sandbagger

Hi all, Before starting on the undercarriage changes, the lower wing need to be prepared. The front spars of the lower wings were connected by a steel bar, which was located on the bottom surface of the fuselage. As such the leading edges of the lower wings sat slightly below the fuselage. This is different from most aircraft of the time where the lower wing front spars were integral to the fuselage construction. To locate the lower wings to the fuselage, 1.0 mm diameter holes needed to be drilled into the wing roots and one hole each side of the fuselage. Metal rods were inserted into holes in the wing roots. When test fitted, the wing root rear rods insert into the fuselage holes and the longer front rod against the underside of the fuselage. Mike

Hi all, Well, starting on the tail unit there are a few areas that needed to be addressed: The 'Berg' had pronounced 'wash-out' (upward flare) at the outer trailing edge of the ailerons. Although it looks as though this was attempted in the kit parts, the 'wash-out' was nowhere pronounced enough. This required careful bending after heat soaking in hot water (boiled). The combined fin and rudder had a few areas that I felt needed to be re-profiled after comparing the kit part to drawings in several notable publications. The tail planes and elevators, when laid together with the rib tapes aligned were found to be off-set to each other. I also felt these parts needed re-profiling. Mike

Hi all, The basic fuselage is now completed, with the addition of the blast tubes for the two 'Schwarzlose' machine guns, crash pads and top rear engine pipe. I also added lead wire to represent the pipes/wires connected at the back of the instrument panel, although its virtually impossible to see them and worse once the upper wing is fitted. There's a lot of photo-etch detail to be added to the fuselage and another engine pipe, but those will be left until later in the build to prevent the getting damaged, Now it's time to move onto the wings and tail unit, Mike

Hi all. I forgot to take shots of the internal fuselage before closing it up. I still have a few bits to do - windows in the front decking, rear cabane cross bracing, top rear engine pipe, blast tubes for the machine guns and crash padding on the breech blocks. Also seam filling and checks, Mike

Hi all, I've been hammering away at the fuselage internal details. Everything is fitted to the right side of the fuselage with regular testing for the fit of the left side. Included are control lines, trigger cables, control rods to the engine etc. I still have some bits to do, like the two machine guns and final weather etc, but I'm getting there, Mike

Hi Richard, Yes - I also have my eye on the 'Star Strutter', either from 'Copper State Models' or the 'Wingnut Wings' release, Mike

Hi all, Contrary to the models instruction manual, I'm making a start on some of the internal fuselage details, as I need to see how the completed engine sits in the nose. The reason being I want to cut out the engine access panels from the one piece fuselage halves, so more of the engine can be exposed. After removing the various parts from their resin backing and base blocks, I spent a few hours cutting and sanding away the residue resin, which is normal for resin kits, Mike

Hi Brian, I agree resin kits are maybe not the easiest to work with and a lot depends on the manufacturer of the kit. My recent Sopwith 'Swallow' was partly resin converted but in fact the only part of the set I used was the wing, as the rest was unusable or had shape issues. Even then the wing was full of 'blow holes' etc. The HPH Models kit does not suffer from these issues and as resin is well moulded. However, like most resin kits it does have the usual problem of having no location peg/holes, for example around the seam joint for the fuselage halves. Also each part has to be cut from its backing resin and carefully cleaned up before it can be used. Resin by its very nature is brittle and small parts are easily broken. Lastly of course is that the entire assembly of the model needs to be done using CA adhesive, as normal styrene cements have no effect. I guess one good thing about resin is that unlike cemented styrene joints, you tend not to get joint 'melt' and ghost seams appearing after a while, as the CA adhesive dries more or less straight away and doesn't melt into and weld the resin, as happens with styrene. Strange - I nearly talked myself out of building resin kits Mike

Hi all, The engine is now completed. I've added the ignition leads and spark plugs, timing mechanism, oil filler caps, water pump and coolant pipe, vale levers and springs and carburettor lever. I've also made the exhaust pipes from 1.8 mm diameter brass tube mounted onto 1.4 mm tube - the kit items had 'solid' bores. Test fitted into its mounting frames. Mike

Hi all, The basic engine build is done. This involved assembling the engine block, cylinders' cam shaft, overhead valve gear housing, magnetos and drive shaft, ignition rail and the carburettor housing and intake manifolds., The paints used were primarily 'Alclad' lacquers (Duraluminium, Aluminium, Steel, Copper and Brass). The only weathering applied so far is the 'Tamiya' Weathering Master (Set D - Oil Stain), which was sponged onto the copper cylinder heads and intake manifolds, in order to give an old, heated look. There will be more weathering applied once the engine is complete. Now onto the fiddly bits - support frame, pipe and water pump, timing handle assembly, valve gear, spark plugs, ignition leads etc, Mike

Hi all, I thought it was about time I took on another resin kit, as the last resin model I built was the DFW T28 'Floh' from 'Planet Models'. I've had the 'HPH Models' 1:32 scale Aviatik 'Berg' D.I in my stash for quite awhile, so thought it was about time I gave it a go. Already I've encountered a couple of things that may cause problems. 1. The instruction manual, normal I think for 'HPH Models', consists of a small booklet with photographs and arrows showing where parts fit. However these illustrations leave a lot to be desired, especially those for assembling the engine, which has many parts and the smallest in the entire kit. Some of the call out illustrations for parts are not the same as the actually resin parts supplied in the kit, which is a bit confusing. 2. More of a concern is that the kit is supplied with mask sheets for painting the lozenge - not the easiest route to take. So I ordered the optional decal sheets. These arrived in polythene bags and without the normal tissue paper protection sheets. Consequently the bags stuck to the exposed decals and despite being careful extracting the decal sheets, some were chipped where they's stuck to the bag. Also the bags had left an imprint across every decal, which I'm not sure will show after the decals are applied. Thinking this might have been a 'one off' I ordered another set of decals, but these packaged the same way and in the same condition. I emailed 'HPH' and suggested they revise how the package these decals - I haven't had a reply!! Anyway we are modellers, not assemblers, so on I go. I decided to work on the engine first, contrary to the instruction manual. Unless I'm very carefully, some of the tiny engine parts may end up feeding the 'carpet monster' - we'll, but at least the kit is supplied with some spare parts. I'm using 'Alclad' lacquers on the engine and have dulled down the copper water jackets on the cylinders and the intake manifolds by applying 'Tamiya' Weathering Master (Set D - Oil Stain', which gives the copper an older, heated look. Long way to go on this one I think, Mike

Nice work Guy - you've done the DH proud, Mike

Thanks all. pascal JMW: The pilot does have slight flesh shading but the lighting over the camera glares off the figure so flesh tones don't show. The pilot has eyes with pupils and eyebrows but these don't show in the photos either. I'll need to bear this in mind for future photo's, Mike

Tom, I covered the Clerget powered Camel on my build of Barker's modified aircraft. Although modified, there's still a lot of research and detail in that build log. It's available in gallery 2 on my site and may be of some use to you, Mike

Thanks all for your kind comments - much appreciated, Mike