Hello everybody,
Now that I've got myself comfortable in here, I figured it was time that I shared the work I've been doing on the Wingnut Wings W29. So starting off, the usual bit of background: this is my first serious WW1 aircraft kit. I love Wingnut Wings kits (as do most on here I guess!) and I've managed to collect them all over the course of the last 5 years or so - although I'm still missing a Duallist boxing or two, this kit comes from the Duallist box that includes the W29 and the Early Felixstowe. Despite my model making friends egging me on to try the Felixstowe (yeah, right?!), this kit almost fell into my hands. I already have the separate W29 and it made a lot of sense for me to start making these kits by doing one that I have a duplicate of. As you can expect, it has been a learning curve and I'm still learning a lot. So please... please... please! Help me. Any help, criticism, pointers, discussion items, if I've done it wrong or whatever, please tell me. I must stress that I'm on a very steep learning curve and I'm constantly looking to improve the look of parts and sub assemblies.
Anyway, with that done... I'll post the photos and a brief description. As I said, I'm not so much looking for perfection on this build - good enough will do!
So...
I started this build by assembling the engine. It's painted in Alclad Aluminium primarily, with Tamiya flat black cylinders and various details painted in Steel. I've not gone to town on the scratchbuilding on this - I added the wiring retainer and various bits of wire to bring the engine to life a bit more. The chances are that I'll probably end up having the cowling removable on one side only. Weathered using various powders, and washes. When I thought I'd done a bit too much, I simply resprayed a very low pressure alclad over the top, which made a nice thin line, and muted down the weathering:
I then started work on the cockpit area. The wood effect is the usual Tamiya Deck Tan sprayed down first and then Artists oils applied over the top. I noted from various other builds that the wood in the cockpit area of the W29 was a beautiful mahogany style colour, so to achieve this, I used Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna colours. I randomly applied them in "splodges" (technical term!) and then using a sponge, dragged it out and blended it. When it was blended, I attacked it with the old flat brush and dragged to get the grain effect. Personally, I'm happy with the result of this. I didn't use any Clear Orange or Yellow and simply sprayed Alclad Semi-Matt varnish on top, to seal in the work. The Fuel Tank and seats were painted with Gunze and Tamiya paints. Weathering was the same as the engine - I initially always do too much, and then mute it back with a thin layer of paint:
The cockpit area was built up pretty quickly once the artists oils had dried:
I then zipped it up and did some dry fitting just to see how it looks:
Although this isn't as high tech as some rigging that I've seen on the website, I decided to opt for a simple rigging inside the cockpit. This is simply just monofilament fishing line with a thin piece of Brass tube attached. I also made a little snip in the side of the boxes to run the cables through and also created a slot on the top line to feed the cable through.
A bit more dry fitting and the cockpit combings were added and sanded down. Now this was one area when I found the fit to be a little snug. It's probably due to the paint layers building up, and after a bit of sanding and resanding, I finally got these into the correct place and glued in. A small dab of filler was needed - although I am sure that this is my doing and not the kit!
Then I glued on the tailplane - and dry fitted the top of the wings, just to get an idea of the size! I couldn't help myself...
And that's where I'm up to now... Really enjoying this build, it's interesting, different and challenging. Everything that a good build should be.
Thanks for reading!!
Chris
