Academy 1/32 scale Nieuport XVII in Italian colors.

The Academy Nieuport 17, 1/32 scale.

A typical Italian, Macchi built N.17

Academy's Nieuport 17, Tom's Model Works PE, and CSM decals

My next project was to be a Finnish Hurricane, but I ran into some issues with the old-tool Airfix kit and, well just lost all my interest in the project for the time being. I had a strong desire to attempt another WWI subject in 1/32 scale, so I pulled the Academy Nieuport 17 out of my stash.

The Academy kit is a re-pop of the Hobbycraft model, I confirmed that by happening to pick up a Hobbycraft version on eBay. The moldings are identical. With the Academy kit however, you get a small photo-etch, (PE) fret and a roll of black thread for rigging! For this build I also used Tom's Model Works' "French WWI Aircraft" Photo-etch set, and for markings, the Copper State Models'  Italian Nieuport sheet.

Tom's seatback attached to the kit's seat pan.

The build starts as usual, after initial cleanup and primer coat, with the interior. The Academy kit has a reasonably nice interior to begin with, although it lacks any instrumentation except for a instrument panel on the PE fret which does not resemble any Nieuport 17 interior I've ever seen. Academy did include a few instrument faces on their decal sheet. I used a couple of those to make a couple of readouts I then attached to the interior framing.

I also used the throttle control and framework from Tom's photo etch fret. Also from the Tom's sheet was the perforated back of the pilot's seat and the seat belts. Finally, a small piece of sheet styrene was carved to resemble the rear former of the cockpit.

The final assembly of the cockpit included a façade of the ammunition boxes forward of the instruments, a steel seat support panel, (From the Tom's sheet), and rudder pedals with some calbling.

The interior with a couple of scratch built instruments and a bit of Tom's PE.

Now I turned to the exterior components. One nice feature of the Academy molding is that the ailerons are easily positioned into a dynamic position without having to cut and glue. I also positioned the elevator in a slight downward tilt that seems common on Nieuports. At this time I also drilled out the holes needed for running the rigging on the wings. There's surprisingly few for this aircraft! 

The kit's cowling required a little attention; It did not have the ribs on the upper cowling which is seen on many N.17s. I used thin Evergreen strips topped with a little stretched sprue to represent those. The engine is a reasonable representation with careful painting. I added ignition wires to the molded on plugs. The prop and the interplane struts were finished with my standard method of a base coat of Model Mast "Wood" followed with a wash of Tamiya Flat Brown and a finish coat of Tamiya "Clear Orange".

The PE from the kit that I did use was the end fitting for the interplane struts. These were nice enough, but I didn't use the strips for the middle of the the struts. They were rather awkward and just not necessary, I simply painted those. 

I wanted to break up the monotonous overall silver grey finish so I pre-shaded the wing ribs, using black, then using a stripe of white on the rib surfaces on the upper wings and to the horizontal stabilizers and elevators. I also used some black to form a break on the fuselage sides.

All this was overpainted with a thinned coat of Tamiya Flat Aluminum. The result came out pretty well, not perfect but I think more realistic than a straight coat of aluminum. After drying, I found the paint was a little rough so I polished it slightly with some tack cloth to buff it up and prepare it for decalling later.

Painting the exterior.

Next, I wanted to have a contrasting effect for the metal cowling and access panels. To do this I used Tamiya "Chrome Silver". Applied directly to the cowling, and to the masked surface of the forward fuselage.

The Tamiya "Chrome Silver" made a nice contrast.

One of the more impressive feature of Italian Nieuports is the tri-color red-white-green applied to the wing's undersurfaces. I had to do a little mixing to make a red that compared to the red of the decals, adding some Flat Brown to the stock Tamiya Flat Red. Tamiya's Flat Green was an almost perfect match with no mixing needed.

These colors were applied to the both to the wings and to the rudder, since I prefer painted rudder stripes to decals. 

The tri-colors on the lower wings.

The scheme I want to accomplish is a representative one for Italian N.17's.

The Copper State Models decal sheet is fairly small but of a very high quality. It's printed by Cartograf. This sheet gives you the Italian roundels and the Macchi style serial numbers that you can use to recreate virtually any a/c's serial you may want. Since I wasn't aiming for a specific aircraft, I just used the serial that was provided without having to go through the tedium of installing the tiny numbers one by one.

