Not a Throne...

Not a lot of modeling progress.  I did manage to clean up the garage enough to finally park both cars inside.  That was a HUGE accomplishment!  I re primed all the non-wood grain parts black;

This should get them ready for the aluminium finish.

I used a little Milli-put to try to make a seat cushion.  This was my first try with this and it is a little old but I think it turned out pretty good.  We will have to see how it paints up.

This is my rough shape I added some creases and buttons.

Here I added some piping with 32gauge (0.2mm) wire; this was attached with a little CA.

The final result before it is painted.

Details, Details

So I have started adding some small details to the Nieuport 17.  As I have stated previously I have decided to use one sided turnbuckles.  There is an eyelet on one end and a nice tail to trim and glue on the other.

I drilled out small holes with a 0.3mm drill bit and glued in turnbuckles on one end and eyelets on the other.


Threading the line through the eyelets takes a little skill and a great deal of patience.  There are several great guides to this process available so I skipped over some of the details.  The guide at http://www.ww1aircraftmodels.com/ is about the closest to how I did mine.

I won't be working on the wing struts for a while, but before I put them away I thought they could use a bit of detail as well.  I took a bit of lead foil and trimmed it to width using the part as a guide.

Then I carefully glued into place with CA and a straight pin and trimmed to fit.


Repeat five more times and it almost looks like metals bands reinforcing the struts...

Now its time to put this away, clean up the rest of the wood grain pieces and prepare for my aluminium finish.

Nieuport 17

So it begins;  I have spent some time making turnbuckles.  I decided to use one sided buckles.  I washed the sprues and primed.  I have started to add Lacquer Thinner to my Acrylic paint to give it a little more bite.  I am still undecided about this technique.  I usually prime in white or black.  This time due to the need for some wood grain effects (very little on this Nieuport) I tried a prime of Desert Yellow XF-59.


 I have also tried my first attempt at simulating wood grain.  I have seen a couple pictures that looked like a lite-colored plywood on the interior.  So I did a mix of 2:1:1 Yellow Ochre: Burnt Sienna: Burnt Umber.  I 'varnished' with Future and added a drop of Clear Yellow.  I believe that my Clear Yellow has gone bad it doesn't mix completely and seems to periodically clog my airbrush.  It looks a little lighter then I intended and I may do it again, I will definitely go darker on the propeller.


I didn't bother with the ejector pin marks or the 'detail' inside because I don't believe it will be at all visible.  I know this isn't a good approach, but I am pressed for time and I am using this kit as a learning experience and not to win any prizes...

Definitely need to go darker here.


So far this looks like a nice little kit and I am looking forward to doing more.

Buckle Up!

It has been a while since my last post.  Nice weather means yard work....  Decaling on the C-47 is going slow.  The decals are awful; I think that it is mostly their age but I have had a lot of cracking and the glue is leaving smudges.  I gave up on the SoluSol and have just been using SoluSet to finish them off.

On the brighter side; I decided on my next project; I picked up a couple Academy Nieuport 17 kits for $15 each and thought that they would make a good break-in to WWI aircraft.  I will need 18 turnbuckles so to speed things up I made a jig to cut the brass pipe.


I collected a couple plastic blocks (Legos) from the boys toybox.  I also got some 0.05 brass sheet for the stops and a plastic card to use as a cutting surface.  I used my smallest Dremel drill bit 1/32 about 0.7mm to drill four holes each in two opposite sides.

I cut the plastic card to fit.  I also removed the inner ridges on one of the sides with holes.  I cut the brass sheet to the same width as the block.  This gave me 1mm on each side to fold to improve the fit.  The sides of the block are 1mm thick so I installed the brass sheet flush to the inside edge on one side and glued into place with CA.

The other brass sheet was folded and wedged between the inner ridges and the center post.  This gives a depth of 4mm.

Everything was glued together with CA.  With a little care I can make four pieces at a time.  Clamping the jig to the table helps a great deal!

Here are my 1mm pieces for the cable clamps.

Here are the 4mm pieces for the turnbuckles.


Here is my two year old daughter being a ham...

I have decided to do one sided turnbuckles.  I am using 34gauge (0.16mm) wire for the turnbuckles using 0.5mm brass pipe.  I also have 38gauge (0.1mm) wire but it looked too small in the 0.5mm pipe.  I picked up NiCr wire from Ebay http://stores.ebay.com/jacobsonline and it is a dream to work with for twisting buckles.  He also has 36gauge (0.13mm) wire and I would really like to see if that would fit inside some 0.4mm pipe.  The sticking point is finding the 0.4mm pipe right now.

I have also thought about trying the 38gauge NiCr wire for my rigging instead of monofillament.  It will depend on how tight I can pull it...