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WNW SE5a


Greif8

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I have finished the primary painting of the model.  I did not take a ton of photos because I just don't think folks would be much interested in seeing 10 pictures of the painted model - "Oh look!  Ernest has laid down the PC10 color on this build and is showing all angles of it; how - underwhelming....."  HaHaHa!  Following are photos that I thought might be interesting for you guys.

 

The resin stitching on the fin looks really good under primer and paint.  The decals were easy to use and behaved as advertised, like all the stuff I have ever used from Archer - hats off to you Woody, and I am sad to see the products disappear; that's life though.  Ignore the dust thread in the photo, it must have floated down just as I took the shot.

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The fit of the engine panels and radiator was quite good.  I have to reattach a spark plug wire though - for about the 100th time it feels like.

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The wrapping that I did of the cabane struts looks pretty nice under paint; I underexposed the damn photo though.

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The Gas Patch Vickers MG in place.  There was zero drama positioning it or the cover over the MG.  I'm happy I did quite I bit of prep work on the cover to ensure a good fit.

IMG_5029

 

I spent a fair amount of time painting the area surrounding the cockpit and the headrest to try and get a leather look.  I used acrylic paint (Lifecolor) combining three shades of brown, a brown wash and a light brown highlight to get some depth.  The end result is not as nice as the leather look that oils give, but it is not terrible and will do the job.

IMG_5033

  

Below is the mounting base and crank handle that the pilot could turn on the actual aircraft to hand operate the magneto.  I punched a disc out of thin brass sheet and added three tiny brass parts that I cut and filed to make the mounting spindle, arm and handle.  This took four tries before I was able to make something halfway decent.  I'll add this to it's spot on the starboard side of the cockpit when the build is nearly finished.  

IMG_5036

 

Edited by Greif8
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1 hour ago, Uncarina said:

Beautiful work Ernest! I can see that wrapping just fine, and this is shaping up to be an exemplary build. Which paint did you use for the PC10?

 

Happy New Year!

 

Tom

 

Thank you Tom!  I used MRP's PC-10 Late.  

 

Happy New Year to you as well!  Interestingly, my reply to you was my 2023rd post. 

 

Ernest

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3 hours ago, MikeMaben said:

Very nice Ernest, leather looks great to me  :thumbsup:

 

Thank you Mike!  I think it is more difficult to pull off a leather look with acrylics than it is using oils - but that could all be down to me in the end.  I did consider using oils here, but I just got the build going again after a several week delay and did not want to kill my momentum waiting for a couple of days for the oils to dry.  And I wanted to see if I could bring off the "oil look" using acrylics.

 

Ernest

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I spent a fair amount of time weathering the wings and fuselage of the aircraft today.  The weathering phase comes much later when I build mono-wing aircraft, but one thing I have learned since beginning building WWI aircraft is that it is best to do any weathering type work prior to installing the upper wing.  I wanted to try and get a bit of variance in the monotone PC-10 paint job and decided to do that mostly in three steps.  I first sprayed the rib tape areas, and the areas of the fuselage that have wrinkles with Tamiya Smoke.  This translucent color has many uses and I thought it would work well here.  Next, I carefully airbrushed several light layers of matt varnish.  My goal here was to vary the look from dead flat to a light sheen to a semi gloss applying those in areas I thought they would likely be.  Finally I used some Tamiya weathering pastels to add highlights and fading to areas like the center of the rib tapes or the top of the fuselage to give the paint job a bit more of a 3-D look.  I still have a fair amount of things to do, especially to the bottom of the aircraft, but the general weathering effects are done - with the exception of the inevitable touch ups.

 

Overall photo that I had to enhance some as it was too dark.  The PC-10 is somewhat lighter than this photo shows, but you can see the effects I talked about above.

IMG_5075

 

A little closer, you can get a better view of the highlights and shadows I was trying to get.  This photo shows the shade of the PC-10 closer to how it looks without strong direct lighting.  When I first sprayed the MRP PC-10 Late I thought it looked a little too dark, but that ended up being a good thing for the weathering process I chose.