Assembly proceeded with a small hitch. The Academy instructions would have you install the forward cabane struts backward! I did that initially but something told me to check it out and sure enough, they were wrong. I had to snap them off and re-attach them. It's interesting to note that the Hobbycraft instructions for the same kit has the position correct!

Academy's mis-direction.

A photo of the real thing.

The correct strut positioning!

Assembly of  the main components could now begin! first I attached the wings' rigging to the holes in the upper wing...

Then, after attaching the top wing and interplane struts, I threaded the rigging through the appropriate holes in the fuselage and lower wings.

One of the interplane struts popped out! I had to affect an emergency repair!

Things were going along quickly now! It was time to install the landing gear. I was a little apprehensive, thinking this would end up being weak and fiddly.

I started by cementing the forward legs into their respective holes on the lower cowling. I let these set for a good long time. Then I superglued the starboard leg into it's (rather small), locating hole. Again, I let this set up for over 24 hours before super gluing the port side leg. The result has been rather satisfying! The landing gear on this kit if the sturdiest of the three I've made so fare, (the others being the Roden Albatros and the Hobbycraft Sopwith Camel).

The final step of assembling the landing gear. 

After installing the landing gear, the next step was attaching the rudder and adding the control cables for it and the elevators. The rudder didn't want to stick to the fuselage very well and in the process of attaching it I managed to break off one of the tiny control horns on it. The cable had already been installed so it was a bit of a struggle to get the rudder fixed!  Eventually, super glue came to the rescue and the rear empennage was finally fixed into place!

Final details were now added. I installed the Vickers MG at this time. I would recommend that you install it before you install the top wing! It's kind of hard to install with the wing on. Next the bell cranks for the aileron controls.  Finally, a little paint touch up here and there.

The result is a nice looking, little airplane. I have several other Nieuport kits to build, a couple of "AModels", (a Bebe and a Type 16), a Roden Type 27, and another Hobbycraft Type 17. It will be interesting comparing the various kit's construction.

As it is, I found this Academy kit to be an enjoyable build. You can get this and the Hobbycraft kit fairly cheaply on the web, so it would be a got subject to try out a WWI biplane subject.

Hobbycraft Hawk 75 in Finnish colors.

Hobbycraft's 1/48 scale Hawk 75.

A rare contemporary color image.

My latest project is the Hobbycraft Curtiss Hawk 75 in 1/48 scale. This build is something of a kit-bash. I owned one HC  Cyclone powered Mohawk kit that I planned to build as a Dutch fighter in the East Indies campaign, but I later came across a copy of the HC "Allied Hawks" kit which included the Dutch markings, so I set this one aside. A bit later I got an HC "French Hawk" kit for cheap. The reason it was so cheap, it turned out, was that it was missing several parts. It did contain, however, all the part needed to convert my Mohawk into a Twin-Wasp powered A-4 model.

So I decided to model a Twin-Wasp Finnish Hawk 75. The Finn's Hawks had an interesting history. They were originally build by Curtiss for France. When France fell, Germany confiscated many examples both Wasp and Cyclone powered versions, some still in their crates. They came across some other Hawks in Norway. The Germans took all these aircraft as "war booty", refurbished them, and sold them to Finland. The Finns were successful with the Hawks, although they found the same problems with the Cyclone powered versions that other users found...indifferent performance especially while doing any hard maneuvering.  Eventually, all the Cyclone Hawks were converted to Wasp engines as well. 

In all, Finland received some 44 Hawk 75s from Germany, delivered in three batches with the last arriving in early 1944! The Finnish Hawks were well liked by the pilots and were quite successful, having the third highest kill numbers behind the ME-109's and Brewster Buffaloes(!). Certainly, the Finns were the most successful operators of the little Curtiss fighters.

It begins!

Construction begins with sorting out the parts I'll need from the two kits, the front end and engine from the French Hawk, and the rest from the Mohawk. Everything then got a wash. I primed some of the parts like the interior and cockpit. 

Cockpit details.

I found that Hobbycraft had actually done a pretty good job with the interior. I had been tempted to by a resin interior for the kit but I found what was supplied was close enough to the original for my taste. Careful painting of the cockpit wall details and the instrument panel resulted in a pretty good approximation. I did add some photo-etched German style harnesses for the seat.

Pilot seat. A little too upright, i fixed that.

The photo above shows the one problem I had with the interior: The pilot's seat sat straight up and the seat itself was attached to the rear bracket in a very flimsy manner. I solved these problems by snapping off the rear bracket and gluing it at a slight angle back towards the bulkhead. I then added a couple pieces of sprue to the underside of the seat. This allowed it to be firmly attached to the cockpit floor.

