ericg

Thanks Andy, see my response to Ade above. All the rivets on the wing roots were sanded away and then re-done with the mentioned tool once I was happy with the fit.

It wasn’t too bad. The fit between the wings and the fuselage was a little poor but I found sanding it down and then re riveting the wing root fairings with an MDC riveting tool worked best.

This is the Meng kit with the following additions. Aires Cockpit DEF Model wheels Master Pitot tube Finished with Gunze Sangyo paints.

Thanks for the comments guys. I thank the Wingnut Wings designers for that!

Thanks guys. I thought about the weathering for a while and decided to depict one that had been left for a while, dragged around, covers pulled off and inspected and open to the elements. Possibly a machine that had been taken as a war trophy but never flown.

Really nice build of a fairly challenging kit. Well done. Eric.

This is the Special Hobby kit, Built Out of Box. Gunze Sangyo paints used.

Great start mate. Good to see you progressing with this project.

Wingnut Wings S.E.5a kit used with the following modifications: Front undercarriage struts split into two. Cockpit opening enlarged. Lewis gun mount lowered. Piping added to front cabane struts. Roden S.E.5 components used: Wolseley Viper engine. Propeller. Heavily modified radiator with scratch built shutters. Modified top and bottom cowls. Other additions: Own design and 3D printed prop hub. Various scratchbuilt engine and radiator details. Modified exhausts. RB Productions Sutton Harness. Bobs Buckles brass tube turnbuckles. Prym Knitting in elastic rigging. Paint and markings: Tamiya AS-12 applied from the spray can. Self made masks with sprayed markings.

This is my next model built with a subject pilot in mind. I am depicting an aircraft as flown by R.S, callsign `Homer' during a combat mission flown in Operation OKRA in May 2016. I am very pleased to be able to build an aircraft that Homer flew, and look forward to bringing as much detail as I am allowed to about this fine Australian pilot and his exploits. He has an exceptional military service record as well as being awarded an Order of Australia and the Conspicous Service Medal. Homer was the XO for 3 SQN RAAF during this period and flew a mission which was commemorated by the ground crew in the form of nose art on the side of his Hornet. A brief run down of the mission was as follows: A/C: A21-46 21 May 2016 –Time on TGT 1354:11Z Fired 531 M70LD rounds in one pass (gun pack holds 550rds) Rocket rails – good effects on target 450KCAS, 18 deg nose down. Dropped 1 x GBU-38 on enemy fighters in a building after the strafe pass from 2L The loadout for this particular sortie was as follows: STN 1/9 LAU7 only no weapons. STN 2 BRU55 with GBU-38 EACH SIDE, STN 3 fuel tank, STN 4 AIM120, STN 5 – L A/T (litening pod), STN 6 – 8222 (ELTA ECM pod) with adaptor, STN 7 Fuel, STN 8 BRU55, GBU-32 inside store, 550rds 20mm. Here is a pic of an Aussie Hornet with the same loadout fitted. I started this build a while ago, back in July 2020. After being stood down from work for 4 months due to the pandemic, my company put me through a simulator program over two days and then sent some of us across the other side of the country to do a weeks worth of flying including revalidation to recommence line flying after not being in the air for a while. Due to quarantine issues, we were restricted to our hotel room whilst off duty (probably a good thing for the wallet!). I felt this was the perfect opportunity to get stuck into a new project, so took two along with me, as well as a substantial amount of equipment. With barely enough room to pack anything else, I set off on my trip. In the end, the Hornet was the one I chose to work on and I managed to get most of it together whilst in the hotel room. Noticeable is the amount of aftermarket. Aires Exhausts, Cockpit and wheel wells. Gee Factor undercarriage legs, Sierra Hotel Seamless intakes and Eduard Litening pod. I have more coming. Fast forward six months and back at home, I am back into the project. I have the Hornet on my workbench along with the Special Hobby Tempest and have progressed a little further past this point. More on the model and Homer soon.

I managed to finish this one a little while ago and forgot to put pics here. I will get some studio pics soon.

Any chance you can answer my reasonable questions on Facebook messenger without a weird answer or then ignoring them please (I can see that you have `seen' them)? You either want business or not. Eric.

Hi Dansk, I made masks based upon images that I found of the real aircraft and cut them using my Sillhouette portrait. It took me many goes at it spraying it on scrap plastic before I was happy to apply it to the model. The black outline of his lower paws were drawn in using a .003 fine liner texta. Eric.

Hi Reserve, Thanks! I didn’t do a WIP for this one, or a few others over the last year, was having a break from doing build logs on forums. Eric.

All good points, but I have built many resin kits over the years and have plenty of experience with biplanes. Out of all the kits that I have on display, this one is the one that has sagged. I did notice that even though the parts were supported with integral metal rods, the top wing was particularly flexible. Just something to be aware of that’s all.

Hi folks, here are my completions for the year of 2020. a fair bit of variety, with mostly 1/32 scale but a 1/8 engine, a couple of 1/4 panels, some 1/72 rockets and an odd scale figure thrown in for good measure. I am yet to get some of them in the studio for proper pics but that will come soon enough.

Looking great mate! Good to see you have made all this progress since I visited last week.

