Hobbycraft 1/32 Nieuport 17 and Sopwith Camel

[CANicoll]

Rather than starting two separate build threads, I'm putting both of these builds into one thread.  Already had a bit of an issue keeping the two planes straight.

The obligatory box shots:

 

I'm building the box art aircraft belonging to Capt Georges Guynemer, France's second ranking WWI ace.  I did this aircraft before, but it has mysteriously disappeared.  But doing a better job on this one already.

 

Next is a Sopwith Camel, also doing the box art aircraft as I like the green scheme.

 

As usual with rigged aircraft, I do the painting (and decaling) early so I can anchor the rigging inside the fuselage as much as I can.

 

The Nieuport:

 

Fuselage side is Tamiya Deck Tan to mimic doped linen, and the rest is Vallejo Dull Aluminum including the cowling. Engine cylinders are painted in gun metal, then a light coat of aluminum, and then the cylinders are dusted with black.  Exhausts are copper with a light dusting of rust - will be weathered more but will be very hard to see in the cowling.

 

Inside of both fuselages are painted basically the same:

 

The wheels are showing some Vallejo Plastic Putty as there are four nasty ejector pin marks on each wheel on one side.  First coat of 

'wood'

 

The rudder is correct for the Nieuport, but RED wheels are for the Camel not the Nieuport.  Good thing they actually look the same so ideally interchangeable.

 

Used Tamiya flexible tape to mask the edges and curves.  Have to be careful to really get it pressed down on the wing ribs - it is kind of thick (the white tape).  For the long - straight sections on the top wing I used the regular Tamiya tape.  The edge 'tape' color is Tamiya Deck Tan but looks very white here...  Only have a couple of easy touch-ups to do.

 

And the Sopwith Camel:

 

Same as the Nieuport: Engine cylinders are painted in gun metal, then a light coat of aluminum, and then the cylinders are dusted with black.  Exhausts are copper with a light dusting of rust - will be weathered more but will be very hard to see in the cowling.

 

Machine guns are base color of Vallejo Gun Metal, followed but a liberal spraying of black.  The fuselage and wings are Vallejo Olive Green.  Fuselage is over-coated with Vallejo Gloss Clear to prep for decals.

 

Gotta watch out for the sneaky ejector pin marks:

 

The Glossy part is where the roundel decals will go...

 

Dull Aluminum on the cowling

 

Sneaky pin marks on the rudder as well - one below the top hole and the other to the left of the forward (right in the picture) hole.  My 'fix' didn't work so have to sand all of this off and try again (tomorrow):

 

That's it for now.

Thanks for looking.

Chris

Edited August 12, 2018 by CANicoll
fix some text to clarify.

[themongoose]

Love it! And I’m enjoying the tips as you go along as well.

[CANicoll]

So I have a love-hate relationship with Roden's decals.  I've had many of them crack and fracture on me.  The ones for the Sopwith Camel were printed in 1996 - so showing some age but I think I've figured at least something out:  They react ok to MicroSet, but MicroSol causes them to disintegrate almost immediately (ask me how I know...). 

 

Given how prominent the ribs are on the wings, you would think that MicroSOL is needed to get the decal to lay down - and you are right, but DON'T PUT IT UNDER THE DECAL!.  Literally takes a matter of seconds before it starts to disintegrate the decal.  FINE If you don't move it the second you put it down.  But man, if you try and move it.  ugh.

 

Here is the white under-decal for the Sopwith Camel:

I didn't try and move it, I was brushing the decal down over the ribs with a wide, soft brush.  Yep - that didn't work well.

Here is the other side that I put down and then just left alone:

 

Originally I was using MicroSet - but it was not nearly as good at getting the decal to sit down on these huge ribs:

 

I put the MicroSol on TOP of the decal 3x, then gently pushed the decal down onto the ribs with a moist paper towel.  Here is the other side:

 

Still have to work the flap seam, but that will come...

The fuselage was easy - on the flat side.  On the side with the stitching, I tried the MicroSol.  NOW I know better!  Again, the damage at the bottom in the picture was done using a soft wet brush.

 

And just because this isn't enough to deal with, I had to take the rudder back to plastic as the Vallejo paint just would not feather very well (It was only 12 hours dry).

All because of those ejector pin marks.

 

Didn't take pictures, but the decals on the Nieuport fuselage and top wing went on much easier but that kit didn't have the white under decal - are more translucent, and are not exactly sitting down on those wing ribs as tight as I would like.  Pictures to come...

 

Chris

Edited August 13, 2018 by CANicoll
Didn't mean to hit the post button, too close to the insert media button.

[Gazzas]

Chris,

   Watching with interest.   I find it interesting that you are applying decals while still on the sprue.

 

Looking forward to more.

 

Gaz

[kensar]

Microset under, Microsol over.

I sometimes paint the white base under the decals.

[ziggyfoos]

12 hours ago, CANicoll said:

So I have a love-hate relationship with Roden's decals. 

 

You mean Hobbycraft? Title also says Roden but the kits are both Hobbycraft?

[CANicoll]

Ziggy - apologies!  Yes, HobbyCraft.  I am doing a Roden Pfalz and just didn't switch the brain over.  My bad....

[CANicoll]

So figured out an easy way to take care of the translucent Hobbycraft decals for the green Sopwith Camel:  Apply another set of decals!  Looks good and since I knew exactly where they were going put them down over a coat of MicroSol.  Perfect!

