A thought and suggestion for the model companies

[jknaus]

I recently got my Windsock datafile for the Taube and have been exploring this a/c. Its such a looker. As I envisioned how to build something like this my mind wandered to the painting and a thought occurred (hardly any brain cells were injured in this event).
Maybe WNW could make the wings out of clear plastic. Trumpeter has been doing this for a while as well as Zouki Maru. If the wings were clear plastic a modeller with a deft hand at painting could get the translucent look perfectly. Even other kits would benefit from this type of moulding. So as I know some companies visit here I thought I would put it out there. I guess I should follow up this idea by writing WNWs. So what do you guys and gals think of this idea?
James

[Borsos]

Roden once produced their Sop. Strutter kits with clear plastic wings. The problem was that this material was terrible brittle. It was very difficult to work with and in the end Roden dropped this idea and released their later Strutters with normal plastic wings. I didn't have one of those kits so I can only judge from what was written on the net. But the build reviews all rejected the clear wings. And in my opinion WNW's clear plastic is quite brittle as well...
Borsos

[eclarson]

Roden once produced their Sop. Strutter kits with clear plastic wings. The problem was that this material was terrible brittle. It was very difficult to work with and in the end Roden dropped this idea and released their later Strutters with normal plastic wings. I didn't have one of those kits so I can only judge from what was written on the net. But the build reviews all rejected the clear wings. And in my opinion WNW's clear plastic is quite brittle as well...
Borsos

Clear plastic by its very nature is always brittle.  It doesn't take much mishandling to end up with cracks and stress fractures. 

Eric

[Des]

With my experience at building models I have always found clear plastic to be very brittle, it has its place for windscreens and canopies but I don't think it would be appropriate for wings on such a large model.

Des.

[jamieg]

The brittleness was not really that big a problem when I built my Strutter. Not all of the parts are clear, just the larger components. The real problem is that it does not help with getting that translucent effect. You end up having to do just about the same things that you would have done to a normal opaque wing. The problem is that the lack of ribs and spars will show through if you try to paint with translucent paints and internal structure in solid colours. The darker ribs will show as being  clearly hollow and looking like tape strips rather than ribs. It just looks more wrong than the various techniques to fake translucency.

[Dirigible-Al]

I built that Roden Strutter with the clear plastic wings and broke a heartbreaking number of drill bits putting the holes in for the rigging because the plastic was so hard. Never again.
Alan.

[kornbeef]

Moulding them in a pale buff plastic instead of grey may give better finishing options. very thin area's would by nature be translucent and not need a coat of paint to change the basic colour. It would give modellers options on finishing.  CDL coloured plastic just seems like a natural option instead of grey.

[Rob_Owens]

I've always thought that the "Clear Polystyrene" for WWI models was somewhat like the  full size Fokker E.III Cellon covering: nice idea, but totally impractical...