One other interior fix was to the headrest. The one supplied in the kit seems too short so I carved a larger one out of sheet styrene.

Coming together.

The construction of the major components went along quite nicely without any real problems. It was soon time to begin painting. After an overall coat of primer I started with the most difficult color first: the yellow theater markings! I taped off the sections to be painted and then shot a coat of flat white. After this cured a couple of coats of straight Tamiya XF-3, flat yellow was applied.

Nest came the underside camo...Tamiya XF-23 mixed to a 1 to 1 ration with flat white for the light blue.

Now came the tricky part, the upper camouflage. There was no way I would be able to do the separation between the lower and upper colors freehand so I masked. A study of the Finnish scheme revealed an unusual, asymmetric pattern to the upper and lower colors' demarcation.  on the fuselage sides.

As always, it's a tense time for me when I begin removing masking tape! Thankfully, the Tamiya tape performed well and did no harm to any of the colors!

Tape off! Looking good!

Now it was time for the decals! Actually, the decals for this machine are pretty simple. I was able to use some from the "Camouflage and Decal" publication with a couple more borrowed from an old Aeromaster's sheet. 

Final assembly was now at hand. One tricky area was the rear glass immediately behind the cockpit. It was difficult to eliminate a bright silvery seam where the clear plastic met the fuselage. I finally solved that by painting the rim of the clear parts. Since I was using  "Elmer's" white glue the result was a fairly invisible seam!

The seam faded out well.

The final assembly and the myriad other little details now played out. The radio aerials are surprisingly complicated! I used four pieces of fine EZ line to assemble them. Then some globs of Elmer's glue to simulate the insulators and the other little blobs evident on the real aircraft. 

I picked up a set of Eduard PE gunsights in 1/48 scale and these provided a really nice touch to the finished model. Model manufacturers have bravely tried to provide these in various models of the P-36 and P-40, but you really can only pull it off with PE!

A last few details: I dabbed a bit of aluminum paint on each navigation light, then applied Tamiya "Clear" red, green and amber where appropriate. That adds a nice touch.

Port side view. Compare the camo demarcation on the side to the starboard side view below.

Starboard side, notice the unusual demarcation between the light blue undersurface and dark upper side camo. If you check the port side, you'll see a completely different line. This was a standard practice on the Finnish aircraft.

A look into the cockpit to inspect the instrument panel. also check the PE gunsights, offset to starboard.

This was an pleasant build of a subject I enjoy. I have two more Hobbycraft Hawks, a fixed gear type N and the Dutch Hawk, (Cyclone powered), I hope to build in the future.

Roden's Albatros D.I in 1/32nd scale

 

The early Albatros fighters, (the D.I and D.II), have sparked my interest ever since I read about them in Thomas Funderburk's "The Fighters", back in the 60s!  Back then there were no kits of those versions but nowadays there are several to choose from! I wanted to do 1/32 scale so I picked up a Roden kit a while back at a modest price from Amazon. 

I was a little intimidated by the Roden kits, (I've accumulated a few now), so I didn't try to build this one until I had a couple of  biplanes under my belt. Now that I've done a Hobbycraft Sopwith Camel and the Monogram F3F, I felt ready to tackle one. 

The aircraft I decided to model was the Jasta 5 machine flown by a Lt. Spitzhoff. It is one of the schemes offered in the kit's decals and it was a nice colorful scheme. I didn't want to try a plain varnished finish this time, I wanted to get familiar with this kit and I also wanted an example of the green/brown camouflage.

Lt. Spitzhoff's D.I

A profile shot of the finished kit for comparison to the actual a/c above.

Sorting it out!

Roden's models have a reputation of being "fiddly" with finely molded but fragile components. They offer some really exciting kits and over the years I've managed to collect quite a few. As it happened, I stumbled upon this particular kit on eBay at quite an attractive price. To my surprise, it also included a nice set of Eduard photo-etch parts and a special "wood grain" simulation in decals from Aeromaster! This also happened to be the second Albatros D.I in my stash, so I felt I had a little room for error in selecting this kit!

As usual, I began with the interior details. first was the beautiful little Mercedes DIII motor. I spent a fair amount of time painting and detailing this. Later, I would find that a lot of my work would disappear under the cowlings, but it was still fun to work on it.

