WNW Collishaw Triplane

[Greif8]

Hi guys, I started the very nice WNW Collishaw Triplane a few days ago and decided to do an abbreviated build log.  I plan to show the sub-assemblies as I complete them.. This is the third WNW kit I have built (well this one I am building actually), and like the first two the Triplane kit is really nice.  I want to tell LSP_K2 (Kev) thank you right up front for selling me the kit for a more then fair price; without his generosity I doubt I would have had the opportunity to build the triplane.  Thank you again Kev!

 

The first of two posts today shows the engine.  It is a very nice little kit in itself and went together well.  I primed it gloss black than sprayed Mr. Color metallic paints over the primer.  I hand painted the brass rod fittings and used some washes and rust colored powders to simulate heat rusting on the exhaust.  I added spark plug wire using EZ Line.  Pretty simple straight forward assembly for a pretty simple engine!

 

Ernest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Greif8]

This second post shows the IP and the cockpit after assembly, basic painting, decaling and the addition of a lot of bracing and control wires.  I airbrushed a Tamiya desert color I mixed, and normally use for Afrika Korps subjects; but the color also gives a nice base wood color.  After letting the undercoat cure for a day I brushed a couple of different tones of artist oils; from a mix of Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre and Raw Umber to give the wood slightly different warm tones.  It also gives the flat surfaces a "wood grain" look, but none of the photos I took really highlights that - I'll take some macro shots later.  Before I did any painting or construction work I drilled out several holes into which both the control wires and the bracing wires (simulated by EZ Line) would be placed.  That turned out to be a fairly complicated process, as the working area is small and there are A LOT of control lines and a bunch of bracing wire.  The bracing wire on the bottom of the cockpit framing was the most challenging to get placed correctly and I took a couple of breaks when the old stress levels started to peak!  Overall, it turned out pretty good, though I guess most of the lines will be hidden or hard to see once the cockpit assembly is in place in the fuselage.

 

Enjoy the photos, and feel free to fire away with critiques, recommendations and/or general comments.

 

Ernest

 

 

The Future is still drying and you can see a couple of small areas that have not quite sucked down yet.

 

This macro shows some of the lint that stuck in the oils while they dried, even though I had the parts in a drying box.  Fortunately at normal viewing distance you can't see any of that!  The instrument decals and data/instruction plates look very good!

 

 

 

 

 

I used an HGW seatbelt.  Compared to the HGW Sutton Harness I did for the Hurricane build I just finished this was very simple to construct.

 

 

Lots of control and bracing wires.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Greif8
Grammer

[Greif8]

I made a lot of progress over the past 4 days.  The following photos show the mostly completed fuselage, the machineguns and the Collishaw figure.

 

The fuselage has gone together pretty well.  I had to bevel the joins where the upper cover for the cockpit meets the fuselage, but it was an easy fix and did not require much sanding at all to get a nice joint.  As I suspected you can't see a great deal of the cockpit once everything is buttoned up; and I think even less will be seen once the machineguns are in place.  The engine cowling panels fit very well and I don't foresee any fit issues later.  I have only placed the firewall provisionally, as test fitting the bottom wing showed it well be easier to get everything aligned and set in place if the firewall is installed after the lower wing.  This is a departure from the instructions and I admit that I am not sure why the order I have chosen to assemble the parts seems to work better, but it does.

 

 

 

 

The machineguns are the kit ones.  I bought some Gaspatch MG's but made the mistake of not checking them against the kit parts.  It turns out the Gaspatch MG's are about 1-1.5mm higher than the kit MGs which means of course they set far too high.  I looked at several possible ways to correct the issue, but given how small the work area is and the fact that I would have to modify both the MGs and the mounting area looked like a recipe for trouble; so  I chose to use the kit parts.  They are not too bad actually, though not nearly as nice as the GP MG's - I'll use them for another build.  I drilled the barrels out and added a tiny piece of Evergreen strip to the cocking handle to give it some depth.  They should look good once in place.

