"COMPLETE" Back at the Bench CSM Nieuport XVII Late

[Greif8]

Hello friends I have been absent for several weeks due to a cycling accident on 02 January.  I got nailed by a dog of all things while moving at a pretty good clip on my gravel bike and went down hard.  I ended up breaking my left collarbone, left wrist, two fingers on my right hand (how the hell I managed that is anyone's guess), and some pretty extensive road rash on the left side.  The broken collarbone required surgery and as you all know it takes some time for broken bones to mend.  The casts and brace were removed this morning and I can finally type though I admit my hands are pretty stiff.  The good news with all this is that my nice gravel bike suffered only some very minor damage - hitting the pavement on the left side meant the drive train did not suffer any impact damage.  I will spare all of you more accident drama reporting but the dog is also recovering well; the way the situation developed so quickly prior to the accident it turned out to be just bad luck and I don't blame either the dog or the owners. 

 

Though cycling on the road is off limits for another 3-4 weeks while the healing process runs its course I can get back to modelling.  Below is the CSM Nieuport XVII Late that I plan to start tomorrow.  I had considered building something a bit easier but decided to go with this somewhat complex kit to start working the dexterity back into my hands.  We shall see how this works out, but I think I can manage it ok. 

 

Glad to be back, and I plan to try and catch up looking at and commenting on all the great builds, works in progress, and other topics in the coming days.  Typing is still a bit slow, but practice makes perfect as the saying goes!

 

Ernest

 

 

Edited April 20 by Greif8

[LSP_Kevin]

Sorry to hear about your accident, Ernest, but glad to hear you are recovering well. Enjoy your recovery build!

 

Kev

[Kagemusha]

Also very sorry hear about your crash, you must have taken quite a tumble. I had a crash almost two years ago when a car pulled out right in front of me, thankfully started turning so I didn't hit fully side on, which would have been much more serious, I just had cuts and bruising from my backside right down to my right calf, right knee, left chest,  where I hit the handlebars, and internal injury to my right knee, was out of the saddle for about six weeks, even then had to take it easy.

 

Nice choice of subject.

 

Get well soon.

 

 

Andy

[Borsos]

Get well soon, Ernst!
„Sport ist Mord“ (Sports mean murder)Like my grandpa said. I hope there won’t remain any health problems.

[Uncarina]

Ernest, I wish you a rapid recovery!

 

Sincerely,  Tom

[mozart]

As a fellow cyclist, I feel for you Ernest, dogs are so damned unpredictable at times despite their owners saying "Oh he's all right!".  I always slow down and give them as wide a berth as possible, my old bones would take even longer to mend.  Good to see you back at the bench again...and straight in with a challenging kit, aren't all biplanes?  Good luck with it and your continued recovery.

[Greif8]

On 2/18/2025 at 8:25 PM, LSP_Kevin said:

Sorry to hear about your accident, Ernest, but glad to hear you are recovering well. Enjoy your recovery build!

 

Kev

 

On 2/19/2025 at 12:55 AM, Kagemusha said:

Also very sorry hear about your crash, you must have taken quite a tumble. I had a crash almost two years ago when a car pulled out right in front of me, thankfully started turning so I didn't hit fully side on, which would have been much more serious, I just had cuts and bruising from my backside right down to my right calf, right knee, left chest,  where I hit the handlebars, and internal injury to my right knee, was out of the saddle for about six weeks, even then had to take it easy.

 

Nice choice of subject.

 

Get well soon.

 

 

Andy

 

17 hours ago, Borsos said:

Get well soon, Ernst!
„Sport ist Mord“ (Sports mean murder)Like my grandpa said. I hope there won’t remain any health problems.

 

13 hours ago, Uncarina said:

Ernest, I wish you a rapid recovery!

 

Sincerely,  Tom

 

2 hours ago, mozart said:

As a fellow cyclist, I feel for you Ernest, dogs are so damned unpredictable at times despite their owners saying "Oh he's all right!".  I always slow down and give them as wide a berth as possible, my old bones would take even longer to mend.  Good to see you back at the bench again...and straight in with a challenging kit, aren't all biplanes?  Good luck with it and your continued recovery.

 

Thank you for the well wishes guys!  The build has started slowly as I am still working the stiffness out of my fingers and left wrist which makes it somewhat challenging to do some modeling tasks; but I should have a few photos of the progress in a day or two.

 

Andy - that could have been a very bad crash and I am happy for you that it turned out as well as it did.  

 

Andreas - it is highly likely I will make a full recovery with no issues.  This was a bit like "ein blutgrätsche von hinten" am Fussballplatz!  

 

Max - the sight lines are a restricted on the section of the bike path when looking from certain directions and the path also has a slight curve.  The folks were playing with their dog in a field that borders the bike path and depending on where you are in the field you cannot see much of the bike path coming from the direction I was riding until a cyclist passes the end of some small trees and large shrubs that are alongside the path.  According to the owners (and I believe them) the dog was in the act of chasing a ball running in the direction of the bike path near where the trees/shrubs end when I came barrelling along; when the dog saw me suddenly appear instinct took over.  As I said bad luck. 

