2017 Share Posted February 16, 2017 That's beautiful work Is the cane seat a kit part ? If it is, it's big step up from some of Special Hobby's earlier cockpit detailing Look forward to seeing the final product ! mpk and stresser 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stresser Posted February 16, 2017 Author Share Posted February 16, 2017 Thanks for the kind comments guys. This kit is an interesting one. There is some lovely detail, but at the same time it's limited run in style. Still, when all the clean-up is done the kit parts fit very well. The wicker seat is a resin component that comes with both the 'wartime colours' and 'checkers and stripes' releases. It is a really lovely part and would sell well by itself. The Alley Cat kit doesn't come with anything as nice so that one will be formed wood using appropriate decals. mpk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpk Posted February 16, 2017 Share Posted February 16, 2017 Wonderful is a word that springs to mind. stresser 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stresser Posted February 16, 2017 Author Share Posted February 16, 2017 (edited) Thanks MPK - still a long way to go before it's wonderful, in my mind anyway! Here's a bit more... The kit engine isn't too bad compared to photo's of a Le Rhone 9J. The Alley Cat kit ha the wrong version of the Le Rhone 9 ( I know they updated it at some point so I must have an early kit). I know that it is going to be mostly invisible when the cowl and spinner is on, but I have a problem with perfectionism and it matters to me that what is in the built model is correct if it can be. As a consequence I bought the CMK Le Rhone 9J and built most of it alongside the kit engine. When they are both finished I'll decide which one goes in to the model, and the other will go in the Alley Cat kit... Edited February 16, 2017 by stresser mpk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stresser Posted February 16, 2017 Author Share Posted February 16, 2017 To bring this thread up to date... I cut the cockpit panels off the fuselage and used the 'trainer' panel in the Alley Cat kit. I thought this would mean less filling/sanding. I wouldn't advise it to be honest. The effort is probably the same. I used some Aviattic wood decal for the rudder kick boards (for want of a better term...). The decal worked fine with MicroSol. Of course, with the fuselage together and the cockpit coaming on, you can see hardly any of the interior! The joints needed a bit of work, and I am still working on the profile at the front of the cockpit coaming - you can see it isn't great in the photo above after painting the steel base coat. That's this weekends job as I've been working away this week. The wings kind of click in to place I may go as far as epoxy at this joint because the wings are heavy and are held in by two smallish pins each. You'll note that I have removed the covers to the wire terminals on the wing. I can do that easily because, with my kit at least, Alley Cat provide two sets of these parts. Otherwise I would have mastered one of each type and cast them anyway. I have removed the covers because I will be using Aviattic PC12 (mid) and CDL fabric decal. Some masking film should be waiting for me when I get home so I can make patterns of the parts for cutting out the decals. It's a bigger kit than I expected. bstachel and MikeC 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bstachel Posted February 18, 2017 Share Posted February 18, 2017 Great start! looking forward to this... Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stresser Posted February 27, 2017 Author Share Posted February 27, 2017 So where was I... The masking film turned up, and whilst it said low tack...it was still too tacky and it wasn't willing to conform anyway. I then went with blue masking tape - used a lot in automotive detailing. The non-adhesive side has a kind of waxy finish to it, so whilst I could cover the area I wanted, it doesn't stick to itself too well. I managed to get this off in two halves and on to the back of the decal paper... Then I realised I didn't want a join along the top of the fuselage. So I started again, this time giving in and using tamiya tape. This is a much better tape but costs more! This time I got my no-join along the top edge. As you can see it caused some distortion to the decal when applied for the template, and it was wrinkled - the difficulty of double curvature surfaces from 2D patches. Still, I had a go and the decal is not particularly forgiving. The substrate itself is actually very stretchy and worked ok with micro sol, however the printed pattern is very delicate and doesn't take much messing. As a result, it wouldn't work so that came off and I'm back to square 1. For the third attempt I decided to see just how bad the joints were going to be....I used the kit decals as patterns. The chequers decals are in 4 parts This makes sense given the shape of the original. By this time I had painted the fuselage a Wehrmacht Dark Brown colour as the closest match I could lay my hands on (if anyone is interested I'll put the details up). It's actually not a bad match for what PC12 might have looked like. The downsides to this approach are that you are never going to get a perfect match with the texture along the joints because of the taper, and you are going to have 4 joints which are all going to be quite visible. So I crossed my fingers the texture wouldn't be too obvious, painted the fuselage dark brown to help with the joints and dug deep into the skill bucket. Well, that attempt got to a top and a side before I gave up. The top was pretty good with a few wrinkles down each edge but the side suffered a lot from lost ink. If the print was more resistant I think that this would have worked fine, but as it was I got the print lifting on the creases, and a white line down the edge from the white decal backing. I suppose the Microsol could be softening the printed ink, and I'll have a go without Microsol in the week. I think I'll have to order the clear backing to deal with the white edges. Any thoughts on other ways to tackle this? If the clear sheet doesn't work then I'll strip it back to the plastic and just paint it PC12 - I don't want to because the texture really brings something, and I can't wait to use their lozenge fabric decal on some other aircraft, but £12.00 per sheet gets to be an expensive experiment after a while! Pfuf 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_Kevin Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 Frustrating work, mate, and unfortunately, I don't have any advice for you. I hope you can conquer it! Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stresser Posted February 27, 2017 Author Share Posted February 27, 2017 I don't like to get frustrated with modelling. There's plenty enough of that in the 'real world'. I am lucky in the respect that I'm fairly tenacious with problem solving so I will stick at it. The options are clear enough now. Looks like I'll be paint stripping this week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stresser Posted March 3, 2017 Author Share Posted March 3, 2017 (edited) The aviattic transparent backing decal turned up on my doormat today so I can have a crack at it this weekend. I was talking to my dad about it (he's been modelling longer than I've been alive...) and he ended up asking if I've ever heard about this stuff called paint...well I still may end up back there but not before I look at all the decal options! Edited March 3, 2017 by stresser Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericg Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 Looking good so far. I built the kit and it is one of the favourite models In my collection. I too faced the same dilema about the finish. I ended up using paint via the black base method to get some texture into it. Here is a link to my finished model. http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=61543&hl= Eric. stresser 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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