Mike, thanks for the landing gear "tips" I printed them and placed with my next WW I a/c to build.

Bob

Nicely done Mike! Now thats a tip we all can sink our teeth in.

Here's a little ditty I posted to the Aerodrome Forum on May 22, 2009. For those who might have missed it, here it is:

Hello good people,

At the risk of flogging a spent horse, I submit the following drawing for your amusement or education.



This system was also used on the Halberstadt CL series as well as the Siemens-Schuckert D.III and D.IV, and a few others.

Opinions and comments allways welcome.

As allways, yours,
Mike the modelaveragensus.

Here are examples of four FREE True Type fonts that I made from scratch of the Fokker, Pfalz, Albatros, and Austro-Hungarian serial numbers. Install these fonts in your fonts folder and you can size and re-size them to any dimension and scale without any loss in clarity or definition.









These samples are *.bmp files and do not reflect the clarity of the True Type product.

To get these FREE fonts, you must follow these simple instructions,. Send an email to [email protected] and put "fonts" in the subject line. I will send you the fonts by return email. YOU MUST READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND MY PLEA FOR A CONTRIBUTION BEFORE YOU INSTALL THE FONTS.

That's all there is to it.

Mike the overly generous.

Did I mention these are FREE.

Mike thank you sincerely for these contributions. Most generous. Maybe we should have you talk to Tom Sollers or even Rown Baylies as it would be great to have sets of these in good quality decals available to Aeroscale members. I know of one or two kits I could make available for your kindness. (They must be reviewed here of course.)

Stephen the sneaky

Easier than x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = r^2, pythagoras in 3D. Nice one

Most excellent tips Mike ! Measuring for the landing gear will be very helpful . Thank-you for taking the time to share this . I do agree with Stephen on getting in touch with Tom Soller and Rowan .

Stephen might be sneaky , but it leads to all good things ...

Mike,
Wow ,now that's some excellent tips you shared.Beaucoups of appreciation my friend.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

Hello, I am new in the forum, and modeler since many years ago, recently I back to the hobby, and started to build WWI models 1/72 scale.

I built the Dr.I from Revell, and I do not know the new techniques of weatering, I hope you can help, any advice is welcome.

Cheers.

Al

.

Hello Alferdo

Weathering is huge topic to cover which books have been written on it , fear not though you have come to the right place and will get lot's of feed back .

To get you going with out getting you to confused start with the easier methods . such as applying a wash which is a mix of paint and thinner 10% paint 90% thinning Areas you can added this to is the cockpit , wheels and panel lines . etc..etc . Drybrushing will make the details pop . By using the base colour and lightening it with white or buff load up the brush with paint and wipe it off as much as you can . Now the brush will be dry ...perfect for now going over rasied detail or adding wear to other area's .

Then there is per and post shading and using pastel chalks . Instead of trying to get into all the details about it . Have a look at others build blogs and the search engine on the site will yeild some excellent articles on weathering as well as wood grain .

Thanks Terri, wath color must to be used in thined paint? some guys used black, another earth colors.

WOW!!!! so the weather theme are a lot of techniques, I understand now. nice tips.

Cheers.

Al

Again this can be lot's of ground to cover depanding on the effect you are trying to aicheve . I use either just black or a mix of black/brown . Some like a light dust , a light grey would be used .

To start with use a mix of black/brown little more brown then black in the mix .

Mix the paint first to the shade you are pleased with then add the thinner , you just want to tint the thinner . Before applying the wash make sure the underline paint is seal with either a gloss coat such as testors or you can use future floor wax . let this fully dry first . Now if you use acrylic paint the wash should be a oil base one such as testors small bottles . If you are using an oil based paint you want to use an acrylic wash . Doing it this way will stop the thinners attacking the underlaying paint saving your work .


Once you have the wash on wait about 30 minutes and then using a damp rag with clean thinner that you used for the wash wipe the surface in the direction of air flow . Once that is down and fully dried re-seal your work to protect it .

Now is more clear to me, thanks one more time, tomorrow I going to try ans I tell you the result.

Cheers.

Al

PS... No more coffe?

No trouble at all AL . We are here to aid and help each other to become better modellers whether it be on info on a subject or a method to achieve a effect or build method . Keeps me coming back every time and the friends we make along the way is priceless