 

Ernest 

Edited February 21 by Greif8

[Dpgsbody55]

Great to see you back at the modelling bench, Ernest.  I can relate to your cycling accident having had the same experience as you last March.  It could have been a lot worse and I'm glad it wasn't.  Dogs are like children in the way they behave and I'm always very cautious around them.  Then they go and dig holes in the grass that a cyclist can't see and a crash is inevitable.  I found this out the hard way a couple of weeks ago, but no real damage thankfully.

 

Looking forward to this project.    Anything that makes you happier is therapeutic.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[MikeMaben]

Good to see you back Ernie.  Go slow , take care of yourself and have fun.

[Greif8]

13 hours ago, Dpgsbody55 said:

Great to see you back at the modelling bench, Ernest.  I can relate to your cycling accident having had the same experience as you last March.  It could have been a lot worse and I'm glad it wasn't.  Dogs are like children in the way they behave and I'm always very cautious around them.  Then they go and dig holes in the grass that a cyclist can't see and a crash is inevitable.  I found this out the hard way a couple of weeks ago, but no real damage thankfully.

 

Looking forward to this project.    Anything that makes you happier is therapeutic.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

9 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

Good to see you back Ernie.  Go slow , take care of yourself and have fun.

 

Thanks guys!  I little progress is below.

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

Finally some work to show, but the stiffness in my left wrist and fingers make for very slow progress.  There is really nothing very complex about this kit, as always IMHO, but you have to think through the assembly and painting steps to make the process smooth and to avoid pitfalls later in the build sequence.  I decided to prep and paint the parts that would be entirely or mostly natural wood and carefully scanned the instructions a few times to make sure I identified all the parts that I planned to paint.  The instructions call out three types of hardwood, walnut, spruce and poplar and having grown up in a family of cabinetmakers I wanted to see if I could capture the differences in color and tone of those wood types.

 

Walnut is by far the darkest of the three and I mixed some Tamiya paint to get what I thought was a close match.  Poplar and Spruce are fairly close in color with Poplar usually being slightly darker, and I also mixed some Tamiya paint for those as well.  After airbrushing the base colors I sprayed the parts with a 10:1 mix of transparent orange and transparent yellow to give the "wood" a varnished look.  I also manipulated the spray intensity of my airbrush to try and get give the colors and transparent overspray some contrasts to hint at wood grain.  Below are the results.

 

Not the best photos but I think you can get the idea at the effect I tried to get.

 

 Base colors laid on.  The "walnut" is the darkest, with the seat representing the largest part the I sprayed a "poplar" color.  The "spruce" sections are the lightest. 

   

After spraying the transparent mix.  The parts have some color depth and vibrance now and don't look so "dead".  The also have a sheen to them.  I still

have a lot of detail painting to do which will almost all be done by hand.

 

A final photo showing the struts, one before and one after I sprayed the transparent color.  In addition to how much more "vibrant" to strut on the left looks,

you may also be able to make out the wood grain effect that I attempted to spray. 

 

Ernest 

[Greif8]

Making slow progress.  I have finished the base and detail painting of the cockpit parts and I am ready to start adding bracing wires and control lines.  There is a fair amount of flash on a few of the parts and some of them also have some fairly pronouced moulding seams that I am dealing with as required, but it is nothing really bad to take care of.  

 

Group photo of the cockpit parts after all painting has been completed.  There are a lot of them for a WWI fighter, and a pretty small one at that!  

 

The fuselage sides that enclose the cockpit look like they were made of laminated plywood strips that were varnished on the interior side.  I tried to replicate

both the laminated and varnished look of raw plywood.  You can make out the in the group photo better to be honest, but I thought I would try to take a decent

close up of one of the parts.

 

The pilot's stick assembly was a bit fiddly to construct as it has four seperate parts, three of them very fragile.  The end result looks decent.  Once it was dried

I will try to take a good shot of the stick handle which was wrapped in leather on the real thing.  I used a slightly different technique to simulate the leather look 

and also to suggest wrappings.  Hopefully that will look good in a macro.

 

 

 

The below part was interesting to paint as it comprises several different types of metal that each have their own color.  Detail painting this was a good test of

how my hands are healing.  

 

Though not part of the cockpit I also prepped and painted the outer struts.  It is not easy to see in the photo but I managed to get a nice, if very slight, wood grain effect on

the wooden parts.  The silver-grey bands were sprayed with a 2:1 mix of Tamiya flat white and metallic grey.  I mixed enough of this ratio to be able to airbrush

the entire plane (fingers crossed here!).  My plan for that when the time comes is to prime the parts in white, add Aviattic fabric decals and overspray those 

with the paint mix I made.  The color and metal sheen effect looks pretty close for doped aluminum and I am hoping it works well with the "fabric" decals.

 

Ernest

[Kagemusha]

Very sharp work, hope your recovery is going well. 

[Jaro]

Really fine and clean work. Realistic painting, carefully finished details etc. I love it!

[Greif8]

17 hours ago, Kagemusha said:

Very sharp work, hope your recovery is going well. 

 

30 minutes ago, Jaro said:

Really fine and clean work. Realistic painting, carefully finished details etc. I love it!

 

Thank you for the kind words gentlemen!

 

Andy - my hands are recovering well.  I am starting to get 100% movement back and I can build at the bench a little longer with each session.  I think I will be back 100% a 2-3 weeks.

 

Ernest