Looking really good. One thing to note, my one that has been finished for a couple of years has pretty major wing droop and that is in a glass display cabinet, away from heat and light. I know the wings have metal rods through them but they have sagged considerably since it was finished and does not look good at all. I used EZ line to rig it. Eric.

Thanks for the comments guys. A small update. Whilst work progresses on the model, I am taking care of the small details. The propeller spinner is very poorly defined and is in need of refinement. I had considered cutting it off and replacing it with some turned material of the same shape, but was able to cut the spinner edges with a no.11 blade and then deepen the line with my razor saw to clearly define it as a seperate part.

Thanks guys. The big job of doing the windshields was always waiting for me at the end of the build and was something I was going to have to face to get this one finished. The kit comes with a farily nice front windshield but the framing is a little off, as the real aircraft does not have a framed windscreen, just a piece of perspex draped over the roll bar. The rear windshield that is contained in the kit is wrong for the earlier version of the aircraft that I am depicting, so I needed to find a solution. The great thing about modelling is that you can make it as complicated or as simple as you like, you are your own boss. By doing conversion work and scratchbuilding parts, you build up skills that can serve you well in future projects and I used a skill on this project that I had learnt on a previous one, being vac forming. I first did this when I built a new extended window for my O-2 build and was able to put the stuff I learnt to good use on this one. I started with a small section of Ureol board. I carved the shape of the windscreen, close to that of the kit part. Vac forming is a three man job, so I called 2/3rds of my compliment of kids to come and give me a hand (actually it was a way to keep them quiet and occupied for 30 minutes!!) One to hold the vac nozzle into the vac form machine, one to hit the on/off switch of the vaccum and of course that freed me up to manipulte the work piece. Its kinda cool to see this process in action. Here is a section of PETG .3mm sheet freshly formed over the winshield part. All of the parts of the vac form and frame are low-tech home made stuff. The two nice windshields. Slightly out of focus compared to the master. The pile of rejects..... I couldnt remember the succesful temperature that I used on my O-2 build, so it too a few goes of progressivley less bubbling to lower the temp to a crystal clear level. The next part of the mod was to bulid the roll bar/windshield frame. I reckon this is a pretty cool design feature that was well worth the effort. The roll bar extends right down inside the cockpit. I formed this out of 1mm brass rod and soldered the forward supports into place. I preset the angle of the supports to make it easier to hold in place whislt I soldered them together and cut them to length later. This was then inserted into some holes that I drilled into the fuselage and then the windscreen attached. This was pretty difficult to get right. As can be seen, the roll bar is quite visible insode the cockpit. I used some thin aluminum strip (the membrane inside Milo tins) to form the fairing joining the windshield to the fuselage. This was superglued into place and then burnished into place. I then painted them the AS-12 as per the fuselage. Interestingly, the rear windshield on the real aircraft is just a formed piece of plexiglass without any framing. The pic has come up a bit grainy but they both look nice and clear in person.

Getting closer to the finish line. I set out to use my mask cutter to fully paint all of the markings on this model but am having trouble with getting the smaller circle in the roundels correct. For some reason they are cutting out of round, so I went with the kit decals. The first of the smaller roundels broke up when I went to remove it from the backing sheet, but luckily the rest applied nicely although a fair bit of caution was used. They are very brittle but settle down great using Microsol/set. I made up a mask for the serial number and sprayed it with MRP tire rubber. I set the outer top edge of the mask so that it corresponded with the panel line running the length of the fuselage to make alignment easier on both sides.

Great project! Will watch this one with interest. thanks for sharing.

Some more work. The cockpit access doors are softly moulded and could do with some definition. I was tempted to cut these out and position them open but resisted. i scribed down each side of the doors to define them a little better. The cowl needed a bit of work to smooth it out and get the panel lines consistent. I sanded off the original fasteners to assist with this and then replaced them with some raised surface detail decals from Archer. Once the model was primed, I painted it with Tamiya AS-12 straight from the rattle can to represent the high speed silver finish. I then painted the cowl and wheel pant extension areas with SMS Jet Black which gave a smooth gloss black surface. I then used a thinned mix of Alclad High Shine Aluminium and applied it in multiple layers to give a fairly shiny metallic surface. I will give these areas multiple coats of gloss clear and polish between coats. A sleek little aeroplane. Pretty happy with progress so far.

Some more work. After just finishing my heavily modified S.E.5a, I am now full steam ahead on the Magister. I didn’t like the photo etch pitot tube as it is too flat for this scale. I bent some .5mm brass rod to shape and soldered them together and then used some aluminium strip for the bottom section. I have made the pitot removable for transport. It is now far stronger and more realistic than the photo etch item. The engine is fairly nice, but as not much of it is visible, I didn’t spend too much time on it. It would certainly be a good candidate for superdetailing if the cowl was left opened. I filled the panel lines in both sides of the cowl, as the aircraft I am making had a 4 piece one instead of five. Test fitting it shows the correct way in which the cowl sits proud of the fuselage but it could do with a bit of tweaking . I thinned the rear edge of the cowl, so that the engine compartment can be seen from the rear.

Looks great. Probably something I would have considered if I had seen it before I had finished my 108. Someone really needs to do a fix for the leading edge slats for the kit though, for me, it was the biggest disappointment of the model.