Das Kamel - Hansa Brandenburg W.12

[DocRob]

Moin Moin, Fellow Modelistas,

after some excursions into 1/48 scale, I will start a 'grown up' build right now. Since some years, I have the W.12 in stash and was more than once tempted to start the build, but actually we had a bad start the Kamel and me. Having bought the W.12, it was always a cheap substitute for not getting the single wing W.29, but now with the years, I accepted my fate, made my peace and after seeing some great build logs, I'm looing forward to the build, anticipating a lot to learn and have loads of fun.

I have a soft spot for seaplanes and the sea itself, so it seems logical to combine both in that build. My version will show the early W.12 #1401 or #1402 which were stationed on the island of Sylt, the most northern point of Germany. 
I used to travel a lot to this beautiful island, when I lived in Berlin, mostly in wintertime, when the sea is rough and the tourists are no tourists in this time of the year. It's a wild landscape formed mainly by sand and of course wind and the Northern Sea.

I will add some AM like HGW belts, Master and Aber brass barrels, Aviattic Lozenge and interior detail from HGW. From the latter, I will only use the etch parts and maybe the wood decal for the instrument panel. The paper wood for the inside of the fuselage looks and fits horrible. I have no idea what HGW was thinking with that stuff, non fitting thick paper that has to go under the framework of the kit, I still shake my head.
The rest of the wood decals look ok, but I think I will create my own wood, deepen my experience gathered with my SSW twins, because I think it will be easier, to give painted parts the heavy used and weathered look, I'm planning to achieve. 
The Copper State figures are a maybe, I will decide later, if there will be a dio. 

Cheers Rob
 

[DocRob]

I always have difficulties to start a new build, to many topics in my head concerning different aspects of the project. That leads to uninspired parts snipping and sanding, manual browsing and brainstorming and after some days the vague picture I had forms into something more substantial and I'm ready to start.

My Kamel will be beaten by the elements, having marks all over from heavy use in an unfriendly fierce and salty environment and while reading the manual, I saw different pictures, which showed some heavy denting of the floats and decided, that will be the first task. I'm not entirely sure, if the hulls of the floats were coated with metal sheet, which dented, or if it was a kind of tar paper. The pictures let me tend to the metal planking and I had an idea, how to depict that.

The Sylt based W.12's luckily had the tar black painted floats, which I preferred, because they give a better contrast to the grey fuselage, along with the also black struts.

I took a rounded scalpel blade and shaved irregular patterns into the plastic. These were sanded afterwards, a little bit more in the mid section to get a little sunken in look of the surface. First paint will show, if it finally looks realistic, but for now, I like the effect compared with the pic of the real thing and feel energized to go on.

Cheers Rob

 

[BlrwestSiR]

The floats look great Rob. Nice start to your build.

 

Carl

[yaggo]

Great start . Going to follow this one close.

Peter

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, BlrwestSiR said:

The floats look great Rob. Nice start to your build.

 

2 minutes ago, yaggo said:

Great start . Going to follow this one close.

Muchas Gracias Señhores, always a great feeling to crack open a WNW box and enjoy the perfection of their kits.

Cheers Rob

[Jeff]

I'm in too Rob, for the first time it seems , in the front row...................

[DocRob]

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

I'm in too Rob, for the first time it seems , in the front row...................

Nice to have you on board, Jeff.

Today I prepared a lot of parts for painting, so I primed a lot and airbrushed some white into the upper inner fuselage and on the IP and Tamiya Buff on all the wooden parts without the framework, which I want to have in a lot darker wood finish than the rest. This will be the preparation for applying woodgrain with oil colours as one of the next steps.
The framework was then loosely fit into the fuselage and oversprayed with some Tamiya Flat Earth, to get some shadows in the inner wood planking, after that the frame was finished with Flat Earth as a dark base.

 

While preparing the plastic parts for the cockpit, I drilled out the traverse of the steering column. A bad surprise was to see, that the HGW PE-part for the traverse and the chains is too long, I have no idea what they are doing with their measuring.
The WNW supplied part on the left fits, but does look worse, so I will see, if I can find a fix with the HGW part.

 

Cheers Rob

 

[BlrwestSiR]

11 minutes ago, DocRob said:

The WNW supplied part on the left fits, but does look worse, so I will see, if I can find a fix with the HGW part.

Maybe trim the HGW part just above the triangular bracket and then overlap the excess so it has a bit of strength?

[DocRob]

48 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Maybe trim the HGW part just above the triangular bracket and then overlap the excess so it has a bit of strength?

Exactly my thinking, but the PE chain is extremely fine, painting this will become a nightmare after cutting. I may burnish the part, rub some steel pigments on and then do the cutting.

Cheers Rob

[Bill_S]

If it were me, I might just try to fold it to take up the excess.

[DocRob]

4 minutes ago, Bill_S said:

If it were me, I might just try to fold it to take up the excess.