Mercedes DIII

Next came the interior frame members which supported the engine and cockpit. These were all quite fragile and the Roden instructions were somewhat vague...I actually installed one of the engine compartment members backwards because of a bad illustration in the instructions! I was able to fix that but it did make me wonder about the instructions in this kit!

Dry fitting interior details.

Aligning the interior components.

Everything installed! Note I have removed the propeller shaft for better alignment,

As you can see, there is a lot of stuff stuck inside the fuselage halves! This is one of the wonderful things about this kit1 The level of detail is far beyond what I've encountered in the older kits i normally build!

Some details. PE jackets for the MG's and wood grain simulated with watercolor pencils!

A first for me: II used a couple of photo etched parts in this kit! Actually I used some machine gun jackets that were pre-rolled to a cylindrical shape and were quite easy to use. Roden actually provides extra machine guns molded without a jacket so you can easily install the PE ones. This really is a must for a 1/32 scale Spandau!

I also experimented with using water color pencils to simulate the wood grain on the propellers. In the case of the Albatros, with a large spinner covering the prop's center, this proved to by very effective. But I could not create a realistic pattern around the hub. For an aircraft without a spinner, ie; any Fokker, I will have to try something else.

Test fitting the Spandaus!

I spent a lot of time trying to get the Spandaus properly fixed to the upper decking. They are supposed to fit on a couple of brackets attached to the interior framing, but they didn't quite match up. They also had to be trimmed quite a bit to fit between the ammunition feed tray and spent cartridge collector.

In preparation for rigging, it was necessary to drill a series of holes through the lower wing, and partially through the upper. i also had to plug up two incorrectly placed rigging holes in the fuselage side.  

finally, it was time to start painting!. First, everything got a coat of Tamiya primer. This stuff really smells nasty, but it is an excellent base coat for the acrylic paint I like to use.

I first had to paint the white fields for the national insignia on both the upper and lower wings. These were masked and then the underside color of light blue was applied. My first attempt wasn't satisfactory; Tamiya's light blue had a very green cast to it! I eventually mixed my own shade and repainted the belly.

The final underside painting.

Next came the upper side camo! I was excited at this stage because I was going to try my hand at freee-hand airbrush camouflage. 

First, an overall coat of brown.

Next I lightly penciled the pattern for the green paint and then gave it a go!

Applying the green coat,

The paint job didn't go faultlessly, there were several hiccups, but eventually I reached where I felt satisfied. Upon removing the masking tape, I was relieved to find all the paint behaved well and there was no pulling out and just a few spots that required cleanup with a brush.

Painting done!

The step was to apply the decals. This turned out to be much more of a challenge than I expected. The decals seems hesitant to release from the backing, and when they did they were quite fragile. I mentioned earlier that I had a second kit, I had to rain that kit's decals to finish this one! Eventually, i found that by using warm water, the decals both released easier and softened up a smidge. somethigni'll have to remember since I have about TEN more Roden kits to build!

Finally getting the decals on!

It was now time to begin thinking about the final assembly. One problem i foresaw was with the center (cabane) struts. One ad already broken on the sprue as I was drilling a rigging hole in it! Not a good sign! I decided to reinforce the forward cabane struts with a length of styrene.

The reinforced cabane struts.

Cabanes installed, you can't see the reinforcements at all!

I installed some rigging from the cabanes to lower wings and also the side mounted radiators before installing the top wing. The upper wing, (which already had rigging wires attached), was then cemented in place and secured by taping it down to a flat surface.

Upper wing installation.

Once the upper wing was secured I was able to run the rigging through the holes I had drilled out earlier. One of my favorite parts of these biplane builds, I think it really adds a lot to the finished model.

A view of the rigging and the cockpit.

The landing gear was next. While quite a nice looking molding, I worried about the strength of this part. I went ahead and assembled them and wasn't impressed with their strength. to simulate the bungees used in the actual a/c, I wrapped the axle and strut with embroidery thread, hoping it would add a little more security.

The landing gear; nice looking but oh so fragile!

I eventually cemented the gear onto the fuselage and let it set for a couple of days. Eventually the time came to test it. I flipped the bird over and set it on it's feet. They held! They are still awfully fragile looking and there is a very slight lean to the left, but I can accept all that for now!

On it's feet, and holding!

Now all that was left was a few small details! The control surfaces on this aircraft are all separate so they had to be installed. Then the prop was finally glued on. Then, a final coat of dullcoat to tone down the future sheen, and it was done!

Some shots of the finished model: