RAF FE8, Scaleplanes 1:72

[IanB]

Thanks Rick, Richie, and sp.
Copies of the drawings would certainly be useful. Most biplanes have fairly standard basic rigging patterns: stagger wires (on aircraft that are not wing-warpers), and flying- and landing-wires. But the arrangement of other wires such as drag wires, landing gear, etc, varies quite a lot so it's useful to make a plan before starting, that's for sure.

Step 1 of the clean-up!


First off, I always sharpen up a toothpick and touch thin (the thinnest I can get) CA to each side of each line to ensure the holes are filled and the lines are secured. Because it's thin it should wick in, and it doesn't set too quickly on the surface so any excess can be cleaned off. I use the back of a standard knife blade or even a finger tip. But be quick if you wipe it with your finger, don't let it glue your finger to the wing!

Using a NEW #11 blade the ends were trimmed off. A new blade is essential as you barely have to touch the tip against the wire and it drops off. With an old blade, even one that's not very old but has been used, pressure is needed and that's where things start going bad, like gouges in the wings!

After that a smear of watered down PPP, wiped off with a damp fingertip, is all that should be required to fill any remaining holes. 


So that's where I am as of this evening.








As I mentioned in a previous post, I erred in painting the upper wing too early. I usually do the base coat and remove the masking, then leave the rest until after this step. That way I don't have to worry about losing the rib detail because I have to add more coats. I remembered before I did it completely so hopefully a spot touch-up with a small brush then the final coat will hide any signs of the fixes. 


We'll see...


Thanks for looking in, stay safe!



Ian

[smperry]

That makes a lot of sense Ian, thanks. I am afraid I don't know what PPP is. Is that white glue or something else? I have no idea.
sp

[IanB]

Perfect Plastic Putty. It can be (and should be!) thinned with water and it can then be wiped off with a damp finger tip, cotton bud, whatever you want. It means you can fill small holes and imperfections without having to sand!

Ian

[smperry]

AH, I see. Never heard of it before, but that's why some computer geek invented search engines. I will track some down. Thanks Ian.
sp

[RichieW]

Good informative post, thanks for sharing your technique. It looks very effective judging by your terrific work.

[RAGIII]

Excellent info! I hadn't thought of using the PPP to fill the holes!
RAGIII

[IanB]

smp - I hope you found some, shouldn't be too hard to find.
Thanks Richie and Rick, hopefully this post will continue to show that it works (at least well enough for me!)

Just a brief update today. As you may have gathered I've lost my mojo a little of late and have kept putting off doing much of anything. A few spells spent sitting at the bench contemplating possible methods of attaching the booms and that's been about it. I was going to solder the booms and central strut before fititn gthem to the wings but now I'm not sure they'll slip between the wings if already soldered, so I ordered some epoxy and may use that, attaching each boom separately with the tail as a guide, then adding the central strut afterwards. That plan may also change, but that's my plan at the moment.



Anyway, before that step I have to tidy up the upper wing surface, so that was done today. A final sand of the areas most in need - those on the inner rear interplane struts and the area just behind them where i'd gone a little too far with reaming out the mounting points for the upper booms and gone through in a couple of places, then the wing edges were masked. I spot repaired the worst areas, then gave the entire upper wing surface a couple of light coats to finish it off and blend in the repairs. A quick coat of grey on the booms and that's it for today.



Before:





and after:









and the booms:





I CAd the ends to an offcut of plastic rod to hold them for painting. Hopefully they'll come off without damaging the paint!



Thanks for looking in, and stay safe!



Ian

[smperry]

Ian
Good to see you are back at it. The Vet managed to dispose of this month's disposable income so I haven't acquired any PPP yet, but is on the list. And Itchy Brother and his fleas has quit his incessant scratching which toned down Momma's incessant gnawing on my ear so all is well.

My latest strut painting was kit struts and they had nice plastic "pins" on the ends which allowed clamping with mini alligator clips on skewers. How did your CA method work? Did the struts come loose without loosing paint? I had over a forest of over a dozen clips sticking out of a slab of foam as they dried. Your method looks more efficient.

sp

[RichieW]

Hi Ian,

It's great to see this underway again, hope you are well.

Richie

[Alexis]

Ian ,

Really nice work on the top wing and will look great once the decals ore on , or are you going to mask and spray these ?


terri

[RAGIII]

The painting of the wing looks excellent. Great to see you back at this one!
RAGIII

[IanB]

Thanks all!
Terri, they will be decals, gloss coat sprayed today, along with the tyres. I also added the prop hub (PE) and dug out the decals for the wings, prop, and tyres.

Ian

[Ian from Doncaster]

Fantastic work in such a small scale, Ian.!

I’m not too bothered about pushers but that’s only for my own aesthetic reason.  However this is an outstanding piece of work.!

[IanB]

Thanks Ian. I must admit that it was the pushers that got me into WWI aircraft, they are just so unique and have a certain "character" to them. I plan on building as many of them as I can!

Another small update. They seem to have been coming few and far between lately but I think that now I've got the wing surfaces done it's "all downhill from here!"

The latest news is that decaling is now completed! Yesterday I attacked the prop and tyres. Yes, you read that correctly Tyres!



I bought a set of LF Models tyre logos and this is my first attempt at using them. They are nicely printed, in white, on a pale blue backing sheet! There are two logos on the sheet: PALMER and PALMER CORD AERO, and they are sized for 5 different wheel diameters: 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, 15mm, and 18mm.

There are 20 PALMER logos in all sizes except 18mm, which only has 9 for some reason, 8 PALMER CORD AERO logos in 8, 10, and 12mm, and 6 in 15 and 18mm. Since the tyres had the logo on both sides this means only 4 tyres with the AERO logo in the smaller sizes so it could get expensive if you want to do all your tyres.



Firstly a little warning. They are virtually impossible to see on the backing sheet, which makes cutting them out accurately a tad difficult However, I did get them done. Eventually

Lesson 1 learned the hard way: Do them one at a time!



I tried to trim 4 at once with the scalpel. I got it done ok, but when it came time to apply them it became obvious that I had handled them too much and out of the 4 only 1 was usable. The printing on all the others had been damaged by my handling them. I decided then to only do one side of each tyre, and the replacement decal, trimmed separately, was fine, but still almost impossible to see until the paper was wet.



Anyway, they look pretty good and I will certainly buy more at some point. They do add that little extra to the look!



The prop logos are from the same company, and although slightly over scale are better than not using them at all.







Part of Poland PE prop hub (SE5a type) also added.







Today's job was to finish the decals, and add the wing roundels.



Easy!











A decent coating of decal solution and those will be left until tomorrow when I can finish the wings with a light wash and seal coat.



Thanks for looking in, and stay safe!



Ian

[RichieW]

Lovely update, the wings look so delicate and neat. The roundels have really brought them to life.

I must invest in some of those Palmer decals, they look the business.