 

And as far as the Nieuport white disks that had one mostly disintegrate - hey, they are round right?  I SHOULD be able to just paint them (as kensar suggested) and not worry about finding another set of white decals.   

 

Also, got the outside struts onto the Roden Pfaltz I'm also working on so the top wing is on, but letting the GatorGlue dry before I install the inside struts.  The top wing is already rigged so hopefully that will go relatively quickly.

Edited August 14, 2018 by CANicoll
spelling correction

[LSP_Kevin]

Nice progress, Chris! I've changed the topic title for you.

 

Kev

[LSP_Ray]

Nice start, Chris! Interesting how much work you do with everything on the sprue...

[CANicoll]

Hi Ray - esp with the WWI stuff and having to do rigging that is anchored inside the fuselage I find it easier to just get everything done on the sprue (or apart anyway) and then just deal with the seams afterward.  

Here is the latest update - working on the rigging and finishing off the painting on the Sopwith Camel (I blew it - the front is actually metal, not wood) as I had to repaint the front.

 

Also found a big error in the HobbyCraft Sopwith Camel Instructions so lets start with that:

See the 'horn' circled below in red?  Yeah, not only does that part not exist on the Sprues (no horns), there is also no hole in the fuselage anywhere near that area to mount the horn either.  

 

HOWEVER, there are two holes in the fuselage for the elevator rigging which are not shown in the figure above:

Have had some issues with the roundel on the bottom fuselage so have some touch up to work on.  That is where the white backing decal just disintegrated using MicroSOL (to get it over/around the stitching - oh well!).

 

Here is the instrument panel for the Camel.  Upon close inspection the 'instruments' around the face are all exactly the same and do not represent any real instrument faces.  Airscale to the rescue!  The large black face to the left of the bank indicator (that horizontal thing) is too large for the raised detail on the panel, but I felt like I needed a larger instrument there.  Under the eye, you cannot see that it is off-center from the raised detail.  Next up is a drop of clear for the glass.  They went down beautifully over a drop of MicroSOL and a drop on top.

Here is the thing about the HobbyCraft instrument panel:  I looked at dozens of pictures of Sopwith Camel and Pup instrument panels.  I could not find a single one with the configuration of the HobbyCraft panel.  UGH!!!

 

Pulling out a few different faces:  The quality of the Airscale decals is excellent and take just a few seconds in the water for release.  So easy to use.  I have the WWI, WWII Allied and German sets.

 

The decals for the Nieuport were MUCH easier to deal with:

The decals were put down over a coat of Vallejo Clear, then another coat of clear after the decals dried, then a coat of flat.  With the coat of flat, the carrier film just disappeared.

 

I'm thinking of springing for Barracuda's excellent resin seats but may save those for 'better' builds.  But the Camel seat is a mess, with a huge ejector pin mark right in the webbing detail so the Barracuda seats would be ideal (kind of see the seat in the instrument panel picture above.  The Nieuport seat will be easier - I just need to drill out the existing smooth seat.  Here is an example from a guy building a Nieuport from scratch (using original plans):

 

Won't get a lot done this weekend as I'm doing a couple of days of autocross.  

 

Thanks for looking!

Chris

[Gazzas]

Chris,

      I really like the bird motif.  Keep em rolling!

 

 

 

Gaz

[CANicoll]

Apologies for the long periods in between posts - lots going on in life and in particular, with weekends.  Got some time last couple of days so here is an update.

 

The seams on the top of the fuselages takes a lot of work to sort out, especially when the top is painted silver.

Getting ready for Guynemer's red stripe as well as the darkened panel on the nose (assuming it was one of the wing colors so chose the dark one).

 

The Sopwith Camel:

 And afterwards.  Not perfect, but much better.  Still need to clean up the fuel take intake.

And the tail is ready for the serial number decal with the paint dry and now a gloss clear coat.  I don't like using the red/white/blue decals on the tail when it is so easy and straight forward to paint.

 

Bought the Barracudacast resin WWI seats - so thought I'd give them a try.  A first view shows a fair amount of flash on the seat weaving - I'll do a review for the site later.

 

The detail in the resin seat is terrific - the pic below shows the flash in about 1/3 of the weave on the seat.  The seat was in a set and interestingly enough the other seat has about 5-10% flash so your mileage may vary.  If you happen to be buying the seats at a show best to take a very close look to save yourself some work.  I used a sharp #11 blade and a needle to clean up the seat (and did end up breaking one weave) which took about an hour of work.

 

Here is the seat with a base coat of sand, gloss clear coat, then a dry brush with NATO brown, followed by a thin black Flory's wash that was wiped off with a paper towel and then the excess thinned with a wet brush.  The edge was painted with a dark brown and some wiped off for wear.

 

Prepainted the Nieuport's wing struts:

 

and then put them in place on the top wing, along with the start of the rigging:

Close up:

And then the bottom rigging.  I know there are dimples for the rigging, but I've not had great luck getting those to work yet.  Probably need to try to use turnbuckles.

 

 

Letting everything dry and then will see about joining wings to fuselage and then getting the rigging set.

 

Thanks for looking!  Hope to make more progress in the coming weeks.

 

Chris

[CANicoll]

Also got a bit of work on the engine and the instrument panel - pre-weathering:

 

Some 560 used as glass dials

And after drying:

And Installed:

 

Ok, that is it for now!

 

Chris

[MikeMaben]

 

Coming along quite nicely Chris.  Luv the seat