Hello everyone,
I am an infrequent visitor here - armour being my normal thing but who can resist those Wingnuts kits? With these in mind I thought I would show you this Spandau upgrade set from ABER - www.aber.net.pl who most do armour upgrades but are now releasing a range of aircraft gun barrels. The set comes with incredible turned sleeves - no rolling required! even managed to roll up the ting front ring sight but lost one when it pinged out of my tweezers so I added the WNW versions instead. This is destined for my Albatros D.Va

regards David

David,

thank you for bringing these to our attention. I'm well aware of Aber's quality and this looks up to their usual standard. Nice, perfect timing for me as I just crushed my WNW jacket irrepairably.

TY

Keith

David,
I add my thanks as well; looks like an outstanding product. I just followed the link you provided to the Canadian supplier to see if he has it available and will order a couple of sets once confirmed.
As an aside, nice work on the "Albie"; how did you achieve the weathered/worn effect on the wheel covers? Mine is still in the stash and I'm "pirating" tips and techniques from the numerous articles here. Incredible resource, this site! Never fail to learn something every time I log on.

Thanks & look forward to seeing more of your build.

Beautiful work on the Albie. You should consider a change of MOS to Early Aviation. There is a lot of room for promotion to a talented builder like yourself. You should show us more pictures of this beautiful build.

Thanks for the link. Looks like a fine place to spend some money.

Hi Lance,
The wheel covers are done with the hairspray technique - a base coat of aluminium, a coat of hairspray and a top coat of acrylic white. You can then wet the top coat and scrub away the paint. Very easy to control - I have used the same effect on the spinner too.

regards David

Very nice work Dave!! How did you do the wood grane? Please tell


The angry greek
Chris

On revisiting the Photo I noticed the woodgrain; is it decal and if so what variety? (SPADA perhaps??) Very nice effect as well.
I echo Carl's comments; the work is truly excellent and we need to see more as she progresses.

Cheers and Thanks again.

Gents, the woodgrain is not a decal, it is brush painted with lifecolor acrylics. I applied a very slight yellow/orange transparent overspray followed by a satin varnish. nail heads are also brush painted. Hope that helps

regards David

That wood grain is %$#&ing amazing! That's the most lifelike wood grain I've EVER SEEN. Holy #$%@!

Cheers, Dude.

Where did you get the Aber barrels? I can't find anyone who has them.

Nice work on the wood grain. Very impressive.

Here is the webpage for this item.

Aber Spandau MGs

I too must echo the comments on the wood grain it really is something but must be quite time consuming.

David it would be much appreciated if you could put a few words together describing the steps involved in getting the effect.

Hi Gary,
Sure - no big mystery - I sprayed a pale basecoat of Lifecolor without any shading. I then took a slightly darker tone, mixed with the base shade so that it is only fractionally darker than the base and painted the grain patterns, panel by panel. I oversprayed selective panels with the darker tone against selected panel breaks just to define the panel change. I oversprayed it all with a 50/50 transparent yellow/orange very diluted mix and sealed with satin varnish.
If you would like more info I published a step by step sequence on painting woodgrain in AIR Modeller Issue 25 when I built the WNW LVG
http://shop.afvmodeller.com/customer/product.php?productid=17554&cat=308&page=1
You can also download the individual article from our site
regards David

Hi David

Very impressive builds – your approach to the woodgrain i s very interesting, and lifelike!

Keep posting

Best Regards

Mikael

Many thanks David. Purchase made.

David,
Absolutely incredible work!
Thanks for sharing this with us.

Cheers,
Lance

Gents,
Managed to fit the Spandaus over the weekend. I would recommend cutting off the lower mounting bracket under the barrel supplied by ABER. I cut the solid peg from the wingnuts parts and used this instead to seat the guns. It is invisible when fitted in any case.

regards David

Oooooh, more pics. Love them.

I must say , you have a steady hand for painting all those nail heads !

I followed the link, but it only shows ordering the back issue of the magazine for 6 quid. Am I missing something in my dotage?

Hello Bill

You need the AIR PDF Archive section - here is the link:

http://shop.afvmodeller.com/customer/product.php?productid=17557&cat=366&page=1

regards David

It's a very nice article, by the way. Hopefully, they will be seinsible enough to have you do one on this kit, and perhaps a Roland next. . .

I will have to try this technique, I like the results from the oil technique but I am rather impatient when it comes to letting the darned oil paint to dry. This looks to allow a much faster progression from panel to panel. Now if my fumble fingers will just allow me to pull it off!

Matt

@David
The way you did your woodgrain was pure inspiration for me.
You posted some pics on the MIG Forum once, and i was fascinated.

I just followed your approach and combined it with a glaze of oil colours.
This is what came out:











Thanks for giving this inspiration to me.
You ´re truly an artist, Dave.

yours respectfully,

Alex
www.uschivdr.com

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