Special Hobby 1/48 SPAD VII

[Dal Gavan]

G'day, Antonio.

That's impressive work on the fuselage, mate.  I'll be keeping an eye on this build, hoping to pick up some tips for my 1/32 Spad XIII.

Cheers.

Dal.

[Whiteknuckles]

Watching with interest Antonio, great detail work so far!!

Andrew

[andonio64]

Thanks everybody, your appreciation is like fuel for me!!!

BTW, some small steps ahead and some pics:
Seat & seatbelts


Other cockpit pieces:


Pit floor with fuel gauge and compass


Instruments



Ciao...

:-)

[GAJouette]

   Antonio,
Excellent wood work my friend and great details too.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[pepperman42]

More nice details!!!

Steve

[Pete Nottingham]

Great details Antonio.

Cheers

Pete.

[andonio64]

Thank you Pete,
Here are a few more details added during the weekend:

Holes for the exhaust tubes lowered...


Seams to the tail skid inspection vents added ad PE details


control stick: I used the resin piece provided with the kit and some brass remains to make the details.


Here's the stick finished and placed in position.

Now I have to create the pins to fix the lower wings to the fuselage, then once solved this I should be able to close the fuselage.

Ciao!

[Dal Gavan]

That's coming along beautifully, Antonio.  Very nice work on the control stick.  Who does the photo-etched stitching?

Cheers.

Dal.

[andonio64]

Hallo Dal,
the stitching comes from a "Part of Poland" PE fret bearing miscellaneous details for WW1 planes I had in my box, but if you go to
http://www.jadarhobby.pl/part-s48089-wwi-stitching-pe-148-p-299.html?manufacturers_id=10
you find many more stitching types.

Ciao

Antonio

[GAJouette]

  Antonio,
The little beauty is coming along wonderfully my friend. Nice touch with the stitching too.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[andonio64]

Hallo everybody,
just a short update before I leave to have a week holidays in the Abruzzo mountains...

I am undecided whether to replace or not some panels on the engine cowling the photoetched parts:
- The side panels
- The "chin" panel (beneath the engine cowling



The pieces  on the brass frets are very good, they replicate the louvres ina fantastic way, but two reasons still keep me undecided:
- the rivets on the PE parts are replaced by holes while on the kit they are real bits coming out of the plastic
- to place those panels I need to remove the panels on the kit and I am a bit worried to spoil the fuselage

...while I decide to engage the scrum I went on doing some other things.

I prepared the front cowling with the radiator, I used the grille provided by the PE kit and also the louvres on the lower side are a PE piece.



I made some wheathering   and tried to simulate the varnish coming off showing the metal, and also used some dark and medium metal paints in different successive coats to give the grille a worn look.

Then I went on to make the tail skid, I used the renowned STRUTZ brass rods aerofoil shaped.



I used the 0,8 (green markings) rod, and I worked on it with files to increase the elliptical shape and to cut the lower edge at a correct angle.



I also had to open a hole below the fuselage to insert the skid







Then I turned my attention to the lower wings, they need some pins to be fixed to the fuselage, I decided to leave the plastic that kept them on the sprues and marked the points where to drill both the wings and the fuselage:





I will insert into the holes a copper wire 1 mm diameter, but the hardware I usually go to had only up to 0,8 mm
Will check back when I'll be back from holidays otherwise I think 0,8 would work.
This will be a long and slow work, I will use my mini hand drill increasing the drill bit thickness, so I will do it when I'll be back.

OK I think that's all for now, I wish you a pleasant weekend and will mee tyou all again on Monday Aug 6.

Ciao
Antonio

[pepperman42]

Excellent work on this one. Flairing all those little p.e. louvers under the chin could be fun.

Steve

[GAJouette]

  Antonio,
 Excellent update my friend. Very impressive work to date. I'm looking forward to seeing you tackle the PE chin cowling piece. It doesn't look easy at all to shape correctly.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[andonio64]

Dear fellows, dear Gregory, here is my latest news from the Italian front... Gregory, you'll find also my preparation steps for the "chin" replacement...
:-)

First of all I marked the limits of the areas to remove... not to go beyond and make the holes too big


then I used a conic milling tool so that the hole walls will slope inwards and the brass sheet will have some material supprting it.


Here are the two little fishes with their golden cheeks...


I painted the inside


Then I closed the fuselage with paper tape and looked through the vents, I could see through to the other side, as if there was nothing in the engine cowling...
I didn't like that, therefore I imagined even to build from scratch a Hispano Suiza 180, I also looked for one in 48th on the web, then I recovered my senses and decided to proceed in a different way:
I traced on an acetate sheet the shape of the panels and roughly cut them


Then I painted them with a thick coat of Tamiya Smoke, and here are my SPAD's Bausch-&-Lomb


I glued the sunglasses inside the cheeks

At the end I realized that probably I had to glue these shades after spraying the primer... The white paint could whiten the black lenses of her Ray-Bans
:-O

As I will remove the shaded lenses there is the possibility for a different solution, does someone have any alternative better idea about how to avoid that sensation of "empty" ?

Now the most difficult part of the intervention: our patient's chin.
After cutting and curving the brass piece I mark the part to work on.

You can see in the foreground one of the 3 milling tools I used so far for this operation, which is not yet completed...

My idea is to plane the horrible protuberances and so dig a place for the panel without removing completely the plastic
This is the result so far:

The red arrows point the holes where the undercarriage struts will be fixed, so I cannot cut any further, but the brass piece does not fit.
I also trimmed the brass piece dangerously near to the louvres and still it does not fit.
I need to think to a solution...
Any idea dear surgeon colleagues???

Waiting for some good thought I suspended the interventione and worked on something easier:

Propeller: before painting it I smoothen a bit the tips which were too "pointed" for an Eclair.
I also reproduced the Eclair logo to eventually put it on the blades (the file is in vectorial format and it's available for anyone can be interested)

The original logo is transparent where you see the brown areas, the problem is that the propeller is white and the writings are yhellow (gold for precision's sake) therefore impossible to print on a transparent decal paper sheet, I am not sure I will use it.

Next step is to drill a couple of holes into each of the lower wings to insert copper rods that will fix them to the fuselage.

I also drilled the corresponding holes in the fuselage.

Now I have some day off from work and will try to get farther off on this work!

Ciao

Antonio

[lcarroll]

Nice work Antonio, you are going to have a real sweet result with the efforts you are putting into this!
Cheers,
Lance