Clunkmeister

Tony, I’m looking for some old pics I have.

Thanks Martin. I don’t think I like the darkish streaks outboard on the wings. Yes, they’re often seen on models, but to me, they aren’t realistic. Out there, there’s no reason for that to happen, so, tomorrow he’ll perform the magic disappearing act.

But the lens is my friend here. I saw I forgot to paint the cockpit coaming, so on went some basic leather. Distressing it a bit tomorrow, I think. I need to mount the convex rearview mirror, touch up the edges, finish the exterior weathering, and mount the dipole antenna.

So she’s starting to look the part. Just slightly changing the light position totally changes he look of the Polish khaki. No wonder this color had raging debates over what it was for 80 years.

Phil, weathering powders are an old model railroader trick. They come in the normal range of colors and if you apply them over a deadflat surface, they cling to the surface and look incredibly realistic. The downside is that unless you seal them with clear, they rub off when you handle the model. When you seal them, the effect tones down a lot, so you need to apply several times to get the effect you want. I’d say they have much more use in armor modeling, but if you need to replicate dirt, grime, and such on an airplane, they work well. I much prefer oils. Used the same way we use washes, etc. Apply the oils, then draw them across the surface with a turpentine dampened brush. I get my best effects with oils, and if you don’t like the look, you have an hour or so go wipe them off before they stain.

Now that we’re firmly in the realm of conjecture, I will say that going full worldwide distribution as a massive mistake and only served to nicely remove whatever operating profit they were realizing. They had everything except for production under one roof. R&D, prepping, shipping and receiving, warehousing, sales, QC, advertising, and marketing. Not the biggest, but the very best, with costs directly under their control, all QC easily overseen, and a shipping department that actually cared, was easily reached, and modelers like us. Matter of fact, they were SO successful, they gained an unheard of cult following that still exists today. Then they subbed it all out with the grandiose plan of going global. Great idea if you’re Tamiya or Revell, but WW1 models are a niche of a niche within a niche. The market just ain’t there. They expanded it greatly, but it was about as big as it was going to get without expanding their market reach. In essence, they gave away the gravy. Third parties taking the easy money off the top, but WNW’s workload never decreased. Work hard for less money. I’ve never been a WalMart business model: sell 2 gazillion copies for a cheap price and make .20 per unit profit each. Instead, I’ve been more of a boutique kind of guy: supply the very best product humanly possible, with blow your mind personalized service for a high but fair price. In other words, BE THE BEST. Thats how you become what they used to be.

I have a few of my own observations on that, and it's simple conjecture with the benefit off 20/20 hindsight. 1. The release of the DFW series. It was preceeded by alot of fanfare, secrecy of the type to be released, only saying that it's the "most widely deployed German two seater of the war", yadda yadda yadda. Well, I was morer than a little bit underwhelmed when I saw it, I wasn't familiar with the type, and to me it looks like a pregnant Rumpler, both versions of which were still nowhere near sold out. I bought a couple out of loyalty to the Company. The Halberstadt, a real sleeper of a kit, should have come instead. 2. The UWD. WHY? Offer an add-on kit and be done with it. Or let the AM figure it out. Aviattic might have jumped all over a float kit, or even HPH might have stepped up. I bought one out of loyalty to the Company. 3. The Dolphin. OK, it's fuggly, and for similar investment, we could have had a 1 1/2 Strutter or a Baby, both much more popular. But, I'm not normal and actually LOVE the ugly Dolphin, so I bought a few to build. 4. FIVE Camel boxings. Why? Offer add on sprues and decals. save the huge costs involved with the various boxings, artwork, etc. They did the same with the D.Vll's, FOUR boxings of that gem. But they learned their lessons and have us another boxing, and sold add on sprues to make other versions: smart. I bought NONE, but traded for a few. It's not my favorite bird, and for this, I lose my honorary Brit card. 5. O-100, O-400, and two Lancasters, all at the same time. WHY? The cost of tooling all those HUGE kits at once must be bloody astronomical. A massive financial red pill to swallow and a forever nut to crack, just to get back to being in the black. MASSIVE mistake. 6. No Dr-1 untill now. OK, never. It's only 6 years late, no biggie. That, like the Albatros and the D.V11s, was a cash cow that was ignored all too long. 7. Stillborns: DH-4, Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, Albatros C-anything, and a Be.2c and e (the flippin RE.8 sold out in a year. People wanted a Be.2 so bad they could taste it.), No SPADs, WTF? Another absolute cash cow. Add Caudron, Voisin, etc.... Winners lately? Few and far between, but the Junkers D.l was a stroke of genius. The Halberstadt, to me, had all the look of a winner, it's an amazing kit, but it'll never get a chance. The Lanc could have been the best kit by any manufacturer, ever, anyplace. That kit was hot and droolin' sexy. Observations? WnW was right about one thing: They'd never release a kit of the Dr.1. Ever. And you can take THAT to the bank.