 

 

 

Finally some shots of the figure which is a pretty nice 3D printing.  I have finished painting the uniform and cap items, and still need to paint the face.  I airbrushed most of the base colors with Tamiya acrylics and hand painted the highlights and shadows with Lifecolor acrylics using the layering technique starting with deep shadows and adding successively lighter glaze coats until I liked the look.  I will use artists oils to add the eyes, hair color and highlights and shadows for the face and hands.  I shot the uniform under some different lighting conditions and the following photos show two of them.  You can see how different light effects the how the figure looks.   

 

 

 Macro shot

 

Lighting a bit more direct on this macro.

 

This one was taken with diffused light.

 

 

Yellow sponge base and direct light.

 

 

 

The sculpting of the face is excellent. 

[Padubon]

Holy smokes! What else can I say?

 

[Greif8]

5 hours ago, Padubon said:

Holy smokes! What else can I say?

 

 

This one is coming together well.

 

Ernest

[dodgem37]

Dog!

 

Sincerely,

Mark

[Greif8]

3 hours ago, dodgem37 said:

Dog!

 

Sincerely,

Mark

 

Thank you Mark, but there is still plenty of time for me to **** it all up!

 

Ernest

[Greif8]

Just a short update.  I have completed the sub-assemblies and have sprayed a semi gloss coat in preparation for decaling.  I shot a very smooth coat of paint with the MRP paints and probably could decal right over it, but I thought I would be safe.  I decided to do most of the decaling before assembling the wings or adding things like control horns to reduce the chances of breakage.  This plane lends itself well to that sequence and hopefully by tomorrow evening I will have completed the majority of the decaling.  The photos show the various parts ready to decal, the completed fuselage, lower wing assembly and a couple of macro shots.  The final one shows the wood grain effect I got using the oil paint method I described at the start of this thread; unfortunately you can't really see the "wood grain" at normal viewing distance as the parts a really not large enough for the effect to be seen.  You may notice that I have tried to vary the tone of the brown paint to simulate light and shadow and to (hopefully) add some interest to the build.

 

Ernest

 

 

 

 

 

Fit of the wing join was outstanding!

 

 

[Greif8]

This build is coming along.  The following shots show the triplane after all the fuselage work is complete and the rigging process which is also mostly finished.  I included a couple of macro shots of some of the detail.  I opted to use the Gaspatch eyebolts on this build, hoping they would make the rigging both easier and look more realistic.  It did not make the process much easier, and - though I think the end result looks fine - I don't think it made the rigging fixing points look any more realistic than sticking the EX Line in a drilled out hole.  Rigging the empennage was quite the process.  The end result is ok, but I should have used small gauge fishing line to give the structure more stability as it is very fragile.  I'll be moving in slow motion while finishing the build to keep from damaging it.   I have also completed the Collishaw figure and think it turned out pretty well.  The sculpting of the face makes me think the figure is squinting in some fairly direct light; a sunny day perhaps; so I decided to paint the eyes as slits to simulate a person squinting.  

 

Ernest

 

Wing rigging almost finished.  I am going to rig the two lines that lead from the fuselage to the wings last so I don't have to worry about snapping a line while handling the model during the final stages of assembly.

 

The center diagonal "wire" leading from the upper wing to the lower wing took some effort to get the two pieces of EZ Line aligned to look as if it is passing through the center of the wing.  I admit that there were some bad words muttered while doing this.

 

The completed empennage.  There are line everywhere it seems!

 

Unfortunately I positioned the light a bit too direct resulting in a lot reflection, but this overhead shot gives you an ides of how complex the rigging of the tail area is.

 

Side on photo showing the elevator control lines and the wires for the tail skid.

 

Close up of the engine showing some castor oil staining.

 

Wing root with castor oil staining.  I will take some photos of the bottom later.  I heavily stained it and dirtyed up rear underside to simulate soil and grass sticking and staining the canvas in part due to castor oil running back.

 

Macro shot of one of the GP eyebolts I mentioned.  These are the metal ones.

 

 

Macro of one of the decals which were excellent and went down trouble free.

 

Finally, the Collishaw figure.  I shot the photo with some pretty strong light which washed out some of the subtle shading of both the face and uniform, but it does highlight a lot of the detail work.

 

I don't normally enlarge photos, but thought some might be interested in a macro of the cap badge.  The kit supplies a decal for this but I opted to hand paint it (and the other details as well).

 

Ernest

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Greif8