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Here you can see some of the highlighting and shading I did to the wrinkles in the fuselage.  I have to retouch the leather to give it some sheen.

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Close up of the port lower wing.

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The bottom of the starboard lower wing.  I have a bit more work to do on the lower parts of the model.

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The tailplanes, I will be adding most of the "dirtying up" kind of weathering in this area of the build, as well as the undercarriage, so I went heavier with the Tamiya Smoke.

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Top of the upper wing.  I faded this area somewhat more than the rest of the model.

IMG_5079

 

Close view of the upper wing.

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On 1/2/2023 at 10:00 PM, monthebiff said:

Lovely work Ernest,  I have one of these in a similar state working my way (stalled) through adding the Pheon night fighter decals. Your build is most inspirational 

 

Regards. Andy 

 

Thank you Andy!  I wish I could have sourced some of the really nice Pheon decals, but alas all my efforts were for naught, so I went with one of the schemes in the box. I often let my 8 year old daughter pick the schemes I do and unsurprisingly she wanted the one with the kangaroo!  I do have Pheons large decal sheet for the Sopwith Triplane, so if I end up building another one of those I am in good shape!  Good luck with your SE-5a build; given your skill I am sure it will be a cracker.

 

Ernest

Edited by Greif8
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The majority of today's bench time was spent working on small parts like the rudder, or applying further weathering effects.  I spent a fair amount of time touching up the edges of the rudder where the decals either did not completely meet or had bad wrinkles (only one spot).  I mixed the the blue and red colors to get a close match and carefully painted the edges.  Most of the weathering was to the bottom of the aircraft.  The diorama I have planned will be in the late winter/early spring timeframe and I am sure the bottoms of the aircraft got pretty dirty during that time of the season.  

 

Overall shot of the weathering of the bottom.  I still need to do a couple of things, but it is 85%-90% done.  I tapped a wide brush against my finger to get the splatter effect and then touched up the few areas that needed it.  I also used the wide brush with a slightly thicker mix of earth color I used on the trailing edges and the bottom edge of the fuselage.

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Close up of the tailplanes.

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And a close up of the center forward underwing area.

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Side shot of the fuselage.  I used two shades of a dirt colored enamel along the bottom edge.

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While the majority of the dirt was kept at the bottom, I did add some minor splatter effects higher up.  My daughter was not happy the kangaroo got dirty!

 

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The rudder is not glued, just set in place.  I wanted to see if both the shading I did under the stitching showed up and also if the dirtying up I did to the rudder

meshed well with the rest of that area.

IMG_5096

 

Close up of the rudder.  I am happy with how the dirt effects turned out.

IMG_5094

 

Edited by Greif8
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Finished the majority of the weathering today.  After letting that work dry for 2-3 hours I added the telescopic sight and the sighting blade.  After those parts were placed it was time to install the upper wing.  This is always a rather tense time for me during WWI aircraft builds as getting everything lined up, making sure none of the rigging that is attached to the bottom of the upper wing gets misplaced and adjusting the wing for fit makes it seem like I need three or four hands to do everything.  Most of the time there is no drama, as long as I have prepped everything correctly for fit and I pay attention to what I am doing the entire time.  And so it was this time; for which I am thankful!

 

I did some pin washes to highlight some of the panels and hinges so that those items looked more 3D.

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I don't know if SE-5a's leaked oil, and if it did how much; but I added a little oil staining.

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The dirtied up areas have dried and look fairly decent.

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Top wing installed.  Once it has dried overnight I'll start rigging this beast.

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Starting to look like an S.E.-5a.  This is the most heavily weathered WWI aircraft I have done by far.

IMG_5108

 

Edited by Greif8
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Really doing the SE justice -I sometimes let my kids choose, too, and usually build that version. Except for the A-6, because they wanted the dark and rather dull camouflaged version ;)

 

Currently doing some of those Warcraft (or is it Warhammer?) figures my kids got from my LHS. Won't be doing a figure painting tutorial on these though :D

 

Jeroen

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