Author Topic: Completed - Sopwith Triplane & Rolls-Royce Armoured Car, Roden  (Read 6625 times)

Offline Bluesfan

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Completed - Sopwith Triplane & Rolls-Royce Armoured Car, Roden
« on: February 12, 2019, 09:02:38 AM »
I've had this kit in my stash for a very long while. I stalled initially after finding out about the fuselage error; I'm not usually too fussy, but this entailed quite a visible difference. Later I picked up Brian Fawcett's resin replacement fuselage. And now, this group build has given me the motivation to get it made. Like everyone else I'm humbly grateful for what Des achieved, not just in creating this forum, but in the inspiration offered by his own models, and in the way he made this a great place to come.

I plan to build Collishaw's N5492, a single gun machine. As well as the replacement fuselage, I'm using Pheon's decal sheet for the Triplane.
Naturally I don't have WNW's Collishaw figure but I will probably include the Tommy's War naval rating, and time permitting, Roden's 1:35 RNAS Rolls Royce. And a dog. It'll be a sad day if I can't include a canine friend in a vignette.

I'm unlikely to be able to make much progress until after a hockey-watching trip in April, but we'll see.
Cheers!
Mark
« Last Edit: August 02, 2019, 01:28:58 PM by Bluesfan »

Offline Juan

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2019, 09:32:54 AM »
Great selection of items selected Mark.  Hope you have enough time to get to the RR.  Best of luck.

Offline GAJouette

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2019, 12:43:42 PM »
 Mark,
Glad to see someone take a crack at Roden's Tripe. The best of luck to you in this GB my friend.
Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette
" What Me Worry"

Offline gbrivio

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2019, 04:19:00 PM »
Nice choice, looking forward for progress.
Ciao
Giuseppe

Offline RAGIII

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2019, 08:53:53 PM »
Good to see a Roden kit represented in the GB. Looking forward to your progress.
RAGIII
"A man has to know his limitations": Harry Callahan

"Don't slop it on" Lynda Geisler

Offline kensar

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2019, 11:06:55 PM »
Yes, good to see a Roden kit here.
I have only built one Roden kit before.  The gray plastic was very soft, in fact the softest plastic of any kit I have built.  Does this kit also have soft plastic?  Is that typical of Roden kits?


Offline Bluesfan

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2019, 03:20:18 AM »
Hi p9o1r1sche    - About the softness of the plastic: I know what you mean, though I've never found it a problem. It varies. I've just opened the pack and checked, and I would say I've encountered softer plastic than this in one or two other Roden kits. For me, the test is how easy it is to drill through the wings, and these might test my little hand drill somewhat.

At the other end of the scale, I once built one of their 1:48 Gloster Gladiators, which features very solid wings, and dense plastic, and I broke several drill bits on that kit!

Mark

...The gray plastic was very soft, in fact the softest plastic of any kit I have built.  Does this kit also have soft plastic?  Is that typical of Roden kits?

Offline Bluesfan

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2019, 03:38:35 AM »
Wow, I've never seen that warning before - "This topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days....etc."
Well I do indeed want to post. The truth is, I'm an inveterate last-minuter, and here begins the race for the line.

I can report that I've been up to a few things, in the way of preparation and research. For starters, here are a couple of engines, Clerget for the Triplane, and Rolls-Royce for the Armoured Car. I probably spent more time on them than was merited, since the rear of the Clerget won't be visible and the Rolls engine won't be visible at all. That one was very fiddly indeed. I'm quite pleased with the Clerget although it seems it should have had two spark plugs per cylinder; I've lazily left it as is. But I'm happy to say this is the first time I've ever wired up an engine. That's the great thing about this forum, constantly making you think about raising your game :)

I can also report regarding that hockey watching trip that 'my' team made it to the final only to lose out thanks to a dodgy VAR decision in overtime  >:(

Cheers
Mark

Offline Juan

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2019, 03:52:52 AM »
Sorry to hear that your team loss, but glad to see you back on this project.   :D

Offline RAGIII

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2019, 03:55:03 AM »
Nice work on the engines! I am looking forward to your frenzied pace build  ;D
RAGIII
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"Don't slop it on" Lynda Geisler

Offline Alexis

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #10 on: June 20, 2019, 10:28:29 AM »
Engines look super !



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Offline Bluesfan

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2019, 07:39:46 PM »
Thanks for the comments, much appreciated!

But here's something not so great, so I'll get it out of the way, that I've decided not to use the replacement fuselage.
I was well up for this, after reading all about the error with the Roden Triplane fuselage. The consensus was that 6mm had to be accounted for, and that the error may have been derived from the prototype having been shorter than the production planes.
Brian Fawcett did a brilliant job of providing a replacement fuselage, incorporating several other improvements thanks to his being a nifty sculptor. The fuselage latticework is especially pleasing compared to Roden's vaguer rendering.
IIRC this was all just before WNW's Triplane appeared, and I guess not so many of the Roden version have sold since then. But I had it, along with the resin fuselage, stashed away until now.

When I compared the two fuselages, I was stupefied. If you look at the picture, you can see why. Yes, the Roden fuselage is the grey one.

Offline Bluesfan

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #12 on: June 20, 2019, 07:56:24 PM »
The resin fuselage appears to be shorter than the injected moulded one in almost every dimension, even top to bottom through the cross section - see the top view in the image below. The only measurement which is longer can be seen in the lower shot, going from the back of the top decking to the tail; and that doesn't seem to be the full 6mm.

I found some old comparison pictures by James Fahey on (I think) the Large Scale Modellers forum, which are very clear, and very different from what I'm seeing with my purchase. His Brian Fawcett fuselage was obviously longer than the Roden one. It seems to be a different colour resin, too. Do some resins shrink? I'm frankly ignorant about resin, I think I've only previously worked with it for figures.

Oh well, win some, lose some. I don't fancy messing about with cutting out some 'nice' resin sections and trying to make them fit with the Roden fuselage, it'd be asking for trouble. And a small point of detail is that, on looking closely at photos, Roden does seem to have moulded the correct style of stitching. I will at least gain one improvement; Brian Fawcett's fuel pump, very visible on the Triplane, is much more nicely rendered.  :D

Offline RAGIII

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #13 on: June 20, 2019, 11:56:12 PM »
Really odd about the Resin Fuselage. I found a build log using the search engine and the fuselage sure does "Look" to be different than yours.

https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=1853.msg30110#msg30110

Either way I am sure you will produce a beautiful triplane!
RAGIII
"A man has to know his limitations": Harry Callahan

"Don't slop it on" Lynda Geisler

Offline Bluesfan

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Re: Sopwith Triplane 1:32 Roden
« Reply #14 on: June 21, 2019, 02:37:55 AM »
Thanks Rick, I'd be curious to know what happened with the resin pieces, but when all's said and done, I'm okay with using the original fuselage for this project - after all, I'm mixing 1/32 and 1/35 scales in the scene and presumably a few millimeters will be going amiss there as well.

Cheers
Mark