That might be a way to handle it, without loosing the last bit of stability. Thanks for letting me now.

Cheers Rob

[Bomber_County]

looking forward as this progresses 

[harv]

I'm liking this build. Floats look great ! I'll take a seat in the back of the classroom....harv

[DocRob]

38 minutes ago, harv said:

I'm liking this build. Floats look great ! I'll take a seat in the back of the classroom....harv

Thanks Harv, I will learn a lot, I'm sure. The good thing about WIP-ing here is that you gather as much information as you spread .

Like with Bill_S tip here:

4 hours ago, Bill_S said:

If it were me, I might just try to fold it to take up the excess.

Thanks Bill folding was the key, I burnished the part after bending, will paint it later and rub some metal pigments on. In the moment it's only loosely fit on the steering column.

Cheers Rob

[Bill_S]

Looking good, Rob! I'm currently building the W.29, and you can't see much in the depths of the cockpit.

Nice work on the floats, too. I was afraid to attempt that on my build.

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Bill_S said:

Looking good, Rob! I'm currently building the W.29, and you can't see much in the depths of the cockpit.

Nice work on the floats, too. I was afraid to attempt that on my build.

Thanks Bill, a lot of the inner fuselage work will be hidden, even more on my W.12 with the upper wing in the way. I want to train different techniques with this build, so unseen detail work is not completely wasted. 
Shaving dents into the floats is not that daunting, but it's much harder, when the deck of the floats is attached. I used that technique some years ago for a stressed metal fuselage. To me it's more controllable than working with a motorized grinder.

Cheers Rob

[Bill_S]

I've had a motorized grinder for years, but the last time I recall using it was on my daughter's braces when her orthodontist was out of town...

As you can see, that control column is pretty well buried.

 

Even more so once the cover is on...

[Jeff]

GEEZ, you guys do NICE work..................

[DocRob]

Today there is a sandstorm and 37 degrees outside, so what better, to dive into the dark and relatively cool cave..

Today it was about the transformation from plastic to wood and leather, an aspect, I really start to enjoy, with gaining experience. 
The parts were prepared with primer and Tamiya Buff for the lighter and Tamiya flat earth for the darker wood. Then I used different brown and yellow shades of oil colour to achieve the grain. Generally I apply a little too much of the oils without thinning and erase the oils with a flat synthetic brush and odorless turpentine, gently stroking to the desired level.

The seat got some green leather padding for better contrast and colour richness.

 

 

The framework got some yellow highlights, to break the red wood tone and the fuselage planking was pre-shaded, using the frame as a template

 

Floors and spars in different tones. The engine mount will be painted and then heavily chipped

 

The decks of the floats look like custom longboards, but they will receive a tar black coat, where only chips of wood look through, pity

 

The worst of the day, was again provided by HGW. The decal for the IP was so fragile, it soaked for only three seconds and broke, while looking at it.
I wish, I would have been used oils, but decided against it, because of the extensive masking needed.
Tomorrow I will decide, if I will strip the IP or not. Luckily it looks much worse on the macroed photo than in reality

 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I had to do something about the damned IP, couldn't live with that. I applied some oils, darkened the borders, used some oil washes and silvered the bezels. 
Now it's starting to look a little better. With added details like the Magneto switch and some levers for the brass instruments and some decals, it should look ok.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

I made my peace with the decaled IP for now, after some detail painting and applying the decals. I matted all the wood parts down, because my Kamel will be a worn one. and coated the wood parts with a protective coat of varnish. One of the instruments 'glass' coatings (a drop of Pledge) is not fully cured and will be fully transparent then.

I have wood decal sets made by HGW for two other builds, a 1/48 Oeffag 253 and an 1/32 Albatros D.V. If these decals perform either bad and are brittle like these, I will do all the woodwork on the fuselage with oils. I'm feeling more and more confident with this method.

Cheers Rob

[Jeff]

FWIW I think the \IP turned out excellently. Your added touches made it look very realistic, I really like the final results, you efforts were worth it.

[harv]

What Jeff said !....harv 

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

FWIW I think the \IP turned out excellently. Your added touches made it look very realistic, I really like the final results, you efforts were worth it.

 

1 hour ago, harv said:

What Jeff said !....harv 

Thanks Gentlemen,

I think the IP will look ok in real size in that crammed cockpit, there is a lot to improve though. That said, I was really wondering, that WNW didn't provide levers for the two brass selector switches. I made them out of 0,5 mm lead wire, flattened on one end.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Hairspray time ladies , not for me, the floats and the engine mount were hairspayed twice. That smell is horrible, specially with 35 degrees in the moment.
The look of a sports cruising boat from Laggio Maggiore will vanish, sadly, buried under a tar black layer, but then will be partly scraped back to live in the form of chips.

For the metal parts, I used Dark Aluminum paste from AK, applied with a cotton swab. As it's only an under layer, that seemed to be enough quality.

Cheers Rob