forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com
WW1 Aircraft Modeling => Under Construction => Topic started by: Sarilou on March 06, 2026, 12:20:17 PM
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There'll be a scale model competition at the Royal Thai Airforce Museum soon, deadline for registration being April 30th. For the aircraft category, I suspect most people will be bringing Gripens ajd F16s. No shade on them, but I decided I want to be a bit unique and go with one of the first aircraft the force that would become the RTAF operated. The first batch of six aircraft that Phraya Chalerm Akas brought back from France were two biplanes, two Nieuport II Ns, and two Nieuport IV Gs, so I'll be making the latter.
I made a 1/72nd scale design for the design competion Aladdin Models hosted last year, so now I am upscaling that design to 1/48 and incorporating design improvements from my greater experience and judge feedback. I've made a deal with the producer I work with to sell physical kits of this aircraft as well. The decals I will design myself, pending the decal machine hopefully clearing customs sometime in the next 40 days.
The display plan is to use my newlyacquired woodworking skills to build a wooden display base, and insert a grass field diorama to reflect the conditions of Donmeung airport at the time.
I'll go through the design, build, kitmaking process, and how the competition at the museum goes in this post as it progresses.
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I think I'll need to go home and use the computer to continue this thread, all the pictures are too big to upload and I cant get them compressed enough on the gousing my tablet.
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I'm really looking forward to seeing this!
Regarding uploading images, it's best to use a 3rd party hosting service like Flickr and then embed the images as BB code.
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Here's a render of the model, an exloded view, and photos of the first batch of parts.
The design constraints are part geometry for print reasons, and a parts size of no more than 180x100x100mm for print reasons.
There are some iterative changes to be made :
1. Reprint wheels due to support material inside the spokes which are impossible to remove withou a million dollar surgery robot.
2. Thicken engine valives and rocking arms for strength, visibility, ease of printing, and ease of support removal
3. thicken the fuselage skin and tail to resolve print issues
4. Minor tolerance changes
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The box of parts
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Damn, that compression turned the previous picture into digital art. Here's a picture of the engine
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Test assembly for the cowling
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I like that ;D
Nice to see someone creating stuff using computers and printing - Look forward to more updates
Paul
ps Meant to add a welcome to your earlier post, but was very excited when I saw you had posted pictures of what you've been up to so belatedly welcome onboard ;)
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Looking good Sarilou!
Can you produce one in 1/72?
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Lovely stuff!
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Looking good Sarilou!
Can you produce one in 1/72?
Thanks , this model was originally in 1/72, the sliced print files being available on Aladdin models. I'm upscaling it to 1/48 so its a bit easier to print and present. Physical kits will be available for this one sometime after I finish the build because this one will also double as the showpiece model, amd the producer's decal printing machine is currently stuck in customs.
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My producer's decal machine has finally arrived. RTAF/RSAS roundels in varying sizes. I used my own inkjet printer to test layounts and dimensions because for some reason a lot of photo editing software do not have real world dimensions in mm for images. With this, I can now make custom decals.
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Looking forward to seeing you make progress on this project now you have some decals.
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What a lovely and unique project! I will follow with great interest
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What an interesting subject. I?m glad you have all the components to continue.
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Got some brass rod earlier today and decided to have a go at replacing the engine rocking arms and structure for one of the pulley struts with 0.5mm and 1mm brass rod respectively.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/204471721@N08/55169934016/in/dateposted-public/
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All the parts are here, test assembly. Some pieces were damaged so I replaced them with brass rod. I should design for brass rods in the kit from now on.
How do you deal with the limited image size here?
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Hi Sarilou, I'm using an online photo editor to downsize the images:
https://www.befunky.com/create/photo-editor/
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Good progress on the design work.
Most of us use an external picture hosting site like Imgur so that we can embed links to larger images.