I have been following this forum for a while and my interest in WW1 aircraft has progressed to the point where I have jumped in with both feet and started a build.

My main interest is ship modelling, but occasionally all those greys start to merge together and I want a bit of colour! I have started my first attempt on the Flashback Sopwith 1 1/2 strutter in the French markings that come in the box.

A few questions I'm not sure about -

1) what finish should be on the aircraft, matt or semi-gloss?

2) I want to do some rib shading but I'm not sure how to do it, are there any links to good examples of how to do it?

3) Unusually rigging holds no terrors for me, I use very fine stretched sprue on 700 scale warships but this doesn't seem to be used very much at all. Is there any particular reason for that? Also I've seen wire turnbuckles for sale, would these be out of scale in 1:72?

4) I have seen brass struts recommended but have never actually seen the stuff, is it cut to shape and size and also how do you make the join between the wings strong enough to support the top wing and any rigging?

Thanks in advance for any help, I'll let you know how I get on

Mike

Hi Mike and Welcome.

Stretched spue huh? I guess it comes down to ease of use. Most of us find that the old monofilament/Invisable thread (smoke coloured) does the job fairly well, but we all have different methods of applying it (although to tell the truth, I have only now, after about 8 years of trying, hit upon a method that I am happy with). I get the impression that Stretched Sprue is a little temperature and humidity dependant.

I have never used Brass Stutz material. I would say though, that effective use would involve the filing of each end into a sort of peg or pin that fits snuggly into a predrilled hole in the wing.

I'd go with Matt... but only because you get a much more regular finish overall than with a semi gloss. The aircraft them selves would have been a satin finsh after a few coats of dope. You will know as well as any of us, being a ship builder that scale finish is going to depend on the scale that you are building in.

Rib shading:
For the Strutter, I'd go with a coat of PC10 (Olive Drab - Tamiya # XF-62 or Black Green - Gunze #423 are both fairly good matches) then mask the rib tapes with narrow strips (about 0.8mm) of tape and lightly spray Tamiya smoke or highly thinned dark grey over the rib tape.
For Clear Doped Linnen, I like to use a mix of Tamiya Deck Tan and White (about 50-50). Although a French CDL tends to be lighter than a British one.

Good luck, and keep us availed of your progress.

Cheers,

Hugh

Hi Mike , Hugh has hit it right on the nails head .
Turnbuckles in 1/72 are a challenge in that scale . Are you looking for hand made ones , or PE ones ? Stretch spruce in time will sag form the stress's of tension some times even break . Any more questions just ask !

Greetings Mike! Welcome to the Early Aviation section.

As our Terri has stated our good man Hugh has given you some good basic information. If you have rigged a ship in any detail you can get these stringbags we call monoplanes, biplanes and triplanes, easily. It just takes patience. We have rigging threads (if you will forgive the pun) and a host of other topics that can help. I try to link some of them together at times so if you run into one you may get one or two more.

The reason I prefer brass struts is longevity. Brass is a great medium.

While the finish of the real aircraft was usually gloss from the factory it toned down pretty quickly as it service time lengthened. Gloss in smaller scales tends to push the viewer away. You want to invite them to stay and look longer. Semi-matt is ok but matt is a good standard. It lets the viewer see the details you build in.

As for some preshading always remember this is the shadow from the internal structures and on painted surfaces its not so prominent. On clear doped linen it really comes through. For now that should give you some ideas.

Again welcome. Pull up a mess chair and have a cup o duty coffee.

Thanks everyone for the quick reply and the warm welcome.

Very happy to hear matt is the best finish, although I consider myself a pretty proficient ship modeller, there are a lot of skills which are never really required in that genre, using decals and obtaining different finishes to name but two. It will be interesting for me to expand my horizons and learn some new modelling techniques, there are certainly some superb models on this site to act as a point of reference and inspiration.

I'm a little surprised to hear about rigging losing tension, but then again I aim to build only in 1:72 as I am short of display space and also kind of enjoy the challenge of small scales. So I suppose at larger scales where rigging runs are longer it may be an issue, I think it is unlikely to be at the scale I will be working on, but it will be interesting to find out if the techniques are transferable.

Also I'm an old stick in the mud and pretty exclusively use enamels, I've never found a brand of acrylic I've been completely happy with, but maybe that is also something I need to get better at. The strutter I am working on has a mainly clear doped linen scheme, so I imagine I will be doing some shading as you suggest Stephen. I'll give the brass struts a try, I use it a lot to replace deck parts which are overscale so I like the idea of the extra bit of rigidity it should add.

Thanks for the help again, and for the coffee, make it strong and black.

Mike

Hey Mike,

Enamels V Acrylics.

I have to say that for me it is purely a personal preference. I use Humbrol Enamels for brush painting and details, as acrylics are a bugger to brush paint.
Conversly, I prefer to use Acrylics for spraying as they are much easier to clean up (and I am eternally worried about what solvents that I might be pushing through my el cheapo Iwata rip off and what Enamel thinners might be doing to the seals). They are also much eaier to mix and thin.

I used enamels almost exclusivley in the early days (before I had an airbrush), and loved them.

Cheers,

Hugh

Hi and welcome!
Check your references on that French Clear Doped Linen scheme. It is very likely that it was actually Aluminum Dope as seen on Nieuport 17s.
RAGIII