I just talked to him the other day. harold's still kicking, doing fine work, too. And still just as miserable as me. :-) We get along just fine.

Do-17z. Nothing else even comes close. I'd be a bit concerned about schemes, because after every BoB scheme had been modelled ad nauseum, there is precious little after that that's all that interesting. Somewhere I had heard that HK is doing a Junkers 52, so the Do-17 will fill in the gap nicely. But what do I know? I'm the one voice that wanted an He-111b

I've seen Radu's stuff used on postwar British aircraft models with great success. I expect the same technique would work for wartime models as well, but what I was told they did was to let the one end that slots into the upper wing "float" uinsecured by glue, so it can expand or contract at it's leisure. I've never tried it, and it would do absolutely nothing for unit strength, but it would certainly look prototypical. Like you, I just use mono like. To heck with prototypical, I prefer strength, and besides, anything farther than 2 ft away, you can't tell the difference.

Definitely use the bronze gear. The SAC white metal gear is soft and worse than the kit gear.

Gazz, that 262 is sublime

Nice, nice builds on the benches. WOW!

Tony, one other thing on this kit.. It needs nose weight. LOTS of nose weight. Yes, it has weights included in the kit, but it needs easily 2.5 X that amount. We’ll talk on flap modifications later.

Jeff if I’d have caught him out with hair like that, I’d have marched his arse right in to the base barber. Of course I was Army and any hair at all below the cover was verboten.

Sterling Mk.lV SMG. I was a radio operator so often carried a room broom but we all carried our fair share of the MG belts.

Interesting take on the Roden struts, guys. I can see the issues you’re talking about, and it makes sense. WNW struts always were keyed and have solid attachment points. Roden’s are like all others, thin locators with little area for glue to grip. i use Monofilament line almost exclusively. It adds so much strength to the build, it’s not even funny. My Felixstowe and possibly the Gotha would have collapsed in on themselves long before now. My Gotha survived a three day trip to Oregon and the same back, in the trunk of a car, none the worse for wear. The Felix made it to Omaha from Texas and return. No issues. I’m a FiRM believer in the virtues of mono line. Pre rigging the top wing ShOULD help reduce the risk of knocking the wing off....

What happened to that 1911? Looks like it got pimped in South Central L.A.

There's nothing wrong with the Roden DR.1. It's actually a really decent little kit. You can do what many do to the WNW kits, and replace the prop with Proper Plane, use a resin engine or Wingnut engine sprue, use AM guns, and Pheon and Aviattic decals. I really didn't see how much better the Wingnut DR.1 would actually be. The Roden is nice. Plus, if you want to go whole hog, Squadron put out an "Encore" version of the Roden kit with resin goodies and different decals. They offered both the DR.1 and an F.1 kit. My take? "slightly" less crisp moldings, a bit of extra flash, some parts no show perfect right off the sprue, and absolutely atrocious decals. Roden decals are, in my opinion, hideous. Every time I've tried to use them, they nuked themselves in the water. Plus, they flake up and I could never get them to apply well. Technique, maybe?

Yes I know. I may need to change it a bit because it sure looks black in the pics. I used Alclad exhaust manifold paint with a bit of copper and stainless added, followed by various hot metal clears and sepia. It sure looks black in the pics..

You’re the expert, Harv. The only aircraft I ever really studied the load on was the toilet bomber Skyraider

So I’m giving it just a tiny bit of life, a used, not abused look. A few streaks, then tomorrow some powder rubs, and then a light overall brownish filter.

Digitus defectus manipulum

Now that’s my kind of Thud. NMF and loaded for bear Good old iron bombs.

Something surreal about the wheels being below the round down and the tailpipes almost on the deck....